Read This: The Road

 

I checked this out from the library last week and read it in a few long sittings.  I love how McCarthy is equal parts literary genius and entertainer.  I found myself alternately gripping my seat and pausing to look up words like ”vermiculate” and “crozzled.” The post-apocalyptic story he weaves is a profound page turner, detailing both the horrors and the great good of humanity.

I am very excited to see that a movie is set to come out in 2009, starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.  From the photos below, it looks exactly how I’d pictured it while reading. CANNOT WAIT.

Read This: Out Stealing Horses

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson was my pick for my book group this month. Petterson is Norway’s answer to Cormac McCarthy, which I think is the highest compliment any modern writer could hope for. His prose and his imagery resemble McCarthy’s but his writing feels fresh and eludes classification. He alternates stripped down sentences full of implied meaning and emotion with rich, breathless pastoral scenes:

And that was what we set out to do: wring the last warmth from the paths through the forest and the high ridges in the sunshine on the Furufjellet and see the reflection of dazzling birch boles swirling through the trees like arrows shot from the bows of the Kiowas diving into deep green ferns swaying at the sides of the narrow gravel path like palm leaves on Palm Sunday in the Sunday School Bible.

The chapters alternate between the narrative of a man in his sixties and the man’s memories of a summer in the countryside in his teens. Something we discussed in our group was how different parts of your life may fade or come to the forefront of your mind as you head into your twilight years. Personally speaking I’ve never felt as if my life had a defining era or turning point, but perhaps when I’m eighty I might be able to see the meaning in something that is happening right now in my life, or in something that has already happened.

Comparisons won’t do it justice, but the experience of reading it was similar for me to that of reading McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses (not just because of the horse connection) and Haruki Murakami’s Norweigan Wood. If, like me, you’re a sucker for pretty language and foreign backdrops, and you don’t mind ambiguity, I say, read this NOW.

Read This: Infidel

This is one of the most powerful books that I’ve read lately. Whether you think Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a brave voice for Muslim women or a frightening spokesperson for assimilation, you cannot deny that she has a remarkable story and is an incredible person. Raised as a Muslim in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Ethiopia, now a Dutch citizen and former Dutch Member of Parliament, she is a fearless crusader against the worldwide oppression of women (and human beings in general) in Islamic societies.

Arriving in Holland at a time where refugees from all over the world were seeking asylum in record numbers, and working with social agencies as a translator, Ali witnessed the peril of immigrants who viewed their new country as a nation of godless hedonists, and refused to follow the rules of an open and free society. Ali has seen first-hand how European nations have turned a blind eye to the suppression of women in Muslim communities in their countries, under the often misguided pretense of multiculturalism:

“When people say that the values of Islam are compassion, tolerance, and freedom, I look at reality, at real cultures and governments, and I see that it simply isn’t so. People in the West swallow this sort of thing because they have learned not to examine the religions or cultures of minorities too critically, for fear of being called racist. It fascinates them that I am not afraid to do so.”

She’s stoked the ire of both Islamic extremists (one of whom was responsible for the murder of Theo Van Gogh, who produced a film of hers in 2004 which criticized the fundamentals of Islam) as well as of those of us politically correct westerners who’d prefer to see Islam as a religion of peace (with a few radical nutjobs on the fringe) than one of violence and oppression.  

While I don’t know enough about the Quran or the history of Islam to agree with say, her assertion that there was nothing surprising about the 9/11 attacks, given the history of Islam and the militant language of the Quran, I do find her life fascinating and heroic. Reading Infidel challenges me to reconsider my liberal knee-jerk reaction against the idea of assimilation. She’s given us a clear example of how assimilation can be successful, and how the sequestering and appeasement of immigrant communities can work against the values of a free society and even be dangerous.

If you want a good ideological challenge, give it a read.