Night Watch

Night Watch by Sarah Waters. I've been a fan of Waters through Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith, so I eagerly sought her latest out. This is a departure for Waters, whose past novels featured characters on the fringes of Victorian society. This novel is set in London during and after World War II and is peopled with a cast of inter-related, basically middle-class, characters. The story is told backwards in time: the first section is set in 1947, the second in 1944 and the final section in 1941. I found it frustrating and confusing at times, though the meticulously detailed and descriptive writing really evoked the time and place. The war was a time when everything was heightened, and women led active and purposeful lives. After the war, everyone seemed adrift and unrooted, especially Kay, my favorite character, who was a brave ambulance driver during the blitz and who was aimless and alone afterwards.

Because Waters deliberately witheld information until the end, there were times the motivation was unclear. However, the end effect was that I wanted to immediately start over after I turned the final page, after the circumstances that led the characters to where they were at the book's start were revealed. Maybe it was just me, but I had to make an effort to stick with it, but I did feel rewarded at the end, and the characters linger with me.

Waters always features lesbian characters, and Night Watch was no exception, though the main characters also featured a woman having a hopeless affair with a married man, and that woman's brother, who was imprisoned during the war, for reasons that weren't clear until the end.

Sex Death Enlightenment

Sex Death Enlightenment: A True Story by Mark Matousek (Riverhead, 1996) A chance reference drew me to seek this book out in the Library, but I did not expect to be so captivated by it - devouring it in a couple days. I love personal accounts of spiritual seekers and this one was particularly honest, passionate, and well-written. Matousek takes you on his journey from his rather hedonistic life in NYC in the 1980's working for Andy Warhol and as a successful editor, to his quest to finder a deeper meaning as he confronted the ravages of the AIDS epidemic. After experiencing a spiritual opening in the presence of Mother Meera, he embarks on a quest that leads him to various traditions, teachers and seekers, and brings him face to face with his own darkest personal pain and fear. I found this book to be quite inspiring and life-affirming. - L.

What Makes you Not a Buddhist

What Makes you Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (Shambhala, 2007). This is one of the best new dharma books I've read in a long while. Born in 1961, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse is both a traditional Tibetan Buddhist (he is considered the present main incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö and has studied with many of the great masters, including H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche), and someone who is totally involved with the modern world - spending much time in the west and even directing feature films such as The Cup and Travellers and Magicians. This ability to speak from both worlds is part of what makes this book such a great teaching. He writes in a highly accessible style, filled with modern references, sometimes humorous, sometimes devastatingly direct and cutting - always filled with both wisdom and compassion.
His main premise in the book is that a Buddhist is not someone who follows particular external cultural traditions or even one who acts in a moral, non-violent manner (though of course that is important): one is a Buddhist if they accept the following four truths: 1. All compounded things are impermanent. 2. All emotions are pain. 3. All things have no inherent existence. 4. Nirvana is beyond concepts. Highly recommended reading. - L.

Book of Longing

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen (Ecco, 2006) - This is a wonderful collection of Cohen's poetry, interspersed with his beautiful artwork, including many humorous, self-deprecating self-portraits. The poems include several that were also released as songs. Written over the course of 20 years, including his time as a Zen Buddhist monk on Mt. Baldy, the poetry deals with all the big issues of life : love, death, God, the search for meaning. It's a beautiful book. Linda

Gesture of Awareness

Gesture of Awareness: A Radical Approach to Time, Space, and Movement by Charles Genoud. (Wisdom Publications, 2007) As someone who has experienced Charles Genoud's groundbreaking Gesture of Awareness classes at Dzogchen Center retreats for the past several years, it was hard to imagine how Charles could possibly convey his teaching, which is based on awareness and being with the whole body, in the form of a book. I thought at first it would be more in the style of the the more intellectual dharma talks that Charles also gives. However, this book is a wonderful surprise - with the teachings conveyed in spare poetic verse, haiku-like in style. His words guide us to experience reality and be truly present, without the basic assumptions that stand in our way.
It's impossible to read the verses without hearing Charles' French-accented voice in my head! I wonder how it would read for one who had not experienced Charles first hand?
Linda

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. This is a lovely, poetic short novel, that despite being set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is amazingly positive and uplifting. The story concerns 2 boys from educated families sent to the country for "re-education" in a rural village. They discover a hidden suitcase of banned western novels translated into Chinese and sneak off to read them, savoring the descriptions of love and emotion. They are both smitten with a beautiful young seamstress, who is illiterate and unworldly, but full of life and curiousity. They are committed to reading to the seamstress with an eye towards educating her and making her more sophisticated and worldly. The ending, where the seamstress achieves her own independence was an interesting surprise. The sense of the ability of art and literature to touch a deeper humanity even in a bleak and hopeless set of circumstances was inspiring. - Linda

Inheritance of Loss

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. This is a beautifully written novel & winner of the 2006 Man Booker prize. Set in India near the border of Nepal, it concerns a cast of characters which includes a Cambridge educated judge who lives in a crumbling mansion with his grandaughter and his cook. All of the characters seem stunted and powerless, victimized by the forces at work in the modern world - colonialism, globalization, fundamentalism. While the suffering and confusion of these characters is heartwrenchingly drawn, I did not feel that I got to know the characters as personally as I wished to. I felt a bit frustrated at times - wanting to dig deeper. Aside from that, the book is full of passages worth savoring - vivid descriptions and insights .
The grandfather is an Anglophile, full of disgust toward just about everyone and everything Indian - the only being he shows any compassion towards is his beloved dog. His grandaughter Sai is in love with her math tutor who ends up joining a Nepali uprising. The cook's only hope is his son Biju who lives in NYC as an illegal immigrant, going from one dismal restaurant job to the next - certainly not achieving any sort of American dream. Despite some passages of humor, the book was a rather sad and depressing look at the world. That said - it is well worth reading. (In fact, I really feel drawn to pick it up again - I had to rush it back to the Library so did not have time to browse back through it and linger a bit...) Linda

She Still Lives

She Still Lives by Bill Magee (Snowlion Publications, 2006).
When I came upon this in a bookstore, described as a love story set in a future Tibet, featuring a female Dalai Lama, I couldn't wait to read it. At first I felt frustrated since I had a desire to learn the particulars that led to the 17th Dalai Lama's discovery, as well details about the world in the year 2114. In fact, the book tells the story of the Dalai Lama's adviser Mila Lakpa who was just released from years of prison after being sentenced for his role in the Tibetan freedom movement. At the time of his release, the Dalai Lama is still imprisoned and she is not prominently featured as a character in the book. The fact that the Dalai Lama is female is not commented on at all - it is just a fact.
A hundred years into the future, it is clear that Tibetans are still an oppressed minority in China, and the Communist regime still exists. The lives of the Tibetans are still rather simple and primitive -there is very little given in the way of context of the world in 2114. A few hints are given: global warming obviously had an impact as snow is described as a rarity in the Himalayas, and there is mention of genetically modified mine-sniffing dogs and clones. However, these details are not developed and I found I had to let go of my expectation of getting a fuller picture of the world at that time. For the most part, the world and the Tibetan situation in particular, seemed little changed.
Magee is a Buddhist scholar, so the narrative is informed by Buddhist ideas and practices.
Particularly interesting was Mila's growing ability to share his consciousness with other beings, human and animal. This is carried into the final part of the book which leads back to the imprisoned Dalai Lama. Another theme of the book is the power of non-violence and love in the face of oppression.
This is a short, suspenseful and quick read, that really grew on me. The characters of Mila and his love Drolma, were quite well drawn. I plan to re-read it, without that expectation that I came with in the first place. - Linda

Talk Talk

Talk Talk by T.C. Boyle. I've always been drawn to Boyle's novels - they are literary and intelligent, but still plot-driven and entertaining. I picked up his latest and found myself immediately pulled into the plot which involved a deaf woman (Dana) who becomes the victim of identity theft and then becomes obsessed with finding the thief after being let down by the justice system. On one level it reads like a suspense novel, and the description of the crime of identity theft and the criminal justice system itself is disturbing. But most compelling was the depiction of being deaf and trying to communicate in a hearing world. That really felt real to me. The plot follows Dana and her hearing boyfriend as they track the criminal clear across the country from California to the Hudson valley in NY state, familiar Boyle territory. The villain is another vividly drawn character - a former restaurant owner who fell on hard times, he is a materialistic sociopath with an anger-management problem. He learns the basics of identity theft while serving time in prison for assault, and pursues this crime to maintain a materialistic lifestyle full of fancy possessions. These things become his entire identity which he will do anything to protect, with total disdain and disregard for anyone else. The whole book played with ideas of personal identity and what they mean, but I felt somehow let down and confused by the ending - not sure what conclusion to draw. - Linda

Iran Awakening

Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope by Shirin Ebadi

From my first contact browsing through the introduction at the library, I was 'hooked' and felt I had to bring the book home with me and continue reading.
The story in the introduction recounts how Ebadi, a lawyer in present day Iran, was browsing through stacks of case materials and was shocked to find her own name on a list of individuals who were marked for assassination by local death squads.

For the remainder of the book, Ebadi recounts her upbringing in the 50's and 60's in Iran, and traces her route through law school to becoming a well respected judge in Tehran. This all changed with the Iranian revolution in 1979. Even though she got caught up in the idealism of the movement, she was shocked to see how the culture changed so radically to restrict the voices and rights of women. Losing her position as a judge and relegated to a clerk's job in a back room, she eventually had to retire. She was not able to use her law qualifications to work under the oppressive new regime.

Ebadi did persist though, and found a voice through writing and became well known as a dissident voice. Eventually, after decades of oppression, the government went through some changes that allowed her to practice law again in the late '90s. She worked mostly for free, championing the rights of the oppressed by taking on cases that exposed the corruption and ruthlessness in the government. People were still being killed and imprisoned in crackdowns for being opposed to government policies. Ebadi herself was imprisoned for many months without clear charges. Eventually, she exposed key players that had been terrorizing the intellectual community. In 2003, she was award the Nobel Peace Prize.

To read more about Shirin Ebadi, please consult an entry for her in Wikipedia. -John