Canada Reads 2016: Book #2: The Hero's Walk

This year's Canada Reads theme is Starting Over.

Anita Rau Badami's novel is not only about starting over; it is a story of hope, renewal, forging on, and looking to the future. 

Here's a brief summary from Goodreads.com:

As The Hero's Walk opens, Sripathi's life is already in a state of thorough disrepair. His mother, a domineering, half-senile octogenarian, sits like a tyrant at the top of his household, frightening off his sister's suitors, chastising him for not having become a doctor, and brandishing her hypochondria and paranoia with sinister abandon. It is Sripathi's children, however, who pose the biggest problems: Arun, his son, is becoming dangerously involved in political activism, and Maya, his daughter, broke off her arranged engagement to a local man in order to wed a white Canadian. Sripathi's troubles come to a head when Maya and her husband are killed in an automobile accident, leaving their 7- year-old daughter, Nandana, without Canadian kin. Sripathi travels to Canada and brings his granddaughter home, while his family is shaken by a series of calamities that may, eventually, bring peace to their lives.  

A strand of Jasmine flower

This novel was a pleasure to read. It is beautifully written with rich, complicated characters. They are well developed and help create interest. There is a gentle plot that is enriched with a few other captivating sub-plots. Badami develops great setting: I could almost smell the strands of jasmine blossom and feel the breeze out on Sripathi's veranda. And while the initial conflict of the death of Sripathi's daughter is a tragedy, the novel does not wallow in doom and gloom.

It's a great read, and entertaining. 

One of the most beautiful scenes is that of the turtles laying eggs on the beach.

When I was a child, my best friends mother told us stories of her as a young girl in Pakistan and how her family would go to the beach to watch the turtles lay their eggs. 

The Book Thief Stole My Heart

The last novel for the year for my monthly book club, and I believe we may have saved the best for last with The Book Thief.

Summary thanks to Goodreads:

"It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down."

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.  The group discussed this novel over lunch at our annual Christmas Book Exchange party. The vast majority of the ladies loved it, finding little fault with the writing or the gripping story.

I thought that it read like poetry at times; Zusak's prose is so beautiful. With Death as the narrator, The Book Thief is a creative and unique wartime story was written from the perspective of a young German girl.

Here is the author with his thoughts:

This novel should be mandatory reading in high school. It is not to be missed. 

The Light Between Oceans by M.L.Stedman

It isn't very often that I read a book that troubles me, but I have to say that I'm really on the fence about

Not My Favorite Novel.

this one! This is the story of an infant who washes up on the shores of an isolated Australian island, and  is found by a lighthouse keeper and his wife. What ensues is a huge ethical dilema that is wrought with internal conflict and tension. Isabel, the lighthouse keeper's wife is barren and aches for a child of her own. When one arrives to the island, she instantly claims the child as her own and won't hear of returning the baby to her real mother.

Thus begins the harrowing tale of what to do.

Goodreads says:

M. L. Stedman's mesmerizing, beautifully written debut novel seduces us into accommodating Isabel's decision to keep this "gift from God." And we are swept into a story about extraordinarily compelling characters seeking to find their North Star in a world where there is no right answer, where justice for one person is another's tragic loss.

Contrived Novel, Just Like this Picture

It was a well written novel, but I couldn't help feel that the author was really manipulating the reader's emotions. It was a little over done. I found myself losing my train of thought and stumbling through the novel because it felt too contrived.  I kept putting down after a few pages and wanting to get away from it.

I know my friends enjoyed this one very much, but I am not a huge fan.

I have already begun my next novel...And I hope it doesn't slow me down as this one did.

Just Finished, But Didn't Want it to End!!!

Cutting for Stone is a Treat!  

Here's a summary of Abraham Verghese's novel courtesy of the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Feb 6 2009 (I'll leave the book reviewers to write the summary, but I'm happy to offer my thoughts afterwards!):

"The plot of this big, dense book is fairly straightforward. Marion and Shiva Stone are born one dramatic afternoon in 1954 in Addis Ababa, the same day their mother — a nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise — dies of complications from her hidden pregnancy. The boys are conjoined at the skull, yet separated at birth; they are raised by Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha, a forceful woman known as Hema, and Dr. Abhi Ghosh, both immigrants from Madras and both doctors at the hospital where the boys’ natural parents also worked. Missing Hospital, it’s called: “Missing was really Mission Hospital, a word that on the Ethiopian tongue came out with a hiss so it sounded like ‘Missing.’ ” They grow up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia (its actual chronology altered slightly by Verghese to suit his fictional purposes), and in 1979 Marion flees, first to Nairobi and finally to New York, where he qualifies as a surgeon. Shiva, too, goes into medicine, specializing in treating vaginal fistula, for which work he is acclaimed in this very newspaper, a sure sign of his renown. Almost supernaturally close as children, the brothers become more and more distant as the novel progresses; they are dramatically reunited at its end — through the mysterious agency of the long-vanished Thomas Stone."

This summary doesn't spoil the story whatsoever, and I encourage you to read and enjoy it.
The following brief interview with Verghese will help explain the inspiration of his novel:



Cutting for Stone was a memorable treat: I found the language rich and flowing, the imagery enchanting and insightful. As a general rule, I do not mark a book. I know that markings distract subsequent readers, and so I really avoid this practice. However, in this novel, I just couldn't help but highlight a few passages that stood out for me. Here are a few lines that I really want to remember:

On the topic of death, what insight:  "...the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled." and as the novel's father figure struggles to impart the last of his insights to his son:  "He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live." and further along, "Death is the cure for all disease."

How true is this statement?: "Life too is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward."

"Guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely it is the right action."

"Knowledge shall be promoted by frequent exercise
Art polishes and improves nature
Fortune is a fair but fickle mistress
Yesterday misspent cant be recalled
Vanity makes beauty contemptible
Wisdom is more valuable than riches."

And wouldn't our world be so different if we would live this idea more in our actions: "How we treat the least of our brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus, that's the measure of this country. Not our fighter planes or tanks or how big the Emperor's palace happens to be."

On the lighter side, I caught myself laughing out loud when Matron chides Dr. Stone's cursing during a medical emergency: "Custody of the tongue." I have never heard this reproach, but it was memorable for me.

The following article written by Verghese explains how the author's work mirrored some of his personal experiences:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/11/abraham-verghese-ethiopia-coup-1973

I hope you discover this work, and enjoy it as much as I have! 

In Progress: Cutting for Stone

Well, we haven't yet discussed this novel at our next book club meeting, so I won't spill the beans about it, but I am loving this story. I find myself stealing away to read a chapter or two at a time.

There's nearly a foot of snow on the ground here, and I am loving the trip to Addis Ababa that is the basis of this novel. To hear of the warm breezes and lush bougainvillea is a lovely, welcomed treat. I love novels that transport me to far away places.

I'm heading to Las Vegas tomorrow, and will take this one with me on the plane. It's about a 5 hour flight and I plan to polish this one off...it's been a pleasure so far. I'll write more upon my return.

Great Find: The Lost Daughters of China

Another Value Village Score!!!

While rummaging through the shelves at my local Value Village, I was lucky to find Karin Evans  account of her journey to China to adopt her daughter.  The Lost Daughters of China is the Evans' retelling of her adoption process between America and China in the late 1990's. 

Evans and her husband, unable to conceive children naturally, decide to adopt a baby girl from the Guangdong area of China. Although easy to decide that this is what she wants, her journey through the endless adoption red tape, and her far-away travels to the Peoples Republic of China shows how difficult a process this really is.

During her trip to the southern Chinese state, Evans' discovers that the One-Child policy is the tip of a very complicated social problem. The notion that male children are more valuable is ingrained in the Confusion culture for more than 1000 years. Further, this problematic policy creates such familial strife and suffering for many families who feel great pressure to produce a male child. Child abandonment is an ongoing problem that is a result of the policy that was introduced in the 1980's.

Evan's book is well written. She has done a great amount of research in preparing the context of her work. She sights academics, government studies, poems and literature. I found myself re-reading a few of such passages that were particularly touching.
 
For example, she quotes Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet: "Your children are not your children, they are not of  you, but they come through you. They are the gift of life's longing for itself."And also, a particularly beautiful excerpt from Meng Jia's poem Traveler's Song:

My loving mother, thread in hand,
Mended the coat I have on now,
Stitch by stitch, just before I left home,
Thinking that I might be gone a long time.

How can a blade of young grass
Ever repay the warmth of the spring sun?


One short coming of Evans' book is that there is an obvious absence of information about her daughter's progress in her new home country. How does her daughter feel about being adopted, and how does she cope with the feelings around being adopted? Also, she does become somewhat repetitive towards the end of the book, and I found that a little tighter editing would have been quite helpful there.

Overall this was a good read, but I would consider this only as a starting point for learning other aspects of adoption and the issues surrounding this complicated process.