Mona Lisa Safai

It's Beginning to Hurt

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:01:00 +0000

As the title of It’s Beginning to Hurt suggests, one may expect this book to be a compilation of short stories filled with love, despair, loss, and anguish that reach into the profound depths of unimaginable hurt—and it is. James Lasdun writes his stories without embellishment, and intricately examines life in its most mundane form.

Lasdun’s stories run along a similar thread of exploring the human condition through everyday thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that overwhelm all of us without giving into hype or dramatic overtones. Instead, he concentrates his work on creating realistic worlds that are as simple as making a cup of coffee or taking a swim. Each character he introduces experiences the world in a different, personal way. In a similar vein, each character suffers from her or his inaction. Lasdun's stories take on a feeling of paused lives; any motion is somehow slowed or suspended to the point that the characters’ worlds do not change much at all.

Throughout It’s Beginning to Hurt__, Lasdun endeavors to downplay the difficulties the characters face in their worlds. The stories do not grapple with conflicts in order to reach a resolution. Instead, most of the stories come back to beginning without much, or any, movement. In “The Anxious Man,” the narrator is a neurotic, middle-aged man on the verge on having a fling with his neighbor. He is a good husband and father, but frustratingly weak. I easily became impatient when characters conformed, remained static to a fault, and avoided conflict at any cost. Their resistance to act resulting in the creation of more problems down the road.

Two stories worth noting that depart from this mode are “Caterpillars” and “Cranley Mellows.” They involve more direction and incite a more intense emotional reaction. Their twist of fate upon the characters’ actions is both appalling and genuinely unfathomable. Unfortunately, these two stories do not capture the gamut of Lasdun’s writing talent.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, October 16th 2009

Now Silence: A Novel of World War II

admin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:02:00 +0000

By Tori Warner Shepard

Sun Stone Press

Usually novels about World War II occur in Nazi Germany, Poland, or some other place in Europe. Tori Warner Shepard, however, places her story in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Many of the men from this area had to go through the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Soon after, they were transferred to a prison camp in Japan. Shepard's focus is on the women who wait for their men to return from war. Now Silence reveals their painful history to her readers.

Throughout the novel, Shepard impresses her readers with women’s stories. The first is Nicasia, a mother who lost both her husband and one of her sons and continues to wonder about her remaining son, Melo. Then there is the robust and voluminous LaBelle, betrothed to Melo. Anissa is a disciple of the “I AM” cult, a new age following who prays to end the war. She is also a widow. Her husband lived with Phyllis, who came to Santa Fe to return a shotgun to Anissa.

Phyllis is the most intriguing character in the novel and teaches the most to the readers through her actions. Originally from Scotland, she comes disgraced to an off-the-radar job in Canada. She meets Anise’s husband and runs away with him. When she is informed of his death, she jumps on a bicycle and rides to Texas to hand over the rifle. Readers know the roller coaster ride is just beginning.

Shepard does a great job with plot development, but leaves readers wanting to know more about the characters. Her writing style is quick-witted, vivid, and spicy especially when it comes to character description. While she gives pieces of all the women, Phyllis takes most of the novel, and readers may want to know more about the men, who are also a part of the story as well. Short chapters are enticing, but better organization would enhance her story even more. Overall, _Now Silence is an interesting read.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, August 4th 2009

Repeat After Me

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Rachel DeWoskin

Overlook Press

Rachel DeWoskin’s debut novel, Repeat After Me, is a cultural love story between two people whose lives briefly intertwine. Afterwards, they are never the same again. The story follows the relationship between a young neurotic ESL teacher in Manhattan, Aysha Silvermintz, and her student, Da Ge, a mysterious, silent, Chinese national who comes to the U.S. just after the Tienanmen Square uprisings.

Whatever they may lack in communication skills, they compensate for in emotional understanding. Both come from difficult families and have personal baggage to deal with. The day Da Ge walks into Aysha's classroom, Aysha begins to fall in love with him. After they spend time together, Da Ge abruptly asks Aysha to marry him so he can obtain his U.S. citizenship. When Aysha becomes pregnant, she does not tell Da Ge right away because she is not sure how he will react. Sometimes, he is distant from her, while other times, he is emotionally close. He also spends days away from the apartment without telling her where has been and she does not question him. He only says he has ‘business.’

Da Ge married her for citizenship. But, Aysha married him for more. She married for love and his ideals. The tension of what this arrangement entailed constantly lingered in their interactions. Then, one day Da Ge takes off again and after a few days, Aysha finally goes looking for him. She finds that he has committed suicide. To make sense of his life and death, she moves to China to deliver and raise her child.

DeWoskin writes her novel in a multicultural narrative which immediately captivates a reader’s attention. Her writing is emotional, graceful, and provocative filled with beautiful, sometimes painful images. But her story is always focused on the human spirit. The characters she portrays are seekers trying to find answers in the world, trying to follow a path, and find peace. The torment in Da Ge was too great. He was a child of Tiananmen Square. His continuous teachings to Aysha of China, both of its past and present, illustrate his internal struggle of wanting a democracy in China. The physical bruises and scars are manifestations of his fight with the powers that be. His willingness to learn English and his inability to survive in new culture surface a wounded soul. Aysha needed to go to China to discover a peace for herself. She had to now practice Da Ge’s teachings. After years of living alone, she now would become a nurturer to her child. She wanted to be as close as possible to Da Ge’s spirit as possible with all the tastes, smells, culture, and reminders. This would be her salvation.

DeWoskin’s novel is character-driven and sophisticated, but does not lack in plot. She vividly describes her characters' moods, expressions, habits, and desires without giving too much away. Readers will not get bored. She gives her readers enough information so they will care about her characters. She engages them to read on. This is a rare talent. The story is also one which is bittersweet, and is told with raw honesty.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, July 17th 2009

Laughing without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American at Home and Abroad

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:57:00 +0000

By Firoozeh Dumas

Villard

Laughing without an Accent is Firoozeh Dumas’s second book, after her debut memoir Funny in Farsi. Dumas is an Iranian-American who writes about the similarities and differences in Iranian cultures through her own experiences growing up in Iran and America. The book is a compilation of twenty-eight vignettes which span her life in both countries. The vignettes portray her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in the most memorable ways, usually leaving the reader with a smile or laugh before eagerly turning to read the next story.

These days, Iranians are fighting for free, fair, and democratic elections and for their personal rights and freedom. Humor is not the first thing that may come to mind for Americans when thinking about Iranians right now. However, Dumas, who is married to a Frenchman, writes her stories with such ease that humor is exactly what readers find in each story, along with kindness, compassion, love, and sometimes chaos. Almost all of her stories are about her family, and how Persian culture really defines itself in society—or... well... doesn’t (hence, the humor).

One example of calamity is the cultural clash that occurs over a holiday feast her husband cooks for her parents. This is a hysterical but good-hearted read along with her other story of the amazingly bright red comforter that Firoozeh’s mother brought for them that just wouldn’t disappear. Her stories are meaningful because readers, regardless of origin, can relate to the humanity behind her writing.

Dumas’ descriptive skill gives her the leeway to explore her characters more freely, and set a peaceful tone for her readers. She challenges us to look beyond the dissimilarities and focus on the similarities which bring us together. She cleverly uses humor, grace, and respect for the written word as her instruments in one unique symphony. The music that she creates is our laughter—some with accents, some without.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, July 16th 2009

Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:26:00 +0000

By Kim Sunée

Grand Central Publishing

Kim Sunée’s Trail of Crumbs is lovely coming of age story about a young woman searching for her identity, love, and place in the world—her home. Sunée writes a beautiful memoir about her passionate love affair, all the while embodying the tastes and sumptuous delicacies of her travels without embellishing her story. While her beginning is a difficult one, her life journey proves to be filled with fulfillment.

Trail of Crumbs is personal. This is a story that reaches into every reader’s mind. Her life path is an unusual one, filled with detours, peaks and valleys. Kim is a Korean orphan. She is adopted by American parents and grows up in New Orleans, a place where she really never quite fits in. She eventually journeys to Sweden and lives in cold weather most of the time until she meets a wealthy Parisian businessman who takes a liking to her. He asks her to live with him in Paris. She lives well, but it is not enough for Kim.

What intrigues me about this memoir is the possible path Kim could have taken in her life. Instead of waiting for a man to come along so they could live happily ever after, she chooses independence of her life, freedom for herself and takes responsibility of whatever consequences may follow. She lives in a Paris apartment, focuses on her writing, and builds a new life, a new reality for herself.

As if her memoir was not enough, she places one recipe at the end of each chapter to entice the readers to possibly do some cooking. Each delicious recipe corresponds with her many childhood memories. She remembers her past through her recipes—smells, tastes, sights, and sounds. She’s a master describing the senses. Sunée writes with elegant prose and charming delight.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, April 24th 2009

The New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity

admin — Thu, 17 May 2007 02:03:00 +0000

Edited by Mehran Kamrava

University of California Press

In The New Voices of Islam, Mehran Kamrava compiles a selection of writings from Muslim reformists whose voices have been silenced and marginalized for much too long. The reader introduces his audience to the intricate and complex concepts that revolve around religion, politics and public space in the Muslim world - revealing a rich yet limited ability to synchronize Islam and Modernity.

Through the compilation of works, the authors effectively answer the question on many post-9/11 minds: “Where are the reformist voices in Islam today?” From North Africa to Southeast Asia, Europe to America, The New Voices of Islam illustrates the gamut of sociopolitical thought brewing in our globally diverse world. The essays include a broad overviews of Islam's core principles; the complexities between Islam, democracy and civil rights; and three works by Muslim feminist intellectuals.

To much dismay, Westerners’ concern about Islamic fundamentalism is, for the most part, uninformed and remains uneducated about the Muslim intellectuals working toward positive change in the Middle East. This elite cohort lives both within the Islamic world and in Europe and America. Their struggle began before 9/11 and before The Constitutional Revolution in Iran (1907-1911). Due to many missed opportunities and marginalization, their collaboration has often gone unnoticed; their strength is in their message and endurance to continue the fight for democratic governance.

The words in Kamrava’s collection are not from Muslim governments or Islamist opposition. These are the dark horses, Muslim mavericks who are the voices that rise above the religious and political fray. Each of the authors in the reader is willing to critique, reassess and respond to the needs of their societies.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, May 16th 2007

Edge and Fold

admin — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:02:00 +0000

By Paul Hoover

Apogee Press

Paul Hoover, author of Edge and Fold, amazes his readers with postmodern poetry. His newest work is a compilation is separated into two poems: "Edge and Fold" and "The Reading." Hoover carefully crafts couplets which express time, distance, vision, pop culture, and daily life.

His ideas expand and evolve with the turning of each page. However, in postmodern terms, anything goes. This is the beauty of his work such as in his lines “Miles Davis unfulfilled/his notes heartbreakingly/always on the edge/of breaking down completely/all true things are song/a weave unweaving.” His lyrical words run parallel to Davis’s notes as they echo into time. The quick, clean, constructions maneuver readers quickly to relish vivid lines as “Within the linear forest, /at the edge of all scatter, /beyond recognition/but coming into focus, /where color folds and/dust resists the garden, /a fruit tree stands--/dots and dashes.” Again, the poet illustrates a change from a wider perspective to a more refined one. The notion of a rising aerial view summons a clearer and definite picture.

His couplets are precise, magical, and alluring to the eye, intellect, and ear. Through pith, Hoover asks questions, sometimes describes circumstances, but never closes ideas for the readers.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, February 18th 2007

Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism

admin — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 18:30:00 +0000

By Michael Albert

Seven Stories Press

The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past. –William Faulkner

Michael Albert writes an in-depth political memoir, offering a formidable defense of the project to change global inequality. Albert is a veteran anti-capitalist and visionary leftist thinker. In his memoir, he retells his past of devotion, commitment and the struggle to bring forth social change, however difficult the journey, a small step at a time.

Albert separates his memoir into five intriguing parts. He begins with his college years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). An aspiring physicist, Albert seemed destined for a career inside laboratories and research facilities until politics seduced him away. Gradually, he began campus organizing, rallying and protesting. His political involvement began to shape his being as he later goes on to fight in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other vital American movements.

He recounts many tales from his friendship with Noam Chomsky, which has spanned their lifetimes. Chomsky’s personal and professional perspectives, complicated through his belief in the political world, strongly affected Albert’s way of interacting with others.

Albert explores various topics, both personal and professional. Whether commenting on marriage, racism, class, drugs, rock and roll or sexism, he qualifies his opinion with the personal experience to back up his view. Throughout his memoir, he reaches points of evolutionary thought and maturity. For decades, Albert has spent his time not only striving for social change, but also achieving it.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, February 17th 2007