Postcards from Asia

It was Doctor Sleep that made me want to read The Shining. So I set out to read the scary story of the Torrance family who hole up at the Overlook hotel for a winter and face all kinds of crazy stuff, like ghosts (horribly ugly ones), and a chiming clock (hello, Poe) and a fire hose that is a fire hose (but not really), and some scary hedge animals (now I think maybe “topiary” is a contraction of top scary). I loved The Shining, with all the love for horror I have in me, and I placed the book on a shelf with Dracula and The Oxford Book of Gothic Stories and thought, now that was one heck of a great scary story. Then I read the sequel.

It’s never a good thing to expect a lot from a sequel, and yet I did. Danny Torrance’s story was one I was looking forward to rediscover and there were so many things I was hoping to find. Would he end up an alcoholic like his father? Will he keep in touch with Hallorann, the one who saved him? And who will he save in return and from what? All the answers are there but no matter how hard I tried, I just could get into this new story – a group of ordinary looking people called the True Knot who wander across America hunting for children with the shining, only to kill them and feed on their dying breath, the steam. And a special little girl called Abra whose psychic powers make her a top priority for the group, especially now that they are sick and dying. Danny is the one who’s supposed to help her, just like Hallorann helped him, because life is a wheel and now it’s turning and it’s time to pay back.

The first part of the book was slow going – the story picks up a few years after the horrific experience of the Torrance family at the Overlook hotel. Danny’s gift, the shining, is both a blessing and a curse and as he gets older he makes some poor choices in dealing with it. He also uses it to assist the elderly patients of a hospice on their dying bed, and this is what brings him the name Doctor Sleep.

I liked all the references to The Shining and I think the book would have been less enjoyable had I not read these two one after the other. But the horror part was just a flicker, and not a very strong one at that, and I was left wanting more. Maybe one of his next releases for this year, Revival, will bring back that horror element that was so powerful in The Shining. I look forward to reading it.

My rating: 3/5 stars

* Read in March 2014

What a ride! What an amazing, exciting, horrific and gruesome ride! Having just finished turning that last page, I find myself unable to unglue my thoughts from everything that happened in this book. It’s as if I am still there, taking a ride in a wild roller-coaster, sliding down the tracks at an amazing speed, seeing (huge hedge animals come to life, fire hoses moving by themselves, a dead and bloated corpse yearning for a throat to strangle) all these weird things and being afraid of them all and loving that feeling of fear because it’s also mixed with a fascination akin to being hypnotized.

Of all the King novels I’ve read over the years, and there have been more than forty I think, this one was right up there with Salem’s Lot, Cujo, Desperation and It, in terms of scariness. My memory might be a little foggy but I don’t remember being so shaken by one of his books in a long time. It is also true that the ones I’ve read last were Full Dark, No Stars, 11/22/63, Joyland and The Wind Through the Willows and it’s also true that none of them come even close to the horror of The Shining.

The Shining is the story of the Torrance family, Jack, Wendy, and little Danny, only five years old. Financial strain, also Jack’s quick temper and alcohol problems, force the family to go and live at the Overlook Hotel, where Jack had managed to get a job as a caretaker for the winter. Bright hopes are pinned on this job – Jack will get sober, he will finish writing a play he’d been working on, get himself together, start again. But the Overlook is not just your usual hotel and the things that inhabit it have a plan. A terrifying, murderous plan.

To say that I loved the book would be a gross understatement – every little detail was worked into the story with perfect precision, making me dread turning the page and yet yearning to because I just had to know what happened next (and will Danny be ok, that’s what I wanted to know) and what twisted unimaginable act of terror was going to plague the characters next. I never thought I’d be so terrified of a fire hose, yet that scene, built with exquisite slowness, was almost scarier than the one of the dead woman in the tub, because a dead corpse is scary, yes, but it’s obvious-scary, while an ordinary thing such as a fire hose could turn that terror into a mind-numbing experience. There are a myriad of possibilities for horror in a hotel with a tainted history such as the Overlook – the elevator cage with its rusty doors where party streamers come floating out, the basement with an old boiler patched up so many times, and whole boxes filled with old receipts and a strange poem written on old-smelling stationery paper, the attic with its promise of rats, the roof shingles with a dangerous wasps’ nest. Loneliness, winter, cold.

I loved the literary references, from Poe’s chilling “The Masque of the Red Death” whose unusual clock makes time unravel like a spool of thread and cries of “Unmask!Unmask!” that echo throughout the story like a timeless horror, to the more playful “Alice in Wonderland” to name just two. I do not doubt that this is also one little detail that made me like the story even more, as Poe is one of my all time favorite writers.
I am glad that I waited so long to read this novel because now that the sequel, Doctor Sleep, is out and on my nightstand, I can read them both one after the other. Being already half-way though the sequel, all I can say is that so far, The Shining is definitely more horror-driven. Or maybe I just didn’t get to the good part yet.

My rating: 5/ 5

*Read in March 2014

Technology is the magic of the future. The wand and magic spells have been replaced by screens that can pop up virtually anywhere and simulations that can bring your dream man right into your living room. There is no need for cash, as money flies right out of your account when you’re wearing your “system”. If you think social media has brought about the loss of privacy you have no idea how accurate that is and how hard is to have a moment when nobody is watching. No need to learn spells and magic formulas like Harry Potter. No, it’s way easier than that. And less complicated.

I had my doubts about getting this book. The title is quite catchy, and the cover art even more so – the book does get a bonus point for that, but science fiction is rarely a genre I pick up on my own. Still, after reading Carl’s review, I decided to give it a try. We should get out of our comfort zone sometimes, right?

The story begins in 2103 in a dating center where Mira, a woman who’s been dead for eighty years, is revived for a few minutes to speak to a potential husband. The future has brought about the marvel of revival, where people with a generous insurance or attractive enough can be brought back from the dead. The Bridesicle program is a special section of this “experiment” and wealthy men can pay for the revival and reconstruction (that sounds awful but accurate, given the extensive physical damage some of the women had sustained) of a woman, in exchange for a lifetime marriage contract. A very disturbing version of Sleeping Beauty, except that Prince Charming is neither young nor charming but obscenely rich.
The story revolves around Mira and another woman, Winter, who also ends up in the Bridesicle program. Rob, the man who killed her by accident, is consumed by guilt and decides to visit her as often as possible, which is not a very easy thing to do as only a few minutes worth of conversation with a revived woman costs several thousand dollars. In order to get the money he has to give up his dream, move back in with his father and work a menial job – a big change from his former lifestyle.

I liked the small number of characters that inhabited the story. Each one of them feels real enough to evoke sympathy, even the attention-seeking Lorelei, who lives entirely for her social media ratings. The small cast of characters include Veronika, a shy dating coach with a not-so-secret crush, Lycan, a brilliant scientist but socially awkward, Nathan, the handsome guy who falls in love with the wrong person, and Rob, the young man whose one reckless act makes him reconsider his lifestyle. There is also Sunali, a former bridesicle who fights to change the rules of the facility that runs the Bridesicle program.

It was a weird experience reading this book. Not only because it depicts a very technologically driven world but also because it’s described in such a way as to make it very plausible. Technology had made so many wonderful things possible – traveling for example, and extending one’s life, but it has also altered the real world with the aid of virtual simulations. Imagine walking in a dilapidated old neighborhood and with just a touch being able to change the landscape, the smell, even the sounds – all this made me think of a pretty bandage over an infected wound.
The language is appropriately futuristic, from acronyms to the name given to people who have chosen to live without technology – raw-lifers they are called – but the story offers only a glimpse into what that means. It would have been interesting to see the world through their perspective.
In spite of the technological background, people’s emotions manage to shine through and the events force the protagonists of the story to reevaluate their lives. Some of them even manage to find a measure of happiness, while others are content to live a life that has more in common with a soap opera. It’s disturbing how close this feels to a near future. It made me think of the choices we have and the paths we decide to take in life. Would people accept to be frozen in case of an accident or illness, so they can be revived in the future by someone who would have entire control over their lives? Is it worth living a hundred and twenty five years in an artificial world? Is it worth living a life without privacy for a fleeting moment of fame?

I based my rating on the emotional rather than literary merit of the story. While the idea the book is based on is surprising and intriguing (not sure how original, but it certainly feels special) it made me feel sad, faintly repelled by it all, and not even the less bleak and quite abrupt ending managed to dispel that.

3/5 stars

*Read in February-March 2014

Having just finished Isabel Allende’s book Daughter of Fortune, I was looking for something else to read and I thought about The Kite Runner which had been waiting on my nightstand for months, borrowed from a friend. Then I saw one of the comments on the cover and it was by Allende, and I thought, there must be a connection between these books. That is how I began reading Khaled Hosseini’s first novel.
Three years ago I had read A Thousand Splendid Suns, his second novel, and loved it, but stayed away from The Kite Runner because I felt there was too much hype surrounding the book, and for some reason I refused to be drawn into it. Perhaps it was not the time. Until now.

The story of Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul, as they like to call themselves with words carved on a tree, is a bitter-sweet tale of love, devotion and betrayal.

For you, a thousand times over, Hassan says to Amir as they run around and play together as children, the second, a son born into a privileged family, the first his poor servant. Even though they share childhood games and play like brothers, the thin line dividing them is always there, in the words Amir uses to taunt his playmate who never takes them to heart, always trying to please and protect. His devotion is a testament to his generous and sweet nature, while Amir’s behavior seems at times like that of a spoiled rich child who takes full advantage of it. I couldn’t help but compare the two boys, admiring one and blaming the other, as the story evolved and events enfolded.

Afghanistan, a country that seemed like paradise on earth to the two boys, begins its descent into dark times as the Taliban come to power and destroys the sheltered, idyllic life of the protagonists. Young Amir and Baba, his father, flee to America, while Hassan stays behind in a country torn apart by violence. But Amir is not able to forget what happened to Hassan, and most of all, the part he had to play by not taking any action to save a friend who had stood up for him so many times. And then, many years later, when Amir is a grown man and married, and his father is dead, he receives a call from the country he left behind and he realizes the past had finally caught up with him. There’s a way to be good again, says the voice on the telephone, his father’s old friend, keeper of more than one terrible secret. And just like that, Amir decides to go back to Afghanistan and face whatever terrible punishment fate has decided to deal him.

Ka is a wheel, says Stephen King in his Dark Tower series, and in this book it makes perfect sense. The deeds of the past must be atoned for, and retribution is possible, even after so many years, even after thinking that time and distance had erased them into oblivion. Amir has a chance to set things right, and in doing so, to make up for, at least in a small measure, the sins of the past.

There are several interesting threads well worth analyzing: Amir’s relationship with his father – always strained, Hassan’s devotion – never faltering, the symbolism of the kites, and Afghan culture, to name a few. The characters are well drawn and the story moves at an alert pace with sudden revelations and emotional scenes. I loved Hassan for his bravery and self-sacrificing attitude, and quite a few times my eyes misted over a scene in the book. The writing is beautiful without being embellished, and the story kept me up at night, making me resentful of the fact that I needed sleep. Who needs sleep when there are books like this one, stories that can make two hours pass like two minutes and whose end makes one feel empty and alone? Still, the novel is not perfect – sometimes the events seemed to fit too well and that wheel turns a bit too often, but these are flaws I was content to overlook in favour of the story as a whole. And while it seemed like things tie up too neatly at the end, there is still that emotional current throughout the book that never really falters and which made reading it such a great and satisfying experience for me.

And that connection I was talking about at the beginning of my review is just a minor thing that I noticed while reading Allende’s book. She names one of her characters Babalu – he’s a big, scary-looking man dressed in wolf skins acting as a bodyguard to a group of traveling prostitutes. The same name is used in Hosseini’s book as a sort of boogeyman, a taunting name given to Hassan by a violent, evil wealthy young boy who never misses a chance to pick on him. Given that Allende’s book was published four years prior to The Kite Runner, I wonder what this small detail means and if the two authors knew each other personally. I like it when I discover small details connecting two books, like threads running from a story into another. Needles to say, I look forward to reading And the Mountains Echoed, Hosseini’s latest novel. I wonder if it’s going to be as emotional as this one.

My rating: 5/5 stars

*Read in February 2014

Isabel Allende belongs to a special corner in my imagination where I put all the writers I would like to read one day: Joseph Bolano, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Checkov, Alice Walker, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, just to mention a few. It’s a long list, and every once in a while a name pops up, a lottery type of moment if you will, and one of the books written by someone from that long list comes up front and I pick it up and start reading and in a moment I forget where I am and minutes later I come back to the real world and say, yes, I’ve been looking for this book.

The main character is introduced right away. There is no overly florid description but a true, powerful first sentence that piqued my curiosity and managed to keep me guessing until the very last page. There’s adventure, danger, brutality, tragedy and loss, and for each of them there’s also love, courage, determination and a powerful desire to follow one’s dreams. Eliza gets to know all of them, first as the adopted daughter of a well to do family living in Chile. Little is known about her origins. Certainly nobody seems to know who her parents are or where she is from, but she is received with great joy by Miss Rose Sommers, who later convinces her brother, Jeremy Sommers, to accept the girl into the family. The other member of the Sommers clan, John, is a sea captain whose voyages into distant lands keep him away from home for the greatest part of the year. His visits are short and joyful, and his absences long.

Eliza grows up in a somewhat chaotic atmosphere, between Miss Rose’s strict rules concerning what a lady should do – play the piano, sit ramrod straight for hours or walking with a book on her head to cultivate a good posture, and being neglected for days, time she uses to sit with the cook, Mama Fresia, and learn all she can about the culinary arts. And then she falls in love. For the sixteen year-old who’s led such a sheltered life, the moment turns everything upside down. Passion, love letters, and a desire to belong to Joaquin Andieta, her first love, will have her run away from her family, hide her identity, endure a devastating experience aboard a ship and make a lifelong friend who saves her life.
Obsessed with finding her runaway lover who left her behind to pursue his dream of getting rich, Eliza goes to the city that was later to become San Francisco. Determined to find Joaquin, she risks her life in a land filled with people crazed by the gold rush, where death and hardship go together, and there, hiding under the disguise of a boy, she continues her search. We get to see how California came to be, the gold rush, the greed and drama, even Levi’s famous jeans get a brief nod, along with a more ample description of the origins of the peep show. Lust, in the form of traveling brothels and erotic books, is described in such a manner as to give the reader a good picture of what America was like in the mid 1800s and how gold changed everything. Scores of immigrants in search of fortune mingle and live together in the same city yet apart in well defined neighborhoods. Chinese customs and way of life are mentioned, mostly through the eyes of Tao Chi’en, the young zhong yi, trained in the ancient art of traditional Chinese medicine. His story is also a brutal one and after meeting Eliza, their paths never truly separate.

Eliza and Tao Chi’en are the most developed characters in the book, but the writer gives enough details about the Sommers so that the reader gets a good enough idea about them, Miss Rose in particular, whose scandalous past is described in a more lengthy story. There is a secret the Sommers are hiding and it comes out unexpectedly but a little too late.
I liked Eliza for her determination and courage. She is a true heroine, not necessarily beautiful (thank God for that or it would have been too cliché) but with enough willpower to feel like a girl ready to go to the ends of the world to find some answers, no matter what they might be.
I enjoyed this book for the sense of adventure and the historical references. The story keeps up an engaging pace and the reader is kept guessing until the very last sentence in the book. Although one might get a feel for where the story is going, the question remains: will Eliza find her first love, and if she does what will she do? Only that last line will provide the answer, and it’s not a straightforward one but perhaps more satisfying because of that. In the meantime, it was a really good adventure. And there’s also a sequel, Portrait in Sepia, published one year after the first book, in 2000. I would like to read that one, too.

My rating: 5/5 stars

*Read in February 2014

If you’re planning a trip to Thailand, this book might be just the thing to read before landing in The Land of Smiles. With over a hundred essays divided into nine chapters, this book offers a wealth of information about traveling in this country, from places you can eat jungle food (crocodile, anyone?) and the proper way to snack on bugs (those cricket legs might cause a slight problem), to famous temples where you can get a tattoo or have your fortune read, superstitions, island getaways and lesser known spa treatments, just to name a few topics. More than seventy writers have shared their stories and experiences and made reading this book a truly enjoyable experience. The photos are very beautiful as well, and the glossy pages enhance the reading pleasure.

It’s not only the beautiful side that the writers have explored in their essays, but also valuable information, like ways to avoid tourist scams and places you can help by volunteering or donating objects or cash. Thanks to the practical information, be it a website, address or telephone number, the reader can find out where to donate a used bicycle and old computer parts, or where they can offer their time to help children and animals in need, through various foundation programs.

Having lived in Thailand for more than a decade, it was refreshing to see the country through new perspectives and adventures. Some of the places I was happy to see mentioned in these essays were bookstores with English books like Kinokuniya, a true paradise for booklovers, Asia Books, and also Dasa Book Café, a secondhand bookstore I sometimes visit, and last but not least Neilson Hays Library, whose white building and cool, wood decorated interior reminds me of home.
I had to smile when reading about a writer’s experience with Songkhran (Thai New Year), the days-long-water-throwing festival which the locals celebrate every mid-April. During this time, Thailand is a water drenched place where no one is dry for long, unless they travel everywhere in a car. For some reason I was never able to enjoy this much loved Thai celebration, and don’t see the fun in being drenched with freezing water the moment I step out of the house, without having any say in the matter. Nevertheless, I’m happy to see that other people enjoy it.

What I liked the most about the book was that each writer brought their own individuality into the stories and shared their tips with the reader. Some of these places I’ve never been to despite the fact that they are not that far from where I live – the small island of Koh Kret is one of them, and others, like Wat Suan Mokkh in the Surat Thani province, where one can go on a ten-day silent meditation retreat. The retreat is not free, despite of what is stated in the book – a look at their website revealed a non-refundable registration fee. It is, however, one of the things I would like to do in the near future and I’m glad I found out about this place. No speaking, vegetarian food, yoga and meditation, and least desirable of all, sleeping on a concrete bed with only a straw mat and a wooden pillow for comfort. I think it would be an unforgettable experience, in more ways than one.
I’m glad I had the chance to read this book and I intend to use it as a basic guide when planning future trips. It was fun to read how others have spent their holidays in this beautiful country. Being here for so long, I’m afraid I lost some of that ability to fully enjoy and appreciate the uniqueness of Thai culture.

Many thanks to Joe Shakarchi, one of the contributing writers, who provided me with a copy in return for an honest review.

My rating: 4/5 stars
*Read in February 2014