The Cue Card

Hi, I’m back now after a lovely trip to the Basque Country of northern Spain and southwestern France. Wow, what a great region. I will leave you with some photos of our visit, in which we met up with relatives and bicycled in the Rioja region and some of the western Pyrenees. Some of it was dry and windy wine country (hooray) and other parts were green and lush sheep-herding country (awesome).

Despite all we saw, I feel it was just the tip of the iceberg and there’s much more to explore for another time. Still I’m glad with what we managed to fit in on this excursion, which turned out great as well for catching up with siblings and in-laws. The weather was good at the start but then rained the last five days or so. It was a bit cooler and wetter than we expected but still warm enough to bicycle comfortably. Next time I plan to bring a better raincoat! That is key.

The last few days we were along the coast, looking upon the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The city of Biarritz where we stayed for a night is known for it’s surfing. Unfortunately a storm greeted us there and we did not get much beach time. As George Costanza once said: “the sea was angry that day my friends.” But instead my hub and I took some nice walks under an umbrella, one of which was a few days later along the Camino del Norte pilgrimage trail in Spain, which in its entirety goes from San Sebastian to Santiago (about 825 km or 513 miles).

We hiked the trail for just a few hours from one beach town over a mountain to another. It was scenic and lovely, and has us considering whether we want to return sometime to hike more of it. I think so. But for now, we are back home, trying to adjust to jet lag and a time zone change of eight hours — as well as the imminent Canadian winter. I’m so confused. 🙂

While on the trip, I finished Chris Cleave’s WWII novel “Everyone Brave Is Forgiven” and the audiobook of Ben Winters’ novel “Underground Airlines.” Both of which came out this year and are pretty good. Here are my takes on each:

The main character of Cleave’s latest novel is a young socialite (Mary) who takes up teaching a small group of children in London who have been left behind from the evacuated school kids taken to the countryside at the onset of WWII. A few are mentally disabled and one is a black boy whose father performs in the racially typecast minstrel shows of the times. Socially, Mary begins a relationship with Tom, the education administrator who got her the job, but when she meets his roommate Alistair, home briefly from the war, something between them seems to develop. But then Alistair is sent back to serve on the island of Malta under siege from the Axis Powers, while Mary takes up driving ambulances (along with her friend Hilda) during the heavy bombing of the Blitz. All suffer greatly due to the war, and it’s not until the book’s end do you discover if Alistair and Mary, who’ve corresponded through letters all the while, get together, or if their lives are too shattered and changed at war’s end.

Oh it’s the usual suffering in a Chris Cleave book. If you’ve read his other novels “Incendiary” and “Little Bee,” you know his characters often endure terrible grief and human suffering. Though I liked those books, I wonder if I’m tiring of all the tragedy inflicted on his characters a bit. What is enticing is that the novel was inspired by the real letters the author’s grandparents wrote to one another during the war — apparently they had become engaged in 1941 and then didn’t see each other for three years until the end of the war. His grandmother had lived through the Blitz in London and his grandfather was stationed on Malta during the siege, both of which come to life and are quite vivid in the book. I had not read much about Malta in WWII before and it made me curious to look it up online to learn more, which I did.

I also found interesting that the novel brings up the minstrel shows, apparently of the times, which were a form of entertainment — basically skits that peddled in racial stereotypes. I had not thought too much about these before, or the unfortunate children who were left behind in London and not evacuated to the countryside. The themes, too, of forgiveness, fighting inequality, and conjuring what changes the war would bring were well done. On the whole, while I liked the novel, I didn’t overly love it. The story held my interest but the unevenness of the telling perhaps didn’t engross me in it as much as I had hoped. Some parts I found could’ve been sped up, other parts more developed. Still “Everyone Brave Is Forgiven” rang true for me with some poignant lines about living through such life-altering times.

A novel that gripped me more was Ben Winter’s latest thriller “Underground Airlines,” which likely is one of my favorite books of the year so far. I listened to it as an audiobook and was held by it every step of the way. Something about its narration and creativity reminded me a bit of the novel “Station Eleven,” which I had liked a lot last year. Though this book’s subject matter is quite different. It’s an alternative history story about a black man called Victor who’s a bounty hunter in a modern America that includes slave states as well as free states. (It’s a book that imagines the Civil War never happened, and what the U.S. would be like if it hadn’t.) Victor was once a slave but the government gave him the option of freedom by coercing him into finding runaway slaves and having them returned. But during one such case Victor finds himself in crisis over what he’s doing, and soon all hell breaks loose.

“Underground Airlines” is a thriller that’s provocative, riveting, and well done. It manages to speak to both America’s past (slavery) and present (racism) — and is a timely harsh critique of both. Yet it does it in such a way that is utterly fresh and compelling. I’ve never really been into novels that dwell on alternative history imaginings before, nor would I have thought a thriller would be among my best-of-year kind-of books, but this one proved its worth. My only slight criticism of it perhaps is that towards the end its story goes through quite a few twists — perhaps one too many for my liking. It doesn’t need that many — a reader can get a bit lost, but still on the whole I found the novel quite excellent. I haven’t read Ben Winters’s other novels, namely his “Last Policeman” trilogy, but since I liked this one quite a bit, I plan to read them in the future. I also want to check out Colson Whitehead’s highly praised recent novel “The Underground Railroad,” which is similar in its topic but with a different style.

Also last week my hub and I saw the movie “The Light Between the Oceans” and I thought it represented the book quite well. Usually I find movie adaptations don’t live up to the books they’re taken from but this one I thought was pretty close. The cinematography was wonderful and Michael Fassbender, as usual, was excellent. It’s a story that portrays such a tragic, difficult situation. You empathize with both sides, and the loss they go through feels brutal. I found watching it was squirm-worthy in parts.

What about you — have you read these books, or seen “The Light Between the Oceans” — and if so, what did you think?

On Saturday, somewhere across the middle of Canada at 38,000 feet up I victoriously finished Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer.” I was on the plane returning from the Senior Tennis Nationals in Ottawa, which was competitive but good fun too. (See the clay courts at left.) I had spent a couple of weeks studying “The Sympathizer” and underlining its key passages. I’m sure one could write his or her dissertation on this novel about the Vietnam War and its aftermath. It’s that type of “important” book, one told from a Vietnamese perspective — on the other side of the war — that’s rarely ever heard.

Over the years I’ve read my share of Vietnam War and refugee stories and seen the American Vietnam War movies, but I haven’t experienced anything like this book, which holds all sides accountable. It’s unsparingly angry and satirical, especially towards the U.S. involvement in the war and American culture. In an interview at the back of the paperback, the author says he wanted “readers to be rattled by the book” and provoked to “rethink their assumptions about this history, and also about the literature they’ve encountered before.” Well no doubt he succeeded: I was rattled anew.

The novel is a bit unusual in that the entire story is told as a confession. The narrator is detailing what has transpired in his life and his thoughts to someone called the Commandant. You don’t really figure out everything about this and the Commandant until the book’s end. But needless to say, it’s a bit ominous. You wonder: what’s all this confession about?!

The Vietnamese narrator is a bit different too, he sees himself as a revolutionary who’s working at the end of the war for a South Vietnamese general, but he is secretly feeding information to the communists. He seems both humane and inhumane. On the one hand he’s utterly loyal and protective of the blood brothers he grew up with and fighting for the people, on the other, his actions to cover up his spying results in the deaths of innocent civilians.

The narrator’s story, you come to find out, is quite a journey. He barely escapes the fall of Saigon in 1975, only to join the General as a refugee in Los Angeles. There he continues to spy for the communists, passing along info on the General’s plan to mount a secret invasion via Thailand to get Vietnam back. Eventually this lands the narrator on a dangerous reconnaissance mission in Laos that results in scary repercussions.

Oh my! You won’t escape the war’s suffering in this book, or how it pulled people apart. It’s a story that lambastes U.S. imperialism, but it doesn’t absolve the communists or South Vietnamese either. There’s one section of the book that’s particularly satirical in which the narrator gets hired as a consultant on a Vietnam War movie called “The Hamlet” being filmed in the Philippines. On set, there’s an egomaniacal director and no speaking lines for the Vietnamese, represented in the film by Korean and Filipino actors. Need I say more? What follows is a dark spoof of what in reality is a takeoff of “Apocalypse Now.” Whoosh, it’s a must read.

In the end, I thought “The Sympathizer” was not exactly an easy book — it was dense in its delivery as one’s person confession without much in the way of dialogue or paragraph breaks. Its unbreaking text often stretched the length of a page. It was also confrontational (in a good way), upending assumptions about the war as it went along. But it was also a novel that had a lot of good lines in it and important things to say about ideology, identity, and the history of the war. By the end, my copy was completely marked up and underlined. I found “The Sympathizer” one of those rare, “big” books that comes out only once in every blue moon.

As an encore to that, I listened to the audiobook of Paul Kalanithi’s popular nonfiction book “When Breath Becomes Air,” which had finally come off hold at the library. Many know this is about a 36-year-old doctor’s battle with lung cancer, which he is diagnosed with during the last year of his residency to become a neurosurgeon.

Oh this is a sad book, but it’s told rather beautifully and matter-of-factly. From the story within, Paul seemed a very bright and outstanding person. After a decade worth of training, he was finally on the verge of becoming the doctor he had always wanted to be — only to receive such a horrendous diagnosis. How he finished his last year of residency while undergoing treatment — and managed to write this book too — is nothing short of miraculous. I found his battle with cancer and his efforts to help others very courageous.

Somehow I had mistakenly thought this book would be mostly about the choice he and his wife made to have a baby after he received his diagnosis. And though it touches on their decision and the baby, the book focuses mainly on Paul’s battle as well as his medical career. He details what made him want to become a doctor, his medical practice and his medical cases to quite an extent. (If you’re really squeamish about hospital stuff, just a slight warning.)

Although Paul didn’t get the chance to finish writing his book, his wife’s very well-done epilogue really brought his story together for me and also made me lose it. How very sad it is, but his story and battle are also strangely comforting and inspirational, too. I think others would benefit in reading or listening to Paul’s book. I’m sure I will think of him & his fight for a very long time.

Now I could use something happy and light next. What about you — have you read either of these books, and if so what did you think?

I have been MIA lately on the blog, but that’s not too unusual in the late stages of a busy summer. I’m still riveted to watching the Olympics, too. Tomorrow I’m flying to Ottawa to participate in the Senior Tennis Nationals, which divides competition into age groups. Hey, who are you calling senior?! I’m sure it will be fun with the friends I am going with.

While on the plane, I will continue on with reading Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer.” I’ve reached Page 200, and I’m underlining sentences in it with a black pen. It reminds me of one of those war or foreign policy novels (such as “The Ugly American” and “Catch-22”) that you read in university English or History class and have to come up with a profound and coherent essay discussing. It’s a book that’s pretty critical of the U.S. no doubt. So far it’s interesting but not exactly a summer read, if you get my drift. (It makes me slightly wonder if my book club might shoot me over assigning it during the summer vacation season.) But I will see what happens in “The Sympathizer” …. and get back to you on it. The narrator is quite unusual — an atypical truthsayer of sorts.

Meanwhile I lightened things up by finishing the audiobook of British author David Nicholls’s 2014 novel “Us.” This one seems to fit the category of a fun summer read, though I was surprised to see that it was actually long-listed for the Man Booker Prize a couple years back. Huh, are you kidding me?! Nicholls is definitely popular after his novel “One Day” was such a success in England. I haven’t read it, but I did see bits of the movie of it on cable. It was a relationship kind of flick, with Anne Hathaway — you might recall, where she and a guy she knew check in with each other on the same date of each year to see where they are in their lives. Hmm, what a ploy …. hasn’t something similar been done before?

On the other hand, Nicholls’s novel “Us” is also a relationship-kind of novel about a wife (Connie) who tells her husband (Douglas) that she is thinking of leaving their marriage after 25 plus years. Still they decide to take one final European trip together along with their 17-year-old son, Albie. Douglas, who narrates the story, hopes that during the trip that he can change his wife’s mind not to leave him, and that he can get closer to his son, too.

It’s a novel whose story and characters didn’t initially appeal to me — the scope of it is meandering at first — the wife Connie is an artist and Douglas is a nerdy scientist. They are opposites in various ways — she is passionate and a bit flaky and he is uptight and practical. Their teenage son is moody and problematic and doesn’t see eye to eye with his dad. The story jumps back and forth between the present day and the days of when Douglas first met Connie. Yada yada yada. The characters can at times be annoying.

But somewhere during their family European vacation, which goes terribly awry, the story and characters grew on me as things became more humorous and endearing. Oh it’s supposed to be Douglas’s Grand Tour for his family of Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Florence and Rome. But it doesn’t exactly turn out that way. Oh the troubles of the modern family! Pretty soon Albie, the son, wants to pack it in and goes missing, the wife heads home, and Douglas is off on a trek across Europe to find wherever Albie went. So much for winning over his family.

“Us” is pretty amusing at times. I especially liked the wacky Kat Kilgore, the New Zealand busker whom they meet in Amsterdam and befriends Albie. She made me laugh. I also liked their misadventures and the European stops along the way. There’s some good culture and descriptions in the book. I felt for Douglas, who desperately tries to make things right with those he loves. I probably would’ve edited the book a bit shorter; it’s sort of an exhaustive read with these characters. You spend so much time traveling with them. And I can’t say that I liked the ending too too much. It was a bit perplexing after all of that. But still on the whole I enjoyed “Us” and found it quite entertaining.

It’s another novel that touches on marriage, which reminds me of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel “The Marriage Plot” and Lauren Groff’s “Fates and Furies,” both of which I found interesting. Hmm what other similar books am I missing?

How about you — have you read “Us” or other similarly themed books, and if so what did you think?

It was a busy weekend. I was away competing at a provincial tennis tournament, which I won at the 5.0 level — my second tournament win of the summer. It’s quite a wonderful surprise in middle age as I can’t recall winning anything like this since my youth. So hooray. I must be doing something right recently. I arrived home and pretty soon became consumed with watching the Olympics. It’s addicting stuff and a refreshing change from the political campaign circus. I’m constantly flicking channels to see the various sports, particularly swimming, gymnastics, tennis, soccer, volleyball, and late in the week track and field will start. I won’t miss it.

Meanwhile this week I’m starting Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Sympathizer,” which I assigned for my book club to read and discuss in September. Thanks to Judy at Keep the Wisdom for her enthusiastic review of it earlier this year. I don’t know if it will be a challenging read (it doesn’t seem to have much dialogue), and being sort of slow, I need to get into it pronto. I’ve also started the audiobook of Kevin Kwan’s novel “China Rich Girlfriend,” which seems like a catty satirical romp. Hopefully it’ll be a fun book for late summer. Have you read either of these?

Meanwhile last week I finished Jung Yun’s debut novel “Shelter,” which JoAnn over at Lakeside Musing had recently really liked. I didn’t know what to expect going in to it, but soon found out it’s about a 36-year-old Korean biology professor (Kyung) living in suburban Boston with his wife and 4-year-old son — and his parents who he takes into his home after a horrific crime takes place at their house. Kyung has had quite a rough past with his parents from his childhood (which includes domestic violence) so taking them in proves to be very tension-filled. Making it more complex, Kyung and his wife are severely in debt and his parents are wealthy, which he wants no part of. While the criminal case is being pursued, Kyung’s anger and emotions with his parents living at his house comes to a head, and what follows includes some wrenching twists and secrets along the way that kept me pretty glued to the book’s ending.

I found “Shelter” to be captivating in an understated way — it simmers beneath the surface until, like any good suspense story, it boils over at the end. I thought it was very well done, although the story might not appeal to everyone. The main character Kyung is a pretty unhappy person, seemingly on the verge of a breakdown with hang-ups from his childhood and house bills he can’t pay. And the tone of the story is rather grim and a bit graphic involving the crime. It’s unsettling for sure — a family drama in which a man struggles to come to terms with his relationship to his parents — and how he wants to be with his own son. It’s a novel, too, that touches on cultural differences of immigrants in the U.S., and how the American Dream of home ownership is no guarantee for happiness. Like Celeste Ng’s novel “Everything I Never Told You,” which also touches on ethnicity issues in the U.S., “Shelter” left me pondering its themes and story long after its last pages.

What about you — have you read this novel, or are you watching the Olympics — and if so what do you think?

This coming week is the last week of July — yikes summer is going by quickly. If you live in a northern country there always seems to be a rush to get everything in before summer ends — as it can be a short season. Luckily the sun has been restored recently to these parts and the temps are comfortably in the 70s. On Sunday we will go to the mountains to bicycle from Banff to Lake Louise and back, which should be gorgeous. Photos to come later.

These days I’m in full summer mode, consuming thriller-type fiction. Currently I’m reading Jung Yun’s debut novel “Shelter,” which JoAnn over at Lakeside Musing reminded me about with her enthusiastic review. Miraculously, “Shelter” was no longer on hold at the library and I nabbed a copy. I decided not to know anything about it before opening its pages, which is often a fun way to go about suspense kinds of books. I’m also listening to the audiobook of Michael Koryta’s 2014 novel “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which takes place in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana and Wyoming not too far from where my brother lives in Bozeman. This one is pretty scary so far. Reviews of both to come later.

Meanwhile I finished Steven Rowley’s debut novel “Lily and the Octopus,” which came out in June. I had put this one on my list after the raves it got on Goodreads about how wonderful a story it is about a man and his aging dachshund. I’m a sucker for good dog stories — being a dog lover myself — and after Emma Cline’s novel “The Girls” I was looking for something a bit heartwarming and humorous. What could go wrong? Sigh, apparently a bit. I guess I just didn’t find that much to the story, or else it didn’t work for me as well as it has for others.

“Lily and the Octopus” is about Ted Flask, a single gay man in L.A. who’s recently ended a six-year relationship with his boyfriend when his beloved 12-year-old dog Lily gets an ominous growth on her head, which sends Ted into a tailspin crisis. Ted perceives Lily’s growth as an octopus attached to her head, trying to hurt her. Seemingly in denial, he comes to share Lily’s “octopus” with the vet, his therapist, and family and friends, while struggling to come to grips with the truth himself.

“Lily and the Octopus” deals with worthy, touching issues that many have gone through. I’ve been in that situation with my own beloved pets. My problem with the novel is that nearly the whole story follows the conceit of the octopus way beyond what you think it should, and the character of Ted seems juvenile to a fault. The story also seemed pretty thin and autobiographical. There were parts that were cute and humorous but not enough to carry the entire book from being just meh to me. How surprising, I thought I’d really like it. Maybe if it had been a memoir, the author Steven Rowley could have dug deeper and reached me more. What I thought after “Lily” was: did Rowley really pull in a nearly seven-figure book deal based on this? Holy smokes, I couldn’t believe it.

Luckily I did thoroughly enjoy the audiobook of Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel “Eligible” (a modern retelling of “Pride and Prejudice”), which came out in April. Sittenfeld’s book was published as part of “The Austen Project,” which pairs six contemporary authors with Jane Austen’s six complete works. I’m no expert or huge Austen buff, and I usually don’t partake in such retellings or the hundreds of spin-offs on “Pride and Prejudice,” but Sittenfeld’s book sounded like good fun. I have a decent memory of P & P, though it’s not like you really need it in order to enjoy “Eligible,” but it just makes it a bit more interesting.

In Sittenfeld’s version the five Bennet daughters regroup at their childhood home in Cincinnati after Mr. Bennet suffers a heart attack. Liz, a magazine writer in her late 30s, and Jane, a yoga instructor coming upon 40, have been living in New York, while their three sisters have been living off their parents at home. Mrs. Bennet of course wants to marry them off to well-to-do men before their biological clocks grind to a halt. Thereby she arranges for the family to attend a Fourth of July barbecue, where the handsome Chip Bingley, a recent contestant on the reality TV dating show Eligible, will be, along with his friend, neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Oh it’s Chip and Jane who pair up, and Liz and Darcy who get off on the wrong foot with each other. You recall how the story goes. It follows P & P pretty closely, but in a much more modern way. For one thing there’s sex described in it and storylines on healthcare, home foreclosure, race, and gay and transgender issues. And don’t be surprised by the swearing, and reality TV aspects in it. The Bennet world has surely changed since Austen first gave life to the characters in 1813. I can’t say for sure whether hard-core Austen aficionados will like or dislike “Eligible.” That is for them to say. I’m sure there will be some of both.

To me, Curtis Sittenfeld’s version is wonderfully entertaining and astute. It’s long (181, short chapters!), but I was right there with it, sucked into the various characters’ lives, especially the main character Liz’s, and laughing along the way. “Eligible” is funny and spoof-laced, but also perceptive and romantic too. It makes for a perfect summer read or audiobook as it’s light and fun. Kudos to Cassandra Campbell for her excellent narration of the various characters on the audio. My only quibble or puzzlement with “Eligible” was perhaps the final chapter, which fizzles a bit dwelling on the unattached and not very likable sister Mary — when, by that time, all we want is more of Liz and Darcy. I guess Sittenfeld just couldn’t resist adding to the final mix a comment on the worthiness of singledom to go with the oddball pairings.

So that’s it for this week. What about you — have you read either novel “Lily and the Octopus” or “Eligible” and if so, what did you think? Or what is your favorite dog novel, or Austen spin-off?