An Aside: The Lacuna in photos

And now for a pictoral trip through Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, The Lacuna. One of the reasons I'd picked the book up is because I'd had such a great time in Mexico City - it's really an amazing town and undeserving of its negative reputation!

We saw this cleansing ceremony taking place on a Sunday morning behind the Cathedral. At the beginning of the book, Harrison's mother drags him along with her as she visits a shaman in the jungle and Kingsolver's description reminded me of the one we'd seen:

The next photo shows the entry to the Casa Azul (no photos allowed inside the house). This was the house that Frida Kahlo grew up in and one of the houses that she and Diego lived in. We never made it to the house in San Angel or Anahuacalli, the weird Aztec temple-house that Harrison mentions in The Lacuna. We were in Mexico City just after Dia de los Muertos and there was a large table set up outside with mementos to Frida and Diego, like this one:

We also went to Leon Trotsky's house, which is only a few blocks from the Casa Azul. The house has such a cloud of sadness hanging over it...I really do think Trotsky has the most tragic story of the 20th century. The first photo is of Trotsky's study where he was murdered by ice pick in 1940. The second photo is of Trotsky's office, where someone like Harrison Shepherd would have worked:

We tried to go see the Rivera murals at the Palacio Nacional but for whatever reason, it was closed that day. So instead, we later went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes and saw some of the other Rivera murals, including Man at the Crossroads, mentioned in The Lacuna. This is the mural that Rivera recreated in 1934 after the Rockefellers tore down the commissioned original in New York City because they didn't like its themes. In the first photo, you can see Lenin between the wings on the right. In the second photo, the man with the white hair is Trotsky.

And then last but not least, a photo of Teotihuacan. In the background you can see the Temple of the Sun. In the book, Frida takes Harrison here to visit her archaeologist friend. During his picnic lunch on the riverbank with Frida, Harrison finds an Aztec figurine of a man.

#2: The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver

This was my first Barbara Kingsolver book and I liked The Lacuna well enough, but didn't love it. Still, I'm interested in reading more of her work because she conjures some amazing images with her prose - it's just that in this one, I didn't find the protagonist captivating enough.

The Lacuna centers around Harrison Shepherd, a gay writer who grows up with dual identities as a Mexican and an American. The book begins in his childhood, when his vain mother uproots him to follow her lover to Isla Pixol, Mexico. Harrison feels isolated on the tiny island but soon discovers the joys of snorkeling - and an opening in the coral, the titular lacuna, that leads to an archaeological ruin in a cenote. After a brief stint at a military boarding school in the States, he returns to Mexico and reconnects with artist Diego Rivera, whom he'd formerly mixed plaster for. In the most interesting part of the book, Harrison's fictional life becomes entwined with the real lives around him, those of Rivera, his wife Frida Kahlo, and their friend Leon Trotsky. But after things go horribly wrong, Harrison returns to the United States and settles in Asheville, North Carolina, where he becomes a famous writer...until McCarthy enters history. Harrison struggles with this until the end of the novel, when Kingsolver returns to the beginnings of the book with a poignant weaving together of the original pieces. The ending was incredible, although the images were perhaps a little overexplained (for readers who wouldn't get it?).

The book is 400-plus pages so it has a number of themes running through it, but I'd say it's primarily about the search for home and identity...and yet, Harrison Shepherd never finds his. He's a shadow figure when he's supposed to be the star of his own life; he never really comes to term with being gay, being an artist, or even being an American and/or a Mexican. Even though he becomes successful in his own right, it's like he never grows out of the feeling that he's just a servant or assistant. Harrison is completely defined by the people around him - and so is the book. Thus, The Lacuna is interesting when the people around him are interesting - his mother and her affairs, Leon Trotsky (who has perhaps the 20th-century's saddest story). But then when his companions, like Violet Brown, are meek or situations, like with Bulls-Eye, are implied, the book's momentum really slowed.

But still, it's a worthy read. Most interesting, I thought, were the parallels Kingsolver drew (intentionally, I think) between McCarthy's Communist witchhunts in the 1950s and the political landscape of today. Harrison Shepherd is ostracized because it's deemed that he's not American enough and those scenes really reminded me of the "un-American" rhetoric used in the last election by the Republic party, and specifically Sarah Palin.

As I mentioned up top, I found Kingsolver to be an incredible writer. I only wish someday I can conjure up half the wondrous images she does. Perhaps my favorite passage, from page 18:

“The hacienda had heavy doors and thick walls that stayed cool all day, and windows that let in the sound of the sea all night: hush, hush, like a heartbeat. He would grow thin as bones here, and when the books were all finished, he would starve. But no, now he would not. The notebook from the tobacco stand was the beginning of hope: a prisoner’s plan for escape. Its empty pages would be the book of everything, miraculous and unending like the sea at night, a heartbeat that never stops.”

Last but not least, I went to Mexico City in 2008 and visited a good number of the places mentioned in the book. Click here for the next post, featuring a small gallery of photos .

#1: Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson and Relin

On the bright side, I'm pleased to announce - after 2009's dismal list - that I've already finished a book this year! (Yes, I realize this is nothing much to brag about, but I'm just coming off the heels of blogging about my failures.) But, on the shadier side of the street, I'm sad to say that I didn't love Three Cups of Tea. I liked the idea of it but I just didn't think the book lived up to its promise or intentions - much like the similarly themed A Mighty Heart.

For those who have escaped its all-encompassing hold on the bestseller list (I had to go to a second bookstore to buy it before Christmas; the first was totally sold out), Three Cups of Tea is the story of mountaineer Greg Mortenson. After a failed effort to climb K2, he stumbles off the mountain, loses his way, and ends up in a random Pakistani village called Korphe. The people there take him in and get him back on his feet and Mortenson decides he wants to do something for them, to repay their kindness. So he builds them a bridge and a school and the effort sets him on a new life path, building schools for other impoverished villages throughout the country.

I think the book could have ended there and it would have been wonderful...it's really interesting how Mortenson navigated his personal demons, virtual bankruptcy, and Pakistan's unique ins-and-outs to successfully build a bunch of schools and make a difference. But Three Cups of Tea just sort of went on and on. After the first couple of schools, it was the same story over and over again, but without the drama, since he'd pretty much already conquered it.

But more than anything, by the end of the book, I felt like I was reading a public-relations manifesto...and I started to distrust it. The format of the book is incredibly strange - is it an autobiography? a biography? a really long magazine profile? On the surface, Three Cups of Tea is presented as an autobiography, written by Mortenson with help from journalist David Oliver Relin. But it's not, not really, because it's not written in the first person, with Mortenson's voice -- rather, it's written like a magazine article, in third person with scene-setting and interviews and quotes. Which is an interesting way to go, and I quite liked the format, until I started to realize that Three Cups of Tea lacks one basic tenet of journalism: objectivity.

Mortenson is presented almost as a god -- and granted, he seems like a genuinely good person -- but in the last 100 pages or so, Relin starts using these ridiculously fawning quotes, which struck me as overkill. Mortenson's actions stand for themselves, and it seemed a little over-the-top to have people like Mary Bono and Parade's editor-in-chief falling all over themselves to call him a "real American hero." Added to that, I think the book glossed over the difficult parts - at one point, some of the board members leave Mortenson's Central Asia Institute because they don't agree with his management style, and the whole thing only gets two paragraphs. I felt like everyone was afraid to let Mortenson be real on the page. Which just seems weird -- can't he still be a good person and still have some flaws?

Anyway...I'm onto book #2 now, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. So far, so good...

2010 Books

So here we are, in 2010 with a clean slate. I can do better this year, seriously. Last year, I made a list of the books I'd like to tackle, but in the end, my reading choices mostly took me to other places. Still, I'd like to start 2010 with a few ideas...

So at the top of my list this year, we have: Wolf Hall, Waiter Rant, The Children's Book, Cast Member Confidential (about working at Disney), Shakespeare's Henry VIII, The Constant Gardener, The Subtle Knife (because there seems to be no movie forthcoming), Persuasion, Outliers, Ovid's Metamorphosis, Villette, The Lacuna, and Three Cups of Tea (which, success, I've already finished). That's nowhere near 30 books, but still a good list to start with.

On another note, I'm starting to see that there are a good number of people who read far more books a year than I do. Stephen King, in his Entertainment Weekly column, said that he read 100 BOOKS last year. How is that possible? Does the man do anything but read and write? All I can say is: wow. Oh, and we both really admire Revolutionary Road.

Then, yesterday, on Goodreads, I came across a little blurb for book challenges. I always thought 30 books a year was impressive, but silly me. One group plans to read 144 BOOKS this year. That's 12 a month. Wow. I glanced through a couple of profiles and some people have opted to go the romance/mystery route - and I suppose I could also handle 144 if I stuck to quick reads like Sue Grafton and Robert B. Parker (whom I love, don't get me wrong). But one entrant has already read Wolf Hall, in addition to four other books. Again, wow. Another Goodreads group plans to go for just a measly 50. Slackers. :)

2009 Tally - It's an F+

I'm embarrassed for two reasons: I only read 23 books in 2009 (the lowest tally since 2005's 22 books) and it's taken me 13 days of the new year to get around to blogging about it. Pathetic!

I have no idea what happened and no excuses to offer. Alas. Better luck next year?