Audiobook Review: American Dervish by Ayad Aktar

American Dervish (read by author, 9 hours, 28 minutes) is a coming of age novel layered with themes of religious faith and awakening, marital strife, racism and immigration. Despite the many themes, the author expertly weaves them together and wraps them in a story with a compelling young protagonist and the result is an immensely readable (in this case, listenable) book which I won't soon forget.

Hayat Shah is the son of Pakistani parents and lives with them in Wisconsin. His parents marriage is troubled and Hayat is often his mother's confidant as she shares her frustration with his father's dismissal of her - she is educated and gave up much to marry her husband which further deepens her resentment of the marriage which does not satisfy her. Hayat's father is a successful doctor who eschews the Muslim community of which everyone expects him to be a part.  He sees all religion as the root of many of the world's problems and his scientific mind questions much of what the faithful believe without question.  Hayat's mother wants to adhere more to her faith and culture than her husband - at one point, she forbids Hayat from attending a local carnival because it is sponsored by the Church. As a result of his parents' conflicted attitudes towards religion, Hayat is bereft of faith - he has not real familiarity with the Muslim religion.

When Hayat's mother's friend, Mina, arrives to live with them from Pakistan, she breathes life into the Shah home and an awakening begins. Mina is very religious and sets about teaching Hayat about the Muslim faith.  Hayat, enraptured by this introduction to his faith and Mina's beauty, soaks up these teachings eagerly. Mina doesn't get caught up in some of the more archane rules of the religion and teaches Hayat the fundamentals and emphasizes that "doing right" is what is most important.

Mina, meanwhile, has her own problems to deal with - she has left Pakistan with her young son after her husband divorced her through an emissary.  A man came to her bedside after she had given birth to her son and told her that her husband repeated Talaq three times thereby divorcing her. Mina is a modern, educated woman living in a family and country with outdated ideals and a view of women as secondary to men.  This conflict manifests itself in an eating disorder for Mina and an apparent inability for her to find happiness.  These patterns repeat themselves even when she comes to the United States.

The conflicting views of faith, culture and a woman's role in her family and society all come to a head in a variety of scenes throughout the book.  The scenes are powerful and nuanced  - there is no obvious right and wrong even though the issues are so divisive.  Hayat is the ideal protagonist for these conflicts because he looks at this issues with less nuance than the adults around him and thereby offers a very clear view of the issues.

As often happens with a book that blew me away, I am not sure that I am giving it justice - American Dervish  is beautifully written and deals with difficult issues without hitting you over the head with a point of view.  As an audiobook, it was a pleasure to listen to - read by the author, the characters' voices were distinct from each other and the accents were executed perfectly. I found myself standing inside the door after my walk home just listening and unable to stop.  This will definitely be in my Best of list for 2013!

The Sunday Salon: Dec 9, 2012 - Challenges

It's been an overcast weekend here in NY and I am feeling a little under the weather which means I have accomplished very little over the past two days. This Christmas to-do list is looming next to me - I need to get a least a few things done! I have the cards out and am going to get those started today for sure. Do you have holiday tasks scheduled today?

As the end of the year nears, I am wrapping up my 2012 reading challenges. After three years of attempting challenges, I think this is the first where I have completed most of them (there are still some DNF's in there unfortunately).   I am also excited to see all the reviews people have linked to the challenge that I am hosting - The Immigrant Stories Challenge. You can check them out here.  I am going to host again in 2013 so look for the sign-up info soon!

Today I am going to wrap up two challenges for which all the reviews are posted (I have finished others but the reviews of some are still pending).

Ireland Reading Challenge  - This challenge is hosted by Carrie at Books and Movies.  My Mom is from Ireland and I have always enjoyed books set in Ireland so this is an easy one for me.  This year I joined at the Kiss the Blarney Stone level (6 books) and I read:

Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy (audio)
Solace by Belinda McKeon
When Summer Is In the Meadow by Niall Williams and Christine Breen
Lola's Secret by Monica McInerney
Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Morag Prunty

South Asian Challenge is hosted by Swapna at S. Krishna's Books. I read a lot from this part of the world so I have joined this challenge for the past few years. This year I read five books:

The World We Found by Thrity Urmigar
Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee
Little Princes by Conor Grennan
And Laughter Fell From The Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan
The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam

Do you do reading challenges?  How have you done on yours so far?

Review: The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam

The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam is set in Bangladesh both in the years immediately following the Bangladesh Liberation War and ten years later.  In that span of time, we see the evolution of this nation as it copes with the aftermath of the war and its effect on its citizens.  We see that evolution primarily through the story of Maya and Sohail - a brother and sister whose lives take divergent paths following the war which parallel the divide in Bangladesh.  When they reunite ten years later, can they reconcile their beliefs for the sake of their family and remember what bound them together growing up?

Maya Haque is a doctor living in the countryside where she cares for women who wouldn't have access to healthcare if it were not for her service to this rural community. She takes a special satisfaction in caring for these women and even seems to be paying some penance with this service. She leaves the countryside, however, to return to city in which she grew up and where her mother and brother, Sohail still live.  She fled the city following the war and has since been estranged from her brother. After she returns seven years later, Maya's mother faces a health crisis and the specter of losing her mother moves Maya to question beliefs she has held to vehemently over the years:

And she thought about what Ammoo was asking for, a prayer once a day, at dusk, that holy hour. She thought about giving in, and wished somehow she had done it long ago, surrendered to the practicality of religion. If she chose it now, it would be a hollow bargain, shallow and insubstantial. No God she could respect would enter into such a pact, knowing the believer knocking at the door wanted nothing more than a genie, a single wish and that even if this wish were to be accompanied by a deeper longing, there was no saying if she would ever keep her promises.

Sohail Haque was a solider in the Liberation War and, like his sister Maya, was a revolutionary who wanted independence for Bangaldesh (then East Pakistan). Like many that have gone to war, Sohail saw the unspeakable during the war and has difficulty living with the memories of acts he himself committed.  He returns to his sister and mother changed  - the once easy-going and vibrant Sohail is now withdrawn and unreachable. He begins to move toward religion going up to the roof of their house to preach and then marries a fundamentalist and seals his commitment to his new life by burning all his books. Maya is appalled at the change she observes in her brother and cannot understand his transformation - she flees the city and doesn't return for seven years.  When she comes back, Sohail is a religious leader and has a young son, Zaid.

My thoughts
I found this book fascinating - the exploration of the impact of religious fundamentalism on Bangladesh and on the relationship between brother and sister coupled with the fact that I knew little about Bangladesh or its history kept me interested throughout. I have a brother and I felt for Maya as she struggled with the loss of the brother she knew growing up and the feeling that he had chosen religious fundamentalism over her. At the same time, there is a sanctimony to Maya's insistence that her brother has chosen the wrong path and her inability to compromise further drives her apart from her brother. As strong as her brother's beliefs may be, Maya's belief that she is right is just as strong and she pays a price and sacrifices happiness to hold onto this belief.  She is angered by her brother's rigidity and yet she is also closed-minded.

My one quibble with the book was that there were many references to customs and/or Bangladeshi words without explanation - I think providing some explanation would have added to the richness of the novel and enabled me to immerse myself more in the novel. Despite that, however, I loved the story of Maya and Sohail and their very different struggles with ideology and religion gave me much to consider.

I am a participant in the TLC Book Tour for The Good Muslim and you can read reviews of the book from others on the tour here.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher as part of the tour

The World We Found by Thrity Urmigar

The World We Found by Thrity Urmigar centers on four women - Laleh, Nishita, Armaiti and Kavita - who attended university together and were very close at that point in their lives.  Circumstances, as they often do, have intervened in the years since university to put distance between the four friends.  When Armaiti is diagnosed with a terminal illness, she wants the friends together again so they plan a trip to her current home in the United States to be with their friend in her time of need.  The road to this reunion reveals much about each of the women and puts one of them in a position to challenge the life she has chosen.

Laleh, Nishita, Armaiti and Kavita were passionate in college and participated in protests for socialist and humanitarian causes.  They were very close and completely aligned, or so they thought, in their beliefs.  Following college, the four women went in different directions.  Laleh married her college boyfriend who is now a successful businessman; he and Laleh lead an affluent life in Bombay even though Laleh at times bristles against the materialism in their lifestyle.  Armaiti ran off to America and married a man there from whom she is now divorced despite their amicable relationship and shared adoration of their teenage daughter, Diane.  Even though she has connected little with her past in India - to the point that her daughter Diane knows very little about that part of her Mom’s life- she is compelled to reach out to her friends for one final reunion when she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Kavita is a successful architect but hiding the fact that she is lesbian.  Despite her and her friends’ very modern sensibilities, Kavita worries about being accepted in a society which is still so traditional in many ways.  

Finally, Nishita has perhaps the most interesting story of the four women.  Like Laleh, she has married her college boyfriend Iqbal.  He has, however, changed dramatically since university and has embraced his Muslim faith and customs in a way her never did during their more progressive college years.  He has imposed these strict customs on his wife and she has sacrificed much for her life with him.  She has been completely cut off from her family and even given up her name - she is now known as Zohar. Laleh and Kavita are determined to find her so she can join the reunion but finding her, although challenging, turns out to be easiest part of this journey. Zohar does not enjoy the freedoms taken for granted by her friends and will not be allowed by Iqbal to travel to the US even if they can provide the funds to pay for travel.  They are appalled by the changes they see in their friend and are committed to making sure she comes with them on this trip to Armaiti.  Zohar is ambivalent about making the trip  - on the one hand, she is thrilled at the prospect of reuniting with her friends and with the woman she once was but on the other hand she is terrified to challenge Iqbal and to leave a life she has become accustomed to even though she is very dissatisfied.

My Thoughts
I LOVED this book. The writing is spectacular but very accessible and Urmigar brings modern India to life through her characters in a way few other authors can do. By introducing you to these four women, Urmigar also introduces you to segments of Indian society and in covering their history she covers the history of India.  All the while, you are immersed in the lives of these characters and the history and sociology just become backdrops to the story.  They give the story relevance and ground it in reality.

I read this book quickly - I kept turning pages to see what what happen next on the journey to the reunion.  There is suspense as the women conspire to get Zohar out from under her husband and his family which adds to the pace of the story.  I am now a confirmed Thrity Urmigar fan - I knew I liked the author after reading The Space Between Us (my review) and I was not disappointed with her  newest.  My advice - READ IT!

And Laughter Fell From the Sky by Jyotsna Sreenivasan

In And Laughter Fell From the Sky, author Jyotsna Sreenivasan introduces us to two people, Rasika and Abhay, who are in early adulthood and struggling with the weight of family expectations. Both Rasika and Abhay are the children of Indian immigrants living in Ohio and each are weighed down by the expectations their parents have of them. Their parents have struggled to give their children a good life with the many opportunities life in the US offers but have also instilled, at times imposed, the traditions and values of their homeland.  The result is two children caught between two worlds - the one their parents brought them to and the one from which they came.

Rasika maintains a perfect exterior - she drives a luxury car, dresses impeccably and her beautiful face is always made up.  At twenty six, she lives at home with her parents and works for a bank.  Her parents are anxious to get Rasika married and much time is spent evaluating potential matches and ensuring they find someone worthy of their daughter and also matched in terms of caste, career and good looks. Rasika seems to agree with these external measures of the perfect match and professes to need a man that is taller than she and well employed.  

Despite wanting and needing to be the perfect Indian daughter, Rasika has also spent much of her life trying to fit in with her peers in the US.  She describes watching and following what classmates did:

We never had worksheets in India, so when I got a worksheet, I looked at what the other kids wrote. We never had show-and-tell. I watched what the other kids brought in, and I did the same. I never brought in anything Indian. I imitated to learn to be American.

This imitation has left Rasika unsure of who she really is and what she really wants.  When she does get a sense of what she wants, she denies it if it is in conflict to what is expected of her.

Abhay has also grown up with the high expectations of his parents.  Like Rasika, he has delivered on those expectations in many ways.  He excelled in school and everyone had high hopes for a bright future. Following college, however, Abhay has been drifting.  He spends some time on a commune but leaves when he is disappointed by the utopian community. He doesn’t want to follow the traditional path into a successful, well-paying career despite his parents’ disappointment in his aimlessness. Unlike Rasika, Abhay has dealt with the expectations of his parents by flaunting them openly but he is just as affected  - in an effort to eschew what they want for him, he has lost sight of what he might want for himself.

They are an unlikely couple considering Rasika’s focus on good looks and career success but Abhay and Rasika are drawn to each other.  A struggle ensues as Rasika grapples with her parents’ expectations about whom she should be matched with and her own desires.  Rasika has spent so much time modeling herself into what is expected of her that she is completely out of touch with what she wants so that she doesn’t even at first recognize her feelings for Abhay.  It is hard to imagine a modern American couple facing love forbidden by their parents but that is exactly the predicament faced by Rasika and Abhay.

And Laughter Fell From the Sky deftly examines the damage done when someone lives up to others’ expectations or to the exclusion of their own wants and needs.  This is a problem often faced by immigrants and their children as they strive to fit into their new country.  In Rasika’s case, it is compounded by the high expectations her parents have for her and her own desperate desire to please them.  Abhay faces similar challenges but to a lesser degree because he does not slavishly follow the lead of others - he is actually determined to strike out and encounters different challenges in that effort.


My Thoughts


I felt I could relate to Rasika even though there were times I didn’t understand her choices.  Like Rasika, I have struggled with feeling obligated to my parents for all they sacrificed in order to give my brother and me our life in the US.  Somehow, I translated that into a need to live up to all their expectations, stated or not, and lost touch with what I wanted.  Fortunately I never went to the extremes that Rasika went to and I have become comfortable doing what makes me happy and worrying less about the expectations of others. I pitied Rasika at times as I watched her trapped by obligations and out of touch with what she wants.

And Laughter Fell From the Sky is very readable and alternates between Rasika and Abhay’s point of view.  The characters (although incomprehensible at times) are fascinating and it is interesting to see Abhay and Rasika’s relationship evolve throughout the book.  I love this as an immigrant story but there is something there for most (including a parallel to Wharton’s House of Mirth which Bookchick Di writes about in her review) readers.  Whether you like an immigrant story, a story about forbidden love or a multicultural story, And Laughter Fell From the Sky has something to offer!

Check back tomorrow when the author will be here for a guest post as part of the Immigrant Stories Challenge. 

Thank you to Mary at William Morrow for providing a copy of the book for review

Review: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (Book 1)

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie is a two time winner of the Booker Prize and just a little intimidating (to me at least).  I started the book last year and, although captivated by it, I also found it tough going at times.  So, when I heard about a read-a-long hosted by Arti of Ripple Effects and Bellezza of Dolce Bellezza I thought this would be a great way to break the book down into small parts and finish it. The novel is broken into three "books" which divides nicely for a read-a-long.  First up,  

Book One:
In book one, we meet our narrator Saleem Sinai who tells of his birth on August 15, 1947  - the day India gained its independence from Britain. The novel parallels the history of India and many pivotal moments in the book, such as Saleem's birth, coincide with great moments in world or Indian history.  After recounting the story of his birth, Saleem takes us back to the story of his grandfather, Aadam in Kashmir.  Aadam falls in love with Naseem and their bizarre courtship takes place through a hole in a sheet (this, of course, has symbolic meaning). Saleem continues with the story, at the urging of his wife Padma, and fast forwards to 1942 when his grandparents are living in Agra with their five children.   Three of the five children are girls and are pursued by suitors.  Ahmed Sinai marries Aadam's daughter Mumtaz and she will ultimately give birth to Saleem on the birthday of modern India.

I have significantly skimmed the storyline in the summary above essentially only providing a sketch. The book is multilayered and the stories so fantastic it is impossible to get into too much of the plot without making a summary confusing.  Suffice it to say, there is a lot going on in Book One.  Saleem tells his story in an unedited style and it seems rushed at times - almost as if he needs to get the story out.  This style lends itself to a lot of detail and jumps forward and backward in time.  It does take some getting used to but by the end of Book One I have adjusted to it.

Overall, I am impressed by the many threads Rushdie has weaved together in the story so far and am looking forward to seeing what happens to those threads as we move into Book Two.  The image below of an Indian wall hanging reminds me of this novel - rich with detail and deeply layered.

Source

 You can read more recaps of Book One from the read a long participants at Arti's or Bellezza's blogs.  Book Two will be covered on April 30th.

Have you read Midnight's Children or anything by Rushdie?

Audiobook Review: Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee, narrated by Farah Bala; length: 13 hours, 35 minutes


In Miss New India we meet Anjali Bose, a young girl born into a lower class family in the small town of Gauripur, India whose family's only goal is to get her married "well". Anjali, however, has other aspirations - thanks to an education and a teacher who believes in her, Anjali dreams of a new, independent life in Bangalore where she can work at a call center. Anjali is conflicted about leaving her home and family until a terrible encounter with the man her family has selected for her seals the deal and sends her packing to Bangalore. Once in Bangalore, Anjali meets a collection of women who have all come to the city to reinvent themselves and find success in a call center. They are jaded about the role they play in society as essentially commodities in the service of Western companies and the Indian businessmen and women who have bought into this new economy for their country. While in Bangalore, Anjali finds herself in a number of dangerous situations and continues to be unsure about the decision she made to leave home but, with a lot of help from generous benefactors, Anjali persists in finding a new life in Bangalore.  

My Thoughts

Although there are other characters in this book, the only one brought to life is Anjali and so the success of the book for the reader largely lies in their reaction to her as a character. Anjali wore on my last nerve - in theory, I should have respected her gumption in leaving her life behind and facing so many challenges in Bangalore but, although I had flashes of respect and even empathy, overall I found her to be inconsistent. She wavered between using her femininity to get what she wanted by flirting to being indignant that she was being taken advantage of by the same men she was luring with her feminine wiles. In one breath she felt insignificant and undeserving and in the next she expected her benefactors to provide for her without hesitation. This conflict is expected in a woman in transition is Anjali is following her move but for some reason in Anjali it doesn't ring true and just seems inconsistent. At times, I felt as if I was reading about two different people. Had there been a logical progression from the more insecure to the confident Anjali, it would have made sense to have those two voices, but by flitting back and forth constantly, the author lost me.

This audiobook is 13+ hours long and it could have been 4 hours shorter. The story meandered quite a bit and towards the end I stopped caring and felt the book could really be wrapped up. To be fair, I did listen to this over a long period of time so it is possible all the interruptions made me lose interest However, regardless of that, if the book had been edited better I think the story would have been more compelling and a strong storyline would have emerged.

The narrator, Farah Bala, did an excellent job with the Indian accents in the book and I liked listening to her. With so many of the characters working at call centers, different accents were very important in the book; the narrator did well with the Indian accents and the American accents but her British accent was terrible. I cringed a little bit every time I heard it.

The storyline and themes of this book had a lot of promise but, unfortunately, the execution didn't work for me.

The Forbidden Daughter by Shobhan Bantwal

The Forbidden Daughter by Shobhan Bantwal tells the story of Isha Tilak, a young woman living in India with her husband and daughter. As the book opens the Tilaks discover they are expecting a second daughter. Although the news of another daughter brings happiness to Isha and her husband Nikhil, it dismays Nikhil's parents who see another daughter as a burden since the family will ultimately need to pay a dowry to marry the daughter off and they anxiously await a male heir. Along with the Tilak's doctor (yes, you read that right), Nikhil's parents urge the couple to abort their unborn daughter. Isha and Nikhil vehemently refuse and Nikhil is found brutally murdered shortly after the refusal to abort. At this point, Isha's story really begins - she is forced to face her in-laws and life without her husband alone.

Sex selective abortion, although illegal in India, is actually quite prevalent. Long assumed to be more of a problem among the poor, a study published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, reveals that sex-selective abortions are rising in the educated, more affluent Indian classes. The Tilaks fit that profile perfectly - they are affluent and educated. After Nikhil's death, Isha really fears for her unborn daughter and knows Nikhil's parents will only treat her as indifferently as they have their first daughter. She is forced to make difficult decisions and face life on her own for the first time in her life. She develops strength she didn't know she had, becomes independent and makes protecting her daughters her ultimate priority.

Isha's story is compelling and I certainly found myself wanting to read more to see how she would overcome all the obstacles placed in her path. In parallel to Isha's growth into an independent woman, the novel also explores the mystery of Nikhil's death. The mystery element also kept me reading. The book is a quick relatively uncomplicated read but tells an important story. Although the issue of sex-selective abortion is the backdrop of the novel, the author does not preach but rather raises awareness about this issue by telling Isha's story and drawing the reader in with interesting characters and a plot that moves. I will definitely be looking for other books by this author