Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

This is the 2nd Stegner book I've read (the first being Angle of Repose), and I think I liked this one even better. Stegner writes beautiful prose, even when dealing with rather grim circumstances, as in this book. One also senses a deeper undercurrent of meaning than just the surface plot. Both of these things kept me reading through some pretty agonizing events in the characters' lives.

The book relates the tale of one family, in the early 1900's, attempting to make a go of it in the American (and Canadian) West. The husband/father is always chasing after the one great deal that will put them on easy street, consequently the family is constantly uprooted and experiences some pretty tough times. They go from city to city, looking for the pot of gold, and never finding it. When they do manage to find a pretty good thing, it's never quite good enough, so off they go again.

Not only are their economic circumstances rough, but the family dynamics are also quite hard. The father is somewhat abusive, and the mother 'stands by her man' throughout most of it. (Though one point, when his abuse moves beyond verbal and becomes physical to one of the boys, she finally puts her foot down.) I was often torn between admiration for the strength of her love for him, and disappointment, that she did keep trying to make it work, when clearly he was never going to change. But Stegner never portrays the father as wholly bad or evil, and we can see what drives this character to do the things he does.

I think this book is really about the 'great American dream' of making it rich, and how chasing such a dream is ultimately destructive. It's also about the loss of a way of life, when the West became tamed and 'civilized', and there was no more room for the free-roaming pioneer spirit. For a certain type of person, this was the loss of one's very soul.

I found this book to get better and better, as the big picture became clearer. The characters are portrayed as very real, and there are heartbreaking scenes. Yet I was still engrossed in the book, staying up way too late many nights!

This is not an easy book to read, but Stegner is an important American writer, dealing with the West, and this book is well worth the read.

End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenay Grimwood


This author was recommended to me, though not this book. However, when I went to the store to buy the recommended book, it wasn't in stock. This one was, and it looked very intriguing - especially since it's partially set in Japan. (I spent 2 weeks in Japan last year, and was enthralled by the culture.)

The book started out in a good way, throwing us into some circumstances that were not clear, hinting of more information to come as the book unfolds. However, it seemed to take a very long time getting to this information, and in a way, never really did. You are left to decide for yourself what is really going on.

The narrative was quite disjointed, which made some of the plot-lines hard to track, adding to the confusion/ambiguity. Unless you read this in a single sitting, you'll find yourself constantly looking back in the book, to remind yourself of who these people are and what happened earlier. While this may be seen as a failing of the author, I wonder if perhaps it was intentional, to illustrate the disjointed nature of life as he sees it - especially the lives of the characters.

The two main characters are Neku (aka "Lady Neku"), who may be a teen street waif living by her wits or may be a time traveller from the future, and Kit Nouveau, a young British ex-pat who had some disturbing experiences in 'the war' and has a tragic and tangled love life. It was interesting to see how these two characters' lives became entwined, and I felt they were fairly well developed. But, again, the disjointed nature of the narrative and some of the wandering plot lines didn't allow the depths and impact of their relationship to be fully presented.

All in all, I enjoyed the book, but I felt like it fell short of what it could have been. I will probably read another of his books (the one actually recommended by my friend), before I make up my mind on this author.

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad



This is a fascinating look at life in Kabul, both during and after the Taliban. The author spent several years, off and on, with a bookseller and his family, and got to see a lot of the culture first-hand.

It was my first in-depth look at the repression of women by so-called "Islamists", and it's frightening and very sad. And almost impossible to believe that it's still going on, in the 21st century!

The sad lives these women lead, even after the overthrow of the Taliban is heart-breaking. One young woman wanted to be a teacher, but because she would have to go to school with men, she couldn't make herself go. She was free to do so, but she'd been brought up during the stringent separation of the sexes enforced by the Taliban, and she just couldn't mingle. It was heart-breaking. I wanted to go there and rescue her, somehow!

I highly recommend this for anyone interested in women's rights, religious fundamentalism or just plain cultural interest. It was well-written and fascinating to read.

Read This Book!

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson



Rarely does one encounter someone who is really, actually, truly making the world a better place. And not just on a small scale. But in this book you meet one: Greg Mortenson.

This book is the saga of how a slacker mountain climber became involved in building schools for the remote villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and how his efforts continue to make a difference in that part of the world.

After getting lost coming down off a mountain climb, he is taken in by a remote village in Pakistan. He becomes friends with the people, and, touched by their kindness and their need, promises to come back and build a school. And, with fits and starts, and many problems, he finally does.

From this humble beginning, Greg pulls together some friends and benefactors and starts building more schools. He encounters some "religious" objections at times (the schools admit girls), and he has to deal with some unsavory characters (even getting kidnapped by the Taliban). But as the people come to see that he is not trying to evangelize, and how respectful he is of their customs, he overcomes.

Greg is not a saint, however, and the book makes this very clear. He is a flawed human being, as are we all. Yet the same determination that drove him to scale the worlds highest mountain peaks serves him well here. He doggedly pursues his mission (often to the detriment of his health, safety and family obligations). But schools are being built.

After reading this book, I was struck by the simplicity (and low cost) of his efforts, which show those people that Americans do care, and do want to help, and we're not all interested in bombing them. Education is the best enemy of religious fanaticism - Al Qaida, the Taliban, etc, recruit the uneducated poor from these areas. And they tend to run the only schools around - which are hotbeds of anti-Western rhetoric and propaganda. By building independent schools, which teach only school subjects, Greg's efforts are doing more against Islamic-funded terrorism than all the military offenses we've ever undertaken. And educating girls, too!

The Central Asia Institute is the non-profit organization that arose from Greg's vision. It is one group I plan to support whole-heartedly!!