Entertainment

War Trash by Ha Jin

This book describes the everyday life of Chinese POWs held by the US during the Korean War.  The chronicler of the story -- Feng Yan -- is telling his tale many years later from the perspective of a 79-year-old man.  He starts the story while he is visiting his son and grandchildren in America.  He will be returning to China where he has spent most of his life.  He does not think he will ever get back to America. 

Feng Yan -- as a soldier and a POW -- was smart and reserved but had not fear of fighting for his life if necessary.  His goal was simple: survival: survival under inhumane conditions and the constant threat of violence.

Many of the POWs were in his situation.  They were not Communists.  Actually they feared the Communists, with good reason.  But they wanted to return to Mainland China to help their families.  For Feng Yan, it was his mother and his fiancée.

During their confinement the POWs were adept at keeping themselves occupied and scrounging for food and communicating with each other. At times they resorted to protests, hunger strikes, or even the kidnapping of a US officer to protest the conditions of their confinement.  Yet they were aware of the strong probability of retribution.

This novel portrays men under stress in impossible situations with great psychological acuity.  The reader is transported to a barbarous world with very few good guys.  The plot is believable and suspenseful.  There is no way to know how any of the characters will end up -- wounded physically or mentally, murdered -- and where he will go when released: to mainland China or to Taiwan.

The Los Angeles Times describes War Trash as a work of profound humanism, and this is an apt description.  Ha Jin's artistry lies in his ability to detect humanity among starving desparate men, and to make the reader care deeply about their fate.

Out Stealing Horses, By Per Petterson

Out stealing horses is about an elderly man who starts living an isolated life but soon finds he is not alone.  Memories of his past keep filling his mind, and coincidentally a man from his past turns out to be a close neighbor.

This book tells about a tragedy that changes the lives of many people.  It recounts a close relationship with a father that comes to a quick and unexpected end.

It is about physical work and the feeling of accomplishment it brings with it.

The end of the book describes a day in the protagonist's youth when his mother bought him his first grown-up suit:

We were never to walk that way again.  When we came home to Oslo, she fell back into her own weight and remained that way for the rest of her life.  But on that day in Karlsbad we walked arm in arm down the street.  My new suit fitted my body so lightly and moved with me every step I took.  The wind still came icily down between the houses from the river, and my hand felt swollen and sore where the nails had pierced the skin when I clenched it so hard, but all the same everything felt fine at that moment; the suit was fine, and the town was fine to walk in, along the cobblestone street, and we do decide for ourselves when it will hurt.

Per Peterson has written four other novels.  "Out Stealing Horses" was translated from the Norwegian by Anne Born

Foreign Books That Are Worth Reading

This a list that I found on NPR that was compiled by David Kipen of the National Endowment for the Arts. They have all been translated into English.  I have read the Per Peterson book, and it was wonderful.  I have also read three very interesting books by Naguib Mahfouz.

The List

Britain
Jonathan Coe, The Rotters' Club and The House of Sleep

Russia
Victor Pelevin, The Sacred Book of Werewolf and Buddha's Little Finger.
Boris Akunin, The Winter Queen
Ludmila Ulitskaya, The Funeral Party

Albania
Ismail Kadare, The Three-Arched Bridge and Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Read Excerpt)

Hungary
Imre Kertesz, Fateless and The Pathseeker (Read Excerpt).

Portugal
Antonio Lobo Antunes, What Can I Do When Everything's on Fire?

Norway
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses

Egypt
Naguib Mahfouz, The Thief and the Dogs, (Read Excerpt)
Muhammad Yusuf Quayd, War in the Land of Egypt
Alaa Al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Mexico
Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz

Nixonland

Nixonland (2008), by Rick Perlstein.

Nixonland is an exceptionally readable biography of former President Richard Nixon. The life of Nixon is a story he himself deliberately created with tremendous energy, concentration, and perseverance. Many times Nixon fell into the abyss because of circumstances or his own actions, but he always managed to scramble up into the light again.

Perlstein convinces the reader that Nixon has made an indelible mark on American politics. His political actions generated ideological beliefs that still resonate today.

Indignation, by Phillip Roth

Indignation, by Phillip Roth.

A very short book, basically a novella, about a boy's college experiences.

The book (Roth's 29th) tells the story of a young Jewish boy, Markie, and his attempts to escape an over-protective father and anyone else who intrudes on his drive to get straight A's in college.

The father is a butcher and, through his experiences helping his father with such tasks as eviscerating chickens, Markie has learned to be ruthless with others, even important administrators of the college. In his intense desire to be alone, he dreams of transferring to the "University of the North Pole, where there were no phones, hospitals, or doctors, just polar bears who stalk the ice flows where the undergraduates -- naked in subzero temperatures . . ."

Eventually in a moment of weakness, when he is recovering from the flu, and consumed by a confusing feeling of undeserved guilt, Markie agrees to join the Jewish fraternity that he has declined all year.

He realizes, correctly, that this was a huge mistake. He had gone against his nature and given in to a born leader, Sonny Cottler. This move has changed his destiny; Cottler would turn out to be "the angel of death."

In this small book, Roth has managed to cram a multitude of meaning. The voices of characters seem true, each to their own nature; and his descriptions of the outside world mirror the struggles of Markie, while still remaining true to the real beauty of nature, sometimes menacing and and at other times comforting.