Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
In his second novel Cleave intersects the lives of his two main characters on a beach in Nigeria. First there is Sarah, a posh young mother and magazine editor from London, and then there is Little Bee, a wise, teenage African refugee. From there, the proceeding unlikely story unravels by way of alternating points of view with distinct and plausible idioms. As the author himself explains, “the magic is how the story unfolds.” From the terror and violence of the Nigerian oil fields, to suicide and betrayal, characters are time and again tested against a wide moral compass. While the circumstances are intriguing and often surprising, the plot occasionally dips into melodrama and the ending is a bit tidy (8.5/10).
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
RollnSmoke Reviews: CRESCENT & STAR
Crescent & Star by Stephen Kinzer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)
Kinzer, the Istanbul chief for The New York Times from 1996 – 2000, presents a fascinating and clearly written explanation of Turkey’s modern history since Ataturk’s sweeping secular reformation in the 1920’s and 1930’s. He begins with a concise discussion of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and covers interesting facets of Turkish culture like nargile (water pipe) salons, camel fighting and the sinister underworld of gangsters, traffikers and assassins. He effectively disseminates the debate surrounding the head-scarf and describes how the Turkish government has insisted on revising history in regards to the Armenian and Kurdish Crises and has punished those who have tried to speak the truth like Pulitzer Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk. Most central to Kinzer’s discussion, however, is the Ataturk faith of the ruling elite – called Kemalism -- where nation, secularism and democracy rule, which is at odds with Turkey’s current ruler, Erdogan, who is a devoted Muslim and brings with his administration a rising enthno-nationalism. As Turkey tries to erase its image as the dark scourge of civilization and Christian enemy and climbs towards Islamic democracy in its hopes to gain entry to The European Union, it has the potential to emerge as a powerful model for the rest of the world (9.5/10).
Kinzer, the Istanbul chief for The New York Times from 1996 – 2000, presents a fascinating and clearly written explanation of Turkey’s modern history since Ataturk’s sweeping secular reformation in the 1920’s and 1930’s. He begins with a concise discussion of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and covers interesting facets of Turkish culture like nargile (water pipe) salons, camel fighting and the sinister underworld of gangsters, traffikers and assassins. He effectively disseminates the debate surrounding the head-scarf and describes how the Turkish government has insisted on revising history in regards to the Armenian and Kurdish Crises and has punished those who have tried to speak the truth like Pulitzer Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk. Most central to Kinzer’s discussion, however, is the Ataturk faith of the ruling elite – called Kemalism -- where nation, secularism and democracy rule, which is at odds with Turkey’s current ruler, Erdogan, who is a devoted Muslim and brings with his administration a rising enthno-nationalism. As Turkey tries to erase its image as the dark scourge of civilization and Christian enemy and climbs towards Islamic democracy in its hopes to gain entry to The European Union, it has the potential to emerge as a powerful model for the rest of the world (9.5/10).
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... a cold Kalik, anyone?
