morganaberserker.
.books
ok, if anyone is reading this, lemmie know! just drop me an email with a yea just so i know if i should keep it up or not, having just started school recently, well, external writing isn't a top priority, but if someone is begging for my half-assed reviews, just shout!
Beloved, Toni Morrison
I have no idea why it took me so long to pick this up, and I'm so glad that I finally did. I know it is a Pulitzer Prize winner, but I really am shocked at just how beautiful this book is. And I'm sure I won't say anything that hasn't already been said, but definitely read this book!
I have an affinity for novels that seamlessly combine fantastical events and everyday reality, and this one does it perfectly. In fact, this novel revolves around this meshing. Sethe, the main character (arguably), has to deal with the flesh and blood reincarnation of the daughter she killed. No one questions her reappearance, they just accept it. With this act, Morrison personifies the past and creates disharmony from the very first page. We know what must be resolved, but like the characters, we must understand the past in order to know how that can be done.
This is the central question of the novel. How does one deal with the past? How do we move on from the past? If we can't live in it, can we ignore it? This book also raises an eternal American question found throughout our literary history is it possible just to forget the past and start over again? The past becomes a very sticky thing, especially in this literary form where the restrictions on reality are null and void.
What is also so successful about this book is the way in which an entire mythology is set up. A world is created through the telling and retelling of stories; and it is through the retelling of these stories that legend is formed, not only within the novel itself, but for the reader as well. This novel has a very epic quality, and the characters stay with you for a very long time.
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Cunt, Inga Musico
Yes, I know I keep reiterating that I am not a feminist, but still I keep bringing it up in classes, papers, conversation, and now it's even in my causal reading. Yikes! But as most of you well know, "Cunt" is my favorite word, and well, Suzy, knowing this all too well, bought me this book in spirit of that. I have to say, however, that this is a fabulous book.
Musico's main argument is that "cunt" has lost its original, woman-celebrating connotations, and that the process of modernizing has turned it into the most single degrading word to call a woman. What she attempting to do with this book is bring "cunt" back into a feminine space. She uses many avenues to do this, but mainly she uses what would be aptly dubbed "cuntpower."
As part of this "cuntpower," she urges women to follow female rhythms rather than male capital exploitations. Sea sponges instead of tampons, moon cycles instead of birth control, and well, some other things that will surely surprise you. She also advocates more traditional empowerment techniques like taking self-defense classes and increasing awareness.
One of the most interesting points is when she slightly delves into cultural studies and compares American women against the rest of the world. She points out that in other cultures that suppress women, the women of that culture naturally bond and look after one another, while American women tear each other down to build their own egos. This creates a divided and conquered existence easily broken by fear, which is seen employed on an all to regular basis by rapists and other criminals.
While at times her diction is a too bit causal at times, but her writing is clear, purposeful and entertaining. Read it!
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The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
This is a post-colonial novel about a first and second generation Indian family living in and around London. Karim, the product of an Indian father and an English mother, is the main protagonist and narrator. However, the multiple other characters that make up his family have more interesting tales to tell. Karim is mainly caught up in the usual teenage apathy, with a post-colonial twist thrown in, but his counterparts struggle more intimately with loss of culture, radical politics, and spiritual recreation to name a few.
It is amazing the variety of characters that Kureishi manages to combine in one novel. Karim's father, Haroon, (a.k.a. The Buddha of Suburbia] is at once a mockery and a respected spiritual leader. The only reason he is not the joke of the novel is because of the inept Chagez, the arranged husband of Haroon's radical feminist niece, Jamilia. Changez is literally inept because of a deformed arm, but he is further debilitated because Jamilia refuses to consummate, what is for her, a forced marriage. He has to resort to an Asian prostitute, with whom he practices "positions" in an attempt to regain his lost manhood.
Not only does Kureishi deal with culture, but he takes on various settings as well. These things are intimately linked, yet rarely are they both tackled in one novel. Kureishi follows his characters from suburb culture into city life. He even goes into the hippy, punk rock, and communist subcultures of the 70s, in which this novel mainly takes place. We see almost instant transformations in all the characters as their setting changes.
Although I did not particularly enjoy the teenage restlessness of Karim, I do recognize it to be an integral part of growing up, least of all in a post-colonial world. Overall, despite the further development I would have enjoyed in the peripheral characters, this novel is quite an accomplishment. I enjoyed it, and I recommend it. (Although I still prefer Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie.)
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