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| April 14, 2005 |
Four More Books You Should Be Reading
My recent reading list below. I'll try to make this a regular feature as I burn through the books, so long as I can do it without sacrificing heartier postings about the particularly special books.
1. God's Politics, by Jim Wallis - Progressives are a bit sore. Two very bruising elections in a row aren't helping, but Jim Wallis thinks the shellacking liberals got in 2004 on "moral values" is actually an opportunity to use the language of faith to reconnect with truly progressive politics. He's even got a blueprint for how to do it. [ Amazon link ]
 2. Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich, Irene Guenther - Germany was, believe it or not, a fashion capital of Europe once. Leave it to the Nazis to ruin it with their meddling. Guenther's new book lays out how German fashion was hijacked and turned into conformist crap by Hitler's tailors. [ Amazon link ]
 3. The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life, by Tom Reiss - Talk about a con job. Lev Nussibaum fled the Russian Revolution, ended up in Germany and fooled the Nazis into thinking he was a Muslim prince -- and buying many, many of his books. He was found out right before he became Mussolini's official biographer, and this biography is a gripping retelling of his very interesting life. [ Amazon link ]
 4. Matzo Balls for Breakfast and Other Memories of Growing Up Jewish, by Alan King - Before Alan King died, he managed to get more than a few celebrities to write about being Jewish. His last work is that collection, and its humor is matched only by its warmth. [ Amazon link ]
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| April 12, 2005 |
A very different kind of shanda
That would be "Roshanda," courtesy of Slate's excerpt of "A Roshanda by Any Other Name," from the absolutely brilliant book Freakonomics.
 What is this essay? What is this book?
The essay is discussing the marked difference in "black" names and "white" ones and what impact, if any, that plays in their social chances. The book is an explanation of... well, everything. OK, not everything, but many, many things.
Steven D Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the resident freakonomists, explore the following topics:
What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?
How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?
Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live with Their Moms?
Where Have All the Criminals Gone?
What Makes a Perfect Parent?
That's only the first five chapters. Luckily, Slate will be running more excerpts (plus what's on the book's own website). I've got a request in for a review copy, so hopefully I'll have more to say later.
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| April 11, 2005 |
The eternal writing Jew
 Prince of Fire author and spy-thriller impresario Daniel Silva, when I sat down to a quick breakfast with him, referred to the novel's lead character as the "eternal wandering Jew." It was not the first time he made such a reference; it shows up word for word in the book. Still it's striking how so many of the characters in his novels (this would be the fifth to feature art restorer-slash-spy Gabriel Allon as the lead) are archetypes rather than flesh-and-blood figures.
He referred to the "al-Kalifa family, from which springs three generations of villains in his books"* as "a vehicle of telling the story of the creation of Israel from the Palestinian perspective."
Why this interests me is not the use of archetypes, spokesplayers for their respective peoples, rather than more nuanced characters. I don't have a personal preference, nor do I want to diminish the merits of such a literary choice. Rather, I was fascinated by just how much this literary choice was a reflection of Silva himself.
The man is a walking archetype of Jewish angst amidst a rising tide of European anti-Semitism and the collapse of Oslo a half-decade ago. His books, and more specifically Gabriel Allon, are extensions of that world view. They dwell on Holocaust restitutions, the Arab-Israeli conflict, in an almost predictable way. It's sad how unable they are to break out of these parameters, so sad in fact that I'd be prone to list it as the overarching tragedy of the characters if I thought it was purposeful.
I don't.
Sitting and talking with Silva gives me the idea that these are the parameters of his thinking on the subject, and by extension, his writing. Not that this should diminish the joy you'll get from reading Silva's work. His writing is brisk, and his Gabriel Allon stories are gripping. As the genre goes, deep social commentary is hardly required. This was merely what struck me about the author himself.
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*I'm now quoting from my write-up on the breakfast in the latest issue of Atlanta Jewish Life.
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| April 06, 2005 |
Coming Very Shortly
Tribe Write, in all it's glory, will be coming very shortly.
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