Book Review: We the Animals by Justin Torres

Title: We the Animals
Author: Justin Torres
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0547576725
Genrre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 144
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

If you think an author cannot successfully manage a book in less than 200 pages, then think again. Or better yet, read, “We the Animals” by Justin Torres. It is the kind of book that you will read once in a lifetime and with assurance I can say that you will be blown by it. We the Animals is a not a happy book (though it is infused with moments of happiness). It is neither a tragic tale. It is a slice-of-life so to say, of a ride through a childhood of three “animals” and their dysfunctional parents.

“We the Animals” is not something like I have read before. It can be called a grouping of stories or just a plan simple novel. It is about three boys and their growing up years in up-state New York by their Irish-Italian-American Mother and Puerto Rican father. The story is told from the viewpoint of the youngest son (who throughout the book is nameless), who loves and cherishes his older brothers and is also not quite like them. There are vignettes that build the story, just like “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros.

One obviously would expect some amount of latent madness and dysfunctionality running throughout the book, which is there; however, there are also moments of happiness and light, which balance the plot and structure. For instance, in one story, Ma refuses to answer the phone. She knows it is her husband and she doesn’t answer the phone. The entire piece is told through the events that occur while the phone is ringing in the background. The feeling of reading this is surreal and magical.

By far, my favourite piece in the entire book is the opening story, “We Wanted More” which sets the context and tone of the entire book. The sparse language used in almost every chapter is commendable, as it also happens to be intense in most places and touches the right chord. It therefore becomes very hard to believe that this is a debut work.

Justin Torres knows how to put up the book, exactly the way he saw it – intense, raw and rough. There are no smooth edges and shouldn’t be when writing a book of this nature. Torres makes you feel that you are going through a family album while reading the book. Each picture and each snapshot is telling a tale of its own. It is a complex study of family dynamics and written with a lot of substance.

While reading, “We the Animals”, there were a lot of moments I was choked up, however I had to let that pass and focus on reading the book. The reason I mention is to make the reader understand the power of a well-written book. We the Animals is one of the most beautiful books I have read this year and I am not hesitant to say this right at the beginning of the year, also because the book was published in 2011. It will break your heart and mend it right back. It will also make you see life differently. I highly recommend it to one and all.

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We the Animals: A novel

Book Review: 420 Characters by Lou Beach

Title: 420 Characters
Author: Lou Beach
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0547617930
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 176
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4/5

Since the advent of Twitter (140 characters only) everyone is a writer and everyone has a story to tell. The advantage to the reader being that these stories are short and sometimes very short, so the reader can assimilate it all and think about them long after the stories are done with. There are the random fifty-five word stories and then the 140 character stories. Amidst all this, there shines a book of stories summing to only 420 characters – including the words.

Lou Beach started writing these stories as his Facebook status updates. The condition was: Each story was limited to 420 characters. These miniature stories are something else. They contain worlds larger and more meaningful than most full-length stories. The character and texture of these stories is of fluidity. There are no chains or boundaries to this kind of writing. It is seamless and can take any shape that it wants, which in essence is the beauty of these stories.

420 Characters does not restrict itself to any one particular emotion. It traverses the entire rainbow of emotions – love, loneliness, envy, hate, anger and more. Lou Beach intends to mesmerize the reader even in the shortest of stories and does it marvelously. I was taken in by these stories from the very beginning.

What I love about the writing is that it has the essence of poetry attached to it. The reader through such writing is touched or not – emotions seep through the writing and enter the reader, evoking the same feelings, which is not easy to do for a writer. On the other hand, the book may not be for everyone. Not everyone can digest or would want to read a book with stories limiting themselves to 420 characters.

These are great story starters which can stand alone and also evolve into something else. They have the capacity to evoke the readers’ imagination and make him or her think a little more while reading stories and the due credit goes only to Lou Beach. A must read for its brevity and impact.

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Book Review: The Artist of Disappearance by Anita Desai

Title: The Artist of Disappearance
Author: Anita Desai
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-57745-6
Genre: Fiction, Novellas, Literary Fiction
Pages: 156
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

When Anita Desai writes, she creates magic. I have always held on to this belief and moreover also thought that she is one of the under-rated writers in her own country. She writes sparingly and the words sparkle long after the book is published. My tryst with Anita Desai took place when I was barely seventeen. I remember watching the movie In Custody – a Merchant-Ivory production and as the credits rolled at the start, I saw that it was based on a novel of the similar name by a novelist called Anita Desai. I read the book as I loved the film so much. The book did not disappoint me at all and from thereon I read almost everything this writer had to offer.

The Artist of Disappearance is her latest offering. It is a collection of three novellas and in every way as brilliant as her previous works. The Anita Desai Reader (and I do not mean this in the loose sense of the word) knows what to expect. The writing is not only clear but also has many layers to it and as each one unfolds, the others become more elusive. The prose is beautiful, the nuances are well taken care of and she tries not to involve technology in her writing.

This collection of novellas focuses primarily on preservation and change. Of how the characters resist it and some give in, to face the consequences of their choices. It speaks of objects and lives – the nature of the two and how inter-connected they are.

The first novella, “The Museum of Final Journeys” talks of an officer of the British Government sent to a backwater town for his training. He is approached by an old man (the caretaker) from the countryside who wants him to visit a house now turned to a museum of strange and beautiful items. The old man wants to get rid of the most valuable item, which will haunt the young government officer for years to come.

The second novella, “Translator, Translated” is a story of a seemingly quiet teacher whose interest lies primarily in Oriya, a little less known language and how she gets the opportunity to translate her favourite writer’s first book in English. Things go haywire when the author publishes her second book and the teacher takes it upon herself to connect the loose ends, with repercussions unknown.

The third and last novella in the collection, “The Artist of Disappearance” Ravi wants to live an unknown life – like a hermit in the forest. Suddenly his life is turned upside-down when a film crew wants to interview him. He doesn’t feel a part of the existence and disappears using his tact and mastery.

Each of the characters in these novellas wants to preserve – to not let go and life doesn’t give them that opportunity. Ms. Desai’s craft is at a height – she knows what she is doing and she nails it with her writing. Read her for the writing, for the plots she creates and for the sheer beauty of language.

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Book Review: Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Title: Pigeon English
Author: Stephen Kelman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-1-4088-1063-7
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 288 pages
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

Pigeon English is narrated by Harrison Opoku, an eleven-year-old who has recently moved from Ghana to a high rise flat in inner city London. When a boy is stabbed near his home Harri teams up with CSI fan and friend Dean to try and solve the murder. He’s also busy trying to fit in and learn the street smarts necessary to survive while showing a more innocent side, caring for a pigeon that appears on his family’s balcony.

Harri is fond of showing that he’s learning the rules, creating lists to demonstrate he knows what’s what, and desperately wants to be part of the in-crowd, turning his cheap trainers into Adidas lookalikes with a marker pen and talking the talk. The vocab he uses is spot on, reading the book was like listening to my teen step-daughter. However while he is fully aware of the gang activity going on around him and the dangers it presents he is still quite naive and too willing to believe everything he is told.

This really is a book of contrasts. While he has is being pulled into a very grown-up world he is still a child. A couple of phrases that appear repeatedly are that something was the funniest thing he ever saw, or that he’d bet a million pounds on x or y. It comes across as typical, childish exaggeration. While he is doing tasks to be accepted into the Dell Farm Crew, the local gang, he is also concerned for the pigeon he adopts and joins in superstitions like avoiding the cracks on the pavement to make sure something good happens.

Harri’s family has been split, with his mother bringing him and his older sister Lydia to the UK, while his father and grandmother remain in Ghana with his baby sister. Harri dotes on his baby sister and is looking forward to them all being reunited. While his mother apparently brought her family over on a legitimate visa Auntie Sonia has less regard for the legalities required. Her boyfriend is a thug, but while Harri seems aware of what use he puts his baseball bat to it doesn’t look to bother him. Unfortunately while Harri has plenty of hope he doesn’t have enough fear and his forays into the bad wide world are threatening the safe home his mother has tried to establish for the family. Hearing some stories about life back in Ghana serves to further highlight the differences in the places and the communities.

I found Harri a very sweet character, a good kid who has been dropped into a threatening environment but still trying (mostly) to do the right thing. I was rooting for him and Lydia, who has found herself a poor example of a best friend, to get a happy ending. The parts narrated by the pigeon made for an interesting diversion, and its pieces were both funny, sweet and thoughtful, although in some places I did have to work to see how it fitted into the plot. It makes for a good picture of how life might be for a recent immigrant in a big and, initially, completely alien city.

Book Review: The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart

Title: The Wake of Forgiveness
Author: Bruce Machart
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780151014439
PP: 320 Pages
Extent: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Price: $26.00
Rating: 5/5

Family bonds, particularly between fathers and sons, and mothers and sons, are explored with great sorrow and depth in this elegiac and epic tale of the Skala family, hard-working Czech farmers in Lavaca County. In the fertile flat lands of South Texas, in the fictional town of Dalton, 1895, Karel Skala is the fourth son born to Vaclav and Klara, and the one that results in Klara’s death. Vaclav’s pain shuts him down, and he forsakes holding his son.

Instead, Vaclav treats Karel and his brothers like draught horses and works them to the bone on the farm. As Karel grows and develops into an apt horse rider and racer, Vaclav gambles land, and Karel rides to win. A particular race in 1910 squeezes the last morsel of strained loyalty and affection between Karel, his three brothers, and his father.

The story goes back and forth in time between 1895 and 1924, in a seamless and tension-building tale that is both heart stopping and lushly evocative. Machart writes like a veteran writer and is reminiscent of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, both for his brutal tale of family instability and his towering, metaphorical passages tying the land to the people, and the narrative of his social and moral themes surrounding the decay, anguish, and redemption of the human heart. Like McCarthy, Machart has an arresting, commanding sense of predator and prey:

“Across the creek along the far bank, near the tangle of water oak and pine roots and the deep impression of boot soles in the wet silt, she [the amber-eyed horned-owl] discerns the slightest distinction in the clustered dancing of bluestem spires, knowing by some sharp and instinctive insistence in the grainy fibers of her muscles that rain and wind bend the uppermost inches of grass blades while the scuttling of prey and the dragging of a tail will set the reeds to shivering upward from the tillers.”

Machart’s frequently long and undulating sentences are not awkward or burdensome, as his assured, poetic, and elegant style takes the reader deeper and more evocatively into the richness of the landscape and the texture of Karel’s pain. Soon after the race of 1910, Karel quits riding, folds up into himself, and begins his own family and future without reconciling his past. The story brings the reader into key events in a well-paced manner that also teases out the facts gradually. The past and the present intersect in the denouement with an uncompromising and resolute exhilaration. Getting there allows the reader to accompany Karel into the territory of his tormented soul.

“It occurred to Karel that this was the way the whole county must see them, as the family that everyone but they themselves recognized as such, and the thought of being the kind of fool who called for fair weather when green clouds folded up in hail-bearing corrugations on the horizon wicked at him until he felt parched and withered and longing, like a cotton plant wilting in a month-long drought, for the unabated battering of that which might save him.”

Whether it is the rich, metallic smell of rain; the mineral scent of flooded soil; a sun-struck fence; a moonlit winter pine; or stray swirls of cotton in the brisk, smoky air of a burning mesquite tree, Machart sears the images of his story so thoroughly that they will cascade down your spine and give you an electric buzz. I can open the book anywhere and return to eloquent passages that, even lifted from the story and taken independently will cause my heart to flutter. Compelling, unyielding, and utterly satisfying.