Highmoon’s Ponderings

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is easy to see why Lahiri won critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize with Interpreter of Maladies: these are stories that resound with emotional punch, unhindered by gimmicky prose or twisted plot devices, laser-focused explorations of the human condition. Though Bengali immigrants are Lahiri’s predominant type of characters, we also get a couple of stories set in India, where we get to see a glimpse of the society the other characters have emmigrated from. This is the kind of book that anyone can read and get lost in, and in fact, everyone should.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 
rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a fantastic novel by a talented writer. To me a good book is characterized by two things: it makes me want to read more from that author, and it makes me want to write as well, reminds me of the magic of the written word. The Namesake accomplishes both.

Anyone who is an immigrant, or can still identify with their immigrant heritage, is sure to connect with the story of the Gangulis, whether they are the immigrants themselves or the first generation of Whatever-American. Lahiri’s simple prose gets to the emotional point of each sentence without making it sappy or heavyhanded; you truly come to care for each member of the family and their own struggle, and especially for Gogol, whom you learn his past and present and surrounding circumstances straight from their own point of view. There is no gimmick here, no surprise revelation, no conspiracy of any sort, just a straightforward story of lives lived between two sides of one self, and the reprecussions of lives split in two, whether the parts are old/young, male/female, Bengali/American, past/future.

After reading The Namesake there is no doubt left why Lahiri is hailed as one of the best new writers in modern American literature, why we suddenly care so much about the lives and dreams of the Bengali-Americans that inhabit her stories: in many ways, they are us, and we are them, and Lahiri is slowly showing that truth one brilliant book at a time.

Up, Up, and Oy Vey!: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero is an excellent (if quick) look at the influence of Jews, Judaism and Torah on the creation of the genre of comic books. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein is an avid collector who knows the genre, knows the history, and presents it in very digestable format based around a concept and a superhero or team of heroes that embody it. Jews make up a disproportionate percentage of the early pioneers of the comic book genre mainly because in the 30s and 40s it was one of the few jobs Jews could have in publishing, and whether consciously or not, these guys drew on their experiences as Jews (and all that entailed, from the immigrant/children of immigrants experience, to their varying levels of observance, to their place in a still anti-Semitic society) when creating the characters that would live for decades to come and become American icons. There are books that tackle the subject more in depth, but this one has the advantage of also expounding the connection to the Torah, which makes it unique in the field of Jewish publications. Any Jewish fan of comic books should get and read this book for sure.

(Taken from GM Skarka, Judd Karlman, Steve Kenson, et.al.)

Entertainment Weekly has a web article where some famous folks talk about the comic book that hooked them.

For me, it was my first American comic: The Amazing Spider-Man #300.

It was 1988, I was 13; I was at the mall with my family and I was allowed to wander off to the nearby toy store while they shopped for clothes or something. I’d gone into this store before to look at the toys, but I’d never paid attention to the area near the front where they had a bunch of comics. For some reason that day I decided to take a look over there, and this issue grabbed my attention immediately. Spider-man in black?! Awesome!

I went over to my mom and asked for $2 to buy the comic, which she gave me without any fuss (I think it’s because it was for the comic book and not for video games) and I bought my first (American) comic. Now, I’d been buying comics for a long time already, but mostly of the .25-cents funny book variety in Spanish, of which they carried a lot in the stores in Puerto Rico (as well as some comics brought over from Mexico, like Memin and Kaliman), but Spider-Man 300 was the one that truly hooked me into comics as a hobby (addiction), one that I would indulge in for about a decade after that.

These days I don’t really buy comics anymore; I’ve lost patience with the monthly format and frankly, I’m so out of touch that, every time I go to the comics store thinking about getting back in, I get so lost that I simply leave. I did start buying some trade paperbacks for Marvel’s new Ultimate line (X-Men in particular) and have enjoyed them a lot, so I have kept buying them. My friend Josh is still very much a comics addict, so I now raid his house for new stuff to read.

Funny thing is, even though I started with Spider-Man, shortly thereafter I dropped it (after the wedding issue, I believe) and made the jump to the title(s) that would become my absolute favorite to this day, X-Men.

This was a great and fun read from start to finish. I’m a sucker for re-interpretations of the classics, and from the moment I saw The Looking Glass Wars on a table at the Miami International Book Fair I knew I had to read it.

Beddor knows his stuff, and he can spin a good yarn very well. His extrapolation of Wonderland is fantastic and it feels very much like a living, breathing world. Half the fun is figuring out the supposed real source of the caricature presented by Lewis Caroll in his Wonderland books, but the other half is getting lost in the story of Alyss’s struggle to regain the throne of Wonderland from her evil aunt Redd. I’m very glad this is just the first in a projected trilogy, and I anxiously await the next installment, Seeing Redd.

Oh, and for the roleplayers out there, this world rocks as a setting for a game. Seriously.

And Scholastic has decided the happy, happy day shall be

Marks your calendars now!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out tonight and I am STOKED! I’m wearing my Hogwarts t-shirt today, and reviewing the saga up to now in my head. Tomorrow night we’re going to Borders first thing after Shabbat ends to pick up our copy of Half-Blood Prince and off to Potter-land we go!!!

I’m reading now The Da Vinci Code (and strangely enough, so is my mother-in-law) and liking it a lot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s 100%, but as fluff goes, it’s not that horrible.

I find incredibly funny that so many Christians have had their feathers ruffled by this work of fiction. Of course, as much a work of fiction as it may be, there are some truths in there, and that’s what has people scrambling.

I’m not naive enough to take everything presented in the book as fact: I can do my own research, thank you very much. However, I am not naive enough to think that for the last 2000 years everyone in the church has been 100% honest and telling the whole truth. Ridiculous! If you truly believe that you are either possessed of an unearthly faith (and thus should be removed from this plane of reality) or incredibly stupid.

Thing is, none of the so-called great secrets revealed in the book are new to me. I have either read them before in a variety of sources, or have come up with similar ones myself. And for the record, yes, I do believe (and have believed for more than 2 years now, before the novel was published) that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. In fact, I go so far as to say that the “Beloved Disciple” of the gospel of John is indeed Mary Magdalene. You figure it out.

Is the book biased? Of course, it is a work of fiction by a man who holds a particular set of beliefs. Is everything in the book accurate? Nope, you go look it up and find out for yourself; don’t get your history from a novel (or a movie, for that matter, even if it claims to be the authoritative vision of the passion of Jesus). Are some of these theories real? Absolutely, many are documented going back centuries. Do they tell the truth? Who the hell knows. Only God knows the truth of the matter–the Truth, if you will; we humans must make due with history, what we know, and what we unearth in our constant search for an understanding of our world. But do me a favor, don’t let anyone tell you what is true or not, in this book or anywhere else. Go find out for yourself.

And remember, that just as the author had a bias, so does every single book being published right now claiming to crack, explain or debunk the Da Vinci Code: notice the majority are being published by Christian writers who cannot stand even the suggestion of such an idea as Jesus’ humanity and all that entails.

For now I’ll keep reading. I look forward to seeing how much of it is old news to me, and feel really good about it.

– Highmoon
Clamouring for people to think for themselves!

This is what I have read so far this year (follow the link to my little review):

1. Gehenna: The Final Night - Ari Marmell
2. Girl With a Pearl Earring - Tracy Chevalier
3. Tipping The Velvet - Sarah Waters
4. Maimonides’ Principles - Aryeh Kaplan
5. The Passion - Jeanette Winterson
6. Mysterious Creatures - Nosson Slifkin

I’ve been reading a lot lately, and I intend to keep it up. If I can stay at the rate of 3 books per month, that’ll be awesome. I may be able to do more, who knows, but at the very least I am officially shooting for 30 books this year.

Oh, and wish me good luck. I already put in my application for grad school. Hoping to get into the Masters of Literature program at FIU. I’m shooting for that PhD, though; I wanna have Dr. in front of my name and annoy everyone who ever doubted I’d amount to little more than a pimply-faced, comic-book-reading, D&D-playing nerdoid. Granted, there aren’t many of those (I do have an amiable personality), but still. Bah, who cares about those people. We all know I wanna have a PhD cause I want that cool octagonal velvet cap and velvet gown you only get as a PhD graduate. Fashion, that’s why I want my degree.

And about the book I am currently reading, Neither Here Nor There: Travels In Europe by Bill Bryson, I am liking it a lot. I like travel memoirs. I like making my own better (something I intend to start working on soon), but it is a good second option, and beats whatever it is I am doing here at work.

– Highmoon
Wishing I was in Dublin, or Venice, or London, or Paris… heck, even Rome will do (though not Naples… icky Naples)