The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)
Read: January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Books Set in Europe: London, England
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson (2010)
I get it. The Finkler Question is satire; it's a comedy about anti-Semitism. It has won all sorts of accolades and awards. It is the recipient of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. I just didn't find the novel all that amusing.
The novel follows Julian Treslove, a sad-sack man without meaning in his life. He has never married and is unable to sustain any long-term relationships. He has acknowledged two sons, both with different mothers. Treslove becomes intrigued by his two Jewish and widowed friends, the elderly Libor Sevcik and Samuel Finkler. Samuel Finkler is the first Jew Treslove has ever known. He, therefore, has turned Finkler into his own euphemism for "Jew"; hence the title is really "The Jewish Question." Treslove feels that calling Jews "Finklers" instead takes away the "stigma" of being Jewish.
The Finkler Question is about the stereotypical Jewish angst and anxiety. A part of Treslove wants to become a Jew. At a Seder dinner with Libor and Finkler, Treslove meets Hephzibah, a zaftig woman with whom he soon moves in with. He begins to obsess about his uncircumcised condition. Treslove's obsessive racism becomes tiring. Finkler, himself, decides to begin a movement he calls ASHamed Jews, which is nothing more that another stereotype self-hating Jew.
I found The Finkler Question to perpetuate an offensive stereotyping of Jews. While there are some humous sections of the novel, as a whole, I did not find it amusing.
Read: January 15, 2011
I get it. The Finkler Question is satire; it's a comedy about anti-Semitism. It has won all sorts of accolades and awards. It is the recipient of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. I just didn't find the novel all that amusing.
The novel follows Julian Treslove, a sad-sack man without meaning in his life. He has never married and is unable to sustain any long-term relationships. He has acknowledged two sons, both with different mothers. Treslove becomes intrigued by his two Jewish and widowed friends, the elderly Libor Sevcik and Samuel Finkler. Samuel Finkler is the first Jew Treslove has ever known. He, therefore, has turned Finkler into his own euphemism for "Jew"; hence the title is really "The Jewish Question." Treslove feels that calling Jews "Finklers" instead takes away the "stigma" of being Jewish.
The Finkler Question is about the stereotypical Jewish angst and anxiety. A part of Treslove wants to become a Jew. At a Seder dinner with Libor and Finkler, Treslove meets Hephzibah, a zaftig woman with whom he soon moves in with. He begins to obsess about his uncircumcised condition. Treslove's obsessive racism becomes tiring. Finkler, himself, decides to begin a movement he calls ASHamed Jews, which is nothing more that another stereotype self-hating Jew.
I found The Finkler Question to perpetuate an offensive stereotyping of Jews. While there are some humous sections of the novel, as a whole, I did not find it amusing.
Read: January 15, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Books Set in the Caribbean: Cuba
Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, by Carlos Eire (2003)
Shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962, Operation Petro Pan airlifted 14,000 children from Cuba. Their parents were to follow them soon after. Carlos Eire, along with his older brother, were two of the children in Pedro Pan. Carlos was 12 years old. It was several years before his mother was able to leave Cuba and join her sons. His father never left his beloved Cuba.
Until that day when he suddenly found himself alone in Miami, he was a child of privilege. His father was a wealthy Cuban judge. His family was among the elite. His father was convinced that he was Louis XVI in a past life and that his wife was Marie Antoinette. He and his brother ran around Havana terrorizing lizards by various means of boyhood antics.
In January 1959, Batista was removed from power and replaced by a young Fidel Castro. Life had changed overnight. Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire were heard on a regular basis.
Waiting for Snow in Havana is Eire's childhood's memories of a simpler time ~ a time when a young boy could be a young boy with no cares in the world. Eire remembers life with his eccentric father. He recalls the boy his father brings into the family house and adopts, the boy whose main objective is to terrorize Eire. He recalls his father's collection of porcelain figurines. His father's love for his collections was so strong, that he chose to remain in Cuba rather than follow his family to America.
Eire recently wrote a sequel, Learning to Die in Miami, which picks up with his memories of his early life and struggles in America. I look forward to reading it.
Carlos Eire is currently a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University. I would love to have the opportunity to take a class with him.
Read: January 12, 2011
Shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962, Operation Petro Pan airlifted 14,000 children from Cuba. Their parents were to follow them soon after. Carlos Eire, along with his older brother, were two of the children in Pedro Pan. Carlos was 12 years old. It was several years before his mother was able to leave Cuba and join her sons. His father never left his beloved Cuba.
Until that day when he suddenly found himself alone in Miami, he was a child of privilege. His father was a wealthy Cuban judge. His family was among the elite. His father was convinced that he was Louis XVI in a past life and that his wife was Marie Antoinette. He and his brother ran around Havana terrorizing lizards by various means of boyhood antics.
In January 1959, Batista was removed from power and replaced by a young Fidel Castro. Life had changed overnight. Suddenly, the sounds of gunfire were heard on a regular basis.
Waiting for Snow in Havana is Eire's childhood's memories of a simpler time ~ a time when a young boy could be a young boy with no cares in the world. Eire remembers life with his eccentric father. He recalls the boy his father brings into the family house and adopts, the boy whose main objective is to terrorize Eire. He recalls his father's collection of porcelain figurines. His father's love for his collections was so strong, that he chose to remain in Cuba rather than follow his family to America.
Eire recently wrote a sequel, Learning to Die in Miami, which picks up with his memories of his early life and struggles in America. I look forward to reading it.
Carlos Eire is currently a professor of history and religious studies at Yale University. I would love to have the opportunity to take a class with him.
Read: January 12, 2011
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