Great House

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss was not my favorite so I was pleasantly surprised by how moving her third novel, Great House, was.  In Great House, a large desk is the centerpiece both of the houses it occupies and the lives it touches. As an adult, I haven't had any furniture I care about-- I could get rid of it all and wouldn't miss it. But this desk represented a nostalgia for all who posessed it: nostalgia for a pre-Holocaust home in Budpest, nostalgia for a poet disappeared under Pinochet, the hope of another book written at it. Krauss weaves together disparate lives in different parts of the world, giving the book a kind of mystery as I kept reading to see how they would all connect together.

As in The History of Love, Krauss uses a bit of dialogue tic (which is what I disliked) but it is minor and I think her overall writing is improved. I look forward to her next books.

5 out of 5 netflix stars

Rag and Bone: A Journey Among The World's Holy Dead

A little over a year ago, my sister Liz took me to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It's off the beaten track of the other monuments in DC and there's nothing much else out there. But we were curious and we like churches. The Basilica was immense and sparkling and to two non-Catholics, daunting. We opted for the tour. Our guide explained statues and histories of saints and took us into special alcoves and soon we all lined up to view the relic. Maybe it was a bone fragment; I can't recall. But we all moved in a circle to get a glimpse.

Peter Manseau tells similar stories of viewing relics the world over in Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead. His interest is that of a layperson, like myself. He's not someone who has a strong religious attachment to the relics he visits themselves, but is curious about how the affect so many people, and on some level, are common to all the world's religions. He visits India, Israel, Pakistan, Syria and interacts with Jews, Catholics and Muslims. He describes a brief history of each of the relics he visits-- most are dubiously authentic but have at any rate suffered indignities and brutalities post mortem that sometimes exceed the violence experienced by the living person. And he usually speaks with the caretakers of the relics and/or shrines. He meets a nun whose personal life was marked by so many violent accidents that she felt compelled to turn to religion and the saint whose remains her convent now hosts. He met a family who for generations had been guarding a holy tooth in Kashmir, but who had lost their legacy through politics; Inidian guards now hold the keys. He met a scientist whose life work it has been to verify (or not) the remains of Saint Joan of Arc. He claims he is not spiritual, yet he reveres her bones with a fervor usually reserved for the most pious.

Mr. Manseau comes to realize that the relics are more than just a spritual connection-- in Sri Lanka they provide jobs-- helping the economy informally (tours) and formally (the requisite gift shop), in France, local pride unites a community and in Syria, children get to practice their English with tourists.

Mr. Manseau journeys the world with curiousity and respect. For him, it's a strictly personal exploration as much as an means to discovering the history of relics. His message is subtle-- living people and living history is more important than the dead.

For myself, the Basillica was beautiful, but maybe too beautiful. It was hard to for me to reconcile the ostentatious gilt with the suffering experienced by the saints featured. I appreciated Mr. Manseau's journey.

Netflix rating: 4/5 stars

The Girl on the Fridge

In a perfect world the 29 or so books that I've read over the past year for this project would all have come directly from my bookshelf. I would not have bought books for a "nice price", nor would I have taken recommendations from friends and acquaintances. I certainly would not have checked out books from the library! But it's not a perfect world and I did all these things.

No one can write about the imperfect world more concisely, and with such dark humor as Etgar Keret, whose book of short shorts, The Girl on the Fridge, I just finished.

Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer and I read his book The Nimrod Flipout a few years back and surprisingly loved it. Soon thereafter I saw a movie based on his writing, Wristcutters: A Love Story, and despite its unfortunate name, it was a wonderful movie which perfectly captured the essence of his style. He writes with a baudy humor-- frequent subjects are suicide and break ups and terrorism. The situations in which his characters interact swing back and forth between reality and the fantastic or dreamlike. Most of his protaganists act on impulses that most of us would check. The orderly who glibly can't recall the name of a recently deceased patient is attacked and strangled by the patient's roommate. A young man realizes he has the power to yell "freeze!" and then direct people to do whatever he desires. A magician's power to pull rabbits out of his hat is suddenly disrupted and the rabbits he pulls out are sometimes headless or bodiless, dripping with blood. Underneath all the id directed actions, however, are underlying fears and insecurities, making the stories honest and wistful.

I think the short story is the hardest thing to write-- to contain a scene or characterization in just 1000 words or so takes immense talent. Plus, Etgar Keret writes from a uniquely Israeli experience-- guns and violence are a major way of life there, and he doesn't gloss over that. I give this book 5/5 netflix stars.