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.

Madonna in a Fur Coat - Sabahattin Ali

For July's bookclub, we read Sabahattin Ali's Madonna in a Fur Coat, a very interesting and enjoyable read, although a sorrowful one. Madeline recommended this book, after reading a piece on it in the New York Times ("A Once-Forgotten Novel Unites Turkish Readers in Troubled Times").

The novel's frame is a young man who becomes deeply interested in one of his colleagues, an older German/Turkish translator named Raif Effendi. Raif seems a perfect nebbish, always being berated by his superior and never raising a word of complaint. He piques the young man's interest one day, however, when he suddenly dashes off a quick sketch that brilliantly reveals his superior's brutish yet pathetically miserable ego. After that, the narrator becomes determined to understand the mysterious Raif, despite all obstacles.

The story is ultimately a love story, although a highly unusual one, due to the unexpected gender nonconformity of the protagonists. Raif is hobbled in 1920s society by his "girlish" innocence, and he falls madly in love with the titular "Madonna," a "mannishly" outspoken and independent painter woman he befriends. The two bond powerfully, but struggle to find a relationship that fits their needs.

Beautifully written and surprisingly poignant - would definitely recommend.

The Gathering Storm

We watched Darkest Hour, a pretty good film about Winston Churchill taking the reins of the British government after the failure of the appeasement policy (with an astonishing, virtuoso performance by Gary Oldman as Churchill) – which made me interested in reading The Gathering Storm – the first of Churchill’s six-volume history and personal memoir of the period from the end of the first World War to the end of the Second World War.  Churchill was a masterful writer (he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953, though for other writings, not the history).  

The book amply fulfills its stated theme:

HOW THE ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLES
THROUGH THEIR UNWISDOM
CARELESSNESS AND GOOD NATURE
ALLOWED THE WICKED
TO REARM

Of course, Churchill’s stirring speeches are famous for their emotional power and The Gathering Storm includes some striking examples. Churchill first described post World War One Germany, after the allies imposed The Weimar Republic, as a tepid democracy “which was regarded as the imposition of the enemy” and then paints a vivid picture of the consequences:

Thereafter mighty forces were adrift, the void was open, and into that void after a pause there strode a maniac of ferocious genius, the repository and expression of the most virulent hatreds that have ever corroded the human breast – Corporal Hitler.

Many of his conclusions and recommendations speak forcefully to the world situation today:

When three or four powerful Governments acting together have demanded the most fearful sacrifices from their peoples, when these have been given freely for the common cause, and when the longed-for result has been attained, it would seem reasonable that concerted action should be preserved so that at least the essentials would not be cast away.  But this modest requirement the might, civilization, learning, knowledge, science, of the victors were unable to supply.  They lived from hand to mouth and day to day, and from one election to another, until, when scarcely twenty years were out, the dread signal of the Second World War was given, and we must write of the sons of those who had fought and died so faithfully and well: 

Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life’s broad wealds of light
 -Siegfried Sassoon

In addition to his unparalleled gift for rousing and emotional language, Churchill’s narrative and persuasive writing throughout is marked by simplicity, clarity and power.  A sad story, masterfully recounted.

All the Light We Cannot See

This book by Anthony Doerr is written simply, but with the emotional power and magical intensity of a fable or fairy tale. The book is set in World War II and centers on two main characters, a blind French girl and a talented young German soldier, who are eventually drawn together and meet in the walled city of St. Malo. The structure is a little unusual, with short chapters that switch from one character to another and back in forth in time, getting closer and closer to the moment of meeting.  

There's a very interesting interview with Doerr that was published in the Powell's Book Blog.   At one point, the interviewer, in asking him about the short chapters, says perhaps they "can allow for more lyricisms and/or experimentation with language in some ways than longer chapters because you get that cessation. Doerr agrees that his writing in this novel is very lyrical and says "I know that's demanding, so this was a gesture of friendliness, maybe. It's like I'm saying to the reader, "I know this is going to be more lyrical than maybe 70 percent of American readers want to see, but here's a bunch of white space for you to recover from that lyricism." [Laughter].

The story and characters are so captivating that All the Light We Cannot See is hard to put down.  When I had finished and was thinking over the book, it seemed to me that it differed from many books in that it had no strong themes.  One line spoken by a character in the book has been repeatedly quoted by readers and reviewers:  “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”  The title and this statement clearly relate to the blind girl, but I finally came to feel that they also describe a central "theme"of the book: that life is magnificent; joyous and heartbreaking, meaningful and random, kind and cruel. Although Doerr is not Tolstoy, and All the Light We Cannot See is not War and Peace, the power of the writing nevertheless grips us and invites to embrace the variety of life.