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!

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

I recently finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” It is a very poetic, powerful, and personal look at what it means to grow up as a Black boy and live as a Black man in America. His story is framed as a letter to his son, warning him about the dangers of living in a society run by White people, whom he terms “Dreamers.” This “Dream” is the society in which we all live, where the fantasy of White supremacy has been reified by violence. Through the Dream, Whites have access to what we commonly call “The American Dream,” while Blacks are excluded from opportunity and security - penned into ghettoes and the prison system, and terrorized and murdered by the police. Coates is full of anger at the unfair system that claims the lives of so many Black men, and the heat of his fury is palpable, but his tale also has another side, which is his pride in and love for the power of Black culture and community. Definitely a heart-wrenching book, but an important one. Would recommend to all!

Little Green

Like the previous Easy Rawlins mysteries, this is a lively and pleasurable read. The characters are fascinating, the dialog is vivid and often humorous, and the subtext always includes racial tension.  One of the more colorful character's is Easy's likable but extremely violent friend, Mouse.  In this book, for example, Easy is recovering from a near fatal auto accident - Mouse actually found and saved him - and after he has regained consciousness, Mouse takes Easy to his old apartment, which, they find, is now occupied by Jeffrey, who initially refuses to let them in.  Mouse takes out his long-barreled .41 and hits Jeffrey "in the center of his vast forehead."  Mouse again asks Jeffrey what he's doing here and he answers:

"I live here!  The man who owned this place died and I......I homesteaded it".

There was blood coming from Jeffrey's forehead, but we all knew that was the least of his problems."

 Well, in addition to the outlandish incidents, the social commentary is very interesting.  The events of Little Green are set within the hippie community of LA in the '60s and a recurrent observation of Easy's is how the hippies take a much more inclusive view of diversity - and that maybe this holds some hope for future relationships between black and white men. An interesting and entertaining read!

America in the King Years

Just finished the final volume of Taylor Branch's magisterial biography of Martin Luther King and his effect on America. King's astonishing oratory is on full display, but the books also reveal his extraordinary vision, humility, empathy, vitality and patience.

Although focusing on King, Branch details other powerful currents in American history: violent Southern racism and the revelation of equally vicious racism in the North; J. Edgar Hoover's paranoia, lawlessness, and relentless efforts to destroy King; the triumphs of Lyndon's Johnson's civil rights and anti-poverty initiatives and his ultimate inability to escape the pressures to escalate in Vietnam.

The final volume is tragic and overwhelmingly sad, telling the unfortunate story of how white backlash, black power and the Vietnam War combined to efface the power of nonviolence in America, and concluding with King's assassination.

A tremendous achievement and a rewarding read.

Life on the Color Line

By Greg Williams, the new UC President. What a remarkable, harrowing, touching, and inspiring life this guy has led! His improbable story: born to an Italian-American father and southern belle mom and raised in Virginia in a town fraught with racial tension, until his charming but alcoholic and abusive father ran his restaurant into the ground. After his mother left and the family touched bottom, his father moved Greg and his brother to live with relatives in Muncie, Indiana - BLACK relatives, because the father was an African American passing as white and the formerly white Greg was now a very white African American, scorned by both sides of his heritage. How he suffered, coped and ultimately triumphed is a lesson in American racial attitudes - and the role played by his "truly mother" Dora is deeply moving. VERY highly recommended.