Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This is, without a doubt, the most unusual - and dark - book I have read this year. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but I will give it a shot. 

The central premise is that the protagonist, Ada, is an ogbanje, a “spirit child.” I discovered this concept earlier this year in Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart. In the original Igbo mythology, such a child is a spirit, or a god if you will, and comes to the parents for the purpose (more or less) of breaking the birth mother’s heart by dying young. And then repeating the process over and over. It isn’t difficult to figure out the way such a myth would arise: in an era of high infant mortality, weak genes (or maternal malnutrition or whatever) could easily cause a string of infant deaths. Just the stories of Suzanna Wesley or John Donne or Gustave Mahler alone are filled with dead babies. 

In Freshwater’s version of the story, though, the ogbanje is a hybrid: a human child possessed or occupied by spirits/gods. For Ada, the problem is that she didn’t die - she lived, but tormented by the spirits which are part of her, but that she cannot come to peace with. 

The structure of the book is fascinating as well. There are multiple narrators, with distinctive voices. Much of the book is narrated by “we,” the plural voice of the spirits. Occasionally, Ada her self is heard, usually in the form of a diary entry or a poem, until she finds a voice at the end, which combines her with her spirits in style. The third voice is that of one spirit, who Ada names Asughara. This spirit is feral, animalistic, the personification of desire and darkness. The best I can do to describe the voices is that Ada is timid but recognizably human. We is more like a Greek chorus, with figurative, mythical, and serenely confident. Asughara is personal and lets us see more of Ada than even Ada herself, but is so much concentrated energy and malice and exuberance in one, that she seems other than human. (Which is, presumably, the point.)  

Asughara is “born,” in the language of the book, as the result of a trauma. Ada is raped by a boy at college, and Asughara separates from the We at that time. Asughara becomes the way that Ada can function sexually: Asughara is full of violent lust and desire, but uses sex to punish the men who sleep with Ada. (They deserve it, mostly, because Asughara chooses men who are used to using women.) Freud might describe her as the Id - and not a stereotypically feminine one at that. Even Asughara admits that her flaw is that she has no concern for the emotional consequences to others - even to Ada. 

There is one other spirit who separates somehow from the We, and that is the male spirit Ada names Saint Vincent. He is gentle in all the ways that Asughara is not, and presents an alternative to her dysfunctional sexuality. But, as he is male, he drives Ada to hook up with women, which isn’t at all what Asughara wants (although she tolerates it for Ada’s sake.) 

If this sounds a bit complicated and crazy, it is. And even more so as we see the battles raging in Ada. Asughara feels called back to the spirit realm, and the only way she can do this is by killing Ada - so she pushes Ada toward suicide. This part of the book is damn dark, and I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who is already suicidal. It got to me, and I don’t tend toward depression. (I have my other demons, believe me, and have been in some dark places related to circumstances, but suicidal ideation isn’t the direction my brain is wired to seek first.) 

Eventually, Ada has to find equilibrium in her own way, through the understanding of her ogbanje nature. 

In order to gain some understanding of the book, I think it is helpful to understand the author. Emezi identifies as transgender and non-binary...and also as an ogbanje. The book isn’t strictly autobiographical, but it is significantly so. The author has said that they used their life as the skeleton for the story. But even more than this, it is an emotional and psychological autobiography, a look inside the author’s psyche. For Emezi, the ogbanje explanation makes more sense and “works” better than either the Western psychology framework or the Catholic Christianity that they were raised with. I have decidedly mixed feelings about this because of my own background. I was raised in the “nouthetic counseling” subculture, which is similar (but not exactly) to the Catholic approach that Emezi describes in interviews about that book. For me, that approach was borderline abusive, as it ascribes pain and trauma and grief and all dysfunction to specific sin in the life of the one who suffers. It denies any biological or circumstantial basis for mental illness, and blames its victims for their own pain. Particularly as Bill Gothard taught it, it pretty well fucked me up during my late teens. (And that’s before you get to the lasting relationship damage in my extended family, but that’s a different post.) It took a while (and the process is ongoing) to retrain my brain to understand how and why I react - in a way that doesn’t require “spiritualization” of things - or heaping guilt on me for negative feelings.

On the other hand, I do believe in my deepest being that there is more to life and the self and the psyche than chemistry and electricity. I believe in - and have experienced and continue to experience - a spiritual dimension that is as much a part of me as the physical being that science can describe. So, while contemporary Western psychology has been helpful in understanding myself and my reactions, it isn’t all there is. 

Two things tend to make my understanding of Emezi’s experiences difficult. First, I am a Western person, raised in my particular culture. As such, I can only view Igbo mythology from the outside. (I use that word not as a pejorative, but in the same way C. S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell do. Myth isn’t necessarily untrue, it is just true in a way that isn’t necessarily literally, empirically, naturalistically true. Rather, it is true in some combination of psychological, metaphorical, spiritual, and ontological truth.) The second barrier is that I do not share Emezi’s psychological reality. True, I have conversations in my head all the time (my wife teases me because she can tell), and even arguments. But I never feel like someone or something other than “me” is in my head. I don’t even experience the “angel and devil on shoulder” dichotomy. (If I ever do, can I have Crowley and Aziraphale, please? Please?) So, I have never felt like in a way consistent with the experience of being an ogbanje. 

I couldn't resist.

That said, because of my own experiences, I can see how Emezi could find an Igbo explanation for their experience to be helpful and useful. 

Similarly, I really don’t have a framework to understand Emezi’s other identity experiences. I am strongly cishet, although I don’t fit our culture’s masculine stereotypes particularly well. I feel male...but like a male who loves violin, poetry, nature, suggleing, cooking, and cats. I was mistaken for gay a lot as a kid and young adult for that reason. (I literally laughed out loud when I read Alice Munro’s riff on sexual orientation in one of her stories.) The best I can recommend is the excellent Vox article they wrote about their transition surgeries. It gives an insight in their experience, and the pain and trauma that live in their psyche. 

In that sense, this book was disturbing because it gave a full-on immersion into a psyche which is totally unfamiliar, and occasionally terrifying, to me. I don’t mean that being trans and/or nonbinary is terrifying. I mean seeing into the depths of pain and trauma that leads to self destructive and cruel behavior, and the self-loathing and unwellness that drags one toward suicide. The problem, if it can be called that, is that Emezi writes so very compellingly of this. At several points, I was sure I was absolutely hating the book, and hating what it made me feel, but at the end, after I caught my breath, I had to admit that I admired and respected it. A book that is so real and takes you on that kind of journey cannot be characterized as anything less than outstanding. The writing does what it was intended to do. This is a book that will stay with me. 

In addition to my caution that the book may be a bit much for someone already experiencing suicidal thoughts (although, again, I’m not wired in that direction, so I could be reading this completely wrong), I should also mention that it contains psychologically (not physically) graphic rape and assault. There is a lot of sex in this book, and it can get graphic, although it is all completely necessary, and it is brief. 

The other thing that might be a trigger for those who are connected to the Christian religious description, is that Jesus (as “Yshwa”) is a character. He too occupies Ada’s head, although he is an invited visitor, not part of her, like the spirits. The problem is that Yshwa is a personification of the Problem of Evil. Why wasn’t he there during Ada’s rape - or the sexual assaults we learn she experienced as a young child? Why didn’t he prevent her mother from abandoning the family? Emezi grew up Catholic, so they know the theology and scripture well enough. What is most fascinating is the book’s conclusion about Yshwa: he too was a spirit violently dragged into a fleshly body. He was an ogbanje too. As a result, he knows all too well the pain of being human and being trapped in flesh, and does not want to repeat the experience. I certainly hadn’t thought of that view of things, I suppose. Yshwa is thus not a villain, or even close. He tries, along with Saint Vincent, to encourage Ada to travel a less destructive path. But Ada can never escape the effects of the religion she has imbibed, which taught her that the loss of her virginity made her unacceptable to Yshwa. (Not that Yshwa shares this belief - he may not be able to protect and comfort Ada, but he doesn’t condemn her at all.) I found this perspective on Yshwa to be fascinating. Some of my tradition may freak out, of course. And insist that the book is evil because it doesn’t insist on their preferred theology. I prefer to appreciate the unexpected version of our own mythology, which seems consistent with the mystery of incarnation. 

Because the book is so autobiographical, it is hard to know whether Emezi will be able to write additional books of this quality. I hope they are not a one hit wonder, because they write compellingly. 

***

Just a note on pronouns: I am using “they,” etcetera, because Emezi uses them on their website. The various articles on them are inconsistent, some using female pronouns rather than neutral. Since many of the sources are ones who do aim to use preferred pronouns, I assume that Emezi made a change fairly recently, and that female pronouns were previously acceptable to them. 

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Confession: I actually wanted to read one of Murakami’s other books, Norwegian Wood, but our library system’s only copy had gone missing. So I went with my second choice. In any case, this is the first Murakami book I have read. Since I do not read Japanese, I read the Jay Rubin English translation. (More about this later.)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a somewhat peculiar book. It definitely has the classical elements of Magical Realism - Murakami is considered a major figure in the Japanese version of the tradition. The story is in a modern setting, and deals mostly with real life and historical events. However, parallel to the “real” world is a supernatural, or perhaps metaphysical world which the characters inhabit. The fantastical elements run alongside the realistic ones, yet the characters seem to take the bizarre things which happen to them without much of a shock. As in most Magical Realist works, the supernatural element is never really explained. Much mystery remains.

The protagonist is Toru Okada, a rather unambitious youngish man, who is supported by his wife Kumiko. He has just quit his dead-end job, and isn’t sure what he will do next, other than search for their cat, who has disappeared. Soon, however, things start to go both wrong and crazy. Kumiko disappears, and her wealthy, powerful, and creepy older brother, Noburu, says she has had an affair and wants a divorce. But he won’t let Toru see or speak to her directly.

A psychic Kumiko hired to find the cat contacts Toru, and the psychic’s daughter alleges that Kumico’s brother violated her. Toru gets weird phone calls asking for him to have phone sex with the caller. He meets a teenage neighbor, and ends up having disconcerting discussions about death and trauma - and she helps him discover a dry well in an abandoned (and seemingly cursed) house nearby. Toru spends a couple days at the bottom of the well, and has some sort of a supernatural experience which leaves him puzzled, and also with a bizarre new birthmark on his cheek.

The old man who Kumiko’s family introduced him to - a veteran of the portion of World War Two which took place between Japan and Russia - dies and leaves Toru an empty box - delivered by a fellow veteran who tells Koru a series of harrowing stories about his role in the war.

Later, a mysterious woman sees him randomly, and recognizes his birthmark as identical to that of her father. She and her mute son recruit Toru into their psychic healing business.

Somehow, all of these are connected. The war in Manchuria, Noburu’s successful political career, Kumiko’s childhood trauma, Malta and Creta Kano (the psychic and her sister) and their stories, “Nutmeg” Akasaka and her mute son, the cat, and the cursed house. Everything fits together somehow, and Toru, who is one of the most passive heroes in literature, finds himself having to endure all of the fallout from these interconnected threads, and absorb all of the traumatic stories, before he can find his way out of the labyrinth.

Murakami uses a number of ideas, themes, and objects to tie the threads together. The title is one: a mysterious bird which sounds like the winding up of some toy or clock. Nobody ever sees it, but certain people can hear it before a momentous change in their lives - some catastrophe. It is never stated outright, but it is implied that the sound is Fate winding the gears of the universe, and that the characters are about to be carried along by events and destiny out of their control.

While the Wind-Up Bird may not be an actual bird, real birds are prevalent throughout the story, culminating in a family of ducks in the last section.

The book was originally a three volume set - and the divisions have been retained in the English version, although it is in one volume. These are, in order “The Thieving Magpie,” “The Book of the Prophesying Bird,” and “The Book of the Bird-Catcher Man.” Classical Music fans will recognize at least two of the references. The first is obviously Rossini’s opera, the overture of which figures prominently in the narrative. (Toru is a fan of classical, as is the mute man, and music runs throughout the book.) The last is a reference to Mozart’s opera, Die Zauberflöt, specifically to Papageno, the bird-catcher. The middle one is much more obscure, and I had to look it up. It references a set of piano pieces by Schumann, Waldszenen, “Forest Scenes,” which has a movement entitled “Bird as Prophet.” There are many more references that tie in with the mood or theme or character at a particular time. Apparently Murakami does this in his other books as well. For a Classical buff, the book is a bit of an easter egg hunt.

There are themes that run through the book too. Alienation is definitely the core idea. Toru becomes increasingly isolated as time passes. After his marriage, his life revolves around her. With the loss of his job and her departure, he sees very few people - and nobody really “normal,” in the usual sense. In the central turning points in the story, he intentionally isolates himself in the dry well, depriving himself of sensory stimulation in an attempt to access the metaphysical realm and push through the labyrinth that holds him.

Desire and power are also central to the book. Neither is viewed as particularly good, as both result in sickening results. Ultimately, however, Toru has to go beyond his default passivity and find the power in himself to seek his desire: to have Kumiko back.

Even objects end up connecting the threads. The cat is to a degree a metaphor for the life which Toru and Kumiko have built together, but it also connects the characters, and finds a parallel in the big cats at the zoo who are killed by the soldiers on the eve of invasion. A baseball bat connects a rebellion by Chinese troops, a murder in a Soviet gulag, an fight between Toru and a mysterious musician and magician, and a metaphysical confrontation between Toru and Noburu. Clothes take on significance. Baseball uniforms, military uniforms, a garish red hat, anachronistic fashions, Toru’s slovenly outfits, Nutmeg’s impeccable outfits, a dress at the dry cleaners, Kumiko’s abandoned clothes - all of these take on a significance in the plot.

The well too becomes a theme. The old man mentions a well to Toru, Lt. Mamiya nearly dies in one in Mongolia, and Toru must find his epiphanies there as well. The past and the present become less distinct as the book goes on.

It is difficult in any translated work to know exactly how much of the writing is that of the author, and how much the translator. Certainly, translation is an art of itself - and translation is by definition interpretation. Disentangling the work from its translation is perhaps an impossible task for those of us who are unable to read the work in the original. However, I think it is fair to say that the writing is excellent, which probably means that both Murakami and Rubin write well. I found the language enjoyable, the metaphors surprising yet fitting, and the mystery baffling. Despite its 600 page length, it seemed to go quickly.

I do have one quibble with the translation, however. Apparently, under orders from the publisher, Rubin cut about 60 pages from the book. You can find a summary of the missing material on Wikipedia - and you should definitely read that after you read the book. I really wish that the cuts had not been made. While you can guess at what is missing, it would have been nice to have had some of those gaps filled in. Just as one example, the story mentions that the cursed house was torn down - but the scene in which May and Toru watch it come down is omitted. In any event, I am irritated that financial constraints led to an unfortunate alteration of the author’s intended art.

Despite this, the book was enjoyable. Let me quote the opening, which is excellent.

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

There were a couple of other lines that I can’t resist quoting. One was from Lt. Mayima’s narrative of the war, specifically the run-up to hostilities.

Taking Outer Mongolia would amount to sticking a knife in the guts of the Soviets’ development of Siberia. Imperial Headquarters back in Tokyo might be trying to put the brakes on, but this was not an opportunity that the ambitious Kwantung Army General Staff was about to let slip from their fingers. The result would be no mere border dispute but a full-scale war between the Soviet Union and Japan. If such a war broke out on the Manchurian-Soviet border, Hitler might respond by invading Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Wait, what?! It is always fascinating to see a completely different perspective on an event that you think you understand. I mean, Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland and that started the war, right? Well, not from the Japanese perspective. With the American-centric, or perhaps Euro-centric point of view we learn our history from, the entry of Japan into World War Two is often an afterthought at best. But the world was indeed a powder keg in the aftermath of the first world war, between the humiliation of Germany and the crumbling remains of the Colonialist European empires, Japan saw a chance to become a world power - and go after longstanding enemies in China and Russia.

A note here may be appropriate: while this book isn’t non-stop horror (like, say The Garlic Ballads), there are some gruesome scenes of violence in this book, mostly centering on the war. Nobody is innocent either. The Japanese, Mongolians, Chinese, and Soviets are all brutal and horrifically cruel, given the upper hand. Fortunately, these scenes are brief. Still, they may stick with you more than you wish. Murakami makes a pretty solid argument for the stupidity of war. One might even say that residual collective guilt and trauma from the war reach into the present in this story in so many ways, the book might be said to be about that as much as the other themes.

Another fascinating line came in a series of letters which May (the teenager) writes to Toru, who never receives them. In one, she muses on the question of causality - she is basically David Hume, seeing no reason why the world should be logical or make sense. This is in contrast to her parents.

Those people believe that the world is as consistent and explainable as the floor plan of a new house in a high-prosed development, so if you do everything in a logical, consistent way, everything will turn out right in the end. That’s why they get upset and sad and angry when I’m not like that.

This one hits a bit close to home - I mean, the whole point of cults like the one my parents joined is go guarantee results. Follow the formula, and you are guaranteed things will turn out like promised. But the world isn’t like that - reality isn’t like that. And, despite being a definite Order Muppet (if you don’t get the reference, here is Dahlia Lithwick’s classic work on the topic), the order of MY life - and of my family - doesn’t fit. And that has, alas, caused a certain amount of upset and sad and angry.

The final line I want to mention is another one from Lt. Mayima’s story (which is told in pieces throughout the book.) He ends up involved with a ruthless Soviet prisoner with ties to the Secret Police, who advises him that if he wants to get out of the Gulag alive, he should avoid imagination. However, evil and cruel and loathsome this man is, he has a pretty good grasp on the realities of Stalinism. Marx had ideas, Lenin took a few of them and used them for power, while Stalin, who had little understanding of either, used what he grasped to multiply his own power. But here is the killer line:

The narrower a man’s intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab in this country.

Damn. How true is that in our own country (and throughout much of the West) these days? That someone as ignorant and intellectually challenged as Trump could leverage a combination of general stupidity and incompetence with brilliant demagoguery into power is sad, but perhaps shouldn’t be surprising.

This line comes very near the end of the book, and it serves, to a degree, as inspiration to Toru. For much of the book, he has been puzzled by the psychic’s description of him and Noboru as polar opposites, as inhabiting different metaphysical worlds. It is Noboru’s obsession with power and glory which makes him an empty vessel, not really human, but reflecting what the demos wants to see. Although this book was written in the mid 1990s, Noboru seems to be a familiar popularist/nationalist sort. In contrast, Toru’s passivity and lack of ambition is his strength. He in his own way has to become an empty vessel himself to allow his true self to repossess himself, if that makes any sense.

One final thing I thought I might mention regards the criticism of Murakami from within the Japanese literary world. He has been accused of being “too Western” - or “not Japanese enough,” whatever that means. I am hardly equipped to resolve that question - although Murakami sure has sold a lot of books in Japan, not just abroad. What I can say is that to me at least, his writing has more in common with other Japanese or Japanese-born authors I have read than with, say, British or American authors. Sure, there is a difference between his writing and that of Junichiro Tanizaki (who Murakami cites as an influence) - but no more so than between a contemporary Brit and, say, E. M. Forster. I saw striking similarities in themes and styles between Murakami and Ishiguro as well. Whatever the case, I find such distinctions as silly as the dispute between the fans of Borodin and Tchaikovsky over who was more authentically “Russian.” Good music is good music, and good writing is good writing. Murakami writes well, and this book was good. I definitely want to read more.

***

Music, because of course.

 Rossini is fun to play - this one is a staple of youth orchestras for that reason.

Schumann is underrated in my opinion. Even if the Scherzo in his 2nd Symphony is proof he hated the 1st violins.




And, of course, Papageno's aria:



True story here: for years, the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra did an annual opera concert, where we had soloists associated with USC come up and do a concert version. (Recitatives replaced by narration, no sets, but usually costumes.) We haven't done this in a few years - I wish we could do them again, because they were a ton of fun, and my kids liked them. (Particularly Don Giovanni - go figure...)

Anyway, something like 15 years ago, we did The Magic Flute. The part of Tamino was sung by Kevin Courtemanche (he was a regular in our productions for a number of years.) He is a fine singer - I particularly remember "La Donna e Mobile" as a fine performance of his. But, I confess that as Tamino, during the scene when the maidens find him sleeping and extol his extreme beauty and manliness, it was really hard to keep from laughing. It wasn't his fault, of course - it is the injustice of the universe that short guys with bald heads get no romantic respect. (And, let's be honest, The Magic Flute is almost as silly as Cosi Fan Tutte...except it is trying so hard to be serious. Unintentional comedy factor: very high.) Anyway, this brought back memories of those good times. Kevin Courtemanche, if you somehow run across this post, here's a hello from Bakersfield, California. It was a pleasure making music with you back in the day. All the best.

Nightbird by Alice Hoffman

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

I can’t even remember how this book ended up on our list. I am guessing it was off an article on recent children’s books back in 2015, because it isn’t on our Newbery list. However, on the list it was, and it worked for our traveling audiobook series. 

 

The basic setup of the book is a Magic Realism sort of plot. Young “Twig” Fowler lives with her mother in the small town of Sidwell, Massachusetts. Okay, not just with her mother. Her older brother James lives with them, but nobody knows he exists. Back 200 years ago, a failed romance between one of their ancestors and a young witch named Agnes Early led to a curse put on the Fowler men: they all grow wings.

Then, the descendants of Agnes Early’s family move back to her old cottage, and Twig becomes friends with Julia. When Julia’s older sister, Agate, discovers and falls in love with James, they all decide to try to figure out how to break the curse. Oh, and there is also a forest that is habitat for endangered owls and a subplot around the attempts to develop the woods. And a bit about Johnny Appleseed.

I would characterize Nightbird as decent, but not spectacular. The plot isn’t the most compelling, and there are some holes in the resolution of various issues. The best part by far, however, was the portrayal of the friendship between Twig and Julia. Twig has been isolated for years because of the secret, and she finds herself both desperate for a friend and yet terrified of actually becoming vulnerable. Fortunately, Julia is persistent and doesn’t play catty games.

The other friendships are intriguing. There is a longstanding relationship between Twig’s aunt, the town historian, and an ornithologist. Are they just friends? Maybe a bit more? The romance between Agate and James, although only a small part of the story - we never really see it from their perspective - is also fairly believable. Finally, the friendship that develops between Colin and Twig seems promising. Alas, the book is too short to really flesh that one out, and one is left wondering how the book would have gone if less time had been spent on the curse and the mystery of its origin, and more on just the friendships.

I’m not really sold on the audiobook version, narrated by Jenna Lamia. I realize the main character is fairly young, but I guess I am used to voices with a little more heft in my 12 year olds. (My wife and daughters have always had deeper - and more assertive - voices.) Not a bad job, just not my favorite.

This book was pleasant, and had its moments, so I would say it is a worthy addition to a reading list. However, reading it back to back with Richard Peck, it seemed a little less so by comparison.  

The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This book is a Newbery Honor Book, so it fits with our rather unsystematic exploration of Newbery winners and honors. I’m not quite sure how to describe this book, as it is unusual, to say the least. Let’s start with this: the book is definitely an example of Magical Realism. So there’s that. But it is more than that, and unusual for more than that too.

As the title suggests, The Inquisitor’s Tale is a bit of a nod in the general direction of The Canterbury Tales. Most of the book consists of a series of tales told at an inn. However, these are not a bunch of unrelated or loosely related stories, but one story, told by a series of narrators who witnessed various parts of the story. Oh, and telling the tale of what went on in the inn is the Inquisitor (whose identity doesn’t become clear until near the end of the book.) So that is one way to look at this book.

Another is that it is a collection of Medieval legends retold in an imaginative way. After all, very little of the story is truly “original.” Gidwitz borrows ideas liberally, but weaves the threads into a single story. 

The story itself is of three children from disparate backgrounds who are thrown together by circumstance. And also a venerated dog come back from the dead.

The first child is Jeanne, a French peasant girl. The dog is Gwenforte, a greyhound who saves Jeanne from a snake, but is killed in the mistaken believe she has harmed Jeanne. The peasants of the village venerate Gwenfortet as a saint for her heroism, and decorate her grave. Then, an inquisitor is sent to stop this idol worship, and things start to get magical - and scary for Jeanne. The incident of the holy dog, minus the resurrection, is based on real events.

The second child is William, who is based loosely on Guillaume D’Orange, a real person who later became legendary as a kind of monkish Paul Bunyan. In this story, William retains his large size and superhuman strength, but becomes the illegitimate child of a crusader and an African woman. William is abandoned at a monastery by his father after his mother dies in childbirth, and William is raised as an oblate. When we meet him in this book, he is on a mission to deliver books to Saint Denis for his superior.

The third child is Jacob, a Jewish boy recently escaped from the destruction of his village. (This incident is also based on an historical event.)

The children are thrown together by chance, and end up fleeing together as Jeanne is sought by the inquisition, Jacob is trying to find out if his parents survived, and William has his books to deliver. Along the way, they meet some memorable characters, from Michelangelo di Bologna, a giant monk who may be the villain - or not - to King Louis IX and his mother, Blanche of Castille, to Mamaluke, the good hearted but slow witted knight. Their adventures include historical events such as the mass burning of Talmuds by Louis, as well as legendary ones like the curing of the Dragon of Deadly Farts.

This second story is the one my kids thought was the most hilarious. But it isn’t original to Gidwitz. Rather, it comes from, of all places, a collection of tales told about the saints. Who says the Middle Ages were dour?

On the one hand, there are humorous moments like this. On the other, there are some really serious topics in this book. Religious and class prejudice pervade Medieval society, and all three children are looked down on as a result. Religious persecution is addressed without softening the blow at all. People are burned to death, books are burned, villages are burned. All in the name of religion.

There is also an extended examination of the Problem of Evil. I appreciate that Gidwitz doesn’t talk down to the intended audience on this. Or worse, lecture and pretend that he has a solution. There is no solution, just a combination of questions and potential partial answers. And that is okay! No person, religious or not, should fear this question or gloss over it. Humans have pondered this since the dawn of civilization. Gidwitz presents two contrasting views. The first is that of Job, where the answer is merely a question back: “where were you?” The second is that of the troubadour, who theorizes that life is like a beautiful yet tragic song. The bad things that happen are not beautiful, but the song itself is, and both the good and bad that happen are necessary for the beauty of the song of life.

The book has a rather modern sensibility, rather than a Medieval one. The author (although not always the characters) is aware of the evil of prejudice, of religious persecution, of sexism, and of superstition. As one of the characters puts it, part of being a saint (in the general sense) is to fight for good and kindness and love, and against the forces of hate and ignorance. (Hey, we could use a bit of that right now in our present time, yes?) Gidwitz gently argues for religious tolerance (also pointing out teachings in the Talmud similar to those of Christ.)

My kids liked this, but I will warn that there are some pretty intense scenes. Some children might find things scary. (And, adults should find this stuff scary. Humans can be so dreadful to each other.) This is a book full of humor, but not particularly lighthearted in its themes. But it is, like the famous cheese which gets a scene, strong and complex, and a lot like life itself.

***

I strongly recommend reading the Author’s Note at the end. Gidwitz explains how he came to write the story, and indicates where the various legends and tales that are incorporated came from. 

***

The audiobook is read by a full cast, including the author. I approve of this approach, and thought the Listening Library version was excellent. 

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Source of book: I own this.

I read this book because it was selected by a book club that some friends are in, that I wanted to join before the fates conspired against me. I diligently read the book, and was all ready to go, provided I could finish my tasks for the day. And, I had a whole afternoon to just install some shocks and struts on my minivan - hey, at 110,000 miles, stuff wears out. It had been a while since I did struts, but it wasn’t like I had to learn a whole new skill.

At least until my hand slipped and I let the hub swing down enough to pop the CV joint boot off the axle. And then discovered that the clamp used to hold it on was a single use clamp that I couldn’t put back on. Except it took me a while to figure that out. And then, once I had that done, I took a test drive, and I was getting a rattle on the other side. Not good. Since I couldn’t find an obvious problem like a loose nut, there was nothing for it but to take it apart and reassemble it. Which worked, for reasons I still don’t understand. But by then, I was already an hour late and looked like I had bathed in brake dust. Sigh.

So I missed the discussion. But at least I can blog about it, right?

The Master and Margarita was written between 1928 and 1940, in the Soviet Union. By the time I became aware of the USSR, things had ossified significantly, and not too many alive at the time remembered life before Lenin. But when this was written, the revolution was the recent past. A mere decade ago, and artists like Mikhail Bulgakov, born in 1891, not only remembered life “before,” but had had careers and successes before that time.

Bulgakov served as a doctor in World War I (receiving several serious injuries), before switching to writing after the war. Most of his family emigrated to France after the revolution - they were loyal Whites. Bulgakov was prevented from doing so because he was ill with typhus, and couldn’t be moved.

Although he initially had some success with his plays and novels, he managed to get on the wrong side of Stalin, and his works were banned in 1929. Bulgakov was devastated and puzzled, as Stalin had championed his writing numerous times before. But apparently, the satire of the Soviet system, while popular with audiences, enraged a few influential critics who had Stalin’s ear. It was during this time of travail that Bulgakov began writing The Master and Margarita. He burned the first draft, then re-wrote it with significant changes, not least of which was the character of Margarita, which was inspired by his third wife, whom he married in 1932.

Bulgakov’s works remained banned until his death in 1940. He intended to submit this final work to the publisher, but he still had a few loose sentences to tie up. Chances are, his friends would have prevented him from doing so anyway, as the political consequences for Bulgakov would have been devastating. His widow waited for 26 years, before publishing it in 1966. Even then, it was published in a censored version. As was the practice at the time, the omitted portions were “unofficially” distributed as a handwritten supplement.

The novel is a classic example of early Magical Realism. The setting and human characters are realistic, and respond as normal, ordinary people would to the intrusion of the supernatural in their midst. The book is permeated by references to Goethe’s Faust, and I would have missed a lot of the references if I hadn’t read that work - particularly the bizarre and philosophical second part. Even the name of Margarita is a reference to Margaret/Gretchen in the Faust legend - and the Master himself is probably intended to be a new Faust.

The novel kicks off with Woland (Goethe’s name for the Devil) showing up in Moscow and getting in an argument with the aggressively atheistic writer Berlioz. (Yes, this is a reference to the composer who...wait for it...composed an epic work about Faust.) Not only does Berlioz disbelieve the Devil exists, but he denies that Jesus Christ was a historical person. This was a popular theory at the time in the USSR, which was aggressively imposing atheism on the population. This is where understanding the time the book was written is key. Bulgakov’s grandfathers were both Orthodox priests, and it had only been a decade since the revolution. Apparently, part of the impetus for the writing of this novel was Bulgakov’s experience with a pro-atheism propaganda committee. Obviously the existence of the Devil threw a bit of a wrench into society.

Woland predicts to Berlioz that not only will he not attend his committee meeting that night, he will have his head chopped off by a woman. The conversation starts with Berlioz asserting that man governs his own fate, with Woland countering that man cannot even foresee whether he will be alive tomorrow.

“And sometimes it’s worse still: the man has just decided to go to Kislovodsk” - here the foreigner squinted at Berlioz - “a trifling matter, it seems, but even this he cannot accomplish, because suddenly, no one knows why, he slips and falls under a tram-car! Are you going to say it was he who governed himself that way? Would it not be more correct to think that he was governed by someone else entirely?”

“I must counter him like this,” Berlioz decided, “yes, man is mortal, no one disputes that, but the thing is…”

However, before he managed to utter these words, the foreigner spoke:

“Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he’s sometimes unexpectedly mortal -- there’s the trick. And generally he’s unable to say what he’s going to do this same evening.”

I just adore the phrase “unexpectedly mortal,” even if the idea behind it is far from comforting.

However, Woland is indeed right, and Berlioz does become “unexpectedly mortal” soon thereafter, and his companion, the young poet Ivan Homeless, finds that his new-found belief in the Devil lands him in a mental institution.

Woland also begins the story within the story: a retelling of the story of Christ and Pontius Pilate. This story is begun by Woland, but is eventually taken up by the Master - a fellow inmate in the institution. This story is the obsession of the Master, who attempted to have the work published, but it was savaged by the critics, and he ended up burning it. (Hey, sounds just a bit self referential.) The story doesn’t exactly follow the Gospel accounts. Jesus is a mere idealistic human, there is only one disciple, Judas is an opportunistic hitman who is assassinated after the betrayal to prevent the secret from getting out, and a number of other details are changed. But there is a point to this. First, the very human Yeshua Ha-Nozri is even more of a threat to the Soviet authorities than a divine mystic - in part because he stands for radical love and the abolition of power. This all plays into the satire in the novel. But also, it is the conversation between Pilate and Yeshua that haunts Pilate through eternity. (And doesn’t it haunt anyone who has read the Gospels?) Pilate is involved in something so much bigger than he realizes - until it is too late. He just wants to keep the peace - and his job and therefore his life. But, alas, his name is now know throughout the whole world for all the wrong reasons.

When the story returns to Moscow, Woland is about to wreak havoc on the city. He and his minions, the tall and manipulative illusionist Koroviev, the short thug Azazello, the succubus Hella, and Behemoth the giant and sarcastic cat, take over an apartment and set up a seance at the local theater. During the show, huge piles of currency (see below) fall from the rafters, and women from the audience are given the opportunity to exchange their clothes for expensive designer fashions. After the show, naturally, the money turns to either foreign currency (a serious crime to possess) or worthless paper, and the women find themselves naked. More people end up in the sanitarium, one is transported magically to Yalta, and chaos ensues.

About that currency. The translation (and indeed most English translations) miss the point of this. The currency described as “ten rouble notes” are actually “chernovets,” a currency that the USSR attempted to replace the rouble with - to great disruption and embarrassment. This is one of the jokes that is kind of lost if you don’t know the background. On a related note, there is a fantastic website that is devoted to this book, and explains all of the historical and cultural background. I referred to this while reading the book, and it really made it come to life.

It is at about this point that we finally meet the Master and Margarita and hear their stories. This is a third of the way through the book, which is kind of odd considering the book is named after them. After we are introduced, we find out that the Master has written his magnum opus, a book about Pontius Pilate, which he has just burned. His mistress, Margarita, has tried to encourage him to not give up, but she disappears, and he first arrested, then is committed to the mental institution. She believes he is dead, and goes seeking Woland to get him back. She ends up becoming a witch and hosting the Walpurgis Night ball, before she is reunited with the Master.

In one of the iconic scenes, the burned manuscript is resurrected.

“Let me see it.” Woland held out his hand, palm up.

“Unfortunately, I cannot do that,” replied the master, “because I burned it in the stove.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t believe you,” Woland replied, “that cannot be: manuscripts don’t burn.”

“Manuscripts don’t burn” has become the most famous line from the novel: one I had heard before I knew the book existed. It became an axiom in the Soviet Union, and it represented the spirit of protest. As the Master says, it doesn’t matter if he has the manuscript, because it is all inside his head. The ideas do not die, they cannot be exterminated, even by fire.

I won’t go any further with the plot than that. The whole impression of the novel is a bizarre mix of slapstick, satire, surrealism, and goodness knows what else. It is crazy and it will make you crazy, just as it did poor Ivan. Or perhaps the world is just crazy and he is the only sane one. Or both.

There are a few additional things I want to mention. In addition to currency wars, the politics of getting a scarce apartment is a topic that Bulgakov takes time to thoroughly skewer. From the multiple families sharing a flat - but each with their own little bit of territory: a personal Primus stove - to the rampant bribery, the author raises the reality to the level of a farce.

This book has a lot of references to historical personages, some of which, like Berlioz and Schiller, really don’t need an introduction. But other more minor persons, particularly contemporary Soviet notables in thinly disguised portraits, are harder to recognize. Fortunately, these are footnoted in the edition I have. Some others are ones that I personally enjoyed seeing, such as the Concertmaster at the Walpurgis ball, Henri Vieuxtemps. Perhaps only music nerds will recognize him as one of the most influential violinists of all time, practically inventing many of the techniques we all use today. Brownie points to Bulgakov for passing over the more obvious Paganini (who was rumored to have sold his soul to the devil) for the more obscure yet more influential figure.

Another line really made me smile, and it occurs in the scene where Koroviev and Behemoth are having a last fling - literally burning the town down - before they all leave Moscow for good. They show up at the restaurant that caters to the writers and critics, where their identification is demanded. (Not just anyone can eat here…) Koroviev insists that they are writers, and opines that Dostoevsky never had to present papers to prove he could write.

“You’re not Dostoevsky,” said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev.

“Well, who knows, who knows,” he replied.

“Dostoevsky’s dead,” said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.

“I protest!” Behemoth exclaimed hotly. “Dostoevsky is immortal!”

One final scene contrasts with this humor. Margarita, who is the voice of compassion in the novel, has a chance at the end to plead for mercy for Pilate, who is condemned to an eternity of unfulfilled longing.

“What is he saying?” asked Margarita, and her perfectly calm face clouded over with compassion.

“He says one and the same thing,” Woland replied. “He says that even the moon gives him no peace, and that his is a bad job. That is what he always says when he is not asleep, and when he sleeps, he dreams one and the same thing: there is a path of moonlight, and he wants to walk down it and talk with the prisoner Ha-Nozri, because, as he insists, he never finished what he was saying that time, long ago, on the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan. But alas, for some reason he never manages to get on to this path, and no one comes to him.”

And this is the most beautiful moment in the novel, when the Master is able to free the character he has written his book about, and Pilate is able to walk down that path of moonlight with Christ as he has longed to do these 2000 years.

Without a doubt, this was an unusual book, not particularly easy to understand - particularly while in the middle. But in it one can see echoes of other books. Faust, most obviously. But also in the famous Grand Inquisitor scene in The Brothers Karamazov, in the writings of Tolstoy. And one can hear the voices of the Soviet artists of the 20th century, all seeking to do what they must: to write, to compose, to express, to tell the truth. As all totalitarian systems on all sides of the political spectrum have always known, it is the artists that pose the greatest danger, because their truth runs deeper than censorship, deeper than mere words and notes, and touches the very soul. Art is, in its own way, like that longing to walk the path of moonlight, to transcend. Ultimately, this necessity has defied the many attempts of despots to suppress it. Out of Stalin’s purges and forced atheism came this novel which spoke of something greater, something beyond the cramped vision of material success and ideological purity. And Caesar and Stalin are exposed as no different from the inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s book, worshiping power and exerting control by creating an artificial version of reality. Like Goethe, Bulgakov sees Woland and Mephistopheles as forces that are ultimately beneficial because they challenge the mirage of human power and terror. I’ll end with the quote from Goethe’s Faust which Bulgakov uses to preface the novel:

“...who are you then?”

“I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”