Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Loved this book, loved this book, loved this book! What a great story, intriguing characters and endearing moments. A pleasure to read. I thoroughly enjoyed the juxtaposition of cultures, the clash between America and India and the challenges of trying to balance the influences of each place.

Somer, a high achieving American woman meets and marries Kris, an Indian who is studying in America. They have the picture perfect relationship. Both graduate as doctors and they begin their lives living the American Dream. But, Somer can’t seem to have children and despite everything that they try she is unable to carry to term and suffers two miscarriages. Somer is devastated and cannot get past her inability to realise her potential as a mother.

Somer and Kris’ story is balanced with equal attention and tension with the story of Mr and Mrs Merchant, a couple living in rural India. They live at the mercy of the seasons and are subject to the cultural preference of sons over daughters.  The story that unfolds is somewhat predictable: Mr and Mrs Merchant have a daughter that they surrender for adoption and Somer and Kris land up adopting that daughter.Where this novel excels is in the development of these five very different characters. Each is wonderfully unique and multi-dimensional. Their personal growth and journey is well worth the read and often inspiring. Kris’ Indian mother was particularly fascinating and delightful.

I highly recommend this book!

 

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

Reading this book was like journeying through every book I ever loved at the same time. Intense doesn’t seem a strong enough adjective! This book is wild and witty and wonderfully woeful…. It presents a perfect balance of pure and unassuming innocence with lascivious experience which is manifested linguistically and through imagery. The book navigates its way through the bastardisation of English and the devastating destruction of human purity. Junot Diaz has accomplished a truly marvellous feat in this award winning debut novel.

Meet Oscar Wao:  ”Oscar de León was not one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about. He wasn’t no player. Except for one time, he’d never had much luck with women.”

Oscar is the most diverse character I think I have ever encountered. He is Salman Rushdie meets Dostoevsky, he is complex, depressed yet colourful, a deep hue of Latin American culture blended with American Geek Sci-Fi brittleness. Oscar’s life is part reality and part mythology. It is as though he is born out of a dream and so doesn’t belong in any world or anywhere. He is constantly trying to find himself, to fulfil himself, to bring meaning into his life and into the world at large.

Oscar’s life is filled with vibrant people: his long lost sister, Lola, his friend and sometimes room mate and sometimes boyfriend to his sister, Yunior, his larger than life mother and his abuela (grandmother) in the Dominican Republic. These characters make up the core of his world. And, it is through the voices of these individuals that we come to know Oscar. Their perspectives colour our view of him and it is through their sorrow that we come to understand Oscar’s existence. In part, Diaz’s technique of switching between narrative voices allows him to narrate some painful experiences without attaching too much emotion to them.

But, more significantly, perhaps, Oscar is intellectually superior to those around him. He is in love with words and he is left with the enormous challenge of navigating his Spanglish home, Latin American heritage while not betraying his commitment to language. Oscar has visions of writing a grand opus of a novel, an epic series. The tragic irony of this story is that Oscar’s writing never arrives – literally and figuratively.

Read John Self’s excellent review!

Read The New York Times’ review.

Read Salon’s review.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua

I first stumbled across this controversial book in the Wall Street Journal where an extract published caused furious and frenzied responses from a wide spectrum of the community, both local and global. The original publication depicted Chua as somewhat of a demon, extreme, manipulative and, in all honesty, quite vile. She was described as terrorizing her children, forcing them to perform to a strict schedule of tasks, limiting their interaction with their peers and preventing them from engaging in anything that might be deemed ‘fun’. Chua herself confesses that she is “not good at enjoying life”, this is apparently not one of her “strengths”. For Chua, childhood was “a training period, a time to build character and invest for the future.”

I was intrigued. It was hard not to be. Chua’s position – that Chinese mothers are superior to their Western counterparts – was so outside of our expectations of political correctness and accepted social ettiquette. How could one not read this book?

As one might expect, the Post sensationalized Chua’s book, selecting the most vitriolic segments to create its extract, probably hoping to inspire debate. And her response to the uproar parallels the disclaimer with which she starts her book:

“This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising their kids than Western ones.

But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.”

What Chua’s book is actually about is her own journey through parenting her two, very different children. It is about an extraordinarily driven woman who seemingly managed to balance marriage, children and a demanding academic role and still be apparently successful.

But Chua’s message is clear: “All decent parents want to do what’s best for their children. The Chinese just have a totally different idea of how to do that.” Chua goes on to detail what she perceives as some of the greatest differences between Chinese and Western parents and parenting:

“Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passions, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits, and inner confidence that no one can ever take away.”

And I have to confess that this gave me pause to think about my own parenting style – how often do we pander to our children, concerned that we might offend them, desperate to enable them to lead a soft and easy life and certain that the way to do this is to bring them dinner while they sit in front of the television and warm their milk just so in the evenings.

It is almost impossible not to like Chua – she is bright, devoted and respected. She is also reasonably honest about herself, confessing her inability to have fun and painfully detailing how she failed with her younger daughter, Lulu. However, this does not stop readers from wanting to shake her and make her refocus! Interestingly, the urge to bring the author to her senses is consumed by Katrin’s – Chua’s sister – battle with cancer which neatly distracts readers, allowing them to empathise with Chua on a totally different plane.

But, there is a resounding and subtle sadness to this book. Despite Chua’s convictions, she still has doubts, is still uncertain about her choices and her parenting style:

“Happiness is not a concept I tend to dwell on. Chinese parenting does not address happiness. This has always worried me. When I see the piano – and violin – induced calluses on my daughters’ fingertips, or the teeth marks on the piano, I’m sometimes seized with doubt.

But here’s the thing. When I look around at all the Western families that fall apart … I have a hard time believing that Western parenting does a better job with happiness.”

Perhaps, for Chua, the lesson is to decide what parenting is actually about: is it predominantly concerned with creating “happy” little people or is it more about molding character and determining futures. This book doesn’t provide any answers. It does, however, present a fantastic read filled with thought provoking ideas.

Conspiracy Theories

Well, in the wake of my spinning experience with Collum McCann, I felt that I needed something a bit lighter to whet my literary palette. And, what better to do this than a free ebook from Amazon?

Anyway, Don Brown was just the man I needed. His book, The Malacca Conspiracy, was fast paced in an action packed kind of way. I won’t share too much about this book as it will spoil your fun, but suffice to say, there’s drama, romance, guns, helicopters and nuclear weapons – oh, and don’t forget the necessary Islamic fundamentalist meets US Navy Seals!! All vital components of a good trashy thriller.

If you are looking for distraction and a bit of excitement, Don Brown is just the man for you — not to be confused, of course, with Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code fame. Don’s books are far more easily digested, with much less thinking required.