Claire Burrows

Whom Not to Marry: Time-Tested Advice from a Higher Authority

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

After reading Whom Not to Marry by Father Pat Connor, a Catholic priest, I contemplated the different ways to approach this review. I could discuss the practical aspects of this book, but Maureen Dowd already addressed this in a July 6, 2008 op-ed in the New York Times. I could parody Whom Not to Marry, but Father Connor seems so earnest and well-meaning I couldn’t mock him in good conscience (and I’m not even Catholic). I could take a liberal stance and point out that this book is heteronormative, patriarchal, and antiquated. However, I’m much less offended by this instruction manual than I am by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider’s The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. Connor at least encourages women to find someone who treats them with respect and kindness, rather than giving lessons on how to seduce men by playing hard to get.

Whom Not to Marry is based on Connor’s lecture that he shares with audiences of young women. He structures the book around 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, from the Bible: “Love is patient, love is kind...” If you’ve ever attended an American or Christian wedding, you’ve certainly heard this read, usually by a relative. I don’t want to be dismissive and say this is cliched, but Connor is certainly not introducing a new idea. Not to mention the fact that as a Catholic priest Connor has never been married himself, but gleans his experience from premarital counseling and presiding over ceremonies.

Full disclosure: I’m married and believe everyone should have the right to marry. At the same time, I respect that there are many people opposed to the institution of marriage. To enter into marriage should be an individual choice. This is the fundamental weakness of Whom Not to Marry. It assumes every woman wants to marry a man.

Another weakness of the book is that Connor does not criticize the institution of marriage, or at least the wedding industry in the U.S. I would never expect him to violate the tenets of his religion, but the book doesn’t account for social context. In many ways this book is ahistorical, and attributes failed marriages to women’s bad judgment, rather than considering the social pressure to marry quickly, traditionally, and with spectacle.

I don’t think I would actually recommend Father Connor’s Whom Not to Marry to anyone that I know. It’s very reminiscent of Good Housekeeping relationship advice columns that my grandmother may have clipped. Sweet and with the best intentions, but predictable and naïve.

Written by: Claire Burrows, June 27th 2010

Mathilda Savitch

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Victor Lodato

Picador

Despite years of being told not to, I immediately judged Victor Lodato’s novel Mathilda Savitch by the cover. I opened it expecting to speed through a mature version of Harriet the Spy with a twist of Tim Burton’s eccentricity. The title suggested a fantastic world not unlike Coraline; however, the fantasy of Mathilda Savitch is of the saddest shade.

Young Mathilda Savitch is a teenager who introduces herself in the first line of the book by saying, “I want to be awful.” Disoriented by the sudden death of her older sister Helene, Mathilda descends into an internal world of obsessive compulsive habits, nightmares, and delusion. Her home reflects her dark imagination, as her mother has succumbed to depression and alcoholism while her father weakly tries to maintain the family’s previous levity.

Mathilda Savitch is bitterly funny at times, reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye or The Bell Jar. While it’s supposed to be a coming-of-age story—addressing menstruation, sexual experimentation, as well as basic rebellion—it feels more like a moment fixed in time.

While there are wonderful moments in the book, it isn’t flawless. A parallel theme of terrorism felt superficial and gratuitous. I also wasn’t completely convinced by Mathilda’s voice, especially when it came to puberty and sexuality. As a woman, I did not sense authenticity in these moments as I did when she was frustrated with her parents or missing her sister. Her thoughts, which compose the majority of the book, often sound more like staged monologues.

In fact, Lodato is a playwright and a poet, and this is his debut novel. Bits of the text read like poetry—“Window eyes, a window nose, and a door for a mouth”—while other parts sound like a play. Overall, however, Lodato has captured a painful stream of consciousness. I could imagine myself as a sometimes unhappy teenager wanting to find a dark place, alone, to obsess over Mathilda Savitch like a secret friend. This is a book worth reading, and although a fast read, it is not best suited for the beach.

Written by: Claire Burrows, April 16th 2010

Nancy: Volume 2

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By John Stanley

Drawn and Quarterly

Drawn and Quarterly’s second compilation of the John Stanley-penned Nancy comics are simply enjoyable, and deliver what the Dell Comics stamps promise: “clean and wholesome entertainment.” More exceptional, however, than the Little Rascal-esque hijinks is Stanley’s clever writing and humorous narrative. This talent has earned him a place in classic comics history.

Throughout a prolific career, Stanley most notably wrote for Marjorie Henderson Buell’s strip Little Lulu, but also authored Thirteen Going on Eighteen, and Melvin Monster, among others. After a formidable career as an author of humorous comics, as well as a brief foray into horror comics, Stanley left the industry in the late ’60s. His Nancy storylines reflect Stanley’s oeuvre of work, as well as comics and popular culture mid-century.

Cartoonist Ernie Bushmiller created Nancy in 1938, based on the niece in Fritzi Ritz, a daily flapper strip featuring pinup-worthy Aunt Fritzi. The spin-off strip focuses on the (mis)adventures of heady young Nancy. In the ’40s, Dell Comics began publishing the strips in comic book issues. While there have been a variety of writers working on Nancy, Stanley’s humor and wit deserve recognition.

Nancy: Volume 2 is part of D&Q’s John Stanley Library. With an Art Deco-style cover designed by cartoonist and illustrator Seth (Palooka-ville), this hardcover edition is an eye-catching work. This collection contains issues 146-150, printed from 1957-58. The thick matte pages are yellowed like the pulp comics of yore, but I missed the musty, inky smell of newsprint.

Nancy is anything but theoretical, and certainly wholesome. In many ways, Nancy is an archetype. She can be seen in the facial expressions of Bill Watterson’s Calvin, the independent world of Charles Schulz’ Lucy, and the harebrained adventures of Ruthie in One Big Happy. A headstrong young girl with 1950s America orbiting around her, perhaps young Nancy is one of the earliest feminists in comics.

The book shows a fascinating world of children with few adults. Aunt Fritzi is a single woman with an occasional boyfriend, who looks after brillo-headed Nancy. Nancy’s biggest admirer is Sluggo, a young boy who never goes to school, lives alone in a dilapidated house, and is constantly tormented by Spike, the local shaved-head bully.

One of the most interesting characters is Stanley-created Oona Goosebumps, a precursor to Comic Debris’ Emily the Strange and Addams Family’s Wednesday. If anything in Nancy verges on spooky or dark, it’s Oona with her haunted house and bewitching presence. Rounding out the cast is Rollo, a ridiculously rich boy similar to Harvey Comics’ Richie Rich. With a full range of economic and social classes, Nancy looks to the practical middle class for balance. Stanley’s stories rely on the eventual return home, to a hot meal and glass of milk, and perhaps a stern scolding.

In 2009, Dark Horse Books released a complete run of Little Lulu comics, but the convenient paperback editions don’t have the aesthetic appeal of D&Q’s Nancy. I would have loved an introductory essay to provide historical context; however, if you’re looking for the pure experience of reading old comics, then this comes closer to that without the analytical rhetoric.

Written by: Claire Burrows, April 9th 2010

The Pistachio Seller

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Reem Bassiouney, translated by Osman Nusairi

Syracuse University Press

“How does a woman fall in love?” The opening line of Reem Bassiouney’s The Pistachio Seller is dangerously full of clichéd melodrama and trite gender assumptions; however, Bassiouney avoids these pitfalls by presenting complicated characters who exhibit the complexity of religion, love, and belief.

Bassiouney explains the significance of the pistachio in an Author’s Note, which reveals the historical significance of the pistachio and ties the nut to a very real cultural context. Pistachios are the most expensive nuts in Egypt. Because they are usually exported from abroad, until the capitalist movement of the 1990s, the pistachio was banned. Setting the novel in contemporary Egypt, the pistachio represents indulgence, luxury, and the perceived weakness of the East for pleasures from the West. The Pistachio Seller opens with young Wafaa falling in love with her cousin, Ashraf. Educated in England, Ashraf feels a disdain for the poverty, tradition, and "backwardness" of Egypt, and offers pistachios to all as though he could offer a taste of a better life. Wafaa expresses her confusion of desire and pride: “Was is really vital for East Germany to taste bananas? Were bananas worth all this humiliation? So what if man has to live without bananas? We could live without pistachios and without bananas.”

A devout Muslim, Wafaa desires Ashraf, but hates herself for lusting. Her desire is driven by imagination, prejudice, and the unachievable. This is where the beauty of Bassiouney’s complex characters shines. No character is singularly blameless or nefarious. Do I love Wafaa for being honest and passionate, or hate her for being judgmental and dogmatic?

I’m conflicted about the novel’s conclusion and Wafaa’s character development. The Pistachio Seller takes an epistolary turn when Ashraf moves to the U.S. While Ashraf writes honest, often self-pitying letters, Wafaa’s love letters are erratic, revealing little of her life. While Wafaa’s rhetoric changes, it seems her impulses do not.

Bassiouney does not compromise the novel’s tone by romanticizing the U.S., or portraying it as a home for Ashraf in exile. As is true with many elements in The Pistachio Seller, the U.S. proves to be a conflicted indulgence, like pistachios, enticing one away from one's homeland and offering little in return but ephemeral pleasure. Wafaa says, “Luxury living was like a drug you could get addicted to: it would control the cells of your brain, and you could not will it away.”

The Pistachio Seller is Bassiouney’s fourth novel; however, the first three are not yet translated into English. I hope The Pistachio Seller holds the promise of more translated novels from Bassiouney in the future.

Written by: Claire Burrows, March 11th 2010

Little Venus

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Carla Drysdale

Tightrope Books

Little Venus, a collection of poems by Carla Drysdale, is at once hauntingly beautiful and disturbing. The poems are an autobiographical account of child abuse, sexual abuse, and a dysfunctional family, yet Drysdale manages to strike the difficult balance between beauty and horror. As her first published book of poetry, this is an impressive debut.

Last month I reviewed Sharon Doubiago’s memoir, My Father’s Love: Portrait of the Poet as a Young Girl, which confronted similar topics. Both women use the medium of poetry to work through lingering and confusing feelings of pain, betrayal, and love. While Doubiago fleshes out the details of her abuse, Drysdale weaves a portrait through short verse poems.

While many of the poems talk about her father, there are a few poems that address the refuges in Drysdale’s life. I find “New Years Eve at the Artist’s Colony” particularly moving, as Drysdale recounts the solidarity a musician creates:

He played for us—the dreamers, creators, eccentrics, the driven, the insecure, the arrogant, the labeled and unlabeled, the disowned and owned again.

I was drawn to this poem because it establishes how the experience of music, like poetry, can bring together those alienated by society. It also offers an opportunity for love and for the body to be positive. While many of the poems about her father emphasize the imposing and frightening body, in “New Years Eve” the body becomes a sensual vehicle for the music. The body is not always violent.

The truth is that these are difficult and challenging poems, reminiscent of such established poets as Lucille Clifton, Janice Mirikitani, and Doubiago. I cannot say that I enjoy these poems, as they make me uncomfortable and sad. But I would not read Little Venus for enjoyment. Rather, I would read it to recognize Drysdale’s honesty and poetic voice. These are poems like open wounds, seeking to heal and be healed.

Review by Claire Burrows

Written by: Claire Burrows, March 4th 2010

My Father’s Love: Portrait of the Poet as a Young Girl

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Sharon Doubiago

Wild Ocean Press

I find memoirs difficult to criticize, especially when the content is personal and intimate. The first volume of author and poet Sharon Doubiago’s memoir, My Father's Love, feels like an open wound, the scar tissue scraped off to allow for belated healing. My Father's Love is a detailed account of Doubiago’s childhood, tragically defined by sexual molestation by her father, and willful ignorance by her mother.

This is an engaging book, thanks to Doubiago’s poetic and honest language, fastidious fact checking, and pages of photographs to give a visual to the people in her early life. She traces her family tree back to its American roots, finding common threads that run throughout her family genealogy and her own life. This is not a short book, running over 400 pages, and yet Doubiago makes it all a coherent account. I turned each page, not to find out what happens next, but to get to know the young Sharon from the photographs.

Engaging with this story became confusing for me. Why do I read this book? Is it for myself, or for Doubiago? It’s not for entertainment or education, and there’s a bit of guilt involved in what sometimes feels like an invasion of privacy. Memoirs as a genre walk a fine line between voyeurism and empathy, exhibitionism and honesty.

Memoirs can be notoriously bad, exemplifying “navel-gazing” and self-promotion. However, a good memoir can be sublime. My personal favorites are Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (admittedly a fictionalized memoir), and Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home. These are books that restore my faith in the memoir, so often challenged by poorly written, self-congratulatory schlock (I don’t need to name a recent “rogue” publication). My Father's Love, a heart wrenching read with a grim ending, evokes disconcerting emotions and questions, and demonstrates what a memoir is capable of.

Doubiago brings up weighty issues such as patriarchy, class discrimination, and false memory, as well as the pervasive problem of familial sexual abuse. The issue of false memory plagued me while reading her account, as she describes the resistance to her claims from her family, and even in her own mind. I too wanted her memories to be false, for her young handsome father to have never betrayed his daughter, despite the truth. One of Doubiago’s greatest accomplishments with this book is showing how complex memories can be, as she exposes her own process of remembering.

After finishing My Father's Love, I started thinking about the role of memoirs. Why is it important as women to tell our stories? And why, as women, is it important that we read each others' stories? Perhaps it is a cycle, and through telling and listening, reading and writing, a memoir becomes complete.

Written by: Claire Burrows, December 30th 2009

Thicker Than Water: A Kit O'Malley Mystery

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Lindy Cameron

Bywater Books

When I took creative writing classes in college, our professor always said, “Show, don’t tell.” Meaning, let the reader see the story without articulating every detail. Well, Lindy Cameron, author of Thicker Than Water, tells everything through wordy dialogue, detailed facial expressions, and exhaustive character descriptions. However, this same professor also said, “Don’t judge if you didn’t do it.” Since I have never published a novel, much less a successful mystery series, I delved further into the book to see if I could get hooked. I mean, isn’t the point of a mystery novel to sit long into the night under a reading lamp failing to make good on that promise to yourself that you’ll stop at the next chapter?

Thicker Than Water is the third book in Cameron’s series about private detective Kit O’Malley. If The L Word and CSI (any variation of the show works here) had a love child, it would be the Kit O’Malley series. The opening scene has the requisite needlessly gory corpse in an improbably interesting location. Hence the mystery!

Why would anyone dump a male crime syndicate family member in a women’s bar? And who is trying to tarnish the reputation of Melbourne’s lesbian community? No one, not even crime family matriarch Queenie O’Reilly, will take down this tight-knit group of ladies if O’Malley has anything to say about it. One thing is for sure, O’Malley is superior to any ex-stripper, ex-alcoholic, closet-genius female lead CBS could dream up.

Kit O’Malley is an honest, often reckless, and sassy Nancy Drew. On one hand I want to resist her ubiquitously witty dialogue, but then I think back to my childhood obsession with the strawberry blonde teen sleuth. I didn’t love Secret of the Old Clock because it was realistic or intellectual; I loved it because I was drawn in, and believed that I, just like Nancy, could figure anything out.

Sure, you have all the typical mystery elements: crime family, Romeo and Juliet-esque romance, ex-cop, crooked cop, righteous cop, sex, nightclubs, and a serial killer. (I know it sounds like a lot, but this book has 415 dense pages.) There are also a lot of names that, when augmented by Kit’s tendency to call people by varying nicknames, can get confusing. However, if you follow Kit around, you too will be dying to know who Scooter is sleeping with, and why she fled the scene of the crime.

Finally, for all of us non-Aussies, this book is a crash course Australian English. Sure, I knew bugger off, bum, and bloke, but arvo? (It means afternoon.) Cameron paints a very inviting picture of Melbourne, crime syndicates and all. Kit O’Malley could inspire Australia-philes all over the world.

To return to my original question: was I hooked? I would hire Kit O’Malley anytime. Case closed.

Written by: Claire Burrows, December 21st 2009

Glycerin Goat’s Milk Soap

admin — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:22:00 +0000

By Norma’s Bath and Body

In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry says, “I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”

One of my simplest pleasures is gained by placing an aromatic bar of soap in my dresser drawer and later slipping on a crummy T-shirt that smells like a lavender sachet in a cedar chest. This has the potential to alter the entire course of my day. Once I finish with my current bar of soap, I unwrap the bar that has already been working so hard in my dresser and place it next to the tub.

The next duty of this bar of soap is to change my early morning shower or post-workout rinse into a luxurious experience. Magically, the smell of oatmeal and almond or sandalwood block out the sound of the subway and erase the nagging awareness that the wooden windowsill in the shower is slowly rotting away. Don’t bother me with these philistine concerns. Can’t you see I’m wrapped in a steamy blanket of lavender and beeswax?

Are my soap standards too high? Do I expect pleasure and transcendence too complex for a bath product to deliver? Unwrapping my cucumber melon soap from Norma’s Bath and Body, I eye it with a bit of suspicion. Will you meet my expectations?

This particular bar picks up on what seems to be the most popular scent of the season: cucumber. From Marc Jacobs to Method’s All Purpose Cleaner, we can douse our lives in the cool, crisp, refreshing scent of this rather unassuming vegetable. Except that capturing such a scent is difficult, and of course, not particularly sweet on its own. Hence Norma adds melon to the recipe to create a bright, sweet smell.

Norma’s soap is smooth as silk, made with glycerin and goat’s milk. The cucumber melon scent was a bit too sweet for my taste, but her website lists many other intriguing scents to choose from, such as Oatmeal Raisin Cookie. In fact, Norma’s website is filled with bath products that are very convincing reproductions of desserts. The cupcake soaps could be fresh from the bakery. Lathering up with a pink-iced cupcake could make my morning shower not only an indulgence, but also delicious. These sweet soaps might even be decadent enough for Oscar Wilde himself.

Written by: Claire Burrows, September 19th 2009

Taxidermia

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Directed by György Pálfi

Regent Releasing

I was given a bootleg copy of Taxidermia about a year ago, before its North American release. True to bootleg copies, the disc went kaput about fifteen minutes into it, leaving me with the opening scene burned into my brain: the image of a flaming orgasm. Fire literally shoots out of a man’s penis.

When I had the opportunity to review this critically recognized and awarded Hungarian film, I was excited to get past the opening scene. All the reviews praised the cinematography and aesthetics of this film, with one caveat—if you can stomach it.

I will freely admit that I could barely stomach it. The flaming orgasm was only the tip of the phallic iceberg. Other masturbation and sex scenes prevailed. Again, tolerable. But then came the pig slaughter, and the subsequent sex scene on top of the pig entrails. I felt myself slinking down in my seat, looking around at my fellow reviewers, hoping someone else would walk out. But they sat tight, so I did as well, queasily.

Director György Pálfi’s Taxidermia is the story of three generations of men in Hungary. The grandfather Vendel Morosgovanyi, the pyro-masturbator, is an orderly for a crude family in the countryside, searching for love. His son Kalman becomes a competitive eater, pursuing victory as voraciously as a professional athlete. Finally Lajos, the last of this family, becomes the film’s namesake: a taxidermist seeking to preserve his own mortality.

The competitive eating chapter pushed me to the point of gagging, so I won’t indulge you with the details except that it involves vomiting and gorging on gelatinous delicacies. And the gruesome finale is a spectacle in itself. Self-taxidermy with the precision of a sculptor’s chisel.

However, lest this review be too tainted by my hang-ups, there are very impressive elements of this film that deserve noting.

A film like this makes me think, why? Is it a satire, a parody, or just sensation? There are plenty of torture films out there that probably rival the grotesque found here (such as the neverending Saw franchise), I just don’t go see them. Taxidermia should not be categorized with those films, because the purpose of this film is not to shock and disgust. This is a film about a family, linked by desire.

The cinematography truly is beautiful. A mix of realism, surrealism, and magical realism create an almost erotic experience, which makes the grotesque that much more disturbing. Two of my favorite scenes come in the first part, as the camera circles a wooden tub that is used for everything in a family’s daily life: to cradle a baby, to bathe in, to knead dough on, to hold the body of a dead relative, and to hold the recently slaughtered pig. It’s so beautifully and seamlessly shot that you forget about the unsavory details of this arrangement. The other scene is in Vendel’s imagination, as he walks into a three-dimensional fairytale storybook.

Consider yourself warned regarding the grotesque, and if you do go see Taxidermia, focus on what Pálfi is really doing here. If you can handle the sight of bodily fluids and animal slaughter, you will experience a unique story, set against a gray backdrop of intensity and hopelessness.

Written by: Claire Burrows, August 25th 2009

Vegan Brunch: Homestyle Recipes Worth Waking Up For - From Asparagus Omelets to Pumpkin Pancakes

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:03:00 +0000

By Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Da Capo Press

Vegan = tofu = dreadlocks = body odor = weird. This review is not about debunking the vegan stereotype equation, and all its variations, but rather about introducing the equal opportunity indulgence: brunch.

In a first read through, Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbook Vegan Brunch is nearly perfect. There are large color pictures for almost every recipe, which is an amateur chef must. There are clear and accessible ingredients, measurements, and instructions. Moskowitz even includes a shopping list for your vegan pantry and tips for serving a fabulous and delicious brunch. I would make the clichéd request for a spiral bound copy, so I’m not propping it open with a can of corn.

Do not be mistaken; this is not a raw, whole food, health cookbook. This is a cookbook to provide all the staples of a fantastic, 11am on a Sunday with a Bloody Mary (or Bloody Moskowitz, as the cookbook offers), just as one craves after a Sunday morning run, or Saturday night bender.

But, as they say, the proof is in the soy pudding. I had to try the recipes to really give this cookbook a critical review. The perfect opportunity presented itself when my New Yorker husband and mother-in-law met my Texan family in the Lone Star State. Without a vegan in the audience, I chose three recipes that I thought offered a fair scope of the recipes within.

On the first morning, I prepared the Polenta Rancheros. It was a resounding success, and nobody even asked where the meat products were. A variation of Huevos Rancheros, the creamy polenta replaces the eggs, creating a spicy, filling meal in one bowl. Approved by all the Tex-Mex fans at the table, the only glitch was that the coriander seeds didn't quite blend, but I think that was user error.

Second morning, I baked the Tomato Rosemary Scones. Relatively simple and quite pretty when finished, the scones were devoured. The sweetness of the tomato was nicely balanced with the fresh rosemary. The only mild criticism was that they didn't have the consistency of scones, but rather bread. This is true—the crumbly texture of a traditional scone was missing—but I didn't miss it one bit.

Finally, to lure my twenty-one year old brother to my parents' home, I prepared the Chocolate Beer Waffles. The batter is quick and simple to make, and the end product is dessert-like. I prepared them with the recommended Cashew Cream with cinnamon and Chocolate Syrup. A minor quip: even though the recipe says to follow manufacturer’s instructions for the waffle iron, I ended up cooking them twice as long as traditional waffles and they stuck a bit. Also, plan ahead for the cashew cream. You have to soak the cashews for at least an hour, and then it needs about an hour to thicken up. But overall, this was delicious and goes well with leftover beer—if you don’t mind drinking beer at brunch.

I think the real success of this cookbook is that it is not overrun with substitutes or faux-meat products. There are quite a few mouth-watering tofu scrambles, vegan sausage recipes that call for wheat gluten, and several uses of tempeh (fermented soybeans). These are all easily acquirable products, and relatively unprocessed. I didn’t notice any instances of processed, faux animal products, which can be good, but can also taste like a salted rubber band. This cookbook makes being vegan easy—perhaps too easy, as I drool over the Caramelized Vidalia Onion Quiche recipe, and try to think of an excuse to make another brunch.

Written by: Claire Burrows, July 18th 2009

Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide

admin — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Edited by Alan S. Rosenbaum

Westview Press

In the third edition of this book, Alan Rosenbaum has collected a selection of brilliant, incendiary, and questionable essays addressing a sensitive yet much argued question. To quote Israel W. Charny in the foreword, “This book is outstanding because it brings together in one volume the contentious and often unsavory Tower of Babel of scholars’ voices in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies.” Rosenbaum tries to include a range of voices to create a comprehensive approach.

Rosenbaum says that his goal is to “underscore, in one way or another, the centrality of the Holocaust in any broad-based, contemporary inquiry made within the emerging area of comparative genocide studies.” Meaning, should the Holocaust remain the benchmark for modern genocides? Further, can we study the Holocaust alongside the twentieth century atrocities in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Sudan? Or is the Holocaust a particularly unique case of genocide, and should it be studied only within the context of Holocaust scholarship? Whichever side you support, you would be surprised to find that there are many people who vehemently believe the opposite. When we speak of genocides, especially in the twentieth century, the discussion often becomes personal and fraught with emotion.

For me, the chapters hardest to swallow are those too essentialist and definitive. They try to define exactly what a genocide is and therefore exclude certain atrocities from the category of genocide. This is the case in Barbara B. Green’s "Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide," where she determines that the Great Famine was not genocide because extermination was not the intent. Comparatively, there are essays that illuminate how learning about the Holocaust can shed light on other atrocities and the danger of future genocides, such as in Kinue Tokudome’s "The Holocaust and Japanese Atrocities" and Ben Kiernan’s "Hitler, Pol Pot, and Hutu Power: Common Themes."

The danger of this book is that it assumes a high level of critical thinking on the part of the reader. Due to the fact that questionable claims are made, one must be discerning and comprehensive in her reading of the essays. Do not assume that you can randomly choose one essay to answer the question “is the Holocaust unique?” I would not choose to teach this book, unless we had the time to read and discuss every essay. I would also only read this with a book group that is ready, critical, and understanding enough to discuss the destruction of human life.

Approaching human rights from an academic and intellectual standpoint can alienate and frustrate many people. To aid with a cohesive reading, Charny has included a very helpful list of questions in the foreword to help guide a reading of each chapter. Is the Holocaust Unique? is a challenging and valuable book for many readers. Even if you have your mind made up regarding your answer to this question you not only will find support for your opinions, but also will learn about other atrocities throughout the world. The mass destruction of human life is always wrong, no matter the ideology framing it, and Rosenbaum’s collection of essays helps to build awareness and knowledge about the roots of genocidal violence.

Written by: Claire Burrows, May 9th 2009

From the Heart

admin — Sat, 02 May 2009 22:59:00 +0000

By The Isley Brothers

Legacy Recordings

The Isley Brothers have been making fantastic and varied music since the 1950s, or as their DefJam website says, creating “Baby Makin’ Music.” Personally, I would prefer listening to From The Heart with a glass of wine while chopping vegetables, making dinner rather than babies. But that’s just me.

Considering the pervasive presence of The Isley Brothers in American music, especially funk, rock and roll, and R&B, it would be difficult to not recognize the rhythm and high melodic voice of the Isleys. From The Heart is mellow, a far cry from “Shout” or “Fight the Power,” but more like “This Old Heart of Mine.”

Don’t slip this disc into the player expecting the rock and roll of the sixties, or the funk of the eighties. One might categorize it as adult contemporary. These reissued songs are all love songs, hence the title From The Heart (which seems to be a frequently used album title in the music industry, from Billie Holiday to Dolly Parton).

Several of the songs on this album are truly fun. I like “Choosey Lover,” and the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay” is beautiful. Some of the songs’ lyrics are reminiscent of Teddy Pendergrass and Marvin Gay, but don’t quite work, such as in “Hello, It’s Me.” And if you’re looking for feminist lyrics, this isn’t the place.

The Isley Brothers are so important to American music, one can’t completely dismiss anything they do. These men have influenced so many contemporary artists, as well as musical genres overall. “Lay Lady Lady” might just make this album worth your while, and will remind you of the place The Isley Brothers have in American culture. And not just as "baby makin' music."

Written by: Claire Burrows, May 2nd 2009

The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization

admin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:40:00 +0000

Edited by Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G. Poiger, Modeleine Yue Dong, Tani E. Barlow

Duke University Press

The propagated image of the "modern woman" is usually White and lithely strutting the streets of New York or Paris. Hollywood films as well as vintage prints in hip clothing boutiques give us the familiar image of a short-cropped brunette in smart dress. The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (comprised by the book's editors) has collected a group of essays suggesting that this fabulous 1920’s to 1930’s woman was an international phenomenon, and not merely a Western emulation. What we know as "flappers" were also labeled garconnes, moga, modeng xiaojie, kallege ladki, schoolgirls, vamps, and neue Frauen. In The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, "girls" are defined as "young women with the wherewithal and desire to define themselves in excess of conventional female roles and as transgressive of national, imperial, and racial boundaries." Here, we can understand the modern girl not only as a consumer or mannequin, but rather a woman challenging convention and limitations.

Although The Modern Girl Around the World is published by an academic press, it is wonderfully accessible, and should be of interest to anyone interested in sociology, fashion, sexuality, and the development of the public image of women. There are sixteen essays besides the Research Group's own chapter on methodology. Geographically, the essays look at France, South Africa, India, China, and beyond. Personally, my favorite essays are Liz Conor's "Blackfella Missus Too Much Proud: Techniques of Appearing, Femininity and Race in Australian Modernity" and Kathy Peiss' "Girls Lean Back Everywhere," but all the essays have something valuable to say. Overall, the authors demonstrate that modernity is not a Western creation with foreign copycats, but rather a simultaneous movement.

From a practical point of view, this is a Women's Studies student or professor’s dream. Finding all of these essays in one compilation and including an extensive bibliography opens up the possibilities for transnational study without relying on an archive. For readers who seek an in-depth history of these movements, it is wise to note that The Modern Girl Around the World focuses instead on commodity and cultural flows as they occur. This is not a study of underground political movements, but rather women pushing the public and visible limits of agency.

It’s a shame that a book on image only has pictures in black and white, but I’m so grateful that a compilation like this finds a publisher at all. As a woman, teacher, and reader, I find The Modern Girl Around the World to be interesting and provocative. We live in a global world, and this compilation recognizes transnational trends. Points of disagreements within the essays and overall project only instigate productive dialogue.

Written by: Claire Burrows, April 4th 2009