JOAN DIDION, CONTRARIAN

Tracy Daugherty, The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015) ("Didion still believed what she had thought when she was a student at Berkeley in the fifties: Humanity's problems were not political, nor could they be solved by political action. The problem was the intractable human heart." Id. at 177. "Didion: The 'critical reading faculty' in this country 'atrophied' around the time Reagan took office. She said this was not a coincidence." Id. at 419. "Given both major parties' crass appeals to the rabid fringes of their bases, their attempts to limit the actual number of voters in play and to corral them in gerrymandered districts, 'choice' was a political fable. Only 'sentimentally does "the vote" give "the voter" an empathetic listener in the political class, let alone any leverage on the workings of that class,' dominated it is by vast wealth and armies of lobbyists." Id. at 506. Also, see Michiko Kakutani, "A Brilliant Writer (and a Brand) Examined in a Biography," NYT, The Arts, Books of the Times, Tuesday, 8/18.2015; and Sasha Weiss, "Coast to Coast," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 9/13/2015.).

SUGGESTED FICTION IN TRANSLATION

Miklos Banffy, The Transylvanian Trilogy, Volume I: Book One: They Were Counted, translated from the Hungarian by Patrick Thursfield & Katalin Banffy-Jelen (New York: Everyman's Library/Knopf, 2013).

Miklos Banffy, The Transylvanian Trilogy, Volumes II and III: Book Two: They Were Found Wanting; Book Three: They Were Divided, translated from the Hungarian by Patrick Thursfield & Katalin Banffy-Jelen (New York: Everyman's Library/Knopf, 2013).

Mikhail Bulgakow, The Master and Margarita, translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, introduction by Orlando Figes, and illustrated by Peter Suart (London: The Folio Society, 2010).

Andrea Canobbio, Three Light-Years: A Novel, translated from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2013, 2014).

Michel Deon, The Foundling Boy, translated from the French by Julian Evans (London: Gallic Books, 2013) (See Diane Johnson, "European Pastoral,  NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/15/2014).

Michel Deon, The Foundling's War, translated from the French by Julian Evans (London: Gallic Books, 2014).

Jenny Erpenbeck, The End of Days, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions Books, 2014).

Ernst Haffner, Blood Brothers: A Novel, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (New York: Other Press, 2015). 

Tove Jansson, Fair Play, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, introduction by Kathryn Davis (New York: New York Review Books, 2007).

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, introduction by Ali Smith (New York: New York Review Books, 2008).

Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, introduction by Ali Smith (New York: New York Review Books, 2009).


Raphael Jerusalmy, The Brotherhood of Book Hunters, translated from the French by Howard Curtis (New York: Europa Editions, 2014) (See Tadzio Koelb, "Rabbis, Monks, Rebels,  NYT Book Review, Sunday, 12/21/2014.).

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Autobiography of a Corpse, introduction by Adam Thirlwell, translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull with Nikolai Formozov (New York: New York Review Books, 2013) (From "Seams": "Yes, blessed are the wolves, for they believe at least in blood. All against all--that should be the object of our long and hard journey, and only when . . . " Id. at 61, 62.).

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, The Letter Killers Club, introduction by Caryl Emerson, translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull with Nikolai Formozov (New York: New York Review Books, 2012).

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Memories of the Future, introduction by and translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull with Nikolai Formozov (New York: New York Review Books, 2006, 2009) From "Red Snow": "resignation to one's fate takes practice. like any art. Or so citizen Shushashin maintains. He begins every day--after putting on his shoes and washing his face, before throwing on his jacket--with an exercise. Again, the expression is his. This exercise works like this: he walks over to the wall, puts his back up against it and stands there in an attitude of utter resignation. For a minute or two. And that's all The exercise is over, He can begin to live." Id. at 109, 109.).

David Lagercrantz, The Girl in the Spider's Web, translated from the Swedish by George Goulding (New York: Knopf, 2015).

Munae Mizumura, A True Novel: Volumes 1 and 2, translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter (New York: Other Press, 2002, 2013).

Patrick Modiano, Dora Bruder, translated from the French byJoanna Kilmartin (Berkeley & London: U. of California Press, 1999).

Antonio Munoz Molina, In the Night of Time: A Novel, translated form the Spanish by Edith Grossman ( Boston & New YorkL Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Haruki Murakami, The Strange Library, translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen (New York: Knopf, 2014).

Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar: A Novel, translated from the Arabic by Max Weiss (New York: Other Press, 2013) (From the bookjacket: "The Silence and the Roar is a funny, sexy, scathing novel about the struggle of an individual over tyranny. Tinged with a Kafkaesque sense of the absurd, it explores what it means to be truly free in mind and body, despite the worst efforts of the state to impose its will on its citizens.).

Royall Tyler, trans., The Tale of the Heike, translated from the Japanese (New York: Viking, 2012) (From the bookjacket: "Rich in scenes of battle and warfare, The Tale of the Heike evokes human drama, Buddhist themes of suffering and separation, and universal insights into love, loss, and loyalty. In Japan, no single work of literature has more thoroughly influenced subsequent theater, literature, and music--indeed the Japanese people's very sense of their own past.").

Mario Varga Llosa, The Discreet Hero: A Novel, translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015) (See Francisco Goldman, "Successful Envy," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 3/15/2008.).

Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, translated from the French by William Butcher, Introduction by Margaret Drabble, Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki (London: The Folio Society, 2014).

FOR THOSE WITH A PHILOSOPHICAL BENT

Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, translated from the German by Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984).

Jurgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, translated from the German by Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987).

Richard Kraut, Against Absolute Goodness (Oxford Moral Theory) (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2011).

T. M. Scanlon, Being Realistic About Reasons (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2014).

Seana Valentine Shiffrin, Speech Matters: On Lying, Morality, and the Law (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2014).

"ETHICAL LONELINESS"

Jill Stauffer, Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard (New York; Columbia U. Press, 2015) ("Ethical loneliness is the isolation one feels when one, as a violated person, or as one member of a persecuted group, has been abandoned by humanity, or by those who have power over one's life's possibilities. It is a condition undergone by persons who have been unjustly treated and dehumanized by human beings and political structures, who emerge from that injustice only to find that the surrounding world will not listen to or cannot properly hear their testimony--their claims about what they suffered and about what is now owed them--on their own terms. So ethical loneliness is the experience of having been abandoned by humanity compounded by the experience of not being heard. Such loneliness is so named because it is a form of social abandonment that can be imposed only by multiple ethical lapses on the part of human beings residing in the surrounding world." Id. at 1-2. "There are countless ways--lawful and unlawful--of not taking responsibility for all others or some others: desensitization to others and to violence; elitism, racism, and bigotry; acceptance of structural violence; reasoned limitation on responsibility; contracts and rules of behavior; social norms of inequality; and so on. But the self is not a monad. It is changed by circumstances, and circumstances are peopled by others." Id. at 167.).

HOMER

Mortimer J. Adler, Editor in Chief, Great Books of the Western World, Volume 3: Homer: The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952, 1990).

REFLECTING ON PAKISTAN

Rafia Zakaria, The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015).

SOME REFLECTIONS ON INDIA, ETC.

Jonah Blank, Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India (New York: Grove Press, 1992) ("India is starting to trade stagnation and peace of mind for opportunity and frustration. The same is true in many other countries, but nowhere is the exchange more clear-cut. When old women complain about Westernization, moan that their grandchildren are growing up like little Americans, this is what lies at the heart of their grumbles. It's easy to see what one gains from modernity: the TV sets, the waterproof tin roofs, the medicines that work like powerful magic. It's more difficult to see what one gives up." Id. at 44. "Everyone, I think, longs for a world where good always trounces evil. When we go to the movies we know the hero will win out and the villain will be crushed, but we still grip the armrests in anticipation. What are action-thriller films if not mortality plays? Does the sadistic drug lord ever walk unpunished? It is the same in most popular forms of fiction: right must defeat wrong, or else we'd feel cheated." "In real life, it is quite often evil that trumps. In real life, rapists and murderers go free on judicial technicalities, slumlords and stock manipulators flourish as respected members of society. In real life, good, honest, hard-working people lose their livelihoods at the flick of a corporate raider's pen. Perhaps that is why we so desperately seek escape. We ache for a world where good always wins, because that is not the real world we inhabit. We long for Saint George. We long for Rama." Id. at 175. "Man's finest aspirations produce man's most hideous crimes--as soon as the goals come to dominate the methods. Mao Zedong had the dream of creating a perfect human society, of wiping aways inequality, hunger, and class injustice; to bring about this utopia he instituted the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, events that killed more than fifty million people. Pol Pot tried so hard to stamp out an oppressive feudalism that he exterminated one fourth of the population of Cambodia. Even megalomaniacal dictators like Stalin and Hitler had visions that extended far beyond personal aggrandizement, and that is what made them so dangerous. Their dreams were twisted, but they were dreams nonetheless. The most nefarious butchers in history have slept quite soundly at night, lulled by the soothing fantasy that they were striving for good." "Most often, perhaps, evil lies not in the ends but in the means." Id. at 196-197. "India has never been a melting pot, or even (as the Canadians prefer) a salad bowl. It is more like a bazaar where the stew and the salad ingredients are bought: an exuberant, disorderly display of every color flavor, and price, of vegetables, grains, and meats, of scents and spices mixing only in the scented air. It is a profusion, a confusion, but never a true fusion." Id. at 207. "From kindergarten through high school I learned virtually nothing about the world beyond Europe and America. [] I don't recall ever being told to respect the cultures of Asia--at that time political correctness didn't extend across the Pacific Ocean. [] Race (along with gender and sexual orientation) has become an academic football. [] Every day we in the West close our eyes to the wisdom and the beauty of four millennia, because it comes from societies we make little attempt to understand. The Ramayana, like the Odyssey or Paradise Lost, is a cultural treasure, not of one particular race but of all races. It tells us much about India, but just as much about ourselves." Id. at 216-217. "Many Westerners think of Hindu theology as an impossibly intimidating subject, as far above the common person's ken as the intricacies of quantum physics. There are many reasons for this. Much of our impression of Eastern religions comes not from genuine Hindus or Buddhists but from muddle-minded pseudo-swamis giving out pamphlets at airports, or from New Age bookstores where the Rig Veda is shelved next to the healing crystals. Moreover, it is indeed daunting to set aside the entire Judeo-Christian intellectual framework that underlies everything we believe. And, yes, many aspects of India's ancient philosophy are complex enough to make Wittgenstein wince." Id. at 236. "The method by which a person unifies his own spirit with the divine spirit is yoga. The religious yoga of a devout Hindu has little relation to the stretching and relaxation classes which go by that name in America--about as much relation, perhaps, as receiving holy communion has to munching Saltines: the latter action is similar, but stripped of all meaning." Id. at 244.).

Ved Mehta, Portrait of India (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 1993).

Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume I: 1469-1839, 2d. ed (New Delhi, India: Oxford U. Press, 1999, 2001).

Khushwant Singh, A History of the Sikhs, Volume II: 1839-2004, 2d. ed (New Delhi, India: Oxford U. Press, 1999, 2004).

Shashi Tharoor, The Great Indian Novel (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989, 2011) ("Ah, Ganapathi, I see I disappoint you once more. The old man going off the point again, I see you think; how tiresome he can be when he gets philosophical. Do you know what 'philosophical' means, Ganapathi? It comes from the Greek words phileein, to love, and sophia, wisdom. A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, Ganapathi. Not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling defect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes. Whereas wisdom, true wisdom, is eternal, immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it." Id. at 163. "Whatever our ancestors expected of India, Ganapathi, it was not this. It was not a land where dharma and duty have come to mean nothing; where religion is an excuse for conflict rather than a code of conduct; where piety instead of marking wisdom, masks a crippling lack imagination. It was not a land where brides are burned in kerosene-soaked kitchens because they have not brought enough dowry with them; where integrity and self-respect are for sale to the highest bidder; where men are pulled off buses and butchered because of the length of a forelock or the absence of a foreskin. All these things that I have avoided mentioning in my story because I preferred to pretend they did not matter." "But they matter, of course, because in our country the mundane is as relevant as the mythical. Our philosophers try to make much of out great Vedic religion by pointing to its spiritualism, its pacifism, its lofty pansophism; and they ignore, or gloss over, its superstitions, its inequalities, its obscurantism. That is quite typical. Indeed one may say it is quite typically Hindu. Hinduism is the religion of over 80 per cent of Indians, and as a way of life it pervades almost all things Indian, bringing to politics, work and social relations the same flexibility of doctrine, reverence for custom an absorptive eclecticism that characterize the religion--as well as the same tendency to respect outworn dogma, worship sacred cows and offer under deference to gurus. Not to mention its great ability to overlook--or transcend--the inconvenient truth." Id. at 411-412.).

JAPANESE DOMESTIC POLITICS

Sheila A. Smith, Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (A Council on Foreign Relations Book) (New York: Columbia U. Press, 2015) ("A second policy commitment by Japan that could be sorely tested by China is Tokyo's commitment to an open and liberal global trading order. Throughout the postwar era, Japan has sought to rebuild its national economy and expand its industrial base through the Bretton Woods commitment to open and free trade. While Tokyo was considering how to stimulate greater competitiveness, it began a new round of trade talks in 2013. Japan has agreed to join the trans-Pacific Partnership with the United States and eight other Pacific nations, Equally important, Tokyo remains committed to a free-trade agreement with both South Korea and China. If China were to abandon this effort and turn instead to a more protectionist path in its economic relations with Japan, it would signal a challenge to the principles of free trade as well as restrict market access for Japanese companies in China. Likewise, if the Chinese government decided to discriminate against Japanese goods, companies, and/or capital, it would have a serious impact on Japan's own economic performance. Any tit-for-tat trade dispute or other kinds of economic tension between Japan and China could alter Japanese attitudes toward free trade and an open Japanese economy. Japan's and China's economic interdependence will become an even greater source of anxiety when Japan's need to service its national debt forces it to sell its bonds on the global market. Already, China is beginning to buy Japanese government bonds, through not yet on a scale comparable to that of other advanced industrial economies. The more Chinese that purchase Japanese debt, the greater Japan's vulnerability to China will become, and this, too, could exacerbate domestic anxiety in Japan about the Chinese governments long-term ambitions." Id. at 261-262.).

Sheila A. Smith, Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, July 2014) ("[T]he U.S. role in the postwar settlement of Northeast Asia is central to the understanding of the postwar peace. Washington has not been a bystander in the postwar order in Asia, and it should not assume that role now as questions about the legitimacy of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and other regional peace treaties are called into question. New generations of Asia citizens, including Japanese, are asking new questions about the origins of the postwar peace, and the domestic politics surrounding this revisionist impulse will be important drivers of policy in Asia. [] Reconciliation has been the cornerstone of bilateral U.S.-Japan relations for more than half a century, and the United States and Japan should not hesitate to look back at that choice. As with all reconciliation efforts, however, more can be done. A visit by the U.S. president to the sites of the atomic bombings in Japan--the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki--would be one one of demonstrating the continued desire for reconciliation as the premise of the alliance partnership, and would offer a powerful example for other parties in Asia struggling to overcome the politics of national identity associated with memories of twentieth-century conflict." Id. at 34-35.).

9/11/2015

Today is a good day to remember the 1,742 and 3,527 American men and women who died fighting in the American War in Afghanistan (2001 to present) and the American War in Iraq (2003-2011), respectively.

SUGGESTED FICTION

Mia Alvar, In the Country: Stories (New York: Knopf, 2015).

Joshua Cohen, Book of Numbers: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2015).

Nell Freudenberger, The Dissident: A Novel (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006, 2007) ("In order to keep lying convincingly, and hold on to your sanity, it helps to have a private place where you are simultaneously either speaking or wring down the truth." Id. at 53.).

Sarah Hall, The Wolf Border: A Novel (New York: Harper, 2015).

Smith Henderson, Fourth of July Creek: A Novel (New York: Ecco, 2014).

Renee Knight, Disclaimer: A Novel (New York: Harper, 2015).

Vendela Vida, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty: A Novel (New York: Ecco, 2015).

SHE TOLD US!

Shirley Jackson, Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings, edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman & Sarah Hyman Dewitt, with a foreword by Ruth Franklin (New York: Random House, 2015) (Readers should take special note of the essay, "Notes on an Unfashionable Novelist (Samuel Richardson, 1689-1761)." I would have read Let Me Tell You without having read Paul Theroux review. However, it went to the read-now-rather-later list with his first paragraph/ "How do we explain to the new, knowing wash-ashores, Brits and Aussies mainly, who've insinuated themselves into the media here, and not popular American culture generally, and to the very young, that there are touchstones and events that define us, that have formed us, that they know nothing about? They don't have the slightest clue, nor do they know Bo Diddley." Paul Theroux, "The Stories She Told," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 8/2/2015.).

WE DON'T WANT ANYBODY (INCLUDING REFUGEES) WHO IS NOT LIKE US

Carl J. Bon Tempo, Americans at the Gate: The United States and Refugees during the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton & Oxford: Princeton . Press, 2008) ("Two contentions stand at the center of this book. First, refugee policies, laws, and programs in the post-World War II era were the product of interactions between foreign policy imperatives and domestic political and cultural considerations. As a result, refugee affairs clearly demonstrate that the United States' domestic and international histories should not--and indeed cannot--be disaggregated. Second, the story of refugee affairs cannot be found just in the policy and political battles that produced refugee program and laws, but must be located as well in the implementation and administration of those programs and laws." Id at 3.).

RACE AND EDUCATION IN AMERICA

Kristen Green, Something Must be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle (New York: Harper, 2015) (From the book cover: "In the wake of the Supreme Court's unanimous Brown v. Board of Education decision, Virginia's Prince Edward County refused to obey the law. Rather than desegregate, the county closed its pubic schools, locking and chaining the doors. The community's white leaders quickly established a private academy, commandeering supplies from the shuttered public schools to use in their all-white classrooms. Meanwhile, black parents had few options: keep their kids home, move across county lines, or send their kids to live with relatives in other states. For five years, the schools remained closed.").