A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti

Wednesday, May 31, 2023--San Antonio

A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti is a book of short stories that is one of the best books I have ever read.  It's truly unique.  The author is a Jewish Indian who grew up in Kolkata and now lives in Brooklyn and the Hudson River Valley.  Some of the stories take place in India, and some of them take place among Jews (including Indian immigrant Jews) in New York.  All of the stories have a sense of being spot-on in terms of how life really is.  Maybe the fact that I have spent so much time in India and have seen so many films set among Jewish families is why I realized this, but I think anyone would find the stories enjoyable, too. I hated for each story to end, then I eagerly began the next.  It was so good that I have also checked out (on my Kindle from the library) another book by the same author that has won prizes.  I gave this book a rating of 5 stars out of 5.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

 Friday, May 26, 2023--San Antonio

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever had great recommendations--Crime Reads best debut of the year, Newsweek 25 best fall books, Literary Hub best book of year, etc.  And there were parts of it that I really enjoyed reading.  However, the two main characters who are very intelligent have psychological problems and are not smart enough to control themselves from very questionable acts including one illegal one.  It's the kind of book where you are supposed to like and root for the main characters even though they have done a despicable thing.  It didn't help that I was watching a Netflix series at the same time I was reading the book that is also built around two characters committing despicable crimes.  I found myself resenting the things the protagonists were doing and thinking that they should just get caught.  Anyway, it may have a 4.2 rating on Amazon and rave reviews elsewhere, but I am glad to have the book behind me and can give it only 2.5 stars out of 5.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

Saturday, May 20, 2023--San Antonio

Victory City is the second novel I have read by Salman Rushdie.  Previously, I read Midnight's Children which is one of the best novels I have read with a particularly creative format and interesting characters.  This novel is also rather unique--written as if it is a translation of an ancient long poem about a great city that existed for about 250 years in India.  India is known for its poets who have written such long poems, and it has a long history of the comings and goings of great empires.  India is also known for its religious gods and goddesses.  This story is about a woman whose body was temporarily possessed by a goddess who gave her the assignment to take seeds she had given her and create a new city that would be an empire where women would be raised as equals to men and hold positions as the protectors of the city and in architecture, law, the arts, etc.  The woman meets two cowherds and takes them with her along with the seeds which are strewn overnight at the chosen location.  Then the women breathes the new city into existence over night--city walls, buildings, inhabitants, etc., and then spends days whispering personal histories into each inhabitant.  The two cowherds become the first two kings of the new empire (one after the other) and the woman is the queen during the reigns of both of them.  But the story isn't just about this.  It is the story of how there are ups and downs in the lives people and societies--how some leaders are good and others are evil, how some people think only of themselves while others show concern for their fellow citizens and society as a whole, how citizens can be swayed by stories or rumors, how whole societies can willingly give up their freedoms, how leaders of empires come and go both with and without heirs, how those leaders desire to increase their empires and/or ensure protection through conquest of others, etc.  It's a complex novel.  With each twist in the story of the woman's fate or of the empire's fate, it is easy for the reader to consider events in the story as relating to those of today, the past, or even possibly the future within our own society.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

The Absolutist by John Boyne

Monday, May 8, 2023--San Antonio

The Absolutist by John Boyne is a very well written novel set during WWI that addresses questions such as the following:  What is the difference between a conscientious objector and an absolutist?  (The latter is a person who not only refuses to fight, but also refuses to do any work that would support the war effort.)  Do soldiers get away with bad actions?  (Bullying others and even killing others within their own unit?)  Does the military leadership truly live up to its high principles in wartime?  (Can an officer refuse to do anything about a soldier who has killed a member of the enemy forces who was under arrest rather than an active combatant at the time?  Should an officer give punishment assignments to conscientious objectors which are more likely to get them killed than the assignments of cooperating combatants?)  Can a person declare that he is living his life based on high principles while overlooking the negative affects of his decisions on others?  How can a bisexual man initiate a sexual interaction, especially more than once, while not being able to admit that he is anything but straight?  Are gay relationships destined to be doomed when one of persons is bisexual and the other is strictly homosexual?  Etc.  It's a story that had a similar emotional affect on me as Atonement did when I read it may years ago, and like the latter, I imagine I will find myself remembering and thinking about this book for many years.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

 Friday, May 5, 2023--San Antonio

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah tells the story of multiple characters who are connected by work and/or family relationships in East Africa from the early 1900s through the 1950s.  It was a period when East Africa was colonized by the Germans and then later by the British, and it covers both WWI and WWII.  Two of the main characters were local East African men who went to war with the Germans during WWI.  One disappeared and a major part of the book is about the concern for what happened to him and the the search for information about that.  The other man eventually marries the sister of the one who had never returned.  Both men came from illiterate families, yet learned to read and write German before and during WWI through unique circumstances--an accomplishment which was still unusual for native Africans to have accomplished by the time WWII began.  But the book has a broader sweep of storytelling.  It covers the caravan trading that existed in the area before WWI, the "pirate" trading (smuggling) by these same traders, he adjustment that had to take place as time passed with shipping rather than land caravans becoming the predominant form of transporting trade goods, the conflict of religious and native superstition beliefs for how to heal medical and mental illness problems, the racial discrimination that existed against local natives by the colonial settlers, and examples of how some colonial personnel were not racist and went far beyond what was expected in assisting the local citizens.  Overall, it is a fascinating story and is told well.  But for some reason, it seemed that during the last 15% or so of the book the author started rushing the story so that it would quickly come to an end; it became a tale of tying up all the loose ends.  That caused me to drop my proposed rating of 4 stars down to 3 1/2 stars out of 5 when considering the book as a whole.