The Life of an Amorous Woman, by Ihara Saikaku

 

0811201872

New Directions, 1963

translated by Ivan Morris

402 pp

paperback

There are several different works encompassed in this volume, and the main reason I picked up this book was because I had decided one day not too long ago that I wanted to watch a movie on the Criterion Channel called The Life of Oharu (1952), and as I started doing a bit of pre-viewing research, I discovered that it was adapted from one of the stories in this book. Next step: I bought a copy.  While I actually read all of the pieces included here, my main focus was the story that  Saikaku wrote as Kōshoku Ichidai Onna (1686), or as the title translates it, Life of an Amorous Woman.  

Just a bit about the writing itself: according to the introduction to this book, Saikaku Ihara was the "originator and greatest exponent" of a genre of writing called ukiyo-zōshi  or tales of the floating world.  We are told here that it was a "bourgeois literature written mainly for the amusement and instruction of townsmen in the large commercial cities," first written in the vernacular kana language, (kana-zōshi) meaning that it was more available to and more widely understood by the literate masses.  As Wikipedia notes, it emerged as a "distinctly plebian form of literature," with its readership consisting "mostly of non-aristocratic residents of Japan's growing cities."    The content of  ukiyo-zōshi, according to the book's introduction, was generally full of  descriptions of the "colourful life of the cities and accounts of the popular actors and courtesans who inhabited the Floating World."  It also, "on occasion" tended to include "highly erotic content" as well as describing what went on in the licensed pleasure quarters of the time and other things of audience interest. 

from my copy of the book; caption reads "A Street in the gay quarters of seventeenth-century Kyoto."

Kōshoku Ichidai Onna begins with the arrival of two men at a hermitage, not the home of any sort of priest but rather "an old lady of noble visage... bent double with age."  The narrator has followed them there, and he hears the woman ask why they've come.   It seems that both are "hard put to understand love in all its divers aspects," and after hearing of her "great repute," they have come to "learn these mysteries." They ask her to recall her life story, "with all its wanton doings" and she obliges. Her story begins with her having been born into a life of privilege and having a presence at court, and the love affair that got her banished and her low-ranking lover executed.  As she gets older she must somehow navigate through a life that lands her in a variety of different roles including courtesan, concubine, servant, hairdresser and others up through the present moment, each a step down from the last.   

Using her story, Saikaku examines the transient nature of fortune, the rigidity of social structures and a society that both profits from and punishes women's sexuality.  The narrator here also has to find some way to maintain her own survival not only while she is young and healthy, but even more so as her beauty begins to fade and she grows older.   The irony runs deep throughout this episodic tale, and while the author offers his readers humor and wit, there is a true sadness at its core that makes this woman's story even more poignant.  There are times, however, that it is entirely cringeworthy; for instance,  at the court, our narrator is only ten when she begins to discover her own sexual feelings and twelve when she loses her virginity, and there are other descriptions of the same sort of thing here and there that made for difficult reading.   When all is said and done however, I couldn't stop reading, although someone should do a newer translation because this one is incomplete, with only fourteen stories selected from Kōshoku Ichidai Onna presented here.  Evidently at the time, the reasoning was that the "translator's aim" was evidently to provide a sort of "wide view" of Saikaku's writing and to offer a "better idea of his scope than would the translation of a single work."  Aarrgh. 

**********

from Criterion 

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu (1952) is described at the Criterion website as "an epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace,"  with the main character an "imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution."   Needless to say, it's as bleak as the novel and the director lets you feel every bit of the pain this woman endures for the length of the film.   It opens a bit differently than the book, with the narrator (here known as Oharu) out in the cold night trying to ply her trade as prostitute with no takers.  She eventually makes her way to shelter at a small temple where there are hundreds of images of arhats on display all around; there is one in particular that catches her eye, transposing into her first love at the time she had served as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court and the banishment of Oharu and her family.     From there her story begins, taking her through the many twists in circumstance she will endure throughout her life before the action returns to the temple at the end.  While things do change from the book in the film,  what doesn't is that  she makes it to several points where she might actually be happy, only to have each  chance snatched away by fate or by someone else's interference.  As in the novel, she is both exploited and subjugated, heartbreakingly so, and yet somehow her inner strength continues.    I have to say, The Life of Oharu was a bit of a tear-jerker.  

I can certainly recommend both the book (although it is incomplete, there is enough there for coherence) and film, but bring a tissue for the latter. 

the book group read, January 2024: The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

9780307961440

Knopf/Everyman's Library, 2012

originally published 1989

230 pp

hardcover

The Remains of the Day was the reading choice for my IRL book group for January 2024.  We'd read a couple of Ishiguro's novels prior to this one, starting with Never Let Me Go and more recently, Klara and the Sun, but of the three, The Remains of the Day is one that that most fully captured my heart, although  a couple of our members found it to be on the level of snoozefest or not interesting because they couldn't relate to any of the characters.  To each his/her own and all of that, but I loved this book.  

The story is revealed via Mr. Stevens, butler at Darlington Hall where he has served faithfully for decades.  It's the 1950s and the house has had a change of ownership from the original Lord Darlington to an American millionaire by the name of Farraday, who offers Stevens time off and the use of his car while Farraday is off to America.  Stevens decides to accept the offer, having in mind a visit to the former housekeeper, a Miss Kenton (who is now Mrs. Benn), whose recent letter implies a failing marriage. Stevens, who notes that there is a problem with the staff plan, believes that if he can convince Miss Kenton to return to service at Darlington Hall, her presence will fix the problem and everything will be righted again.  At least that's what he tells himself. 

Each day of his road trip is spent recollecting his career while revealing things about himself in the process.  At the forefront of his mind are the concepts of  "dignity" and "greatness" :

"The great butlers are by great virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing. They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstances tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone.  It is, as I say, a matter of 'dignity'." 

As the trip progresses, he also spends time reflecting on his former employer, who believed that "fair play had not been done at Versailles and that it was immoral to go on punishing a nation for a war that was now over."  In 1923 Darlington had hosted an "unofficial international conference," examining ways in which "the harshest terms of the Versailles treaty could be revised."  He brought together  "a broad alliance of figures" who shared his beliefs as well as those who were concerned about the possibility of the "economic chaos" in Germany spreading worldwide. He continued his work on Germany's behalf throughout the interwar years, bringing Nazis to Darlington Hall, and at one point even ordering Stevens to dismiss two housemaids because they were Jewish, a "duty" which according to Stevens, "demanded to be carried out with dignity."  As he at some later time notes, "A butler's duty is to provide good service. It is not to meddle in the great affairs of the nation."  Through it all, Stevens believed that "Whatever complications arose in his lordship's course over subsequent years," he had acted out of a "desire to see justice in this world."  In the postwar present, of course, Darlington had been outed as a dupe and a Nazi sympathizer, a fact reiterated to Stevens over the course of his travels; his reaction is that is is not his fault if "his lordship's life and work have turned out today to look, at best, a sad waste..."  and that it is "quite illogical" for Stevens to "feel any regret or shame" on his own account.  However, he makes a number of shifts in this thinking while on his journey.   He has always taken great pride in, as noted above,  conquering his feelings when "shaken" by "external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing," but as the book comes to its conclusion,  he will end his journey with some painful realizations about his own life and exactly what price he has paid for his dutiful and faithful service over the decades. 

I love the butler metaphor, and The Remains of the Day is one of those rare books that will stay with me always, largely due to Ishiguro's ability to make Stevens so incredibly human to the point where it's impossible not to find some measure of grief for the man.    It reminds me more than a bit of his Artist of the Floating World, which is also set in a time frame of values shifts in which the main character takes a step back for reflection,  a novel of both memory and tragedy.   Both are beautifully written, but Remains of the Day edges out on top, although very slightly.    Very highly, highly recommended.

February's book group read: Pyre, by Perumal Murugan.

from Pinterest

I followed up my reading with the film from 1993.   As always, it was a bit different from the novel (which I liked better) but so very nicely done, fleshing out much of Stevens' character and offering Miss Kenton more of a presence than the novel afforded her.  When I asked my fellow book group members if they'd seen the movie, some of them had, years ago, and when I mentioned that I'd rented it for $4.00 on Amazon, I got the feeling from some of them that they felt maybe the $4.00 was not worth revisiting the novel as a film. Invisible, inner eyeroll -- their loss, not mine. I couldn't move away from my television while it was playing because it was so very, very good.   I highly recommend it as well, but read the novel first, for sure.

The Mystery of Henri Pick, by David Foenkinos

9781782275824
Pushkin, 2020
originally published as La Mystere Henri Pick, 2016
translated by Sam Taylor
270 pp

paperback

"This novel changed lives." 

My curiosity was more than aroused by the idea that Pushkin Press would be partnering with Walter Presents "for a series of timeless novels with strong international appeal."   The books chosen have been "handpicked" by Walter Iuzzolino himself, whose long-running Walter Presents has been a tv staple in my house for several years, even before the move to PBS in 2018, so there was no doubt that I would be buying this novel.  I've also preordered Walter's second Pushkin pick, The Second Life of Inspector Canessa, due out here in the US January of 2021. 

I admit to being a bit surprised as I started reading this book, as most of the time Walter tends to lean toward international crime.  The Mystery of Henri Pick, as I discovered, is much more on the lighter side than I'd expected.  At first it was a bit discombobulating not having the full-fledged crime/mystery novel I thought I'd bought, so I had to regroup, let go of my original expectations and move on.  Once I relaxed, the book became a fun read, albeit with a slightly serious edge.

In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, librarian Jean-Pierre Gourvec had set aside a space at the municipal library "for the world's homeless manuscripts," inspired by his reading of The Abortion by American writer Richard Brautigan.   After placing ads in trade magazines "inviting all authors" to bring their rejected books to his library,  writers throughout the country came to

"rid themselves of the fruits of their failure. It was a sort of literary pilgrimage. There was a symbolic value in travelling hundreds of miles to put an end to the frustrations of not being published."

Meanwhile, in Paris, Delphine Despero has gone to work for Grasset, hired as a junior editor for this publishing firm. It was in this context that she met and fell for a young, aspiring writer by the name of Frédriéc Koskas who later accompanied her on a trip to the home of her parents in the village of Morgat, near Crozon.  Delphine is curious after hearing about the library of rejected books, and after  the pair make couple of visits, Delphine takes one of the manuscripts, The Last Hours of a Love Affair away with her and becomes throroughly enchanted with it, ultimately deciding that it absolutely had to be published.  The book's author is one Henri Pick, now deceased, but who used to run a pizzeria in Crozon.  As the dustjacket blurb  informs, "The book is an immediate sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author."  Curiosity grows about Henri Pick, not just for the journalist who wonders how this pizza chef could write such a novel, but also for his family, who'd never even seen him pick up a book, let alone spend time writing.   The publication of Pick's work also sets off a number of "unforeseen consequences" which make up the bulk of The Mystery of Henri Pick, as it is definitely a novel that "changed lives." 

This book fortuitously arrived at a point when I needed something mind-refreshing, something on the lighter side, and the author threw a few hours of happy reading my way.    Author David Foenkinos noted that his book is "a playful reflection of the literary world,"  as well as a "tribute to books and literature and to the writers that have long been heroes of mine," and I have to admit that I couldn't help feeling rather guilty every time he mentioned a title that has been sitting on my shelves, sadly neglected and sadly unread.  The story is definitely "playful," and while I loved the literary references as well as the great love for books and literature displayed throughout, for my taste it goes too much into the private lives/soul searching of all of the characters affected by the publication of Pick's book, making it drag a bit in the reading after a while and sometimes turning toward the "cutesy" side which is just not my cuppa.  I also want to say that the dustjacket makes a lot of the "obstinate journalist," but in reality, he takes up far less space than I would have thought from the book's description.    But then came the ending which  I can only describe as completely unexpected and which I greeted with mental applause and a silent shout of bravo in my head.  Now to watch the film.

Overall, it's fun, it's lighthearted, and we can all use some of that happening in our lives at the moment. 

The Beguiled, by Thomas Cullinan

9780143132400
Penguin, 2017
originally published 1966
372 pp

paperback

"Seems like none of us ever stop to think how evil can collect in us"

I actually read this book some time back but I haven't forgotten it, and neither will anyone who decides to read this novel.

As the blurb tells us, we find ourselves in Virginia,  "during the height of the Civil War."  The residents of the Miss Martha Farnworth Seminary for Young Ladies find their routine interrupted when thirteen year-old Amelia Dabney is out picking mushrooms one day and comes upon a wounded Union soldier. Surrounded by cannon fire, she helps him to his feet and takes him to the school.  Corporal John McBurney tells her he'll be there long enough to get his injuries tended to,  and then he'll leave immediately and "be no further trouble."

That's what he says, but as the story progresses, we learn that we can't always take McBurney at face value. Far from it. As each of the women and the girls at the house interact with him, his presence interrupts the regular, familiar routine of the house, and worse. He preys on each of these women/girls psychologically; his manipulative behavior makes already-existing but simmering rivalries come to the forefront and in some cases explode; it causes deep and dark secrets to be revealed, and sets off of a bizarre chain of events that no one could have predicted. Wait.  I take that back -- the one person who realized from the beginning that "You chil'ren have brought destruction in this house" is the slave Mattie, who sees McBurney for what he really is, but who cannot convince the rest of the women otherwise before it's too late.

The story is related through the alternating points of view of the small group of females at the school, which gives it a much more complete feel than it may have had from a third-person narrator alone. As perspectives shift, we start to realize just what it is about each person's psyche or past  that draws them to McBurney;  we also get different interpretations of the same events, which are often misinterpreted, bringing in a fuller picture of exactly what's going on in the house. And just as the school is isolated because of a war that has divided the country, the divisions within also serve to isolate its residents until they are forced to come to a consensus over what needs to be done to bring things back to the way they were before.  The question is, though, how can any of these lives ever be the same again?

The Beguiled is a page turner of a great book, and Cullinan is a master of ratcheting the psychological tension to the point where I couldn't put it down. Unlike a LOT of readers, I thought the alternating points-of-view approach was a great one.  And also unlike a lot of readers, I didn't judge the novel on the old Clint Eastwood film made from this book, which was nerve wracking, for sure, but very different from the original story. There's so much psychological tragedy going on in the novel, and while the film version didn't spare the horror, it's of a different variety altogether than what's in the book.

Very highly recommended -- I was just floored after finishing it.

from January -- Kiss of the Spider Woman, by Manuel Puig

9780679724490
Vintage, 1991
originally published as El beso de la mujer araña, 1976
translated by Thomas Colchie
281 pp

paperback

Still behind both readingwise and postingwise, so this will be a short post as I continue to go through my January reads.   I think it's a shame that I just don't have time to give this beautifully-written novel the attention it deserves, but I  have a LOT to catching up to do both in the book world and in the real one.  In my opinion, Kiss of the Spider Woman is an exquisite novel, one I could not put down until the very last word.

To give away too much about this book is to spoil, so it will be just barebones here. Set in Argentina in the mid-1970s,   Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui are cellmates in a prison -- Molina, a gay window dresser, for corruption of a minor, and Valentín for being a Marxist guerilla who will not give over any information to the authorities.  Molina spends much of their time together recounting films he's seen, which at first seems like an escape mechanism, but as the novel progresses, it becomes very clear that there's much more than passing time going on. As Molina works his way through several movies, the reader begins to notice that they cover a wide range of themes, including  political awareness, power, questions of identity and the true nature of the characters, sacrifice, betrayal, and the nature of relationships, but even more importantly, they are all about different forms of repression and imprisonment. The movies offer both prisoners a chance to begin serious and meaningful dialogue about their own inner anxieties, and their relationship becomes closer as they begin to open up to each other. But of course there's more than meets the eye here, leading to terrible, tragic consequences.

The films provide great insight into various means of repression forced on others by outside forces; it is also, in part, a story which examines the ways in which different people seek to transcend their own forms of imprisonment. Obviously, there's much, much more but this post just has to do for the time being.

Like so many great novels, Kiss of the Spider Woman has been studied, scrutinized, analyzed and it has become the topic of a number of scholarly works, so there are numerous places to turn to for serious analysis if anyone's interested.  As I said earlier, I just don't have the time right now to give it the recognition it deserves.  It is not very often I use the term "beautiful" to describe a novel, but it certainly fits in this case.  Kiss of the Spider Woman appears in Boxall's original 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, and while it doesn't seem to have been a lot of readers' cup of tea, in my opinion, it's one that should not be missed. After reading the book, see the film -- absolutely amazing.

*Kokoro, by Natsume Soseki

9780143106036
Penguin Classics, 2010
originally published as こころ, 1914
translated by Meredith McKinney
238 pp

paperback

This novel would probably still be languishing on my shelves had it not been for an online friend who, reading it with a group,  suggested I read it along with her. Great idea, because it also gave me the opportunity to read yet one more book I've owned forever that's just been languishing on my shelves unread. 

  Kokoro is,as I discovered, one of those novels where a second reading and a bit of research can completely change what you thought about it after the first time through. The second read was spurred by 1) discovering that a scholarly controversy had arisen over this book and 2) deciding to pick up and read another translation along with an introduction that explained said controversy. After much time to focus, think and absorb, well, the second time around actually clarified things I had trouble zooming in on after the first time. 



(the second time through): trans. Edwin McClellan
Peter Owen Publishers, 2007
9780720612974

Structured in three parts, the novel opens with the narrator meeting and attaching himself to an elder man he calls Sensei, and is soon "yearning for the possibilities of all he had to offer." However, Sensei, who reveals that he distrusts humanity, is reticent to open up about himself, and our narrator often finds himself frustrated when, as he says, "I failed to gain what I sought from him in matters of the mind." However, Sensei also reveals that while he is "suspicious" of most people, he realizes that the narrator seems "too straightforward and open for that," and that Sensei, before he dies, wants to "have trusted just one person." If the younger man could "be that person, ... sincerely in earnest," from his heart, then he will reveal to him the story of his past and leave nothing out, but not right away, since "It requires a suitable moment." What he wants in return is left unspoken for the moment. Eventually the narrator will learn all, but not before part two, which finds him back home with his parents. While there because his father's health is failing, he abandons his own family at a critical moment due to some disturbing news from Sensei, which sets up part three, where all is revealed. Sadly, since everything sort of turns on the revelations in part three, I have to keep silent, since to tell would be to spoil, but this is actually the part where we come to understand Sensei and where we learn exactly what it is he expects from the narrator -- it isn't expressly stated in so many words, but trust me, it's there. 

I wish I could make this post less cryptic, but there's a lot happening in this novel that a reader really needs to experience and sort out on his/her own. Look for thematic elements such as the formation of bonds, relationships, betrayal, individual vs. social responsibility, love, and above all, what it really means to bare or entrust one's soul/psyche to an outsider. What I will say is that after the second reading, Kokoro became an even darker book than it was the first time through, which I didn't think was possible.  Interesting factoid: the use of hiragana for the word kokoro (こころ)  rather than the kanji (心;) has,  according to Tony Rayns, who wrote the liner notes for the dvd,

"the effect of diffusing the meaning, making it seem less clear-cut and more open to semantic and philosophical nuances. For Soseki, this was related to the sense that the Japanese national psyche was changing; he saw an emptiness in Japan's kokoro brought on by external pressures from the West and internal pressures to assimilate them."  

Highly recommended for people who enjoy Japanese literature or for people who want to start reading Japanese fiction; it probably won't take everyone two readings, but I got a lot more out of it by doing it that way. 

So, having read the novel I had to see the film as well. Big differences abound here, which are covered a bit in the dvd liner notes. As just one example,  the movie "simplifies" Soseki's novel, "reorders its plot and eliminates some of its subtext while playing up the homosexual implications that are merely latent in the original."  I have to say that since the subject doesn't actually come up labeled as such in the novel, I was surprised to see a scene in this movie where Shizu (Mrs. Sensei) starts wondering out loud whether or not there's some sort of attraction between her husband and Hioki  (the novel's narrator, given a name here) which Hioki quickly denies with an "it's not what your thinking!" response.  Much of the story is revealed through flashbacks, which I think really is the best way to have done it, since so much of the novel turns on what happened in the past.  I've seen people criticize this approach used here, but I really don't see how else it could have been done. To tell it in a linear-narrative, chronological style would have wrecked things (as it would have in the novel as well).   While the movie is certainly  worth watching, the book is much, much better. There are movie critiques everywhere so I'll leave it there. 

book & movie -- definite yesses, but definitely read the book first.  

fiction from Japan

Read the book and then go watch the film -- The Blue Angel, by Heinrich Mann

9780865274518
Howard Fertig, 2011
originally published 1905 as Professor Unrat, Oder Das Ende Eines Tyrannen
286 pp

paperback

This morning I sat down and watched the movie that was based on this book not knowing what to expect. It was made in 1930, starring Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich, and it is seriously one of the saddest and most tragic movies I've ever seen.  I felt so sorry for Jannings' character, Professor Rath, and just sat there stunned during the last few scenes.  That wasn't so much the case after finishing the book yesterday;  I didn't know whether to pity the man (who in this particular translation is known as Mut, even though the original novel has him as Professor Unrat) or to despise him.  Since he's Mut in this version, I'll refer to him as such here.

Professor Mut  has had his fair share of teasing over the years - the first line of the novel tells us that 

"His name being Mut, the whole school, of course, called him Mud."

He can't walk through the school or the town without someone saying something about the smell of mud, or that there seems to be "mud about the place," and over the twenty-six years he's been teaching, he's taken mental note of both the insult and the person delivering it. He knows that his students hate him, and since he's been in the same town and same school for so long, he also realizes that "sometimes the hatred was a family legacy."  He is known as "Old Mud," and it is not uncommon for the epithet to be used in his presence among most of the people in the town, which was still full of his former students, "boys whom he had caught or had not caught yelling his nickname." For Dr. Mut,

"The schoolgrounds did not end...at the encircling walls; they extended to the houses round about and included all classes of inhabitants." 

Inside the classroom, he doesn't understand that boys will be boys:

"laziness was equivalent to the worthless of a ne'er-do-well and disrespectful laughing at a master was a revolt against authority and law, while a boy letting off a squib was perpetrating an act of revolution, and an attempt to cheat meant a ruined future." 

The one boy he despises most is Lohmann, aged 17; for one thing Lohmann refuses to respond to Mut's tyrannical rages; instead, looking at Mut with "quiet contempt, and even a spice of pity ... in his disgust."  However, reading closely, it seems as if he feels Lohmann looks down on him -- Mut  notes early on that it felt as if Lohmann "were laughing at him," and he was "determined to show the rascal that he was the better man of the two."   Mut cannot abide even the slightest hint of insubordination -- he is the perfect authoritarian.

When he discovers that a group of his students that includes Lohmann has become interested in  a woman named Rosa Frölich, he decides to try to find her, to "interfere."   Wandering the streets of the town, though, just brings out his rage, his hatred and a persecution mania. He passes by a cafe where the proprietor is a former student. Shops are filled with "rebellious students,"  there are places with signs bearing names of old students,  all of whom he feels are challenging him, defying him, -- "on every side enemies."  He even turns his eyes away at the nameplate of a colleague who knew that Mut's son had taken up with a "woman of doubtful character," and had told people about it.  He feels "as if a class of some fifty thousand mutinous scholars was shouting round him."   All of these feelings get mixed up with his attitude toward Rosa Frölich, whom he finally finds at the Blue Angel, an old house now repurposed as a club. Taking his seat in the concert hall along with the rest of the audience, he listens to her sing, and despite himself, finds that he is applauding her along with all of the others. But when he meets her and tells her to "leave this town," he quickly discovers that his authority and hard-handedness has no effect, in fact, she's rather indifferent to him.  He realizes that

"... this was no naughty schoolboy, disobedient and meet for punishment, as were to him the inhabitants of the little town. No, this was something new." 

What started out as the intention of getting rid of her corruptive influence on his pupils (and in his mind, on the morals of society in general),  leads to him actually spending more time with her, as he becomes not only fascinated by Rosa, but actually obsessed with her. His obsession, although he doesn't know it yet, will fuel his fires of long-desired revenge for those who have "dared to defy his authority,"  and set him  on a path from which there may be no return.

Seeing the movie is not at all reading the novel.  The movie, while just amazingly good, is incredibly tragic, but takes the professor in an entirely different direction from Mann's novel, and doesn't really capture the true essence of the book.  In the novel we watch a tyrannical figure who has always been "zealous for all forms of authority," a man who has a "narrow code of ethics,"  ultimately "call on the mob to set fire to the palace,"  becoming a person who "lets loose anarchy," out of his desire for what he feels is just, right, and what he's owed.  Here the very seeds of his own fate are sown in his obsessions.   At the same time, it seems to me that this may also be a commentary on the kind of society that allows what happens in this story to happen.

The Blue Angel is a wonderful book that I'm adding to the list of those novels that are just unputdownable -- again, it won't be for everyone but it is one of those books that  will float in my head for a long time. The same is true for the film -- but read the book first.

The Laughing Policeman, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

9780307390509
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009
originally published as Den Skrattande polisen, 1968
211 pp.

translated by Alan Blair

I'm on a roll with this series -- this one is #4.  I've put down my thoughts about this book over where my crime fiction reading gets journaled, what I refer to as the Crime Segments.  If you like Scandinavian crime fiction, I'd highly suggest you take a look at this series.

*To Live, by Yu Hua

1400031869
Anchor Books, 2003
original Chinese title: 活著 (Huózhe), 1993
translated by Michael Berry


To Live is the story of one family as related by Xu Fugui, a poor farmer living in rural China who has lived through many upheavals, both political and personal. This wasn't always Fugui's life; as a young man he grew up in a well-off, landowning family until his gambling addiction got the better of him and sent his family out into the fields to make their living farming. Fugui's reversal of fortune happened during the Nationalist period of China's history; not long after he settles his family into their new thatched hut, the Nationalist Army forcefully conscripts him into fighting against the Communists.  But the Communists eventually win, and Fugui and his family have to face a new set of circumstances which change rapidly. First there was land reform and the collectivization of individual plots of land.  Next came the Great Leap Forward (GLF), in which agriculture took a backseat to industrializing the countryside at the expense of the people, even to the point of turning in their cooking pots for smelting in outdoor furnaces. Food was prepared and served in a dining hall, which at first seemed okay, but as the GLF continued, ongoing famine became a way of life, and pleas to local leadership did not have any results. After that came the Cultural Revolution, which sent young people into the countryside to be put in charge and to root out any dissidence or "capitalist roaders"  via thought reforms, beatings, public criticism and other measures, including death.  It also sent many of China's gifted intellectuals for re-education in rural areas.

 To Live is a sort of whirlwind tour through all of these periods of upheavals, and Fugui stands as a symbol of all of those who suffered at the hands of a system that, ironically, claimed it would relieve people's suffering. But rather than give up, even when tragedy strikes repeatedly, he steadfastly goes on with an appreciation for life that doesn't end. As Yu Hua notes

After going through much pain and hardship, Fugui is inextricably tied to the experience of suffering. So there is really no place for ideas like "resistance" in Fugui's mind -- he lives simply to live...Although he has more reason to die than most people, he keeps on living.

Fugui has no choice but to take life as it comes, never waiting for the utopia promised by the Communists -- his life is about survival.  One of the blurbers on the back cover of my edition notes that To Live is a "Chinese book of Job," but description is not quite accurate. Fugui never looks to a higher power as the source of his troubles, nor does he question why things have happened.  What is really at the heart of this novel is the author's subtle examination of the irony of a system that claims it will make life better, only to have so many die as when it doesn't. 

The prose is simple, but don't let this simplicity fool you. To Live is a rich and powerful story and will capture the reader's attention from page one and hold it until the end. It's extremely depressing, not only in terms of Fugui's personal hardships, but in terms of the tragedies that occurred throughout an entire country during these time periods. However, the author never gets sappy or melodramatic in telling the story.  There's much more I could say about this novel, but I'm not here to analyze it -- just to say what I think.  Suffice it to say, if you are at all interested in historical fiction set in the People's Republic, this is one of the better novels to read. Highly recommended, mostly for people who want to read an intelligent piece of fiction. It's not  for those who want something upbeat and happy feeling.

...and when you finish reading the book, you MUST see the film!  It is a beautiful movie, directed by Zhang Yimou, who has made some of the best Chinese movies I've ever seen.  While there are a few differences, the movie really brings the book to life.

fiction from China

*Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, by Daniel Wallace

Big Fish is a quiet little book, not so much a novel as a series of small vignettes about the life of one Edward Bloom, who is now dying. Edward was one of those people for whom a day-to-day life with his family just wasn't enough, so he ended up missing a lot of his son William's life. As he's laying there dying, William begs to know more about his father, but Edward, who is the king of the one-liners, answers his son's questions with more jokes and reminisces of life before William came along. The book is William's way of trying to know and understand his father -- it is William's  construction of Edward's life based on Edward's often over-the-top stories.

Edward's tall tales are like a sign pointing William in a general direction toward the truth of his father's life: no matter what situation Edward found himself in, it was always important to him to be the big fish in the small pond. Edward notes that he always wanted to be a great man, and that he always felt it was his destiny to be so. William's reconstruction, which in many ways mythologizes Edward, is his attempt at making his absent father the great man he always wanted to be, even though William feels that a great man is someone of whom it could be said that he was loved by his son. The "myths" William creates about his father in this book are a step toward not only William being able to connect at some level with Edward before he dies, but are also William's way of loving his father as best he can.


Big Fish is a small book, but read it slowly because there is a lot to uncover here.

A note about the Tim Burton film: the movie picks up these little vignettes and expands them into fuller stories, and is a joy to watch as well as a full-fledged tear jerker at times.  If you haven't seen the movie, read the book first so you get more into William's head.

*The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham

Vintage International, 2004

0307277771 

Originally published 1925

My first book by Maugham, but definitely not my last. If someone would like to recommend a good one by him, I'd be more than grateful. 

As a young man, the author took a trip to Italy, where he studied Italian with a tutor. Maugham began reading Dante's Il Purgatorio and came upon the story of one Pia de Tolomei of Siena. It seems that Pia's husband believed that Pia was involved with another man, so rather than risk her family's displeasure by murdering her, he decided to take her to his castle in Maremma. According to Maugham in the preface to Painted Veil,  the husband figured that the "noxious vapors" of the place would do her in.  He realized that it would make a great story, and later, when in China, he realized that it would be the perfect setting, voilá -- The Painted Veil comes into being. Yet, the finished product actually turns out to be much more character rather than story driven.  

Set in the 1920s, the main character of this novel is Kitty Fane, whose socially-ambitious mother wanted her to marry into a prominent family. Kitty is not interested in marriage until her younger sister becomes engaged to a member of the baronetcy.  It is at this point that Walter Fane, a physician and bacteriologist appears and professes his deep love for Kitty and asks for her hand. Kitty finds it expedient that Walter has to leave immediately for China where he is doing research, because if she marries him she will not have to take part in her sister's wedding and have everyone talking about her. Kitty does not love Walter, but she marries him anyway. Off to Hong Kong they go, and as the story opens, Kitty is having an affair with a married British diplomat, having become quickly bored with her husband.  Walter discovers her infidelity and presents her with a choice that ends up with Kitty following him to Mei-tan-fu, a rural Chinese region where a cholera epidemic rages through the population.  Walter has taken the place of the local physician and also spends much of time researching the disease, while Kitty is left alone to ponder why he has really brought her there. 

While the story belongs mostly to Kitty and how she is able to dig deep and discover certain truths about herself and life in general,  the more interesting character, imho, is Walter, who exemplifies that old adage that still waters run deep.  Underneath his mild and taciturn appearance, a great deal of passion flows through this gentle man's veins, staying largely unrecognized until it  leads him to force Kitty into following him into the heart of a cholera epidemic. But here lies the heart of the story: human beings are often misguided when their actions stem from their emotional natures, sometimes causing them to make serious mistakes. In that sense, both Walter and Kitty are two sides of the same coin.

This was a very good read, certainly recommendable to readers across different genres. Romance readers will find something here, as will chick-lit connoisseurs, and it's a good book of literary fiction. I do want to say something about the 2006 film adaptation: it veers from the book quite a bit, especially at the end, so if you are considering watching it my advice would be to read the novel first to see where Maugham was really going with this story.

*The Stoning of Soraya M., by Freidoune Sahebjam

ISBN: 1559702338

first English-language edition

1994 Arcade Publishing

Let me begin by offering a quotation from the preface:

"After the shah was deposed and the fundamentalist regime headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in February 1979, many dubious elements of the population, including common-law criminals who had been jailed for good reason under the shah, were released from the country's  prisons. Taking advantage of the religious fervor sweeping the land, a number of these people, especially those with at least a basic knowledge of the Koran and its tenets, donned clerics' garb, gave themselves the title of mullah, and roamed the country seeing opportunities for self-enrichment or, quite simply, to conceal their past from the authorities."

In 1986, the author was waiting in a small mountain village in Iran for a contact to take him over the border into Pakistan, when he was offered tea by an elderly woman. She then proceeded to tell him that two weeks earlier, her niece Soraya had been stoned to death for being unfaithful to her husband, and that she had been innocent of the charge.  The author's contact showed up and he had to leave, but he promised the woman he'd be back, and he returned some six months later to hear her story, which ended up being the substance of this book. The book recalls a beyond-horrible crime instigated by one of these above-mentioned mullahs in cahoots with Soraya's husband.  This mullah (Sheik Hassan) had been in prison and was running away from the regime that put him there. He had fled to a small village of about 250 people where he was able to quickly gain the trust of the village leaders and become the go-to guy for settling disputes, and he was able to profit monetarily from his position as well. The sheik's background is important, because he represents one of those people whose position allowed him to manipulate religious beliefs for his own gain, and in this particular case, vengeance.

The basic story is this. Soraya's parents had betrothed her to Ghorban-Ali whom she had known since childhood and whom she didn't like even then. He was an abusive husband and later father, who would beat his wife regularly and then start in on his children. He spent a great deal of time turning his two older children against their mother. When he wasn't in the village, he was involved in black-market and other illegal activities until the change in regime, when he became a prison guard and realized his potential for power over others. Once he got a taste for power and life in the city (and the gains he'd made financially and materially in his position as prison guard) he no longer wanted to be a peasant from the village, but instead wanted to live the life of Riley in the city complete with a 14 year old honey that he wanted to marry. The problem was his marriage to Soraya, and how to get rid of her; ultimately with no way out of the marriage, he turned to Sheik Hassan.  And this is when Soraya's life went from one of abuse to one of utter horror.

There are a couple of things worth mentioning. First, there is no doubt that this event actually happened, and there is no doubt that stoning as a punishment for adultery is a reality among some Muslim fundamentalists in some areas. You can go to any human rights organization's website and find out all that you want to know about it there and to be fair, you can go to the website of Al-jazeera (an Islamic news organization) to read about recent developments about stoning as well. It is also an abominable practice that is beyond my scope of comprehension in the realm of human cruelty.

Second, there's no doubt in my mind that as far as the story this book tells, the stoning of Soraya M. a) reflects a plan conceived by a few misogynistic individuals who deliberately used the existing Sharia laws for their own personal gain and b) was allowed to happen as a result of an abuse of power in this small village.

To get the full story, you need to read the book. It is a difficult story but an eye-opening one that you will probably not soon forget. I know I won't. I don't think I need to see it on the big screen, though.

*Shattered, by Richard Neely

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

1991 (reissue)

0679734988

originally published as 

The Plastic Nightmare

1969

Shattered is a work of noir fiction that begins when Dan Marriott awakes in a hospital. His wife, Judith, is by his side, and he learns that he and Judith had been in a catastrophic car accident.  Judith was thrown clear, but Dan wasn't so lucky. Most of the bones in his body were broken, his face was totally disfigured, and worse yet, he has no memory of who he is. After a series of plastic surgeries, he is ready to leave the hospital and to try to piece together his life. Judith takes him home and begins filling him in on their past life together, but little things Dan finds and remarks people make cause him to realize that something is just not right -- and after a few very strange occurrences, he finds it even more imperative to get to the truth. To say more would wreck the story.

Let's just say that this isn't the best piece of noir I've ever read, nor is it the worst. The plot is a good one, and I never guessed the ending (definitely a nice twist) but everything seems to happen so quickly. There's not a lot of time to really get into the characters, and while the story keeps you reading, it would have been better if it had been a bit more in depth.  However, I liked it well enough to pick up another book by this author -- The Walter Syndrome, highly recommended by several Neely fans.

I'd recommend it to readers of noir fiction.

sidebar: the movie based on this book is on IFC Friday night (4/16) 8:45 pm.  From all accounts it's not so hot, but I plan on watching it anyway.

*The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett

Vintage

0679722645

first published 1930

Try as I might, I could not get the voice of Bogart out of my head while reading this, nor could I not help but see Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet in my mind when their characters entered the plot. My familiarity with the movie version turned out to be a bit  problematic at times, but not to the point where I wanted to chuck it all and pick up another book.

Since the plot is so well known it needs no explanation. It's a classic noir private-eye novel, and Hammett's only novel featuring Sam Spade.  Aside from the storyline, The Maltese Falcon is interesting in terms of its characters. Spade is an enigma, playing things close to the hilt so that at times he's difficult to read. Hammett does not offer any personal insights from Spade's point of view -- there are no inner monologues and no peeks into the detective's brain to tell the reader what he's thinking at any given moment.  He has a love/hate relationship with the police and authority, and protects himself behind an attorney. Throughout the novel the reader has to decide if Spade has any sense of morality at all.  His actions at times -- sleeping with his partner's wife, demanding a share of the ill-gotten gain, throwing in with the bad guys -- all keep the reader guessing right up to the end when all is revealed. Spade is definitely a masculine kind of guy, who probably always gets exactly what he wants.

The supporting characters are well worth a mention, especially Joel Cairo and the three women.  Hammett describes Cairo as effeminate and mincing with a high voice, clutching at perfumed handkerchiefs, implying that he's a homosexual. Effie notes, referring to Cairo upon their first meeting, that "this guy is queer." Cairo makes Spade (who refers to him somewhere else as a fairy) crazy, but also provides some amusement, and he makes a great verbal whipping boy. Then there are the women. The first is the femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy. This woman is one cold cookie - a liar, a schemer and one who will do anything (and I do mean anything) to get what she wants. Nothing is going to stand in her way. She's a strong character, but is not averse to bringing on the tears and the whining when it suits her purpose.  At the same time, she's woefully transparent and Spade knows it, and has no qualms about playing her own game back at her when need dictates. Then there's Iva, the not-so-grieving widow of Miles Archer, with whom Sam has a history in the sack. Expecting that Sam will take Miles' place after his death, she goes after him with a vengeance while he does his best to avoid her.  It's fairly obvious that he dislikes both women (one because she's strong, one because she's weak, both because they're ultimately "feminine") but when it comes to his secretary Effie Perrine, it's rather telling that he says to her at one point "you're a good man, sister." Hmm.

 By the time I finished the novel, the story of the Falcon itself paled in comparison to the characters. Although modern readers may find these people a little over the top and definitely stereotypes, I think you have to put them back into the context of the times. The characters, not the plot, make this book what it is --  a fine work of noir fiction. I liked it and I would definitely recommend it to people who read in that genre.

*The Quiet American, by Graham Greene

Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (2004)

9780143039020

originally published 1955


The Quiet American is a somewhat metaphorical novel which  should be read in the context of the political scene in Vietnam before 1954.  At the time in which this novel is set, the Vietnamese are still under French colonial rule.  The nationalists (the Communist Vietminh), have been fighting to take back the country for some time under the leadership of a returned Ho Chi Minh, and the French are losing their bid to keep control.

Reporting the conflicts in Vietnam for the British press is Thomas Fowler, who has been in Saigon now for some time.  Fowler, who narrates the story, claims to be neutral: he says that he does not take sides, get involved or make judgments, but rather just reports the news when the government will let him. He’s a self-proclaimed isolationist.  He lives with Phuong, a young Vietnamese girl, but is still married back home in England, although he’s asked for a divorce from his Catholic wife who continues to refuse him. Into Fowler’s world comes Alden Pyle, “Quiet American” of the title.  Pyle is a Harvard Grad, and is in the country to work ostensibly under the Economic Attaché.  He has adopted the ideas of a theorist named York Harding about  necessity of intervention in Asia, and sees the need to establish a so-called “third force” in Vietnam to replace both French colonialism and the Communists. He has already settled on a General Thé, the leader of an  insurgency group called the Caodists, who has “taken to the hills to fight both sides, the French, the Communists…” (17). Pyle envisions Thé taking power and  settling Vietnam into being a democratic country and helping to prevent the Communist dominoes from falling. According to Pyle, the Vietnamese want to live in a democracy.   While Fowler finds Pyle to be a bit naïve, and argues that most peasants don’t sit in their huts at night thinking about democracy and ideologies, he has to start taking him more seriously when Pyle decides he wants Phuong for himself.  Fowler knows that the younger, more affluent American has more to offer Phuong in material terms, but he’s become comfortable with the way things are. Pyle’s very existence in Saigon threatens Fowler in ways he never realized. But then again, Fowler is the narrator of this story, so beware.


Solid analyses of this novel are everywhere to be found on the Internet and in several books, so I won’t even attempt to go there, but interestingly, even though he was writing in 1955, Greene was able to foresee the quagmire caused by US intervention in Vietnamese politics.  Today one could easily apply his novel to the dangers of intervening in the politics of the Middle East or in the “third world” in general.

It’s an amazing book, definitely one not to be missed. Greene is one of those writers whose works you cannot forget once you’ve read them. Highly recommended and one of my favorites for this year.

*The African Queen, by C.S. Forester

ISBN: 0316289108

Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company

Original publication date: 1935

If you do a quick scan through reviews for this book, quite a number of them read something like this:

...this is one case where the movie was better.

...I should have just stuck with the movie and not bothered with the book

...The book pales in comparison with the movie

...and so on

That's all fine and well. Yes, the movie is excellent. Yes, books brought to life are often much more interesting than the original work itself. But can't books just be reviewed on their own, without having to compare them to their cinematic counterparts? Or is that impossible nowadays? -sigh- Oh well. It is what it is, right?  For now, let's move along.

It's 1914 and the German Army is attempting to claim central Africa. Its local leader has come to a small  mission station on the Ulanga River in what was at that time known as the Belgian Congo, and has taken away the converts, food, materials, anything the Army might need to succeed. The stress of it all has killed British missionary Samuel Sayer, leaving his spinster sister Rose on her own. Luckily, she manages to convince Charlie Allnut, the cockney-speaking skipper of the African Queen, to take her on as a passenger. Her grand plan is to take this rambling wreck of a boat downriver to where the German ship Königin Luise sits, and use the explosives Charlie has stored to make the African Queen one giant floating torpedo and blow it up. In her mind, she'll kill two birds with one stone: she'll get revenge for Samuel's death and they'll be doing "their bit" for England. So off they go on their journey -- and along the way they come to learn exactly what stuff they're made of. 

The African Queen is really more character driven than plot driven, focusing on Charlie and Rose, but mostly on Rose. Brought up in England, now in her 30s, Rose first lived under the thumb of her father and of English society, then traded that for life with her proper missionary brother. But once all of the restraints placed upon her have disappeared, and have no meaning out there in the middle of the jungle, Rose begins to really live for the first time. Many people who have commented on this novel find her newly-found freedom from such deeply-instilled mores a bit unrealistic, and perhaps her behavior on the African Queen is a bit out of character for someone so repressed, but Rose behaving badly works here. And why not? Her plan all along was to go down with the African Queen when it blows up the the Königin Luise, so really, what has she got to lose?  But life, like the Ulanga River, takes some interesting twists and turns, creates obstacles to be overcome, circles back, and catches Rose and Charlie in its flow.

This book was written in 1935, so modern readers may find it slow going. However, if it is at all possible to read the book and not think of the movie, and to get under the surface here, there's a lot to like about it. 

--keeping
--Next up: The Quiet American, by Graham Greene

*The Ghost, by Robert Harris

Simon and Schuster, 2007
1416551816

I recently saw a trailer for a movie that I thought looked really interesting, filled with political intrigue and action. The name of that film was The Ghostwriter, and it was made by Roman Polanski. -- As a sidebar, Polanski is an awesome director, and I loved his "A Pure Formality." -- Imagine my surprise when "The Ghostwriter" turned out to be based on The Ghost, by Robert Harris,  which I've had sitting on my shelf ever since it came out. I figured perhaps this would be a great time to read it, since I want to see the film. 


To leak much about this novel would be to spoil it, so I won't go into any detail here.   The main character of this novel (whose name we never learn) is by profession a ghostwriter. His biggest project was the memoirs of a has-been '70s rock star, and it is this work that gets him a very lucrative contract to ghostwrite the highly-anticipated memoirs of Britain's most current ex-Prime Minister, Adam Lang. Lang and entourage have stationed themselves at the home of a wealthy friend in Martha's Vineyard. The ghostwriter accepts, and it's off to mingle with the ex PM and get down to work sorting out and cleaning up a very poorly-written, mediocre memoir written by the ghostwriter's predecessor, who mysteriously ended up dead. The new writer's job is to turn it into the multi-million dollar blockbuster the publishers are waiting for.  But just when the narrator/ghostwriter gets to Martha's Vineyard, all hell breaks loose as his subject finds himself on the verge of being the focus of an investigation by the War Crimes Court. I will say no more.

Harris takes his time setting up the story, so it begins slowly, but picks up speed as it goes on and gets more into political suspense-thriller mode.  And if you are even the least bit familiar with post 9/11 politics, you'll notice that quite a few of the characters bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the real-life players, adding a layer of interest that keeps you reading. Sadly, my devious mind figured out a part of the end early on so that was a bit disappointing and there were a couple of plot holes that bothered me, but all in all it was a pretty decent read,  and I liked it. This one I finished in one sitting -- that should say something about the suspense quotient. Now it's off to the movies.


note: If you decide to stick this one on your tbr pile, you might be interested in this "story behind the story" so to speak here, in a 2007 interview with Robert Harris just after this book was first published.

--listed at paperback swap, but if you want this book before it gets taken, first emailer takes it!

NEXT UP:  The African Queen, by C.S. Forester

*In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

ISBN: 0679745580
Vintage International

I was actually going to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but somehow I misplaced my copy and didn't feel like upending everything so took the next book on the stack.

In Cold Blood is one of those books I've owned forever, and one I take out periodically to reread just because I like it so much. I don't have many of those. Long before there were two biopics about Capote's experiences in Kansas and the writing of this book, In Cold Blood had already captured not only my attention, but my respect as well.

I won't delve into the details of the story because they are so well known it's not necessary to rehash them here. And we all know that with this one work, Capote created a new and at the time rather unique type of quasi-journalistic reporting which led many future writers of  true crime to rework their research into novel-like form.  But unlike many of the writers of that particular genre, there's nothing over the top or sensational between the covers,  neither is there the "just the facts, ma'am" approach. It's an intelligent book that demands participation from its readers.

Part of the reason, I think, that this book works well is that the author works into it some anticipation on the part of the reader. For example, by page 5 we already know that there were "four shotgun blasts that all told, ended six lives," then again on page 13, we find out that that particular day of work for Herb Clutter was going to be his last. And so it goes, with each family member, until we get to the actual killings. Interspersed throughout the story of the Clutters is that of their murderers, and we know that at some point in time the two stories are going to meet up in one tremendous bloodbath. But it's the getting there that is the best of this book -- we have to meet the inhabitants of Holcomb, Kansas, the KBI agent and his family, et cetera et cetera, until Smith and Hickok make that trip down the driveway lined with trees and make their way into the Clutter's home. But even then, Capote doesn't give away what actually happened, but rather moves on to workers coming to do their chores at the Clutter farm, and then the events that led up to the discovery. It's some time before we learn what really happened. The pacing of the book is impeccable. We get to the heart of the matter only after we've spent time with the Clutters, their neighbors, and the killers, getting to know each a bit at a time.

If Capote was trying to evoke some kind of sympathy for the two murderers, he didn't get it from me. There's one spot in the novel where, in trying to make the case that the two killers were legally insane at the time of the murders, someone watching the trial later says something along the lines of  "well, I had a tough life, but I didn't kill anyone," or something to that effect. On the other hand, one of the things I like about this novel is the backstory of Hickok and Smith, because I have this inherent need to know what makes people do what they do. During this reread, during the scenes of the trial, I couldn't help but think that today it would be likely that a defense lawyer could probably a) get both of them off for several reasons, or b) get their sentences reduced to spending time in some sort of institution for the criminally insane. But in the 60s, that wasn't about to happen. There's food for thought right there.

In Cold Blood  remains one of my favorite books, and whether or not it's real or, as some have criticized, a blend of fiction and reality, it doesn't change anything for me. I loved it the first time I read it and I still do.