“At Night We Walk in Circles: A Novel” by Daniel Alarcon

This novel takes place in an unnamed South American country during and after a civil war about three decades ago.

The most prominent feature of this novel is its “play within a play” structure. Everyone has a “real” identity, a “political” identity, a “theatrical” identity and maybe more. And NO ONE knows what’s going on, how to live, what he wants. Blunders and confusion abound. One comment I heard (in a book group) was “Where are the adults?” Maybe protracted warfare had completely destroyed any hope of “normal” life. 

Two characters suffer unjust imprisonment. One is traumatized beyond recovery. We don’t learn the fate of the other. 

One character is almost a blank. He’s there, for most of the action, but we never learn much about him. Sancho Panza?

Another structural feature of the novel is that the omniscient narrator gradually turns into a participant in the plot. Some readers found this too “cute” or a bit manipulative.

Alarcon (a Peruvian born US citizen, age 45, MacArthur Fellowship recipient) is a very vivid and dramatic writer, and I recommend him to anyone seeking to read outside the general run of recent American and European literature.

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“Under the Wire – Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment” by Paul Conroy

Journalist Marie Colvin (1956-2012) was an American war correspondent who reported on some of the most violent conflicts of our times – in Chechnya, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Libya. By the time she reported on the Syrian Civil War with photographer Paul Conroy, she had achieved iconic status. Blinded in one eye by a grenade in 2001 in Sri Lanka, she wore an eye patch and had a reputation for courage and fierce, incredible persistence. Her story has been told in books and a movie.

Conroy’s account of the Syrian Civil War (from the rebel viewpoint) is hard to read. The statement “war is hell” hardly begins to describe the conditions and suffering Colvin and Conroy saw and ultimately experienced. They escaped from the besieged rebel city of Baba Amr, but returned at Colvin’s insistence. She and a French photographer died there. Conroy escaped a second time, with terrible injuries and severe PTSD.

For another look at this book, see this blog entry. The author highlights important aspects of the narrative that I won’t attempt to cover.

Why do journalists do expose themselves to such nightmarish danger? Their answer is simple. They do it to bear witness, to see and to tell the terrible story of human suffering and in particular the suffering of non-combatants and the innocent – children in particular. Throughout Conroy’s book runs outrage and the frantic hope that someone is listening, that someone will intervene on behalf of 28,000 civilians trapped in Baba Amr.

Less idealistically, war zone journalists are adrenaline freaks, hooked on the chemistry of fear and often on other chemicals as well – alcohol, nicotine, etc. But where would we be without adrenaline freaks? Who would rush into burning buildings or fly into space? I don’t “understand” this behavior, but I respect it.

In this blog, dated October 9, 2013, you will find my review of Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke – The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. Why does Baker choose that date as the end of civilization? Because it marked the end of a distinction between soldiers and civilians during war. He blames the change on the emergence of aerial bombardment as a primary military tactic.

• Aerial bombardment was rarely accurate.
• Each side killed civilians.
• Accusing the foe of breaking the old “rules of war”, both sides proceeded to bomb cities indiscriminately.

The climax was the American destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This action was NOT unanimously approved by American citizens.

The Syrian Civil War may be (almost) over, but peace is not assured and any form of “reconciliation” seems remote. The magnitude of human suffering is staggering.

If civilization ended in 1945, what has been going on since then? Civil wars seem more and more common. “Guerrilla” war is a new norm. Wars are no longer declared, and are not fought by countries, but often by “non-state entities”. There’s a great deal of “proxy” behavior. Superpowers are competing for influence and access to resources. The invention, production and distribution of weaponry has become a large and permanent feature of the global economy. What else? I’m not educated enough to take this analysis further.

SOJOURN – A journal devoted to the history, culture, and geography of South Jersey

In my last entry (which was rather a rant), I commented that my part of New Jersey has been slow to develop an identity, slow to achieve recognition, possibly lacking in self/civic awareness. I’m pleased to announce that this is changing! We are now blessed with a fine academic journal, produced by the South Jersey Heritage and Culture Center at Stockton University.

Sojourn describes itself as a collaborative effort. The presiding genius is Dr. Thomas Kinsella, Professor of British Literature at Stockton University, who supervises an editing internship program for Literature and History majors. Papers are solicited from local historians and other authors. (Academic credentials are not required.) Students edit and format the work. The result is impressively professional. A wealth of maps, portrait reproductions and photographs (both historic and contemporary) make for a high level of visual appeal.

The most recent issue is themed around the American Revolution. Fourteen articles cover aspects of that conflict. I was particularly interested in “When Mad Anthony Came to South Jersey: Civilian Experience during the American Revolution” by retired Stockton University Professor Claude Epstein. He discusses how the military actions in South Jersey stressed and distressed a population that was relatively poor and dispersed. He describes the Revolution in New Jersey as “more of a local civil war with multiple sides.” Not the simple narrative of valiant patriots battling evil Tories that some of us were taught in school!

I checked Sojourn’s “Call for Articles” to consider if I might want to contribute. I’ve lived here 40+ years, which makes me an old timer. Unfortunately, there’s no humor category! I plan to offer my article “Sex clubs, convenience stores and ‘The Wawa Way’” (see blog post dated July 9, 2014). Think I can talk them into it?? I could probably manage to add a few footnotes, if necessary.

Copies of Sojourn are available in the bookstore at Stockton University’s Campus Center, on Amazon.com and at a few local outlets. It would make a nice gift for anyone interested in local history, or having some connection to Stockton University.

“The Hired Man” by Aminatta Forna

This very recent (2013) book is about civil war and the ways people respond to violence within their communities. It’s one of those books that makes me ask “why fiction”? Why not tell the truth, as completely as possible? Is the reading public burnt out on truth from war zones? Minor quibble…

Forna begins by creating her protagonist, an inscrutable man named Duro. He is educated and sophisticated beyond his chosen status in life, that of a small town “day laborer” who supplements his income by hunting. He lives alone with two hunting dogs, and is intensely tuned in to the hilly landscape around him. He is also intensely tuned in to the past, to memories and long ago decisions. He describes the past as being like a child imprisoned behind the walls of a room. Sometimes the child stirs and calls out…

I’m not familiar with the recent history of Yugoslavia, so sometimes I found the plot of The Hired Man disorienting. Forna does not specify people’s ethnic identities. I’m willing to assume she wanted the story to seem “universal”. Reading reviews on Amazon, I learned that plainly many readers disliked this approach.

Duro becomes hired man and tour guide to an English family (mother and two teenagers) who move into the empty “blue house” (which is practically a character) for a summer holiday. Interesting choice of family… The teenagers are unformed, in perpetual change, compared to their slightly stuffy, vaguely clueless mother, whose name is Laura.

Duro keeps all information about the recent (16 years previous?) civil war from the family, claiming his father and sister died in “an accident” and the fighting happened somewhere else. He begins to play dangerous games, using the family to stir painful local memories. For instance, he fixes an old car and encourages Laura to drive it. It reminds the village residents of the former owners, who disappeared during the conflict. Laura has no idea why people sometimes treat her with strange hostility.

I attended a discussion of The Hired Man with a local book club. One line of interpretation had to do with “tribalism”. This was defined as ethnic identification based on very, very long term tenure on land, hence, something possible in Europe or Africa, but not in North America except among indigenous people. An attempt to analyze racial tensions in the United States didn’t go very far. I felt like I was hearing an assertion of “it can’t happen here” which made me feel uncomfortable.

The name of Holocaust survivor Ellie Wiesel, who died in early July, was mentioned. How did he “come to terms” with what he witnessed during World War II? How did he become a leader and a “hero of human rights”? I was reminded of this quotation from Aeschylus:

“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”

Wiesel transcended the Holocaust. He became wise.

I don’t think Duro was headed for transcendence. I think his fate was to be locked between vengeance and reconciliation, his life suspended and painfully incomplete.

But that’s just me, projecting into Forna’s astonishing novel. Some of us wondered if there may be a sequel. It’s hard to let go of the characters.

“Waiting for Snow in Havana – Confessions of a Cuban Boy” by Carlos Eire

This book falls into two of my favorite reading categories – memoirs, and history I “lived through” but may not understand well. The history in question is the Cuban Revolution, which Wikipedia dates to January 1, 1959. Of course, what I remember best is the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. I expected nuclear war.

Carlos Eire is about one year younger than me. His childhood ended at age 11, when he was put on a plane from Havana to Miami, accompanied only by his 15 year old brother.

Waiting for Snow in Havana is an amalgam of memories, highlighting Eire’s parents, brothers, friends, teachers and neighbors. His father was a judge, hence a member of the “establishment”, but not so close to the old regime as to have been immediately targeted for execution by the Revolutionaries. Eire lived a life of privilege and received a good education. Catholicism dominated the culture in many ways.

The decision to send Carlos and his brother to the US on their own was made by his mother, who eventually followed them. His father never left Cuba.

Eire’s childhood memories are dominated by danger and death. Danger, because many of the pastimes and activities would put at contemporary parent into shock – rock throwing as a socially sanctioned game, surfing in rough seas… Death, because so many actions were thought to be deadly – going from a warm room to a cold room, etc.

The book is also permeated by anger, especially at the Revolution, at Castro and Guevara and the changes they imposed on Cuba. Eire is still angry. A quick Goggle search makes it easy to find out the details. Eire knows that his own adult voice permeates the book, although it is intended to express his childhood in its own terms.

If you like memoirs about childhood, read this book. It also sheds (some) light on the immigration and foreign policy issues we now face.