“The Whistler” by John Grisham (Doubleday, 2016)

I enjoy a good Grisham thriller.  They aren’t too thrilling, but have enough complexity and great characters to make them enjoyable “popcorn” for the mind.  This one not so much.  I disagree with the NYT and Wash Post which gave The Whistler rave reviews.  Enjoyable and informative, yes.  Among Grisham’s best, no. 

The plot involves the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, a corrupt judge and an Indian casino.  The FBJC is a state agency that endeavors to uncover state, county and municipal judges engaging in corruption and maleficence.  I assume most states have such bodies.  The protagonists are all charming, the antagonists suitably despicable.  My problem with the book is that Grisham “tipped the wink” as to who was guilty and why within the first third of the book.  From that point, it was must a nice narration of how the case played out, all tied up in a neat bow at the end. 

“The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma” by Ratika Kapur (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)

The intimacy of Ratika Kapur's writing drew me into a spellbinding conversation with the protagonist, Mrs. Sharma.  She is perhaps typical of a modern Indian woman, educated, but not too well because her family ran out of money.  She is married with a 15-year-old son, but her husband, a physiotherapist, works in an Arab country so they can save money to purchase their flat.  Her son, Bobby, is not in sync with his parent’s goals for him and listless in that undirected adolescent manner.  What’s a respectable woman to do?

Mrs. Sharma has an affair.  Written in an intimate first person voice, the book reads like a good friend sharing something, than a bit more and yet a bit more.  She meets a nice man.  They have ice cream.  They visit the mall.  They visit his flat when his mother is out.  Oh, by the way, we slept together three times.  Kapur’s descriptions of Mrs. Sharma’s physical longing for her absent husband is tender and beautiful.  

Is this the essence of the East Indian woman today?  I can’t say because I only visit the culture. But it is a well written book.  Short.  Some reviewers did not care for the ending.  I felt it was unimportant to the overall beauty of the writing and the story.  
 

“Max Perkins: Editor of Genius” by A. Scott Berg, originally published 1978 by Dutton, re-released in 2016 by New American Library, and “Genius” a movie based on the book, starring Colin Furth, 2016

I didn’t know what to expect of this book.  It was recommended by an author-friend as a worthy read.  How could editors have a life worth writing about?  They are the background people who nurture a book to maturity.  

Max Perkins nurtured genius.  He began working for Scribner’s in New York shortly after graduating from Harvard.  His genealogy is full of tough New Englanders, who forbore rather than enjoyed.  His gift was connections; his talent was loyalty and the ability to shape a manuscript.  Through connections, he brought the cream of the Jazz Age, the Depression, the Recovery, and WWII to Scribner’s--F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Alice Roosevelt, Thomas Wolfe, Sherwood Anderson, Erskine Caldwell, James Jones, William Faulkner, Ring Lardner, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings—the list goes on and on.  

Perkins did not have a happy personal life—a loveless, long marriage and a stoical approach to any adversity or rejection.  He did revel in his five daughters and in his mercurial clients who counted on his devotion and guidance.  This is a worthy read, especially if you want to understand book development.  Berg won a well-deserved National Book Award for biography.

Aghhh, the movie, Genius, starring Colin Furth as Perkins, Jude Law as Wolfe, and Nicole Kidman as Aline Bernstein—and a host of other luminaries.  I could only endure one hour during which the movie agonized over the “lover’s triangle” among Perkins, Wolfe and Bernstein.  Could watch no more because it would have completely trashed the memorable images from the book.  Forget it.
 

"Knight with Armour" by Alfred Duggan (Cassell & Company, 1950)

Alfred Duggan was born in 1903 in Argentina.  The family moved in 1905 to London where Duggan enjoyed an upper-class environment and education.  His first love was archeology and he visited and excavated at many of the famous middle-eastern sites.  Knight with Armour is his first book, so he came to writing at 47 and wrote a book a year until his last in 1971.  Scanning his bibliography, most deal with the Middle Ages either in Britain or the Crusades in the Middle East.  

Knight with Armour is an good read if you love history.  Meticulously researched, Duggan excoriates the false patina of courtly love and Catholic faith, exposing the realities of the First Crusade—boredom, filth, starvation, rivalries among the troops, dismemberment, death and no salvation. Our Norman knight, Roger, is an 18 year old second son who must leave his family’s small holding in newly conquered Britain to seek fortune elsewhere.  He is earnest and naïve.  But he is a knight and is given the family warhorse, his personal cache until the horse is killed.  And so it goes. Roger is now only a bit above a foot soldier, saved repeatedly by his heavy armour.  

There is a love story, which was off-putting at first.  But, true to form, our Roger is cuckolded by his trusted friend.  Most interesting were the battle strategies and their execution and the role of the war horses.  They were trained to battle, not just deliver the knight to engagement with the enemy.  

It’s likely I will read more of Duggan’s books. I only wish there had been a map in this one showing the Crusaders’ journey.  
 

"The Book of Aron: a novel" by Jim Shepard (Knopf, 2015)

JimShepardnovel.jpg

The Warsaw Ghetto though the eyes of a Jewish child.  Aron and his family, along with thousands of Polish Jews, were herded from the countryside into the city where they had no support systems.  Warsaw Jews were forced from their homes outside the ghetto into immediately overcrowded slums within the ever shrinking ghetto blocks.  

"The Book of Aron" is the fictionalized story of Dr. Janusz Korczak, who devoted his life to Jewish children in his orphanage and mobilized their spirits as all were forced into trains to the concentration camp and slaughter.  But the focus is on the wily country bumpkin of a child who survives his family, only to die with other orphans.  The unfolding story is a bit like William Golding’s "Lord of the Flies", but with good and evil adults surrounding the chaotic juvenile core.

Not a pleasant read because of the subject matter.  Shepard is a masterful writer—direct and concise.  An excellent reminder of how fortunate we are in our lives, while other suffered so much in the past and continue to suffer in wars today.  
 

"The Lower River" by Paul Theroux (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)

Reading a Paul Theroux book is like a visit with an old friend—no matter when you see her, you pick up where you left off, even after many years.  We have read most of Theroux’s books (46 of them), from his great, misanthropic travel adventures (The Great Railway Bazaar), through his excellent fiction (The Mosquito Coast) to his more recent, and often less satisfying books.  

Theroux began writing fiction about his experiences in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi.  He loved his work, but viewed situations through a fatalistic lens. He became politically active and was deported from Malawi and the Peace Corps. He returned to Uganda as a teacher for two years, then again left during political turmoil. In the last ten or 15 years, he returned to Africa. First with the starkly realistic and depressing journey from North Africa to Cape Town, Dark Star Safari.  He found no hope or joy to report.  The Lower River is the fictionalized account of a Peace Corps volunteer who returns to his “home” in Africa as a retiree and finds no hope or joy. It is traditional, dark Theroux.  

On the good side, Theroux is an excellent writer and you sink into his easy prose style and float through the journey in the hands of a master.  It’s a dark story well told, and so much better and meatier than what passes for Best Sellers today.

"Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives" by Sunil Khilnani (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016)

What an interesting way to explore complex history.  Each biography is about six pages long. There are a few representative photos in the middle (more would have been appreciated).  An outline map of India in the front identifies birthplaces.  An actual map of contemporary India with major cities and states would have been helpful.

My interest in this book never flagged.  From Buddha through Dhirubhai Ambani (one of the world’s richest men today), the author illustrates the nature of the complexity of contemporary India and Pakistan by examining briefly the lives of those who shaped it.  You see how traditions in locations still influence economics and politics–the everyday lives of citizens.  Though no one endorses the caste system today, it is still reinforced by special benefits from the government for lower caste members. 

If you enjoy history, this is a good read.