Parole

Review: Mistress

The book: Anita Nair, Mistress

Introducing the book: this is a book about art, about life, and about emotions. There are nine basic emotions that kathakali uses to convey any story, they say: love, contempt, sorrow, fury, courage, fear, disgust, wonder, and peace. Nair does the same, building each chapter around one of these feelings, and telling her story through them.

The story in the book: Radha has a past she still longs for, and a present she would like to flee from with a husband she despises. Her husband Shyam has a present he is proud of, and a past he uses as excuse and explanation for what he is. Koman, Radha’s uncle, is the great-and-often-misunderstood artist, looking down to everyone except a few chosen acolytes (which include Radha but not Shyam). Their fragile balance is broken by the arrival of Chris, a foreigner and an artist himself, officially there to interview Koman, but in fact also to look for his past. Through this situation Nair also weaves Koman’s story, from his parents down through his whole life.

My opinion: this was one of those books that get me engrossed in the story, finely narrated, great setting and everything. But unlike other engrossing books, here I didn’t completely like any of the characters. I feel sorry for Radha because she is unhappy, but she doesn’t ever even try to make it different or to make her marriage work - as if waiting for blissful happiness to come by magic. I feel pity for Shyam, because everyone despises him while he is pushed by deep love - but he is still a gross, vulgar newly rich, which is evident not only in his unrefined tastes, but also in the ways he tries to convey his love to his wife. As for Koman, I am with him up to a point, but at times his views are completely oscure to me. So it’s a good book, but I cannot really get in the shoes of any of the characters, and this makes me awkward. Vote: 8/10.
The opening words:

So, where do I begin?
The face. Yes, let’s begin with the face that determines the heart’s passage. It is with the face we decode thoughts into a language without sounds. Does that perplex you? How can there be a language without sounds, you ask. Don’t deny it. I see the question in your eyes.
I realize that you know very little of this world I am going to take you into. I understand your concern that it may be beyond your grasp. But I want you to know that I would be failing my intentions if I did not transmit at least some of my love for my art to you.

The scene I like the most: it is part of the story of Sethu and Saadiya. She is of Arab descent and lives in a village where women are segregated in their houses and have their own alleys to move, so that stranger eyes do not look upon them, while Sethu is a Hindu disguised as a Christian. Still, their eyes meet and they fall in love, a forbidden, Romeo-and-Juliet-like kind of love. At night they start talking to each other in the darkness, from the opposite sides of a garden. This is the first time they speak to each other.

That first morning, when no one was looking, I dropped a handkerchief that I had spent the provious night embroidering and then held to my cheek all night as I slept. You picked it up and placed it in your pocket. Later, you said that all day you drew it out and breathed deep of my fragrance. And that you slept with it against your cheek. The next day you held it up and said, ‘One of you dropped it here. I kept it so I could give it to you.’
I rushed forward before anyone else did and stretched out my hand. ‘It’s mine.’
You gave it to me and even though our fingers didn’t so much as brush each other’s, I felt your fingertips trail my soul.
That night your voice said, ‘I know your fragrance.’
I whispered, ‘And I yours.’
On that little square handkerchief with scalloped edges, our fragrances married and when I held it to my face, I felt a great yearning. For you were my husband and I your wife and this fragment of white cloth our nuptial bed.
‘I couldn’t sleep all night thinking of you,’ you said.
‘I couldn’t sleep all night thinking of you,’ I said.
‘What are we going to do?’ you asked.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked. What else could I have said anyway?
‘I have never felt this way about anyone,’ you said.
‘I have never felt this way about anyone or anything,’ I said.
‘Are you a parrot or what?’ Your voice was querulous.
I stared at the darkness till I remembered a heroine from Vaapa’s story. It was her words I spoke. ‘I am the mirror of your soul,’ I said. ‘I see all you see. I think your thooughts. I feel as you do. I am you.’
‘If this isn’t love, what is?’ you said.
‘If this isn’t love, what is’ I agreed.

Review: The Joy Luck Club

The book: Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

The story behind the book: a couple of years ago, my mom was watching TV and happened on a Slovenian network showing a movie about four mothers and four daughters between China and the US. Neither she nor I saw the entire film, nor did we know the title, but it looked interesting. Later, an Internet search turned out both the movie (by Wayne Wang) and the book (by Amy Tan). Both went on my TBR/TBS lists and remained there. Then came the Expanding Horizons Challenge (thanks, Melissa), and I thought this would fit perfectly for the Asian category. I had also two reasons for starting the challenge with this book: 1. although I had never heard of it before and it certainly isn’t a new release, just a couple of days before New Year I saw the Italian version in a bookstore (but I had already bought the English version, so I left it there); and most importantly 2. during the first weeks of January I was translating another book about China, so I thought that reading the two side by side could give me a better insight about that culture.

The story in the book: the Joy Luck Club is a group of four Chinese families meeting to play mahjong. This book traces the stories of the four women and their four daughters, from China to the US. Although they know each other, their stories are quite separate. They only occasionally appear in each other’s story, and only as minor characters, so the book comes out almost as a series of short stories, and yet one where you can retrace characters and stories from one chapter to the next.

My opinion: I was not entirely convinced by this book. The story was fine and I liked the Chinese box structure (aptly named, in this case ) with each chapter recounting a number of different episodes from various moments of the past. I also liked the way the two cultures were mixed and confronted each other. But it didn’t manage to make me travel to the book’s world. For one, the characters were blurred, not-so-well defined: I always had to go back to the family trees to check out whom he story was about, and even thus I felt that some of the characters changed completely from one chapter to the next. Another thing I didn’t like is that all these stories seem to bear no connection whatsoever to what was happening in China, to Chinese History, as if these women were not from real-life China but from an idealized, imagined country. Vote: 5/10

The story I like best: there were a couple of nice stories, both funny and sad ones, but the one I prefer is the one you could name “how to get a husband with a fortune cookie”. Lindo Jong has just arrived from China and got a job in a fortune cookie factory. This is nonsense for her and her newly-met friend An-mei Hsu (”These things don’t make sense. These are not fortunes, these are bad instructions”, Lindo said, and An-mei answered: “No, Miss, it is our bad fortune to be here making these, and somebody else’s bad fortune to pay to get them”). Then Lindo is introduced to a man. They don’t have a language in common because they speak different dialects, so they start to go to English classes together, but it’s still not easy. As suggested by An-mei, Lindo looks for a way to have him realize his intentions and get to marry her, and that way is through the fortune cookies. (Here, she is telling the story to her daughter.)

That evening An-mei and I went to work and searched through strips of fortune cookie papers, trying to find the right instructions to give to your father. An-mei read them aloud, putting aside ones that might work: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Don’t ever settle for a pal.” “If such thoughts are in your head, it’s time to be wed.” “Confucius say a woman is worth a thousand words. Tell your wife she’s used up her total.”

We laughed over those. But I knew the right one when I read it. It said: “A house is not home when a spouse is not at home.” I did not laugh. I wrapped up this saying in a pancake, bending the cookie with all my heart.

After school the next afternoon, I put my hand in my purse and then made a look, as if a mouse had bitten my hand. “What’s this?” I cried. Then I pulled out the cookie and handed it to your father. “Eh! So many cookies, just to see them makes me sick. You take this cookie.”

I knew even then he had a nature that did not waste anything. He opened the cookie and he crunched it in his mouth, and then read the piece of paper.

“What does it say?” I asked. I tried to act as if it did not matter. And when he still did not speak, I said, “Translate, please.”

We were walking in Portsmouth Square and already the fog had blown in and I was very cold in my thin coat. So I hoped your father would hurry and ask me to marry him. But instead, he kept his serious look and said, “I don’t know this word ’spouse.’ Tonight I will look in my dictionary. Then I can tell you the meaning tomorrow.”

The next day he asked me in English, “Lindo, can you spouse me?” And I laughed at him and said he used that word incorrectly. So he came back and made a Confucius joke, that if the words were wrong, then his intentions must also be wrong. We scolded and joked with each other all day long like this, and that how we decided to get married.

The edition: I didn’t realize, when buying this book online, that it was a classroom edition. It had some context, glossary and a drawing of the family tree that I went back to at the beginning of each chapter. So it was useful, in a way, as it was to have a glossary for Chinese terms, but I found all the *s disturbing. And too many typos for an educational tool.

Words on Friday

Dictionaries: this could be the man of my life (but the one I have is not bad either ).

Solar power: an idea for the world.

Cats: what’s the difference between a reader and a cat?

Neologisms: as seen by NYT.

Ortography: somebody gave up.

Space: for people with too many books, like me.

Office: working at home has its downsides, too.

Parole del venerdì

Dizionari: questo avrebbe potuto essere l’uomo della mia vita (ma anche quello che ho trovato non è male ).

Energia solare: un’idea per il mondo.

Gatti: che differenza c’è tra un lettore e un gatto?

Neologismi: secondo il NYT.

Ortografia: c’è chi ha rinunciato.

Spazio: un’idea per chi ha troppi libri come me.

Ufficio: per chi non capisce che lavorare a casa ha i suoi contro.

Another challenge?

I am not doing too well on my very first reading challenge, Melissa’s Expanding Horizons (just finished the first of six books tonight, review coming soon). But I think maybe challenges will help me keep up my non-fiction reading: I always intend to read science and non-fiction, and always fall behind. So I found this challenge hosted by Sylvia @ Classical Bookworm, and thought it would fit my goals. Plus, four books in a year are not an unattainable goal.

To celebrate the UN International Year of Planet Earth, Sylvia asks us to read four (science) books to learn more about our planet, one each for the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. (For more information, see her original post).

So here’s my list:

1. Lithosphere: Simon Winchester, The Map that Changed the World (I read his The Meaning of Everything a few years back and greatly enjoyed his writing).
2. Hydrosphere: Frank Schätzing, Nachrichten aus einem unbekannten Universum. Eine Zeitreise durch die Meere (why is it that every time I find a challenge where the books I want to read would fit in, I discover that those books have never been translated into English?). Or, Carl Safina, Song for the Blue Ocean.
3. Biosphere: Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (not sure about this one…)
4: Atmosphere: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth (time to take up on that). Or, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter’s Guide (would that fit in?)

Che cos’è l’arte?

Che cos’è l’arte?

Il De Mauro:

3a attività umana tesa a creare, per mezzo di forme, colori, parole, suoni, ecc., prodotti culturali a cui si riconosce un valore estetico
3b insieme delle opere artistiche realizzate in determinati periodi storici, in un dato paese e sim. | stile di un artista, di una scuola e sim.

Il Sabatini Coletti:

2 Produzione di opere adeguate ai canoni estetici del bello, prevalenti nei diversi periodi storici; l’opera stessa così prodotta (spec. se di tipo figurativo); l’insieme di tali opere di un autore, di un periodo

Mi chiedo: e questa è arte?

Quiz time

To avoid having my brain set on fire by the workload (he! you wish!), I stopped and took two quizzes. So here’s the results.

Which season are you?

Which Season Are You?

You’re Most Like The Season Spring …Fresh faced, with a young outlook on life - you smile at the world and expect it to smile back at you. You’re mostly a bubbly, fun - innocent person. Described as cute possibly. However, you’re a little naive about things and tend to be a little too trustworthy.As the first season, It Makes you the youngest - and so most immature - but people are inclined to look out for and protect you.Well done… You’re the most fun of the seasons
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OK, I love being the spring!

Which country are you from?

Which Country Are You From?

Britain
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Oh, come on… organized? Man, have you seen that mess on my desk?

My year of reading mathematically

Be it due to my MSc or to A. trying to make me understand his life&work, my 2007 was a year of mathematics reading. So, here’s a list of one-shot reviews of what I read:

1. TIMOTHY GOWERS, Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction.*
This was a good read. At least at the beginning, that is. Gowers boasts a clear, straightforward writing, but in the last chapters he lost me, as the mathematics was a bit too hawkward. Still, I’m looking forward to re-read this book with a special enfasis on those last bits. Plus, it does give you an insight in what it is that mathematicians do.
Vote: 4/5

2. IAN STEWART, Letters to a Young Mathematician.*
Not a lot of mathematics into this one. Stewart delves deep into the life of (his life as) a mathematician. Exactly what you need to understand those strange people… Plus, a lot of humor, jokes and anecdotes.
Vote: 5/5

3. CATHERINE SHERLDRICK ROSS and BILL SLAVIN, Circles, Squares, Triangles (Shapes in Math, Science and Nature).
I had the chance to work on the Italian (ri-)edition of these three books. It was a chance, really, because otherwise I would not pick up mathematics books for children, for the time being. But these are great, with splendid drawings and clear texts, fun to read and good to learn. Reading level: age 8-12.
Vote: 4.5/5

4. DAVID BLANCO LASERNA, Emmy Noether. Matematica ideal.
Ok, I’ll have to admit that I don’t speak Spanish, but I was interested in the subject because of my thesis, so I tried to read it all the same (based on the fact that Spanish and Italian are quite near to one another, and also on the six months I lived in a Spanish-speaking home..). But I wouldn’t really recommend this book. Apart for the very technical math part scaring me off even with the help of my mathematician, the author seemed to drift off and wander away from the subject too often, describing the general situation of mathematics in the 19th century rather than dwelling on Emmy’s own life. Which is a pity, because she is a character people should really know more about.
Vote: 3/5

5. KEITH DEVLIN, The Millennium Problems.*
Just started reading this. Seems very well-written, but it surely will require a lot of attention and a solid background…
Vote: 4/5 (not final)

(NOTE: asterisks * indicate books that I read in Italian.)

(…roll of drums…)

IAN STEWART, Letters to a Young Mathematician.

(see it on Amazon here)

Recensione: Interpreter of Maladies

Non avevo mai sentito parlare di Jhumpa Lahiri prima del dicembre 2006. A quell’epoca presi parte a un corso presso la casa editrice italiana di L’omonimo, e i due editori parlavano con tanta passione dell’autrice, del libro, e della creazione della versione italiana, che lo comprai subito. Lo lessi mentre tornavo a casa e mi fu subito chiaro che quello era il libro migliore dell’anno. Così, quando ho visto questo libro in una libreria, un anno dopo, non ho potuto fare a meno di comprarlo.

In realtà, il lavoro della Lahiri si fa giustizia da solo e non ha bisogno della presentazione entusiastica di un editore, né di chiunque altro, perché l’autrice offre una scrittura avvincente, una capacità di comporre descrizioni concrete, quasi fisiche, una narrazione potente e, soprattutto, storie splendide. In genere non amo molto i racconti, ma questo libro meritava davvero.

Che si tratti di una coppia di Bengalesi che deve fare i conti con la perdita di un bambino a Boston, o di un vecchio autista a Calcutta che sogna una vita diversa, i racconti della Lahiri ti fanno ridere e piangere, ti cullano e ti emozionano, e alla fine ne vorresti ancora. Tutte hanno un alone di tristezza, di nostalgia di un mondo migliore… come la vita.

Ti lasciano anche il desiderio di saperne di più della cultura indiana: i braccialetti d’oro, i samosa, le mani e i piedi colorati di henné, i sari, l’olio massaggiato sullo scalpo, tutto un mondo che chiede di essere conosciuto meglio. (Ma è per questo che esiste la Expanding Horizons Challenge, no? Anche se non credo che conterò questo libro tra i miei sei, perché l’avevo iniziato prima di gennaio e comunque non era sulla mia lista.)

Per finire, consiglierei questo libro a chiunque — a meno che non si tratti di qualcuno che ama solo ed esclusivamente la fantascienza, naturalmente.

Review: Interpreter of Maladies

I had never heard of Jhumpa Lahiri before December 2006. At that time, I participated in a worshop at the Italian publisher of The Namesake, and they were so passionate about the author, the book, and what went into creating the book’s Italian version, that I bought it at once. I read it on my way home, and it was immediately clear to me that it was my 2006 Best Book of the Year. So when, one year later, I saw this book in a bookstore, I had to buy it.

Truly, Lahiri’s work stand up for themselves and do not need a publisher - or anyone else, for that matter - to talk passionately about them, for the author has a compelling writing, a dense and physical quality to her use of description, powerful storytelling and, above all, great stories to tell. I’m not too fond of short stories, usually, but this book was great reading.

Be it a Bengali couple coming to terms with the loss of their baby in Boston or an old driver in Calcutta dreaming of a different life, Lahiri stories can make you laugh, and cry, can lull you and excite you, and leave you with a want for more. They all share a halo of sadness, of nostalgia of a better world… that is what life is all about.

And they also leave a crave in you for knowing more about this culture: those golden bracelets, samosas, henna-coloured hands and feet, saris, oil rubbed into the scalp, all of a world that calls for deeper knowledge. (But that’s what the Expanding Horizons Challenge is all about, isn’t it? Although I don’t think I’ll count this book in my six, as I’d started it before New Year and it’s not on my list anyway.)

I would suggest this book to anyone — unless you are a sci-fi-only reader, that is.