Pachinko - Min Jin Lee

Our March bookclub book was Pachinko, and WOW, it was fantastic!! The best book I've read in a long time. It tells the story of one Korean family across 4 generations, from their roots in Korea in 1883, to their lives in Japan up through 1989. 

Before reading this novel, I was ignorant of Japan's occupation of Korea, and the way Japan oppressed Korean expats after the war. (I had been aware of the shameful history of conscripted "comfort women," but not the broader context of colonization,  oppression, and forced assimilation). This ugly history is not exactly the center of this story, but it is its pervasive backdrop, and influences all of the major events in the family's lives.

The story is beautiful and heartfelt, and although parts are truly heartbreaking, it was a pleasure to read, because of the fascinating characters and their resiliency and even success, despite the many hard years of their lives. The author is clearly a brilliant observer of human nature, as her character studies read so true. The character Sunja is perhaps the central figure, as the story follows her life from young girl to septuagenarian grandmother, and her clear-eyed view of the world is deeply compelling. I would strongly recommend this book to all!

Slaughterhouse Five

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s voice is exceptional.  The main themes of Slaughterhouse Five are deadly serious, yet the story is rich in humor, both simple and mordant, and has a unique viewpoint that features time travel and intelligent aliens.  It’s a perplexing yet commanding combination.  The narrator of the frame story is Vonnegut himself, who was a prisoner of war and one of the very few survivors when Dresden was firebombed in World War II. But the protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, who travels in space and time with a view of his entire life.  Billy witnesses innumerable deaths, each commemorated by “So it goes”, from his unique whole-life perspective.  Fascinating, thought provoking, outrageously funny and heart-rendingly sad by turns.

Love and War in the Apennines

Love and War is Eric Newby's account of his experiences after being captured in Italy during World War II.  He was initially confined, along with other POWs, to an orfanotrofio (orphanage) in Fontanellato in the Emiglia-Romagna region.  The Armistice (really a surrender) of Italy to the Allies was declared two weeks before the Allies actually arrived in force, allowing the Germans to immediately send forces into Italy to prepare for the Allied invasion.  Accordingly, when Newby and the other POWs were released, they fled into the countryside to avoid being recaptured by the incoming German forces.  

Newby's story, then, describes his experiences of being harbored by the Italian farmers and mountain people who, at great risk to themselves, assisted him, out of their admirable humanity and because they hated the Fascists.  Newby is humbled by their courage and generosity and views his experiences with sympathy and humor. 

Here are a couple examples of the humor:

Drink and supplementary food were bought on the black market, which was even more extensive and better organized than it was in Britain, and a special float of Red Cross cigarettes was kept for this purpose, and for the general corruption of the Italian camp staff, by responsible members of the British administration, ex-bank managers mostly, to whom this sort of thing was second nature.

She used to tell me the latest news about my friends………how one officer whose identity I never discovered had been hidden in the castello of a local principessa who had been so impressed by his girlish face that she had the brilliant idea of dressing him as a young woman of fashion and putting him on a train to Switzerland.  This she had done but, unfortunately, he looked so desirable on the train that some soldiers had “interfered” with him, as the News of the World used to put it, and discovered the truth, although one of them got punched hard on the nose in the process of doing so.

And, in an example of the humanity and generosity of the Italian country people, one evening, a few days after the Germans had made a surprise raid to search for hidden enemy soldiers or Italian deserters, Newby was invited to a dinner with some important people in the town.  This was dangerous and he had to take special care to arrive unseen. 

I was motioned to take a seat and a glass of wine was poured for me. There was no small talk. The Chairman of the Board, for that was obviously what he was, said carefully and very slowly so that I could understand, "We have been talking about you among ourselves for some days. Many of the people in this village and in the farms round about have sons and relatives who are being hunted by the Germans.  Three of them were taken the other day. Some of them have sons in Russia of whom, so far, there is no news and who may never return. They feel that you are in a similar condition to that of their sons who, they hope, are being given help wherever they are , and they think it is their duty to help you through the coming winter, which otherwise you will not survive. I speak for them because my father was born here, and they have asked me to do so. And as it has now become too dangerous to shelter you in their houses, they have decided to build you a house which no one except the people assembled in this room, our families and one other person, and he is a kinsman, will ever hear about. The work will begin at dawn tomorrow".

The descriptions of where the home was to be located and how it was built are extraordinary.  A truly wonderful book.

But the ships are sailing....sailing..... by Chiyono Sugimoto Kiyooka

A Daughter of the Samurai, originally recommended by Lauren, was reviewed here previously – it’s a fascinating and charming book by Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, who describes her upbringing in a strict Samurai family in the late 19^th century and then her experiences in America, after moving here to join her husband.  Two daughters were born here and attended schools in Cincinnati and, later, The Horace Mann school in New York.  The younger daughter, then called Chiyo, also lived for many years in both America and Japan.  She became an English-Japanese translator after World War II, working for the Occupation Authorities. 

But the Ships are Sailing…Sailing… is Chiyono Sugimoto Kiyooka’s personal account of the devastating effect of World War II on Japan and also describes many interactions between Japanese and Americans – it has a quaint feel, but is thoughtful and interesting in contrasting the two cultures.  Especially inspiring is the spirit that motivated her family, over almost a century, during peacetime and wartime, to promote understanding between these two very different ways of life.

Logicomix

Logicomix is a fascinating and unusual graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, with art by Aleco s Papadatos and Annie Di Donna.  The subtitle, An Epic Search for Truth, signals the story's thread: an account of the development of logical thought, from the late 1890's up through the 1950's, using Bertrand Russell as narrator and his life story as the frame.  Russell came from a privileged and illustrious family - his grandfather was a Prime Minister of England - but also a secretive one, with skeins of madness and promiscuity.

Thus, Russell's earliest passions were to discover hidden truths, with certainty, which drove his interest in logic.  He spent roughly a decade collaborating with Alfred North Whitehead in developing a logical basis for arithmetic, with the goal of placing mathematics on a secure foundation.  Although the methods they developed in their Principia Mathematica were highly influential, they never succeeded in their goal and Russell felt that this effort had been a failure.  Eventually, as recounted in this book, Kurt Gödel relied heavily on the methods of Russell and Whitehead, to prove conclusively that the effort to axiomatize arithmetic is inherently flawed.  John von Neumann was in the audience when Gödel presented this work, and famously said "It's all over".

Russell was also a passionate pacifist, and the human cost of the wars and revolutions of the 1900's is a second major theme of the story, serving to underscore the tension between rational versus emotional or ideological approaches to human interaction.  The authors appear in the book as themselves, discussing the ideas and themes and, especially, how the book should end.  So as not to spoil the ending, I will simply say that the authors and illustrators attend a performance of the Oresteia, and draw conclusions from the ending of the play, which is visually exciting and emotionally powerful.  A very interesting and thoughtful book....and I am now reading the Oresteia!

A Fierce Radiance

This book takes place in Manhattan during World War II and follows the development of penicillin with a love story thrown in. Although it is a novel, it is based on historical fact (with some poetic license). I was surprised to learn that blood poisoning was a real threat up until the 1940s - people could die of something as simple as a cat scratch. Fascinating to see how the race to make penicillin readily available to the troops led to the rise of drug companies frantic to patent their own special formulas. Much of the novel takes place at the Rockefeller Institute so especially recommended to Brack and Jesse.

The Zookeeper's Wife

I just finished reading The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman, for this season's kickoff meeting of my local Book Club. This was a very affecting read for me. It is an engaging account of the events of World War II in Warsaw from the perspective of a strong, non-Jewish, Polish woman named Antonina Zabinski. It is a true story, developed from her writings and those of her husband, from diaries of the Jews who she "saved", and other historical accounts. Antonina's life as the wife of the keeper of the Warsaw Zoo was extremely colorful; there was much humor in the behavior of the animals, especially those she reared in her house. She seemed to have special gifts in communicating not only with the animals, but with people too. This quality really helped her defuse the dangerous situations that developed because she kept Jews hidden in her villa. I particularly admired her ability to communicate calm in the face of terror and to both take and give any joy that could be found in the day. This book also appealed to me for a couple of other reasons. Clearly, the author is fond of word origins and I enjoyed the explanation of a number of expressions, such as "screaming meemees" and "Molotov cocktails", that arose during wars. Also, the author uses a number of Polish words that I used to hear at home, so seeing them brought connection and comfort. Additionally, the description of attempts to resurrect extinct tarpans, aurochsen, and European bison, by back-breeding, appealed to the scientist in me. Finally, to know the story of World War II is to be sickened by the relentless suffering of so many, but I knew too little of the events in Poland and the story was so engagingly told that I learned a great deal. It's a great read.

The Boys' Crusade

Our local library has several savvy librarians - and one happy consequence is that I frequently see books that interest me on one of the "Staff Selections" racks. In this way, I was attracted to The Boys' Crusade by Paul Fussell, an account of the very young men (as the title suggests, really boys) who fought in northwestern Europe during the late stages of World War Two. Having just finished the Orwell book, it also seemed interesting to hear another perspective on life on the front lines.

Well, Orwell's book was clear-eyed, but he saw little actual combat. Fussell's short book, though very well-written, and light on rare occasions, is largely grim:

Now, almost sixty years after the horror, there has been a return, especially in popular culture, to military romanticism, which, if not implying that war is really good for you, does suggest that it contains desirable elements - pride, companionship, and the consciousness of virtue enforced by deadly weapons. In this book I have occasionally tried to confront this view with realistic details. Some readers may think my accounts of close warfare unjustifiably pessimistic in implication, but attention to the universal ironic gap between battle plans and battle actualities will suggest the ubiquity of much of my joyless material. There is nothing in infantry warfare to raise the spirits at all, and anyone who imagines a military "victory" gratifying is mistaken.

As this quote indicates, Fussell is a masterful writer - among his other books are Theory of Prosody in Eighteenth-Century England, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, and Samuel Johnson and the Life of Writing. All his talent is evident here, forcefully illustrating the horror of war. Not so much the carnage, though there are some vivid descriptions of that, but especially the utterly terrifying and hopeless situations into which so many of these boy recruits were thrust. Not a light read, but powerful and great.

At any rate, there was a distinct difference between American and German reactions to the desertion impulse, which any soldier must have felt occasionally. In the American army, the idea of soldiers running away was considered as not unlikely: thus the institution in infantry platoons of the guide sergeant in the rear, whose duty (never discussed) was to catch and dissuade youngsters reacting to a powerful impulse to run to the rear. In the German Army, such soldiers would be shot on sight. The difference is surely one of the things the war was about.