An Interview with Author Shobhan Bantwal

Today I have the pleasure of publishing an interview with Shobhan Bantwal, author of The Forbidden Daughter and The Dowry Bride. Readers will not be surprised to find me fascinated by a culturally-aware thriller that describes unfamiliar customs- thankfully unfamiliar in this case (see Qiu Xiaolong for related examples from China). After some background material on Shobhan and her latest novel, I'll dive into the interview, and then close with an excerpt from The Forbidden Daughter.

Summary of The Forbidden Daughter

When a young widow refuses to comply with her in-laws' dictate to abort her unborn child, will her rebellion turn out to be the greatest mistake of her life, or a blessing in disguise? This is the story of one mother’s valiant fight to protect her daughters in a society that often frowns on female children, and the only man who will help her in her battle when the stakes become impossibly high. The Forbidden Daughter is woven around the hot-button social issue of vanishing girl children in contemporary India, where gender-based abortions and female infanticide continue to be practiced in some areas despite laws to ban the practices.

About Shobhan Bantwal –Shobhan Bantwal is the author of The Dowry Bride and The Forbidden Daughter. Both novels are set in India and released by Kensington Publishing Corp. Shobhan’s short story titled Where the Lotus Grows is scheduled for publication in an anthology in spring 2009 and the proceeds will be donated by the publisher, Freya’s Bower, to a battered women’s shelter.

As a freelance writer, Shobhan frequently writes columns for India Abroad. Since 2002, Shobhan’s articles and short stories have also appeared in a variety of other publications including The Writer magazine, Little India, U.S. 1, Desi Journal, India Currents, Overseas Indian, New Woman India, Kanara Saraswat and Sulekha. Her short stories have won honors and awards in fiction contests sponsored by Writer’s Digest, New York Stories and New Woman magazines.

For more information about Shobhan Bantwal’s virtual tour, visit: http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/09/forbidden-daughter-by-shobhan-bantwal.html.

The Forbidden Daughter can be ordered at: Amazon.com

You can visit Shobhan Bantwal at her website – www.shobhanbantwal.com

Nearly Nothing but Novels: the Interview with Shobhan Bantwal

NearlyNothingbutNovels: How do you try to manage the balance between political statement and artistic vision in your writing?

Shobhan Bantwal: When I first took up creative writing, I had no idea that I would develop an interest in political-social issues and use them as a platform for my stories. I was contemplating various themes, and dowry abuse in India seemed like an interesting topic, with just enough controversy and substance to form the crux of a dramatic tale with romantic elements.

However, as I started to do some preliminary research into the deeply-entrenched dowry system and the use and abuse of it in Indian society, I was both shocked enough and curious enough to decide to make it my main theme.

To answer your question, I find myself teetering on a high-wire when I make my political statements the central motifs of my books and at the same time attempt to entertain my readers with good, page-turning stories. As long as I remain focused on the fact that I write “fiction” and my writing is not a scholarly treatise on the social-political issues, I am able to factor them into my stories, and to my satisfaction.

NNBN: Do your female protagonists represent an idealized vision of women who may develop in India, given time and circumstances, or are they characters who are truly part of today’s Indian society in significant numbers?

SB: My female protagonists are my vision of the ideal Indian woman—strong yet flexible, shy yet bold when necessary, kind yet selfish enough to protect what is hers, astute yet possessing an innocent and naïve quality that makes readers find her likeable enough to root for her.

However, in present-day India’s environment of higher education and emancipation, there are such women in abundance. They are the trailblazers ones who are brave enough to break away from meaningless traditions and forge a new path for other women to follow.

One such example is a young woman named Nisha Sharma, who in 2003 became so disgruntled by her future in-laws’ unreasonable demands of dowry from her parents that she rebelled against tradition and had the groom and his family arrested in the marriage hall, in the presence of the wedding guests. She became an instant hero, not only in India, but in many parts of the world where women are allowed little freedom to speak their minds. There are plenty of Nisha Sharmas in India today.

NNBN: What kind of real freedom of expression does Indian society provide to artists, especially women?

SB: Despite being very 21^st Century in technology, fashion, and culture (to some degree) freedom of expression to artists is still rather restricted. Although those restrictions are imposed on both sexes, in the male-dominated atmosphere of Indian society, it is the women who face more harsh criticism of artistic expression than men. A woman painter who portrays nudism is likely to face censure from the moral police more than a man. A woman writer who features controversy or supposedly “puts ultra-modern ideas” in women’s minds is sure to provoke conservative folks.

A number of instances, where certain movies and books have been banned in India, and a beauty pageant that was disrupted by picketers because it debased Indian women are examples of how there is no true freedom of expression in certain arenas.

Again, there are a few women who are rebellious enough to break the mold and start a new trend in every form of artistic expression.

NNBN: How serious is the Indian central government about reforms that challenge traditional values in favor of human rights?

SB: The Indian government is very serious about protecting human rights. For years, legislation to ban dowry, gender-selective abortion, and discrimination against females in the workplace has been enacted progressively by the government. And yet, the number of cases that are tried is very few, and the ones where justice is served are even fewer. One of the reasons for this is a weak judicial system bogged down by bureaucratic rules. The other reason is raging corruption in the law enforcement community, where the police and other departments are willing to look the other way even in cases of blatant abuse.

NNBN: What are the personal repercussions of your powerful stance in favor of women’s rights?

SB: Being an Indian-American writer whose books are published in North America only, not too many copies of them have reached India yet. My readers are primarily non-South Asian, which means not many censorious folks have had a chance to read my books. To that end, personal repercussions have been minimal (to date). Nonetheless, as more of my books reach readers outside the U.S. and Canada, the potential for personal attacks is likely to increase.

Having said that, I have to admit that a handful of Indian-Americans have sent me some scathing comments. They are critical of my portrayal of the darker elements of Indian culture and supposedly distorting the magnitude of certain practices.

NNBN: How do you place the issue of women’s rights in terms of the other injustices and tragedies that beset the various cultural and religious groups in India, both within themselves and against each other?

SB: In most cultures, injustices and the resulting tragedies are often interrelated. Women’s rights violations are a direct result of conservative beliefs that stem from lack of knowledge and education, which comes from poverty and lack of resources, which in turn hinges on overpopulation.

To this day, many Indians believe the woman is at fault if she produces female children, when science clearly states otherwise. In male-dominated societies like India, girls are looked upon as a liability whereas boys are assets, future bread-winners, leaders and caretakers of the elderly. However, with more education and forward thinking, the tide is slowly turning, leaving hope for women to rise to the level of males.

The more serious issue in the 21^st Century appears to be not so much social evils as religion, which has taken on a new and intimidating stance. Whereas Indian society in the past was secular and tolerant of all religions, today the Hindus and Muslims are warring with each other more frequently. This could lead to unforeseen and more virulent socio-political problems, especially for children and families of mixed marriages.

NNBN: Given an understandable resistance to outside influence by any cultural group or country, what would you have the international community do, if anything, to improve women’s rights and combat social injustice in India?

SB: The U.N. and human rights organizations around the world are capable of penetrating the walls of resistance in conservative cultures to some extent. If enough publicity is given to the types of topics I write about, these organizations could do more research into the subjects and offer assistance to the victims. These worldwide organizations have the size, the budget, and the clout to delve past the barriers erected by cultural and religious groups in any part of the world.

One of the reasons I write about socio-political topics is to bring awareness to them amongst people who have no knowledge of them. My readers often thank me for making them aware of something they had never heard of.

NNBN: What are the most obvious effects on Indian society brought about by current improvements in the standard of living, at least for some?

SB: With the IT industry’s boom since the Y2K revolution started in the late 1990s, India’s middle class has seen a phenomenal growth in its standard of living. But the secondary and more promising effect is the proliferation of education. In an effort to fill the multitude of high-tech jobs in a growing global market, both men and women have enrolled in technology courses and acquired advanced degrees. As a result, more young women are now in high-income jobs similar to those once held by men. This type of economic independence has also spawned social and political independence for women.

NNBN: At the same time that Indians increasingly embrace and benefit financially from what we might inaccurately call “Western” technology, including science and engineering, is there any evidence of a shift towards Western values? Or, perhaps, is this technology viewed as an indigenous Indian development, carrying with it no foreign connotation or influence?

SB: With the influence of Western technology there has been a gradual shift towards Western culture. Pubs or bars have mushroomed in large cities in India, allowing the younger generation to socialize in places where once there was no place other than home to go to after work. Bollywood movies now have more Western themes with the characters wearing Western clothes and vacationing in Europe and the U.S. They eat and drink non-Indian foods and drinks, they dance in swank clubs, drive imported automobiles, and the Hindi dialogue is generously sprinkled with English words, especially Americanisms.

However, the picture is not all positive. Drugs, alcohol, and excessive spending on luxuries are some of the problems that are being experienced in India in recent years.

Thank you for hosting me on your popular blog. Additional information about my writing, recipes, photos, and events is available on my website: www.shobhanbantwal.com


NNBN- and thanks to Shobhan for being kind enough to answer my questions! Now from her latest novel:

Prologue for The Forbidden Daughter

Oh, Lord, I beg of you.
I fall at your feet time and again.
In my next incarnation, don't give me a daughter;
Give me hell instead . . .

Folk Song from the State of Uttar Pradesh, India

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Your child will come at the harvest full moon,” the old man said.

Jolted out of her dark, melancholic thoughts, Isha Tilak looked up, and stared in astonishment at the man who had uttered the startling words. He was obviously addressing her, because there was no one else in the immediate vicinity.

His strange remark captured her attention, thrusting aside her private musings.

“It is called Kojagari Purnima. It is the night when Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and abundance, descends from her heavenly abode to bless her devotees,” he added, stroking his luxuriant salt-and-pepper beard that more than compensated for the total absence of hair on his large, misshapen head.

He was supposedly a sadhu—a sage or holy man. He was certainly dressed for the part in his faded saffron robe—typical garb for Hindu holy men. Perhaps because she continued to wear a baffled look, he smiled. The simple motion transformed and softened his austere face, creating deeper furrows in his gaunt cheeks. “Yours will be a female child who will bring light and abundance to the people around her.”

She shook herself out of her stunned silence. It took her a moment to comprehend his words. Then natural curiosity took over, prompting her to goad him, test him. “How do you know my child will be a girl?”

He ignored her question. Instead he said, “Your daughter comes as a gift from Lakshmi, so she will enjoy prosperity and many comforts in her life, and, being generous, she will share them with others.”

“But my in-laws think she’s a curse,” Isha informed him, the bitterness in her voice hard to conceal and the despondency in her tear-swollen eyes a testimony to her despair. “In fact, they have forbidden me to have this child.”

“I know,” he said, with a thoughtful nod. “I am also aware that there is something which some evil doctors use to eliminate female children before they are born. It is one of the many scourges of kaliyug. Modern society.”

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Book Review: A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong

A slightly different version of this review was published first at Blogcritics magazine, Book Review: A Case of Two Cities by Qiu Xiaolong:
"Inspector Chen investigates from Shanghai to Los Angeles to St. Louis to bring murderous businessmen to justice."

While writing up my notes from the discussion and interview with Qiu Xiaolong, I had the pleasure of reading both the fourth Inspector Chen novel, A Case of Two Cities and the fifth novel, Red Mandarin Dress. A Case of Two Cities is a politically-and socially-relevant mystery that pits Inspector Chen against corrupt, high-ranking Communist Party members who are increasingly involved in shady business deals associated with the increasing economic development in China.

I've written elsewhere (at Blogcritics Magazine and on my environmental blog) about the environmental problems (and some good news) associated with China's rapid industrial expansion. The realities of China's New Economics are brought to life by author Qiu in many ways. For example, we meet loyal state workers who live on a fixed pension and can barely survive in the face of inflation, and we learn of people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes in preparation for new skyscrapers and country clubs. However, there are far more nefarious deeds for Inspector Chen to contend with: the Inspector must handle the murder of an old friend, threats against his elderly mother and attempts on his own life, all while dealing with intense political danger, in the course of trying to bring rogue officials and businessmen to justice.

The language in A Case of Two Cities is a pleasure, with occasional quotes from classical Chinese poetry and T. S. Eliot, and phrases that echo Eliot's lines sprinkled throughout to capture the mood. Poetry is part of Chen's personal language in the same manner that a soundtrack or inner dialog for contemporary U.S. detectives might be based on music, including Jazz, Rock & Roll, Soul or Hip-Hop. Qiu's language works so well because he is a poet and a translator of poetry, so he can call upon classical Chinese or post-modern poetic imagery to fit a mood as easily as I might conjure up a Bob Dylan lyric.

The heart of the case is a series of lucrative land deals that could only have been made with insider knowledge of city planning, such as where new subway lines will be constructed and where land will become valuable overnight. The ringleader in the case, Xing, has already fled to the U.S., probably tipped off by colluding officials before an arrest could be made. Xing is now living in Los Angeles, in mansion next door to the son of a Chinese Politburo member. Xing has also applied for political asylum, claiming to be persecuted for political reasons. Outwardly, the Chinese authorities are angry about this request for asylum, but many of these same authorities the partners who became rich alongside Xing.

It turns out that much of the empire Xing built was helped along by new luxury clubs that cater to the baser desires of Shanghai businessmen, and, of course, their new interest in golf. Many deals are made because of favors provided in private rooms, along with hard cash in a red envelope, the traditional bribe for Communist Party officials.

Chen tries to reject cynicism, but this is a battle he loses a little more with each book in the series of novels. He works hard to follow orders, even though they may intend for him to create more of a spectacle than a real investigation. Can Chen achieve more than a hollow victory? Will he be able to keep his promises to himself and his dead Chinese friend while pursuing the big fish?

In the middle of a tense Shanghai investigation, Police Inspector Chen is suddenly sent out of the country to lead a literary delegation to the U.S. This role is not completely incongruous because Chen is a published poet, noted translator of T. S. Eliot and member of the Chinese Writers' Association as well as a police inspector; he had hoped to pursue an academic career before the government diverted his career to the police force. However, the timing is highly suspicious and the reason why he received this assignment is not clear: is it to remove him from the scene in Shanghai or to bring him close to the fugitive Xing? For that matter, what exactly is the purpose of the literary delegation? It starts out innocently enough, but after a week, nearly everyone involved seems to have a hidden agenda and several are keeping an eye on Chen. As leader of the group, Chen is in the uncomfortable position of having to lead daily political study sessions.

With Chen in America, his associate Detective Yu must carry on the investigation in Shanghai. Yu is essentially alone except for his wife and father, a retired policeman known as Old Hunter. These three try to keep Chen's elderly mother safe while tracking down Xing's hidden half-brother, Ming, who may still be in China and, because of the power of Chinese filial piety, could help unravel the case. Ming was the intermediary who obtained insider information from corrupt Director Jiang of the Shanghai City Land Development Office.

His part of the investigation shifted to the U.S., Inspector Chen wonders if he'll have a chance to rekindle his relationship with his American friend Catherine Rohn, the U.S. Marshal he met in A Loyal Character Dancer. Chen wonders about other questions, also: how will his estranged High-Society girlfriend, ensconced in the politics of Beijing, help or hurt his chances for survival? Are Politburo members trying to derail Chen's work when he discovers too much, are they trying to put him in harm's way, or are there even more layers of intrigue to sift through? With the battle raging on so many fronts, Chen must plan his attack like a master of the Chinese chess game, Wei Qi (better known in the U.S. by its Japanese name, go).

The interaction of the Chinese literary delegation with American writers and academics reveals misunderstandings of cuisine and culture, bitter and amusing ironies, and ignorance of history: expatriate Chinese are producing “deep sea fish oil” coveted in China for its "Made in the U.S.A." label; proud Chinese delegates can find no copies of their books in the university library, let alone the bookstore. Key quotes include:

• Nonsmoking area… Is this a free country?
• I talked to an American student today...They believe that Hong Kong belongs to Britain (and) know nothing of the Opium War. There is nothing in their textbooks.
• Pearl told me that Pizza Hut is a cheap fast-food restaurant here. In Beijing, it is a high-end place.
• What an irony. We never had fortune cookies in China.

Given the unintended affronts, a relatively successful academic conference takes place in Los Angeles, along with a secret investigation by Chen, and the literary delegation then moves on to St. Louis in search of Mark Twain, known as Master Ma. Twain is a particular favorite among some Chinese writers because his satire, Running for Governor, is "a lampoon against hypocritical American Democracy." For his own part, Chen is happy to visit St. Louis to hunt for artifacts of T. S. Eliot' s life and reunite with Catherine Rohn, who lives in the St. Louis suburb, University City.

Even though Chen is able to work with Catherine, who is able to masquerade as a translator in St. Louis because of her knowledge of Chinese, their relationship has been strained by time and distance; can it be salvaged? Eventually, Chen finds a quiet moment to sort through many of his feelings in a restaurant bar located close to Catherine's house (and close my own). Chen struggles to shrug off the hesitancy that T. S. Eliot described so well,* to be decisive with Catherine, and to move forward in his investigation. To survive, he must navigate the immense and contradictory forces that shape life and death in contemporary Shanghai. If you enjoy great fiction or compelling and complex mysteries, you'll want to join him.

*From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot:

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
...

Technorati Tags:fiction, crime fiction, book review, qiu xiaolong, a case of two cities, poetry, t. s. eliot, chinese poetry, u. s. marshal, chinese new economy

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The Ultimate Good Luck by Richard Ford- A review

The Ultimate Good Luck (TUGL) was not an easy book for me to read, but that isn't due to any flaw in the story, it is a testament to how accurately the entire novel captures the moods and viewpoint of its antihero, Harry Quinn. Quinn is veteran of the Vietnam War, a drifter, a laborer, a drinker and a bit of a druggie, the kind of person who used to be somebody's son, who went to school down the street, and who went to fight for his country only to find himself fighting ghosts and children in the jungle and the darkness. He wasn't destroyed by the war, completely, but he is no longer whole.

Quinn has answered a cry for help from Rae, his estranged companion, because Rae's brother, Sonny, is trapped in a Mexican jail on drug charges. Making matters worse, the drug charges are completely legitimate: Sonny was caught trafficking in cocaine, bringing it north from Columbia to the US via Mexico, a practice known as muling. The problem now is to get Sonny out of jail, and Quinn has set the wheels in motion to solve everything, as long as the good luck holds. Quinn has hired a well-connected lawyer, Bernhardt, and it seems that both the plan and the luck are on track. However, this is Mexico, Oaxaca to be precise, where the zócalo, or town square, is full of impoverished Zapotec Indians and bewildered tourists, and a constant stream of Indians circulates in a netherworld between the mountains and the valley below, where the capitol city lies. This is Mexico, and Mexico has bigger problems to worry herself over than a few US citizens, especially a small-time crook...

...and so it goes that the plans of all visitors, whether wide-eyed tourists from the Midwest or dopers from nowhere in particular, must bow to greater forces as the army, police, guerrillas, Zapotec and other groups feint, withdraw, and attack in a constant struggle for survival, civil rights, and any rights at all. Just because the struggle seems below the surface much of the time, one can't assume it has ceased- relax your guard, or just walk out of your hotel for lunch, and you may end up blown across a street by a bomb or taken away forever by soldiers, desaparecido.

What is a guerrilla? After a fatal gunfight and major cocaine bust at the airport, the lawyer Bernhardt offers an operational definition,

In Mexico, to obey the law is always to avoid it. If the police are shot, then guerrillas are accused... Many people don't know they're guerrillas before the police say so. But they begin to act that way as soon as they find out.

Through Quinn's peculiar vision, we glimpse wartime Vietnam, the confused childhood days that preceded it, and the aimless, rootless wandering that followed the war. We hear of Sonny's descent from State basketball champion to point-shaving pro in Norway, to drug mule, to prisoner. We learn of Rae's own restless drifting, no purpose to her life, no aims or goals, just a sequence of days to get through and occasional times to get high.

When Bernhardt tells Quinn, "Sometimes it is necessary to kill a man," Harry wants no part of it. Harry Quinn is a combat veteran and a survivor, and he can navigate through a violent landscape if things fall apart, but he isn't looking for trouble, he's just trying to get out of town with his good luck intact. Maybe that means getting back together with Rae, and maybe they'll have Sonny in tow.

Luck, however, starts to drain away like grains of sand, and intuition tells Quinn that his window of opportunity is closing. It is hard to depend on a plan when graft plays a central role, even in a place where graft seems to be a way of life. Sonny is still in prison when the avenues that could lead him back home start to close down, some closing with military barricades and some when lines of communication are cut. Guerrilla and army action disrupt life for all of Oaxaca and they disrupt the patterns and relationships that Quinn depended upon. As for Sonny, he has created more than enough bad luck for all of them.

TUGL is no summer potboiler of a novel, even though it offers plenty of suspense and danger. The story is hard and harsh, showing no sympathy and leaving many in its wake, like life itself. There are many villains and there are many victims. There are those who should survive and those who can't survive, and when they are one and the same, life and luck give Quinn and Rae pause. If they pause too long, however, they'll be dead.

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No crime at all. Review of "To The Hermitage" by Malcolm Bradbury and The Eight by Katherine Neville

To The Hermitage (TTH) by Malcolm Bradbury is a most rewarding, if occasionally challenging, book. It contains two parallel stories. One story describes the great French philosopher and intellectual Denis Diderot, contemporary of Voltaire's and author/editor of the monumental Encyclopedia, finally making the perilous journey in 1773 from Paris to St. Petersburg. With this trip, he is fulfilling his long-avoided promise to visit Catherine the Great, who had purchased his vast library for her collection. The other story is a modern academic/artistic pilgrimage, The Diderot Project, following partly in the philosopher's footsteps to St. Petersburg on the eve of violent social change in Russia (in 1993).

One odd thing is that I read Katherine Neville's The Eight while reading TTH, and they had many of the same characters, in addition to having the same sort of temporally-split story line featuring contemporary and 18th century settings. The Eight is a thriller that mixes old myths, chess and modern intrigue. It pre-dates The Da Vinci Code by many years (published in 1988) and is quite well written, only losing some taughtness of storyline towards the end. What TTH and The Eight have in common is a large number of real historical characters, and reading them nearly simultaneously helped me recall or learn some history through immersion in Europe before (1773) and during (1789) the French Revolution.

What does one feel on first looking into a 500 page novel about a philosopher and some academics and sundry artistic types? I could admit to a little trepidation, even being a huge fan of Bradbury's. Luckily, the author put me at ease immediately, after a brief introduction, with an uproariously hilarious Chapter One. It begins with the remarkable shell game played on our modern narrator, an English novelist, by a delightful Swedish bank teller, who reduces a decent amount of English money to a tiny number of American dollars by a process of charging tax at every possible opportunity (and some that seem impossible). The bank converts everything to Swedish kronor both coming and going . All of this is done while denying the validity of credit cards (in 1993!) and offering the most cheerful, beautiful, blond, blue-eyed smiling face. The IRS might want to note the deadly tactics.

A series of initially confusing chapters take place THEN, with the great philosopher, but these are sandwiched in between each chapter taking place NOW, where we are treated to the most accessible and frequently funny assemblage of Diderot Project members and their subsequent departure on a ship to St. Petersburg. The events leading up to departure include a continual comedy of manners and errors, starting with

• A futile search of Stockholm for René Descartes’ tomb
• It turns out that Descartes died in Stockholm, but the journey that his remains took outdoes even the Australian Philosophers' Song for Groucho Marxian hilarity (see the link for lyrics or YouTube for audio/video). Trying to trace the remains of M. Descartes could reduce a man to tears.
• An extraordinarily chilly reception by our English narrator's Swedish hosts, the married couple Bo and Alma Luneberg (Bo is on the committee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and it is part of his job to give false hope to writers everywhere, as sincerely as possible).
  
• Alma essentially says, "we would have been happy to bring you to our home for dinner instead of to this crummy little restaurant, but in Sweden, we keep our homes for our real friends." Such warmth!
  
• The absolute inability of the poor narrator to convince his hosts that, as much as he likes it, he does not want to eat herring yet again on his first day in Sweden.

Then, while we begin to develop a feel for Diderot himself and for the form his story of 1773 will take, we meet gorgeous opera singer Birgitta Lindhorst, Swedish diplomat Anders Manders, skilled cabinetmaker Sven Sonnenburg, hip American professor Jack-Paul Verso (author of The Feminists' Wittgenstein) and other project members. In spite of the battle beginning between Boris Yeltsin and hard-line Russian communists, the group leaves port to sail up the Baltic and into Russia, accompanied by a dazzling assortment of chambermaids, bartenders, exotic dancers, and waitresses, all seemingly named Tatyana.

It turns out that the 18th century was a dangerous time for philosophers: a time when Emperors and Empresses needed the great men as advisers in court, but given the nature of the advice and nature of the men, a time when the philosophers often wound up in prison.

So it is with some justified fear that Diderot allows himself to be delivered, through a painful journey, to the court of Catherine. He proceeds to write a treatise on how to improve Russia, which he delivers once a week in written and spoken form to the Tzarina (I paraphrase):

• "What, you want me to free the Serfs? Are you mad? They would rise up against me!"
• "But no, Your Most Imperial Majesty, they would not, because of the extreme gratitude they would owe you. They would be your loyal servants."
• "They are my loyal servants now, with no option to be otherwise. I think it is better. Let us discuss something else- reform of my police force, perhaps."

So we find in Diderot quite an American sense of Democracy, one might say.

As the modern Diderot Project members travel to and around St. Petersburg, its members become rather dispersed, and the concept of The Project seems to crumble due to the combined and contradictory pressures of, for example, the charming Tatyana from Puskin and the thrilling examination of the remains of Diderot's library. The discovery of volumes signed by Diderot, with extensive notes in the margins, and similar volumes with Voltaire's imprint, is, to our novelist, like discovering the lost library of Alexandria. Jack-Paul Verso's discoveries tend more towards Pushkin, and I don't mean the author!

I find that in trying to capture the book I can only come up with a pale imitation of the original, so, enough with the synopsis! Suffice it to say that there are long discussions, practical, theoretical, and always with a hint of danger, that occupy Diderot and his patron, and Denis is quite happy to depart home for France as long as he doesn't have to worry about being executed for treason when he arrives. He achieves his goal eventually.

At the same time, the apparently disintegrated Diderot Project really ends up providing each member with what (or whom) he or she sought. Plans are already being drawn up for a second Project, if only, Alma reminds everyone, they would write their papers on Diderot before arriving, next time.

So what is the bottom line? This book might not be for everyone, but if you have a love of history, or philosophy, or writing, or language, and a desire to learn a bit about vastly disparate European cultures while laughing quite a lot through the nervous times of the 1770's and 1990's, pick it up right away.

© James K. Bashkin, 2007

Technorati Tags:descartes, catherine the great, denis diderot, st. petersburg, malcolm bradbury, to the hermitage, Voltaire, philosophy, the eight, katherine neville, russia, sweden, fiction
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David Lodge and Malcom Bradbury

Via Mark Vernon’s philosophy and life blog, I found the great article describing some of David Lodge’s interactions with his contemporary, colleague and friend, Malcolm Bradbury. This sheds some nice light on the two authors and I’m citing it to accompany my previous posts on Bradbury and Lodge.

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Great Technorati crime blog, updated book list and a link to Employment law

I'm looking to use my Technorati Profile as a way of getting help from others. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. As an immediate bonus, I can recommend the following blog, found via Technorati.com, called detectives beyond borders, where the point of view (as to what is international) is from the USA, as is mine.

Don't forget to see fiction, mystery/crime fiction and chemistry recommendations in the updated recommended book list! Many more books are to be added, and obviously I've barely started my reviews/commentaries.

Check out the Labor Day 2007 special from George Lenard (found at this link) if you are interested in employment law. This is an amazing retrospective of the subject (and it is just one entry!). OK, this blog is getting rather eclectic. I'm sure I'll re-organize things according to subject at some point. Having worked for some large companies, I know how to reorganize! I just don't know much about blogging details yet, but every day gets me closer, and the lack of objective standards is a rare comfort in this life.

© James K. Bashkin, 2007

Labor Day

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I'm a Believer: what books and magazines to read and TV to watch, Sept. 1, 2007

Over the past year I read two excellent collections of essays by Nick Hornby (more on these another time; I'll just say now that they often made me laugh out loud, and often didn't, and generally at the right places). The essays were taken from his (nearly?) regular articles in the magazine Believer, leading me to an increasing frenzy to hunt down a copy, and I just bought my first (8/07)- a very good use of about $8. This first blog of mine is as much an open letter to Mr. Hornby as it is an attempt to widen the audience for his great work, for Believer, and for some very tangentially-related music.

You can find individual issues of the magazine at the links above and subscribe there or via amazon.com:

Nick Hornby's interview of journalist-turned TV writer/producer David Simon in the latest Believer is simply great. If you don't know who Simon is, I didn't think I did, either. He wrote Homicide (later the television show Homicide-Life on the Street) and created The Wire, which he produces and co-writes with other great writers of Baltimore, Maryland (no, Edgar Allan Poe was not available- I think he is under exclusive contract with Modern Library).

The rationale behind The Wire as described in the interview is brilliant. I mean brilliant in the American sense, perhaps defined as "truly intelligent and impressive without necessarily showing off", not the British sense of brilliant, which in my experience roughly translates to the Californian "Dude!". Just reading Simon's comments, as elicited by Nick Hornby, renewed my faith in something. I'm still deciding what, ... perhaps that intelligent writers of today are self-aware and consciously bucking the schlock-machines in a manner that is viscerally and intellectually thrilling, while being financially successful, without a lowest common denominator in sight.

I only saw a few episodes of The Wire, during an early season when I happened to be travelling and found it in hotel rooms on HBO. I have no access at home, but I felt hooked immediately and definitely suffered separation anxiety that nearly "pierced me to the heart" when my somewhat random exposure to the show stopped (this was made up for by ending the anxiety of random separation from my family).

So, here are my recommendations for the day: The Wire on HBO, Believer magazine, David Simon's writing and other TV work, and of course, that occasionally-censored but always compelling contributor to The Believer, Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and Fever Pitch (both below), the two books of essays (The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. the Dirt) mentioned above, and numerous other "things"- hint, he is great on books and music, sometimes simultaneously, as well as on certain obsessions (fictional and nonfictional).





Yes, Nick, your fans are legion, tell your editors I said so (all 168 of them)! Also, Mr. Hornby, before you feel put out that I have not fleshed out your work in any detail today, and am defining you largely by a couple of your most popular books, I feel your pain, and I'll relate the following anecdote that you, if nobody else, might find relevant: I heard Taj Mahal say, approximately, in response to early 1980's concert requests for Corrina and She Caught the Katy,

"I made 22 albums between the years of 1968 and 1981, and I refuse to be stuck in the first three, though I appreciate the sentiment."

Anyway, Mr. H., I hope you'll forgive me for primarily, if temporarily, defining you by a fraction of your work, but, more on you in a later post (and no, your writing never caused me to receive a bad grade in a course, though it has kept me up on more than one night, probably making me late for work, or in this case, late for Labor Day, of all things).

P.S. This just scratches the surface of the August, 2007 Believer.

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