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stephenhongsohn.livejournal.comAsian American Literature Fans Megareview for August 28, 2014
With apologies as always for any typographical, grammatical, or factual errors. My intent in these reviews is to illuminate the wide ranging and expansive terrain of Asian Anglophone literatures. Please e-mail ssohnucr@gmail.com with any concerns you may have.
In this post, reviews of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (Push Reprint Edition, 2014);
Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2014); Rin Chupeco’s The Girl from the Well (Sourcebooks Fire, 2014); Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (Atavist Books, 2014); Marty Chan’s The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2013); Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter (Quercus, 2014).
A Review of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (Push Reprint Edition, 2014).
I’ve been meaning to read Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused for a very long time, since it was originally published in 2002, but I haven’t had the proper motivation until I realized a sequel was coming out this year (called Bombay Blues). Push put out a paperback reprint this year, so it seemed like the right time to review it. Hidier’s Born Confused is narrated from the first person perspective of Dimple Lala, who turns seventeen early on in the novel and is experiencing many of the growing pains that come with being the child of South Asian immigrant parents. She understands herself to be an “ABCD,” which is short for “American Born Confused Desi.” The “confused” portion (and of course such an important part of the title) is the requisite ambivalence between being American and Asian. As Dimple tells us, when she’s in America, she doesn’t feel American enough, and when she’s in India, she doesn’t feel Indian enough. This confusion manifests especially in her social relationships. Her best friend, Gwyn, for instance, though a kind of misfit herself, is able to use her gregarious personality to attract the attention of her male peers. Dimple, on the other hand, isn’t so lucky and seems to find herself on the outside looking in, especially when Gwyn takes a liking to a young college boy named Karsh Kapoor. Though Karsh is the son of a family friend and an obvious potential romantic interest for Dimple especially given their shared ethnic background, it is Gwyn who immediately and aggressively pursues him. This central storyline is bolstered by a number of others, especially the one related to Dimple and her connection to her parents, however strained by the fact of cultural assimilation. Certainly, Hidier’s heroine is lively and believable, especially in her complete immersion in teen angst, but the general ethos behind the liminal position of the immigrants’ child is a well-trodden ground. Hidier’s novel doesn’t necessarily offer anything incredibly new in this regard, but nevertheless, allows her winning storyteller to come to a sense of her identity that many teens—and the novel’s target audience—can no doubt relate to. Perhaps, the most important political undercurrent of the novel appears through the regime of female friendships and how they are destabilized or reformulated in the shadow of looming heterosexual romances. Here, we can see the longer effect of the courtship plot on young adult novels, as any female who is single may become a competitor for the heroine, who is single herself and as is foundational in any courtship plot, seeks to find the proper and suitable match. The strength of Hidier’s novel is in the creation of this accessible protagonist, one who will be embraced by a wide audience, and whose quest to ameliorate her disorientation is energetically rendered.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Confused-Tanuja-Desai-Hidier/dp/0439357624
A Review of Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2014).
Ah, Shaun Tan has returned with Rules of Summer, a board book, aimed at young readers. The target audience will no doubt delight in the incredible images and the ethos of the narrative, which at first seems to be about some of the things that a young child might encounter on adventures through long summer days without schooling (at least from a western perspective). Yet, the rules are often whimsical and unexpected. The pictures, too, don’t ever work from an obvious connection to the “rule” being laid out. For instance, one of the early rules about never leaving a sock hanging from a clothesline has what seems to be two children cowering against a wooden fence (see picture below).
The clothesline is in the foreground with the item of clothing hanging on it. Above the children and behind them seems to be a large rabbit-looking like figure partially obscured by the wooden fence, with an enormous eye looking over the scene. What is the deal with this red rabbit? Are we supposed to be thinking metaphorically here? All of the images in the book operate in this elliptical way, where what we see does not necessarily match up directly with the rule being explored. As one moves through the board book, it’s apparent that Tan’s signature stylistic flourishes remain: strange looking creatures often posed in semi-industrial environments. Looking back to Tan’s phenomenal The Arrival, we can say that issues of social difference and labor never disappear from his work, even when it is catered to such a young audience. As I have mentioned before, this factor is what makes his work so relevant to readers of all ages. Another must read from brilliant Tan, who can do no wrong!
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Summer-Shaun-Tan/dp/0545639123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406041027&sr=8-1&keywords=shaun+tan+rules+of+summer
A Review of Rin Chupeco’s The Girl from the Well (Sourcebooks Fire, 2014).
Where should one start in this review for Rin Chupeco’s debut novel, The Girl From the Well? Perhaps, with the fact that this novel is clearly influenced by Japanese folk myth, especially the one that was the basis for the American version of the film, The Ring. In that film, we know of a drowned girl who returns to kill people who have seen a video tape; they always die seven days time. The Ring is a remake of the Japanese film, Ringu, and there is little connection to the Japanese origin of this story. Alternatively, Chupeco her re-envisions the Japanese folktale from the perspective of the drowned figure herself, while transporting the tale, much like the American film, to another country. In this case, our narrator, Okiku, as she is called (and we only find out later on in the novel), takes revenge upon murderers, especially those who have committed unspeakable crimes against young children. As a spirit of vengeance, she is not unlike the serial killer Dexter: the killer with an apparent ethical vision in the killing of other killers. The story’s central tension is set up fairly immediately with the introduction of a young teenager, Tarquin, who Okiku immediately notices is a bit different. First of all, he sports strange tattoos on his arm. Second, he is able to see Okiku, even though she is undead. Third, there seems to be a malevolent spirit attached to him, a kind of counter-ghost figure, one who is bound to him and unable to enact any violence… yet! Finally, Tarquin’s cousin, Callie, a teaching assistant and Tarquin’s new high school, is aware of the strange goings-on with him and wants to find out the root of these events. Of course, her interest in Tarquin’s health and well-being soon entangle her in ta web of death, vengeance, and evil spirits. There is also the creepy issue with Tarquin’s mother, who is languishing in a mental institution. We discover late into the narrative that Tarquin is half-Japanese and that his mother, Yoko, seems to be exist in an altered state of reality. When Tarquin and his father visit Yoko, it becomes apparent that Yoko is probably not as mad as she seems. Chupeco clearly engages in some culturally-specific research, especially as the narrative later moves to Japan, and she is able to weave in elements of horror quite effectively. Perhaps, the most interesting stylistic choice Chupeco uses is the narrative perspective itself. Okiku exists in such a disembodied form for so much of the plotting that some full chapters seem told from the perspective of the third person. At other moments, it’s apparent that Okiku is split into multiple subjective positions, able to articulate her thoughts in the first person, but sometimes seeing herself in the third. This use of storytelling is quite apt for Okiku’s traumatized psyche, a state that has lasted for many centuries. Chupeco’s vision of the young adult world is refreshingly free of a romantic plot, and this kind of streamlining enables her to devote narrative space to other more germane concerns. Indeed, Chupeco never lets the gore fall completely out of sight and thus relishes in our narrator’s unique desire for deadly retributive justice. The interesting conclusion makes it difficult to know whether or not this book will be part of an intended longer series, but we’ll be eager to see what Chupeco has in store in her next publication. A promising and entertaining paranormal YA debut.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Girl-Well-Rin-Chupeco/dp/140229218X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407379249&sr=8-1&keywords=rin+chupeco
A Review of Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (Atavist Books, 2014).
Kamila Shamsie’s latest effort (after Burnt Shadows) is A God in Every Stone. Shamsie is the author of numerous novels, a number of which we haven’t yet had a chance to review here, but perhaps we’ll eventually get to them =). In A God in Every Stone, Shamsie takes on the historical and panoramic sweep that marked Burnt Shadows. In this case, the novel starts out just before the beginning of World War I. Our third person protagonist focalizes through the perspective of Vivian Spencer, a woman out of time if you will; she’s an anthropologist and is on site on a dig in Turkey with a full team. Her situation is of course unique: she’s a British woman and a proper lady is not supposed to be out in the wild, unmarried and doing such things as getting herself dirty in situ. There’s a circlet she’s after, something that hails all the way back to Alexander the Great. She’s falling in love with a man about twenty years her senior, Tahsin Bey, also at the dig site, while discovering how much she is driven by her desire for knowledge of the past. Her idyllic time spent on that dig is cut short when she discovers that World War I has broken out; she must return to England. Once there, there decides she must work as a war nurse, but anthropology and the past still call out to her. She knows she must take the next step that was planned in the process of their digs: to go to Peshawar (what is now a place found inside the borders of Pakistan, but at the time was part of British India). Shamsie fractures narrative perspective with a second character: Qayyum, who at the beginning of the novel finds himself fighting for the British, even though he is of part Pashtun background. He is eventually injured during a battle in France, loses an eye, and is to be sent home. On the way back, which includes a train ride, he and Vivian Spencer get to know each other a little bit, before they part ways: Vivian to get her anthropological fieldwork going, and Qayyum returns to his family in Peshawar. Vivian gets a little help concerning the local culture, life, and geography through a young boy named Najeeb. What Vivian doesn’t know at the time is that Najeeb is actually Qayyum’s younger brother. When a former military buddy who has gone awol arrives in Peshawar to attempt recruit Qayyum to fight in the war against the British, Qayyum finds himself with a troubling decision to make. The conclusion of book I occurs when Vivian Spencer receives a letter that alters the course of her life, pushing her to leave Peshawar and return to England. There is something called ellipsis that follows at this point, as a stretch of about 15 years passes without mention. Najeeb is an adult and has taken on the path that Vivian had paved for him, working for the local museum. Qayyum has moved into the Indian independence movement, swayed by the non-violent protest rhetoric espoused by Gandhi and a local charismatic leader. Vivian is encouraged to return to Peshawar by Najeeb, insisting that he has found something very important related to the original anthropological artifact that had altered the course of Vivian’s (and other characters’) life. Vivian is at first unconvinced, but later realizes that she must see her original quest through and travels to Peshawar, but as Qayyum’s storyline attests: there is much unrest in the area. The conclusion of the novel takes a drastically different turn, introducing another character that takes so much of the focus off of the original three major characters that you’ll wonder whether or not this other figure was deserving of her own novel. Shamsie takes a lot of risk with this introduction; this character is pivotal and enthralling and readers may balk at the movement of the plot away from the anthropological elements, but therein lies a part of the narrative’s critique. What is the value of finding history in artifacts when history is being created right in front of you. The balance between these two elements is never quite in sync and Shamsie is well aware of the fact that these characters serve as allegories. If we come to think of Vivian as a kind of stand-in for a gentle, more benevolent form of empire, we’re not disappointed that the artifact is never found. Instead, we’re already looking toward a future in which characters sacrifice their lives for the chance of something greater than themselves, greater than any one object, which at the end of the day can never tell the full story. An ambitious, if uneven work by Shamie, one that obviously shows a great deal of dedicated research and ethnographic detail.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/God-Every-Stone-Novel/dp/1937894304
A Review of Marty Chan’s The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2013).
What a curious, unexpected young adult fiction that Marty Chan has written with The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (part of an intended series, as the sequel will be coming out in 2015). Chan who is a Chinese Canadian writer and playwright (author of numerous works) creates a counterfactual, steampunk-ish fictional world in which dimensional creatures come through the demon gate and wreak havoc on America. Chan is having some metaphorical fun with race and ethnicity, as the dimensionals are an obvious analogue to immigrants. The novel opens with the main character, the titular Ehrich Weisz falling through the demon gate and finding himself in another version of the United States, certain that his brother Dash has somehow died in the process of dimension-hopping. What is left behind is a medallion with a strange inscription: he vows to figure out the importance of the medallion, but he first must survive in the new world. Even though Ehrich himself is a dimensional, he looks like the dominant class in this other version of the United States, so he is able to pass, and he even becomes part of a patrolling crew to make sure any new dimensionals are first detained before they can enter the country. Recalling both Ellis and Angel Islands, the demon gate and its patrol are sort of this world’s variant of the INS. Ehrich develops a strong friendship with a scientist, Nikola Tesla (the same name of the famous scientist and inventor), who is charged with making sure that any strange objects that come through the demon gate cannot be used to harm citizens and to see if they might have any use value in terms of helping patrols control the influx of dimensionals. As Ehrich works for that patrol, he eventually crosses paths again with some dimensionals who he believes were originally involved in his brother’s disappearance and thus, the quest plot begins. Ehrich attempts to pursue a number of strange dimensionals with different colored-skins, strange shapes, and exterior appendages; these include characters named Amina, Ning Shu, and Dr. Serenity. Chan’s novel is heavy on the action-sequences and one can tell that he had fun in the reconstruction of a fictional world that is not too dissimilar from our own. Steampunk influences are prominent, which further contributes to the novel’s rich textures. Though the pace of the novel can seem jumpy at times, from the perspective of a race and ethnic studies scholar, the novel does much in terms of thinking about the fictive construct of phenotypic difference. Indeed, it becomes evident as the novel goes on that the dimensionals are not really so demonic (at least not all of them) and that some of the so-called humans are not nearly as ethical or heroic as they might have at first seemed. In this sense, Chan brings us back to the artificiality of racial difference as a mode of policing, but does so in an inventive way.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ehrich-Weisz-Chronicles-Demon/dp/1554553067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405639499&sr=8-1&keywords=ehrich+weisz
A Review of Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter (Quercus, 2014).
According to amazon.com, Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter was a #1 bestseller in India. This distinction is particularly impressive given Parajuly’s chosen form, which is the short story collection. In The Gurkha’s Daughter, Parajuly explores the varied lives and life courses of characters who hail from Nepal and/or India, many of whom will attempt to move transnationally (primarily to the UK or the United States). The title word, Gurkha, refers to a soldier from Nepal. Parajuly is able to use an effective structural conceit for this collection: a map which occurs before each story, delineating some of the key cities or towns in which characters reside or to which characters travel. Most of the stories are written in third person perspective, though toward the conclusion Parajuly begins to deviate, offering two stories from the first person perspective: the title story and then the final story, “Immigrants.” I focus on some of the ones that had the most impact for me as the reader and especially consider what makes this group of stories a collection rather than a random assortment of short narratives. As Rocio Davis notes in her book Trancultural Reinventions, the first and last stories often tend to carry the most weight and it becomes apparent that for Parajuly, the conflicts that occur between classes and castes generate a variety of tensions that make for an excellent bridging thematic. In the opening story, “The Cleft,” a servant girl (Kaali) with a cleft palate is determined to escape from her life of servitude by going across the border and getting an operation. The story’s larger narrative surrounds Kaali’s employer, Parvati, a widow who is on her way (with a number of other family members, including her sister-in-law Sarita and others) to her mother-in-law’s funeral. Throughout the story, it is apparent that both Parvati and Sarita are preoccupied with their own lives, choosing to see Kaali as an apparent peripheral figure with no complexity of thought or life. However, Parajuly includes short key passages in italics from a mystery figure who tells Kaali that she can be beautiful, that she must use what money she has to go across the border to get a surgery. Kaali clearly has hopes and dreams of another life, perhaps one filled even with stardom. This story sets the tone for the many that follow: characters seek some measure of self-determination in fictional worlds that constrain them in some way, whether it is a Nepalese woman who seeks purpose in her life after her children have gone to study abroad or the young daughter of the Gurkha who desires the connection of an alternative kinship. In the last story, “The Immigrants,” Parajuly contrasts two figures from different classes: Amit, who makes six figures and lives in New York City (an Indian ethnic from Nepal) and Sabitri, a cleaning woman, who begins to work for Amit in exchange for English lessons. This story is narrated from the perspective of Amit, and we begin to see some of the issues that he faces as an immigrant in America. For instance, upon meeting an American who clearly knows a bit about Nepalise cuisine, Amit muses, “This was interesting. It’s not every day that you came across an American who knew about momos. When I told people I was of Nepalese origin, they instinctively asked me if I had climbed Mount Everest. When I answered no, I hadn’t climbed Everest and no, I did not know anyone who had, they were disappointed. When I mentioned I was from Darjeeling, most people asked me a tea question” (201). Here, Amit gets to the core of the one other issue that the collection sets out to complete: to demystify Nepal through the everyday lives of relatively run-of-the-mill characters. As Amit and Sabitri come to a new understanding of their employer-employee relationship, Parajuly shows us that those who hail from Nepal are far from touristic curios, to be observed upon with a superficial exoticism. Certainly, an intriguing and intricate short story collection, one no doubt influenced by the increasingly globalized world in which we live. Parajuly’s work joins an outstanding group of story collections with a strongly transnational focus and it’s certainly one I can adopt in the classroom.
For a similar title reviewed on Asian American literature fans, see Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In other Rooms, Other Wonders (reviewed by Pylduck):
http://asianamlitfans.livejournal.com/67132.html
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gurkhas-Daughter-Prajwal-Parajuly/dp/162365145X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407281499&sr=8-1&keywords=prajwal
With apologies as always for any typographical, grammatical, or factual errors. My intent in these reviews is to illuminate the wide ranging and expansive terrain of Asian Anglophone literatures. Please e-mail ssohnucr@gmail.com with any concerns you may have.
In this post, reviews of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (Push Reprint Edition, 2014);
Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2014); Rin Chupeco’s The Girl from the Well (Sourcebooks Fire, 2014); Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (Atavist Books, 2014); Marty Chan’s The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2013); Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter (Quercus, 2014).
A Review of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused (Push Reprint Edition, 2014).
I’ve been meaning to read Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused for a very long time, since it was originally published in 2002, but I haven’t had the proper motivation until I realized a sequel was coming out this year (called Bombay Blues). Push put out a paperback reprint this year, so it seemed like the right time to review it. Hidier’s Born Confused is narrated from the first person perspective of Dimple Lala, who turns seventeen early on in the novel and is experiencing many of the growing pains that come with being the child of South Asian immigrant parents. She understands herself to be an “ABCD,” which is short for “American Born Confused Desi.” The “confused” portion (and of course such an important part of the title) is the requisite ambivalence between being American and Asian. As Dimple tells us, when she’s in America, she doesn’t feel American enough, and when she’s in India, she doesn’t feel Indian enough. This confusion manifests especially in her social relationships. Her best friend, Gwyn, for instance, though a kind of misfit herself, is able to use her gregarious personality to attract the attention of her male peers. Dimple, on the other hand, isn’t so lucky and seems to find herself on the outside looking in, especially when Gwyn takes a liking to a young college boy named Karsh Kapoor. Though Karsh is the son of a family friend and an obvious potential romantic interest for Dimple especially given their shared ethnic background, it is Gwyn who immediately and aggressively pursues him. This central storyline is bolstered by a number of others, especially the one related to Dimple and her connection to her parents, however strained by the fact of cultural assimilation. Certainly, Hidier’s heroine is lively and believable, especially in her complete immersion in teen angst, but the general ethos behind the liminal position of the immigrants’ child is a well-trodden ground. Hidier’s novel doesn’t necessarily offer anything incredibly new in this regard, but nevertheless, allows her winning storyteller to come to a sense of her identity that many teens—and the novel’s target audience—can no doubt relate to. Perhaps, the most important political undercurrent of the novel appears through the regime of female friendships and how they are destabilized or reformulated in the shadow of looming heterosexual romances. Here, we can see the longer effect of the courtship plot on young adult novels, as any female who is single may become a competitor for the heroine, who is single herself and as is foundational in any courtship plot, seeks to find the proper and suitable match. The strength of Hidier’s novel is in the creation of this accessible protagonist, one who will be embraced by a wide audience, and whose quest to ameliorate her disorientation is energetically rendered.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Confused-Tanuja-Desai-Hidier/dp/0439357624
A Review of Shaun Tan’s Rules of Summer (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2014).
Ah, Shaun Tan has returned with Rules of Summer, a board book, aimed at young readers. The target audience will no doubt delight in the incredible images and the ethos of the narrative, which at first seems to be about some of the things that a young child might encounter on adventures through long summer days without schooling (at least from a western perspective). Yet, the rules are often whimsical and unexpected. The pictures, too, don’t ever work from an obvious connection to the “rule” being laid out. For instance, one of the early rules about never leaving a sock hanging from a clothesline has what seems to be two children cowering against a wooden fence (see picture below).
The clothesline is in the foreground with the item of clothing hanging on it. Above the children and behind them seems to be a large rabbit-looking like figure partially obscured by the wooden fence, with an enormous eye looking over the scene. What is the deal with this red rabbit? Are we supposed to be thinking metaphorically here? All of the images in the book operate in this elliptical way, where what we see does not necessarily match up directly with the rule being explored. As one moves through the board book, it’s apparent that Tan’s signature stylistic flourishes remain: strange looking creatures often posed in semi-industrial environments. Looking back to Tan’s phenomenal The Arrival, we can say that issues of social difference and labor never disappear from his work, even when it is catered to such a young audience. As I have mentioned before, this factor is what makes his work so relevant to readers of all ages. Another must read from brilliant Tan, who can do no wrong!
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/Rules-Summer-Shaun-Tan/dp/0545639123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406041027&sr=8-1&keywords=shaun+tan+rules+of+summer
A Review of Rin Chupeco’s The Girl from the Well (Sourcebooks Fire, 2014).
Where should one start in this review for Rin Chupeco’s debut novel, The Girl From the Well? Perhaps, with the fact that this novel is clearly influenced by Japanese folk myth, especially the one that was the basis for the American version of the film, The Ring. In that film, we know of a drowned girl who returns to kill people who have seen a video tape; they always die seven days time. The Ring is a remake of the Japanese film, Ringu, and there is little connection to the Japanese origin of this story. Alternatively, Chupeco her re-envisions the Japanese folktale from the perspective of the drowned figure herself, while transporting the tale, much like the American film, to another country. In this case, our narrator, Okiku, as she is called (and we only find out later on in the novel), takes revenge upon murderers, especially those who have committed unspeakable crimes against young children. As a spirit of vengeance, she is not unlike the serial killer Dexter: the killer with an apparent ethical vision in the killing of other killers. The story’s central tension is set up fairly immediately with the introduction of a young teenager, Tarquin, who Okiku immediately notices is a bit different. First of all, he sports strange tattoos on his arm. Second, he is able to see Okiku, even though she is undead. Third, there seems to be a malevolent spirit attached to him, a kind of counter-ghost figure, one who is bound to him and unable to enact any violence… yet! Finally, Tarquin’s cousin, Callie, a teaching assistant and Tarquin’s new high school, is aware of the strange goings-on with him and wants to find out the root of these events. Of course, her interest in Tarquin’s health and well-being soon entangle her in ta web of death, vengeance, and evil spirits. There is also the creepy issue with Tarquin’s mother, who is languishing in a mental institution. We discover late into the narrative that Tarquin is half-Japanese and that his mother, Yoko, seems to be exist in an altered state of reality. When Tarquin and his father visit Yoko, it becomes apparent that Yoko is probably not as mad as she seems. Chupeco clearly engages in some culturally-specific research, especially as the narrative later moves to Japan, and she is able to weave in elements of horror quite effectively. Perhaps, the most interesting stylistic choice Chupeco uses is the narrative perspective itself. Okiku exists in such a disembodied form for so much of the plotting that some full chapters seem told from the perspective of the third person. At other moments, it’s apparent that Okiku is split into multiple subjective positions, able to articulate her thoughts in the first person, but sometimes seeing herself in the third. This use of storytelling is quite apt for Okiku’s traumatized psyche, a state that has lasted for many centuries. Chupeco’s vision of the young adult world is refreshingly free of a romantic plot, and this kind of streamlining enables her to devote narrative space to other more germane concerns. Indeed, Chupeco never lets the gore fall completely out of sight and thus relishes in our narrator’s unique desire for deadly retributive justice. The interesting conclusion makes it difficult to know whether or not this book will be part of an intended longer series, but we’ll be eager to see what Chupeco has in store in her next publication. A promising and entertaining paranormal YA debut.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Girl-Well-Rin-Chupeco/dp/140229218X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407379249&sr=8-1&keywords=rin+chupeco
A Review of Kamila Shamsie’s A God in Every Stone (Atavist Books, 2014).
Kamila Shamsie’s latest effort (after Burnt Shadows) is A God in Every Stone. Shamsie is the author of numerous novels, a number of which we haven’t yet had a chance to review here, but perhaps we’ll eventually get to them =). In A God in Every Stone, Shamsie takes on the historical and panoramic sweep that marked Burnt Shadows. In this case, the novel starts out just before the beginning of World War I. Our third person protagonist focalizes through the perspective of Vivian Spencer, a woman out of time if you will; she’s an anthropologist and is on site on a dig in Turkey with a full team. Her situation is of course unique: she’s a British woman and a proper lady is not supposed to be out in the wild, unmarried and doing such things as getting herself dirty in situ. There’s a circlet she’s after, something that hails all the way back to Alexander the Great. She’s falling in love with a man about twenty years her senior, Tahsin Bey, also at the dig site, while discovering how much she is driven by her desire for knowledge of the past. Her idyllic time spent on that dig is cut short when she discovers that World War I has broken out; she must return to England. Once there, there decides she must work as a war nurse, but anthropology and the past still call out to her. She knows she must take the next step that was planned in the process of their digs: to go to Peshawar (what is now a place found inside the borders of Pakistan, but at the time was part of British India). Shamsie fractures narrative perspective with a second character: Qayyum, who at the beginning of the novel finds himself fighting for the British, even though he is of part Pashtun background. He is eventually injured during a battle in France, loses an eye, and is to be sent home. On the way back, which includes a train ride, he and Vivian Spencer get to know each other a little bit, before they part ways: Vivian to get her anthropological fieldwork going, and Qayyum returns to his family in Peshawar. Vivian gets a little help concerning the local culture, life, and geography through a young boy named Najeeb. What Vivian doesn’t know at the time is that Najeeb is actually Qayyum’s younger brother. When a former military buddy who has gone awol arrives in Peshawar to attempt recruit Qayyum to fight in the war against the British, Qayyum finds himself with a troubling decision to make. The conclusion of book I occurs when Vivian Spencer receives a letter that alters the course of her life, pushing her to leave Peshawar and return to England. There is something called ellipsis that follows at this point, as a stretch of about 15 years passes without mention. Najeeb is an adult and has taken on the path that Vivian had paved for him, working for the local museum. Qayyum has moved into the Indian independence movement, swayed by the non-violent protest rhetoric espoused by Gandhi and a local charismatic leader. Vivian is encouraged to return to Peshawar by Najeeb, insisting that he has found something very important related to the original anthropological artifact that had altered the course of Vivian’s (and other characters’) life. Vivian is at first unconvinced, but later realizes that she must see her original quest through and travels to Peshawar, but as Qayyum’s storyline attests: there is much unrest in the area. The conclusion of the novel takes a drastically different turn, introducing another character that takes so much of the focus off of the original three major characters that you’ll wonder whether or not this other figure was deserving of her own novel. Shamsie takes a lot of risk with this introduction; this character is pivotal and enthralling and readers may balk at the movement of the plot away from the anthropological elements, but therein lies a part of the narrative’s critique. What is the value of finding history in artifacts when history is being created right in front of you. The balance between these two elements is never quite in sync and Shamsie is well aware of the fact that these characters serve as allegories. If we come to think of Vivian as a kind of stand-in for a gentle, more benevolent form of empire, we’re not disappointed that the artifact is never found. Instead, we’re already looking toward a future in which characters sacrifice their lives for the chance of something greater than themselves, greater than any one object, which at the end of the day can never tell the full story. An ambitious, if uneven work by Shamie, one that obviously shows a great deal of dedicated research and ethnographic detail.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/God-Every-Stone-Novel/dp/1937894304
A Review of Marty Chan’s The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2013).
What a curious, unexpected young adult fiction that Marty Chan has written with The Ehrich Weisz Chronicles: Demon Gate (part of an intended series, as the sequel will be coming out in 2015). Chan who is a Chinese Canadian writer and playwright (author of numerous works) creates a counterfactual, steampunk-ish fictional world in which dimensional creatures come through the demon gate and wreak havoc on America. Chan is having some metaphorical fun with race and ethnicity, as the dimensionals are an obvious analogue to immigrants. The novel opens with the main character, the titular Ehrich Weisz falling through the demon gate and finding himself in another version of the United States, certain that his brother Dash has somehow died in the process of dimension-hopping. What is left behind is a medallion with a strange inscription: he vows to figure out the importance of the medallion, but he first must survive in the new world. Even though Ehrich himself is a dimensional, he looks like the dominant class in this other version of the United States, so he is able to pass, and he even becomes part of a patrolling crew to make sure any new dimensionals are first detained before they can enter the country. Recalling both Ellis and Angel Islands, the demon gate and its patrol are sort of this world’s variant of the INS. Ehrich develops a strong friendship with a scientist, Nikola Tesla (the same name of the famous scientist and inventor), who is charged with making sure that any strange objects that come through the demon gate cannot be used to harm citizens and to see if they might have any use value in terms of helping patrols control the influx of dimensionals. As Ehrich works for that patrol, he eventually crosses paths again with some dimensionals who he believes were originally involved in his brother’s disappearance and thus, the quest plot begins. Ehrich attempts to pursue a number of strange dimensionals with different colored-skins, strange shapes, and exterior appendages; these include characters named Amina, Ning Shu, and Dr. Serenity. Chan’s novel is heavy on the action-sequences and one can tell that he had fun in the reconstruction of a fictional world that is not too dissimilar from our own. Steampunk influences are prominent, which further contributes to the novel’s rich textures. Though the pace of the novel can seem jumpy at times, from the perspective of a race and ethnic studies scholar, the novel does much in terms of thinking about the fictive construct of phenotypic difference. Indeed, it becomes evident as the novel goes on that the dimensionals are not really so demonic (at least not all of them) and that some of the so-called humans are not nearly as ethical or heroic as they might have at first seemed. In this sense, Chan brings us back to the artificiality of racial difference as a mode of policing, but does so in an inventive way.
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Ehrich-Weisz-Chronicles-Demon/dp/1554553067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405639499&sr=8-1&keywords=ehrich+weisz
A Review of Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter (Quercus, 2014).
According to amazon.com, Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter was a #1 bestseller in India. This distinction is particularly impressive given Parajuly’s chosen form, which is the short story collection. In The Gurkha’s Daughter, Parajuly explores the varied lives and life courses of characters who hail from Nepal and/or India, many of whom will attempt to move transnationally (primarily to the UK or the United States). The title word, Gurkha, refers to a soldier from Nepal. Parajuly is able to use an effective structural conceit for this collection: a map which occurs before each story, delineating some of the key cities or towns in which characters reside or to which characters travel. Most of the stories are written in third person perspective, though toward the conclusion Parajuly begins to deviate, offering two stories from the first person perspective: the title story and then the final story, “Immigrants.” I focus on some of the ones that had the most impact for me as the reader and especially consider what makes this group of stories a collection rather than a random assortment of short narratives. As Rocio Davis notes in her book Trancultural Reinventions, the first and last stories often tend to carry the most weight and it becomes apparent that for Parajuly, the conflicts that occur between classes and castes generate a variety of tensions that make for an excellent bridging thematic. In the opening story, “The Cleft,” a servant girl (Kaali) with a cleft palate is determined to escape from her life of servitude by going across the border and getting an operation. The story’s larger narrative surrounds Kaali’s employer, Parvati, a widow who is on her way (with a number of other family members, including her sister-in-law Sarita and others) to her mother-in-law’s funeral. Throughout the story, it is apparent that both Parvati and Sarita are preoccupied with their own lives, choosing to see Kaali as an apparent peripheral figure with no complexity of thought or life. However, Parajuly includes short key passages in italics from a mystery figure who tells Kaali that she can be beautiful, that she must use what money she has to go across the border to get a surgery. Kaali clearly has hopes and dreams of another life, perhaps one filled even with stardom. This story sets the tone for the many that follow: characters seek some measure of self-determination in fictional worlds that constrain them in some way, whether it is a Nepalese woman who seeks purpose in her life after her children have gone to study abroad or the young daughter of the Gurkha who desires the connection of an alternative kinship. In the last story, “The Immigrants,” Parajuly contrasts two figures from different classes: Amit, who makes six figures and lives in New York City (an Indian ethnic from Nepal) and Sabitri, a cleaning woman, who begins to work for Amit in exchange for English lessons. This story is narrated from the perspective of Amit, and we begin to see some of the issues that he faces as an immigrant in America. For instance, upon meeting an American who clearly knows a bit about Nepalise cuisine, Amit muses, “This was interesting. It’s not every day that you came across an American who knew about momos. When I told people I was of Nepalese origin, they instinctively asked me if I had climbed Mount Everest. When I answered no, I hadn’t climbed Everest and no, I did not know anyone who had, they were disappointed. When I mentioned I was from Darjeeling, most people asked me a tea question” (201). Here, Amit gets to the core of the one other issue that the collection sets out to complete: to demystify Nepal through the everyday lives of relatively run-of-the-mill characters. As Amit and Sabitri come to a new understanding of their employer-employee relationship, Parajuly shows us that those who hail from Nepal are far from touristic curios, to be observed upon with a superficial exoticism. Certainly, an intriguing and intricate short story collection, one no doubt influenced by the increasingly globalized world in which we live. Parajuly’s work joins an outstanding group of story collections with a strongly transnational focus and it’s certainly one I can adopt in the classroom.
For a similar title reviewed on Asian American literature fans, see Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In other Rooms, Other Wonders (reviewed by Pylduck):
http://asianamlitfans.livejournal.com/67132.html
Buy the Book Here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gurkhas-Daughter-Prajwal-Parajuly/dp/162365145X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407281499&sr=8-1&keywords=prajwal
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