Category: FICTION

SO MANY SORROWS

What Kalifa shows is how alone every human being is in a country led by leaders who care only about their power.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Death is Hard Work

By: Khaled Khalifa, Leri Price-translator

Narrated By: Neil Shah

Khaled Khalifa (1964-2023, Syrian author, screenwriter, and poet, died at age 59.)

Conscience is an inner sense of voice that guides a person to understand the difference between right and wrong. The author is characterized by western publications as a critic of Baath party rule in Syria. Khaled Khalifa chose to remain in Syria despite the horrendous rule of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. (Khalifa died of a heart attack at age 59 in 2023.)

Khalifa’s “Death is Hard Work”, published in 2016, seems a conscience driven criticism of Bashar’s rule during Syria’s 2011 civil war.

Though Khalifa is a Muslim, his novel appears to object to Assad’s rule during the war. Of course, there are five sects of the Muslim church in Syria, but al-Assad’s Alawites are only 10% of the population versus 74% Sunni Islam, of which the author is said to belong.

This is not to suggest Khalifa is anti-Assad because of religion but that Khalifa is noting in his book the muti-religious fabric of Syria. The novel is about the cruelty and lawlessness in Syria during the 2011 Civil War which is, at best, a frozen conflict in 2024. The country remains divided despite Assad’s continued rule and growing normalization of his regime among regional powers.

“Death is Hard Work” reflects on the many wars being waged today. The conflict in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, tribal conflicts in Sudan, the Sahel, Ethiopia, and Nigeria create societal tragedies that make America’s problems pale in comparison.

The overarching story is the main characters commitment to his father to bury him in his family village somewhere near Aleppo.

Khalifa explains some of the horrific consequences of the Syrian civil war in “Death is Hard Work”. The Civil War is raging in Damascus where the family patriarch dies from old age. There are checkpoints throughout the country that have to be crossed. Each checkpoint is a test of two brothers’ and a sister’s resolve to fulfill their father’s last wish.

The backstory is about a father who marries and has been a constant critic of Assad-rule. He recalls his life in the 1960s as much better. That is odd considering history shows the four Presidents during that period fostered political instability, revolt, and global tension. The point made by the author is memories often block out the truth of our past.

Assad’s murder of women and children is a reminder of today’s conflicts in Ukraine, Russia, Israel, several African nations, and Gaza. Leaders in these countries are fomenting war over land and ideas that only increase the suffering of their people.

The past is always present. Khalifa reflects on what he sees as Syria’s present. He writes of a Syrian woman raped to death by four men. He explains a story of a husband who sends his children to another country while he stays in Syria to plan the murder of the four rapists whom he knows. Khalifa writes of the poverty and hunger of Syria’s civil war. Citizens searching garbage cans and eating flowers and grass to stay alive. It makes no difference whether one is a college professor or bum, all were hungry. One is reminded of the chemical attack in Syria and the many bodies on the ground that President Obama called a red line for America when it was not.

The two brothers and sister risk their lives at each check point in their treacherous journey to bury their father in his ancestral graveyard.

At each check point, they explain the reasons for carrying a dead body cross country while it begins to smell. “You have to do something if you don’t want to die” becomes the mantra of Bolbol, i.e. the youngest son who is trying to fulfill his father’s last wish. Flash backs remind listeners of what happens to one’s beliefs about right and wrong when powerlessness against tyrannical leaders is the measure of life. The older brother, Hussein, is influenced by belief in power and is often in conflict with his younger brother as they take their father’s body to his home village.

The two brothers and a sister have lived sorrowful lives because of their country’s leadership. What Kalifa shows is how alone every human being is in a country led by leaders who care only about their power. Until or unless leaders in Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and Gaza come to understand the harm they are doing to their societies, only sorrow remains for their people.

ABOUT LIFE

“2666” is a well written book by an author who has read and understood more about society than many who have lived long lives in America.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“2666”

By: Roberto Bolaño

Narrated By: John Lee, Armando Duran, G. Valmont Thomas, Scott Brick, Grover Gardner

Roberto Bolaño (Author, 1953-2003, died at the age of 50, Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist.)

“2666” is a journey around the world. One begins the journey as though one is sinking into inescapable quicksand. Roberto Bolaño dazzles one’s imagination. Its granular mix of western society captures one’s imagination. The book’s narrators trap “2666” listeners in a story of modern times.

Bolaño infers sex is an equal opportunity exploiter.

He suggests communism and socialism are distortions of Marxism and shows capitalism as a form of enslavement. Women’s societal inequality extends to physical abuse in many societies and, at an extreme, to murder. Bolaño’s many characters illustrate the way in which he believes these are societal truths.

The first part of Bolaño’s story tells of three highly educated people who travel for business and pleasure based on their professions and desires.

They are academics steeped in literature who lecture on poetry, philosophy, and great writers. They meet in different areas of Europe as a trinity of lovers, two men and one woman that form an emotional and sexual threesome. The woman appears the more dominant of the three with the two men abandoned for a time because of a younger lover in the woman’s life. The two men continue to travel together and apart but pursue a licentious life with women, some of which are paid for their sexual favors. The author seems to explain sexual desire is characteristic of all human beings, both male and female. Human desire can be exploitive, companionable, and/or a way to make a living.

Bolaño’s travels extend to Mexico and the United States after his literary journey through Europe.

He shows every form of government, whether communist, socialist, or capitalist fails to treat its citizens equally. He infers Marxist theory may hold an ideal of equality but suggests communism, socialism, and capitalism only distort the ideal of a classless society. Materialism, the struggle for recognition, and the value of labor are chimeras, i.e., wished for ends that are illusory in every known form of government.

Bolaño’s trek to Mexico reveals its poverty and the hard life of a country of the rich and many poor.

He focuses on a notorious record of women being murdered in Mexico by an unknown killer and rapist who may be one man or two. The grim view of Mexico dwells on the investigation of these horrific crimes. In the process, the listener is told about prison life in Mexico, a probable killer of the women and another that may still be on the loose. The murders of women continue. An FBI agent from America is involved in the investigation. This is a hard section of the book because of its repeated explanation of crimes against women, but it offers a view of Mexico’s poverty and the unfair, unequal treatment of women and others in the world.

The last chapters of Bolaño’s work are a flash back to WWII and Germany’s attack of Russia after Stalin’s mistaken alliance.

There are flashes of brilliance in this flashback, but the length of the novel begins to wear thin. “2666” is a well written book by an author who has read and understood more about society than many who have lived long lives in America, a land of opportunity with many of the faults noted in Europe and North America.

THE BALTICS

Traveling to other countries is more interesting because of what writers of fiction and history have to say.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Dogs of Riga” A Kurt Wallander Mystery

By: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson-translation

Narrated By: Dick Hill

Henning Georg Mankell (1948-2015, deceased Swedish author, social critic, and playwriter.)

We are planning a trip to the Baltics in October of 2024. As in previous trips, this blog has been used to memorialize former travel experiences and this American’s view of other countries. Prior to traveling, some books are recommended by tour guides as introductions to other cultures. “The Dogs of Riga” and “The Lilac Girls” are two that offer some information about the Baltics. “The Lilac Girls” is a history of incarcerated women at Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany during WWII. The Nazis were researching the efficacy of drug treatment and prosthesis for injured soldiers by amputating arms and legs of imprisoned women to study regeneration of bone and the utility of prosthesis for lost arms or legs. Many of these young women were from the Baltics, though the largest number came from Poland.

Having heard of Henning Mankell’s mysteries (of which there are many), Kurt Wallander is a reoccurring character as an investigative Swedish detective.

The relevance of “The Dogs of Riga” is in the transition that was occurring when Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia achieved independence from the U.S.S.R. The Baltics had been a part of and controlled by the U.S.S.R. since 1940. Mankell’s book was first published in 1992, one year after the 1991′ dissolution of the U.S.S.R.

Riga Technical University (Engineering Center in the Baltics)

It is interesting to find in “The Dogs of Riga” that Wallander’s daughter chooses to go to Riga for her college education which makes one wonder why Riga would be chosen. Is it because of the quality of education or just to be further away from family? In any case, the reason these books are recommended is to give some perspective to new visitors of other countries. An interesting observation one makes about “The Dogs of Riga” is a sense of resentment from the Latvians about Russia and their former domination of the Baltic States.

Season 3, Episode 2 of “The Dogs of Riga” on Masterpiece Theater.

Going back to the story, two Russians were shot in the heart, and set adrift on a raft in Swedish waters. Autopsy shows the Russians were well dressed indicating wealth. It was found they had high concentrations of amphetamine in their bodies. In investigating the murders, Wallander finds they came from Riga, the capitol of Latvia. An officer from Latvia goes to Sweden to talk to Wallander. After the visiting officer returns to Riga, he is murdered and Wallander is asked to come to Riga to investigate his death.

With the opening of Latvia to the western world, freedom from communist controls is a mixed blessing.

Mankell begins to tell listener/readers something about Latvia and its suspicion of Russian residents in their country. Along with more freedom to pursue economic growth is the rise of a drug trade and criminal activity. Mankell’s story infers illegal activity is exacerbated by Russians who resent Latvia’s independence from the U.S.S.R. However, with greater freedom comes crime as well as improved economic opportunity. One reserves judgement about whether Russians are the primary cause of drug activity in Latvia because breaking the law is characteristic of all nationalities under all forms of government. The characterization of Russians as the cause of the illegal drug trade in Riga is possible. However, it is the same question one must ask themselves about America and the origins, causes, and persistence of its drug trade.

Freedom entails the pursuit of what one wants out of life. Money, power or prestige are goals of most (if not all) human beings.

However, those goals need to be based on equal opportunity. This is not to say those goals should include criminal activity, but only education offers a chance for all to understand the difference between right and wrong. When equal educational opportunity is available to every person in the world, they may pursue what they think is in their interests. This, of course, is not a world that exists or can exist because personal interest is not the same for everyone.

Getting back to Mankell’s story, Latvia is challenged by its new freedom from the U.S.S.R. The suspicion of Russians is undoubtedly a truth about Latvian culture based on Latvia’s former life as a part of the U.S.S.R. Whether Russians are the criminal master minds of the drug trade is not the point. The point is that human nature requires a reason for everything that happens in a culture. The bad experience of repression by the U.S.S.R. may make Latvians suspicious of every Russian in Latvia. It is similar to Trump’s vilification of immigrants and how that ignorance resonates with some Americans.

Mankell and the author of “The Lilac Girls” are worth reading or listening to if you plan a trip to the Balkans. Traveling to other countries is more interesting because of what writers of fiction and history have to say.

REBOOTING LIFE

One wonders if gun violence in America is influenced by gaming. Unlike a gamer’s reboot of virtual life, real life does not reboot.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” A Novel

By: Gabrielle Zevin

Narrated By: Jennifer Kim, Julian Cihi

Gabrielle Zevin (American author, screenwriter, Harvard graduate.)

Listening to fiction is considered by some to be a waste of time. What is missed by that opinion is the insight authors have of the society in which they live. As a reviewer from the baby boom generation, it is interesting to find what an author of the 1977 to 1983 generation (called Xennials) think about American life. Xennials grew up in the gaming generation, gaming is an experience some in the “boomer generation” do not understand and have little interest playing.

Xennials and other Gamers look to “Oregon Trail” or other games of their generation as an entertainment and representation of what life is today or was in the past.

Gabrielle Zevin writes an insightful introduction to her view of the Xennial generation’s view of 21st century American society. The author’s insight is limited to an estimated 10 percent of the Xennial population because her main characters have high intelligence quotients. Her characters have intellectual tools that get them into an Ivy League university. Zevin offers a vivid picture of high achievers in America.

Gaming is viewed by many Boomers as a waste of time and money but to those in the industry, it is a way to gain wealth and fame. Gaming is a sophisticated way to represent life in a virtual world.

Whether rich, poor, educated, or uneducated, gaming has an appeal to many who wish to escape the real world. Zevin tells a story of her generation and how a few become wealthy in the gaming industry. Her clever story shows how three teenagers from different racial, economic, and social backgrounds become successful entrepreneurial gamers. The only common denominator of her main characters is higher than average intelligence but despite that qualification, their life’ experiences have broad appeal to a listening audience.

“Tomorrow…” begins in a hospital with Sam and Sadie. Sam is in the hospital because of a crushed foot from a sports car’ accident that kills his mother.

Sadie is at the hospital because she is visiting her sister who has cancer. Sam and Sadie meet in a commons area of the hospital where Sam is playing a computer game. Both are high school age and are familiar with computer gaming. Sam responds to Sadie’s questions about the game he is playing. Reader/listeners find this is the first time Sam has talked to anyone for the weeks he has been in the hospital. When the nurses find that Sam is talking to Sadie, they ask her to visit regularly to aid Sam’s recovery. The two children become friends.

When Sam finds Sadie was visiting him because of the nurse’s ask, he is upset because it implies Sadie does not necessarily care for him as a friend.

As a young boy, Sam chooses to reject Sadie’s friendship. Some years after their breakup in the hospital, Sam sees Sadie catching a local train near Harvard, a university they are both attending. Sam calls out to Sadie, and they have a brief conversation. They become reacquainted and eventually renew their friendship. This renewal is a lesson about misunderstandings between people and false beliefs about each other because of poor communication. The story goes on to illustrate consequences of other relational misunderstandings.

Sadie takes a class on programing from a Harvard professor who becomes Sadie’s lover, another human relational mistake. The professor is married, and the relationship evolves into one of physical abuse.

The professor returns to his wife and Sadie decides to move to California with her friend Sam to start a company with the help of Marx, a friend and roommate of Sam’s at Harvard. The money for a gaming company start-up presumably comes from Sadie’s and Marx’s upper-class families. All three are Harvard graduates but Sam is a scholarship student that has little money. Their first invented game is a financial success. Start-up money is undoubtedly important, but it is the intelligence and education of the three characters that makes the company a success. Their company and their social relationships evolve. Their second game is a dud, but future games continue their business success.

There are stresses in the relationships between these three entrepreneurs.

Sadie is initially the more expert programmer of the two coders (Sam and Sadie). She is somewhat frustrated by Sam’s public face for the company because of his public identification with the gamer’ character created in their first successful game. She resents the public’s belief that Sam’s coding for the company and its success are more important than her technical contribution. Sam and Sadie come close to abandoning their friendship because of the public’s perception of the creators’ successful game release.

Sadie eventually marries Marx, the business manager, with Sam somewhat ambivalent about their relationship.

Despite Sadie’s discontent about Sam’s identification with their success, Sam grows jealous about her relationship with Marx. The three characters deeply love and respect each other but the dimension of intimacy between Marx and Sadie become a stressful dynamic for the trio. This is life, and all people of any age, education, or intelligence can see themselves in Zevin’s story.

Nearing the end of “Tomorrow…”, Marx is killed by a bullet from two gunman who storm the gaming business’ office because of Sam’s support of same-sex marriage in their latest successful game.

Sadie is pregnant and is grief stricken by Marx’s death. American gun violence and hate crime are shown by the author as a measure of modern times. The name of the gaming company that Sadie, Sam, and Marx form is “Unfair Games” which seems an ironic assessment America society.

Unlike a gamer’s reboot of virtual life, real life does not reboot. One wonders if gun violence in America is influenced by gaming, as well as Americans’ misrepresentation of the “…right to bear arms” in the Constitution of the United States.

AN IMMIGRANT LIFE

Immigrants treated equitably are more likely to bring positive additions to countries in which they choose to live.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The House of Broken Angels”

By: Luis Alberto Urrea

Narrated By: Luis Alberto Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea (Author, Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.)

“The House of Broken Angels” tells many Americans what they may not know about Latino Mexican culture. Luise Alberto Urrea explains what it is like to be Mexican American and/or raised in Mexico before emigrating. The Mexican American’ picture is harsh, but Urrea’s picture of being raised in Mexico is heart rending.

Not surprisingly, emigrating to America raises more social barriers for non-white immigrants than white immigrants.

The first barrier is skin color, but there is also language, education, and most importantly gainful employment. When a Mexican enters the country, all four barriers make their lives hard. If they were raised in Mexico, Urrea suggests they are poor and misogynistic but spiritually tough.

Poverty in Mexico and America comes from low wages and few jobs.

Misogyny lives in most countries of the world, but it is exacerbated by the strong patriarchal nature of families in Mexico. On the other hand, spiritual toughness comes from patriarchal parents (when they are present) because of influences like the Catholic Church in Mexican culture. Urrea explains how some Mexican fathers beat their male children to make them understand life is hard with belief that physical beatings will make them tough. He goes on to suggest Mexican’ girls are raised as bearers of children and companions or servers of men. Mexican fathers set the stage for their sons to be either tough or hopeless. Urrea infers Mexican mothers and fathers insist their children be raised to believe in God because the way people live make heaven or hell life’s only destination.

Urrea paints a picture of being poor and raised in Mexico.

He infers a table is set for many Mexican Americans who use their spiritual toughness and survival experience to get ahead. Women seem relegated to being wives, sex-objects, or mothers, rather than independent, potentially successful human beings. Spiritual toughness may lead to excelling in a job, or at school for men, and a minority of women, to become productive citizens of their new country. Urrea infers the spiritual and physical toughness can take different courses in an immigrant’s life, one is criminal, and the other is not.

Urrea’s story notes some Mexican immigrants choose to join gangs and use their toughness to fight for higher position, more money, and power within a gang.

Education and jobs are one of the ladders, but gang membership and crime become a less difficult path to follow in a foreign culture. Both ladders suffer from macho and misogynistic views of life, but Urrea argues Mexican immigrant life is tempered by the strength of paternalistic family hierarchies and religion.

The main character in “The House of Broken Angels” is Big Angel, the patriarch of a family with many sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Big Angel is born in Mexico and is raised by a mother whose husband leaves his mother with nothing but a motorcycle which she is compelled to sell to feed her family. Big Angel chooses to leave home. He tries to make a living in Mexico but leaves under suspicious circumstances to join his father in America. Big Angel becomes a self-educated technology programmer through hard work and self-discipline. His offspring in Urrea’s story is about immigrant offspring and their lives in America.

America is shown to be less hospitable than one would hope considering how valuable immigrants have been to its economic growth.

Some like Big Angel choose to stay within the culture of their new homeland with the intent of becoming a positive contribution to society. They take the best lessons of their lives to adjust to a new culture despite unequal treatment. The generations that are related to Big Angel, like all humans, make their own choices in life. Their innate intelligence and life experiences are not the same as Big Angel’s, but they are influenced by his paternal care.

Some listener/readers will use Urrea’s story to argue immigration is bad for America because some choices made by descendants of immigrants have violently robbed, injured, or murdered others.

The fallacy of their argument is that bad actors come from all walks of life. Mexican culture, like all cultures that have survived history, have good and bad qualities. Immigrants treated equitably are more likely to bring positive additions to countries in which they choose to live. That is not Urrea’s story, but he explains how one Mexican immigrant overcame unfair treatment to become a contributor to his adopted country. Big Angel brought something valuable from Mexico to America. Big Angel’s story brought hard work, family, and caring for others as examples of what truly makes America Great.

INDIGENOUS

Orange’s book shows how culture can kill. What citizens of the world need to do is understand how a broader culture can be built.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“There There: A Novel”

By: Tommy Orange

Narrated By: Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Ceurvo, Kyla Garcia

Tommy Orange (Author, received a Master of Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, winner of the 2019 American Book Award for “There There…”)

Tommy Orange illustrates how culture is the god of creation and destruction. “There There…” offers a glimpse of what it is like to be poor and indigenous in Oakland, California. The name “Indians” for the indigenous of America is said to have been created by Christopher Columbus in the 1400s. Orange has the idea at a gathering of native Americans to have each write their stories, i.e., their memories of what life has been for them in Oakland, California in the 20th and 21st centuries. Their stories are the substance of Orange’s book. They reveal the crushing reality of being descendants of the indigenous in Oakland, and believably all of America. A grant from Oakland becomes the funding source for Orange’s idea. Fighting to making a living as an author is at the core of “There There…” Orange undoubtedly calls “There There…” a novel to protect the story tellers.

Orange shows recycling-poverty, addiction, and misogynistic abuse are big problems for “Indians” in Oakland. The stories reveal an underlying frustration, if not anger, of indigenous Americans who are being molded by government programs that ignore native traditions and emphasize integration into whatever American society has become. There is justification for anger among American minorities. However, there is a fundamental misunderstanding when suggesting government programs are meant to mold Americans. The goal of government is not to mold its citizens but to create cultural norms for a diverse culture. Government fails because ethnic norms of minorities protect American citizens who are treated unequally.

Names like “Two Shoes”, “Red Feather” and the “Indian symbol” that once tested color on televisions are interesting examples of the significance of native influence in American culture.

Though America has and continues to try to Americanize natives, cultural influence is a two-way street. The stories in “There There…” illustrate how everything from influence of addiction to spousal abuse to abortion to overeating to violence are revealed as problems in native American’ lives. This is a hard novel to listen to because it denigrates Indian heritage and justifiably blames American culture.

One is drawn to wonder what can be done to correct the truth of American culture’s blame. The answer is in the Constitution of the United States.

All men are created equal, and the job of government is to provide for the health, education, and welfare of its citizens. American government is struggling to find a way of doing what it is meant to do because of the nature of human beings. Neither capitalism, utopianism, socialism, or communism change human nature. Ironically, only culture has the potential for achieving the goal of equality and fraternity.

Orange’s stories illustrate how Indian poverty is destructive and ethnic cultural inheritance is destroying native Americans.

One presumes Orange would object to the category of American when referring to indigenous peoples. However, it is only with change in culture that all citizens become more socially cohesive than one ethnic identity. If America can institute policies that genuinely provide equality for health, education, and welfare of all, culture will heal itself. When that is achieved, one can be Black, white, Latino, indigenous, or whatever ethnic group one wishes–but within broader American culture.

Orange’s book shows how culture can kill. What citizens of the world need to do is understand how a broader culture can be built.

BEING HUMAN

Robinson shows society treats people unequally, wages war for power, lacks control over behavior, and deceives itself about human nature.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Gilead”

By: Marilynne Robinson

Narrated By: Tim Jerome

Marilynne Robinson (Author, received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “Gilead”.)

“Gilead” is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It is cleverly written by Marilynne Robinson and beautifully narrated by Tim Jerome. Some listeners may have a hard time getting through its religious point of view. It is largely about belief in God. However, it’s truth about human nature makes it a classic regardless of one’s religious beliefs.

In broad outline, it is about three generations of preachers, a grandfather, his son, and a grandson, who live in Gilead, Iowa.

There is the grandfather who fights on the Union side of the Civil War in Kansas, presumably because of belief in human equality and union. However, it appears his son cannot justify killing of any human being, for any reason. Later, a listener/reader finds there is a rift between the Civil War’ preacher and his son who also becomes a preacher. The son becomes a father who has his own son. This book is like a letter to his son to explain his journey through life and what he has learned. The story begins by recalling a trip he and his son take to discover the grandfather’s grave in Kansas.

The journey is in the late 19th century.

The grandson accompanies his father on the arduous journey from Gilead to Kansas. They begin in a horse drawn carriage but because of weather leave the horse and carriage to walk the last miles. It is hot. One realizes the father’s decision to travel with his son is for many reasons beyond companionship. One presumes the father is ambivalent about the grandfather’s decision to join union soldiers with a willingness to kill secessionists opposed to abolition. One wonders if the father is saying there is no justification for War. The story gains broader interest at this point.

KILLING IS NEVER JUSTIFIED.

After having found the grave, the father relates a story of burying his father’s gun and some shirts. The gun and clothing are dug up. The bloodied and dirty clothes are washed, but they do not come clean. The wife of the letter writer and preacher finally throws them away, but the gun is reburied, dug up again, dismantled and thrown into a lake by the preacher. The vignette suggests the father believes killing is never justified, even in a war meant to preserve union and abolish slavery.

Preachers.

The father’s writing suggests there is a gap in ages between him and his wife. We find he is 67 when he marries his wife who is in her 30s. The preacher is nearing death by the time of the letter to his son is written. With the gap in their ages, there is a hint of jealousy about a man raised by the preacher’s best friend, who is also a preacher of the cloth. The son is Jack Boughton. Jack often played baseball with the preacher’s son, but the preacher had been told by Jack Boughton’s father to be wary of Jack.

The carrot and stick of parenting.

The impact of neglectful parenting is referred to in a sermon noted in the preacher’s story. Jack Boughton’s intelligence and education combined with parental neglect is inferred to be a cause of atheism and a penchant for illicit behavior. This creates a tension between the preacher and his close friend’s son, particularly when the childhood friend visits the preacher’s wife and son.

iNEQUALITY
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
MORE WAR
MORE WAR
HUMAN NATURE

One comes away from Robinson’s story with a summary of the flaws of humanity. At the end of the author’s story, Jack Boughton has created a second human nature crises that will resolve itself in either happiness or tragedy. Robinson shows society treats people unequally, wages war for power, lacks control over behavior, and deceives itself about human nature.

SHAMING

Sexuality is the boon and bane of human society. The boon is human procreation. The bane is the shame visited upon human beings.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Mothers”

By: Brit Bennett

Narrated By: Adenrele Ojo

Brit Bennett (Author, New York Times Bestseller, graduate of Stanford University and University of Michigan.)

In one sense, “The Mothers” is about the serendipity of life. In another it is about human shaming. Brit Bennett’s book infers life’s happiness comes as much from chance as by effort. Of course, human life begins with “…Mothers” but as science explains, a part of who we are and who we become is from fathers. Bennett’s story is a view of life through the eyes of a daughter who loses her mother through suicide. The daughter’s genetic inheritance is intelligence and ambition. The daughter is born in a lower middleclass family. She lives through her high school years when her mother dies. She lives with her father and remembers her mother’s disappointment with life. Her mother’s wish for herself and daughter is to become more than what the circumstances of life seem to offer.

The main female characters of “The Mothers” are the daughter, Nadia Turner and her friend, Aubrey Evans.

The main male character is Luke Sheppard, a high school football athlete who is seriously injured in a sports accident. He is 21, living at home with his father who is a minister and his mother who manages the household and helps her husband with the ministry. Nadia is 17 and in high school. She is academically near the top of her class. Luke becomes Nadia’s boyfriend. Nadia becomes pregnant. Aubrey Evans becomes a close friend sometime after Nadia’s abortion. It is Nadia’s decision to have the abortion. Luke is ambivalent about Nadia’s decision but, with the help of Luke’s mother, $600 is given to Nadia for the abortion.

Luke leaves the decision to Nadia on the abortion but limits his involvement to giving her the required $600 fee.

Luke regrets his behavior as the father of an unborn child and his absence during and after the abortion. Nadia goes on to college at the University of Michigan after having become friends with Aubrey in high school. Nadia and Aubrey become close friends. While Nadia is going to college and seeing the world, Luke and Aubrey meet and become a couple. They eventually marry. Nadia never tells Aubrey of her relationship with Luke or the abortion.

Once listeners become acquainted with the three main characters, human shaming takes over the story.

Every major and minor character shames themselves and others by their acts or ignorance. Both mothers and fathers are guilty, but the author infers mothers are the most shaming. Mothers shame children rather than try to understand and guide their human nature.

Human sexuality dominates lives whether male or female, young, middle aged, or old.

The story is well written, but its theme misses the mark. Mothers and fathers (all humans) are equally blame-worthy when it comes to shaming. Sexuality is the boon and bane of human society. The boon is human procreation. The bane is the shame visited upon human beings. Bennett’s characters show there is plenty of shame to go around. Shaming is popular which explains why Bennett’s book became a bestseller.

TIME TRAVEL

The social implications of time travel are revealed in Bradley’s clever, adventurous, sometimes humorous, and apocryphal story.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“The Ministry of Time” 

By: Kaliane Bradley

Narrated By: George Weightman, Katie Leung

Kaliane Bradley (Author)

Kaliane Bradley imaginatively writes about the social complications that arise if time travel were found possible in the 21st century. The main characters are an unnamed narrator and a 19th century British Commander named Graham Gore. A key to understanding “The Ministry of Time” is that the narrator is unnamed.

At times, “The Ministry of Time” is difficult to understand because of a perspective that mystifies listener/readers who are not raised in a British culture. However, on balance, comedy, tragedy, romance, and history are universal experiences that pull one into Bradley’s imaginative story.

The story begins with the final interview of a person who is hired by “The Ministry of Time” to become a councilor to one of several characters drawn out of time into the 21st century.

This interviewee is a Cambodian born British citizen. The choice of the person’s birth country is clever for several reasons. One, the interviewee, her mother, and grandfather are born in a country that experienced the killing fields of Cambodia’s Pol Pot. Two, the interviewee is an attractive non-white woman who knows what it is like to work in a country largely controlled by white men. And three, she represents a libertine western world’ lifestyle.

The main character of the story, the interviewee, is to become one of several councilors to stay with individuals who are rescued from assured death in past centuries.

There is a limit to the number of people that can be rescued because of the design of the time-travel’ portal. That limit generates an interest in a time traveler who wishes to control who can use the portal. A surprise is to find who that time traveler is and why he/she is determined to control its use.

The social implications of time travel are revealed in Bradley’s clever, adventurous, sometimes humorous, and apocryphal story.

Along the way, reader/listeners are exposed to the complexity of human beings, the historic recurrence of discrimination, the consequence of despoilation of the world’s environment, and the power of attraction that leads to love, and sometimes tragedy.

Who’s Right?

There are many ways of understanding Andrew Boryga’s book, “Victim”. It is an eye-opening examination of minority life in America.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Victim” 

By: Andrew Boryga

Narrated by: Anthony Rey Perez

Andrew Boryga (Author, Bronx resident, Cornell graduate, freelance writer for the NYT, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.)

There are many ways of understanding Andrew Boryga’s book, “Victim”. It is an eye-opening examination of minority life in America. Being poor, whether a minority or a white American, is a struggle for identity. A white person in America has immense advantage, but Boryga’s story shows how much greater the challenge is for a person of color.

The main characters of Boryga’s story are Latinos named Javier Perez, Gio and Lena. Some may argue only Javier and Gio are the most relevant but Lena, Javier’s romantic partner, is at the heart of a question of who is right in lives of inequality.

There are many reasons to appreciate Boryga’s insightful story. It gives credit to committed teachers who struggle to raise the sights of students who are challenged by poverty and hardship. Javier is a character with ambition to be more than a street hustler trying to get by in a low-income neighborhood in the Bronx. It is with the help of a single mother and a dedicated teacher that Javier pursues a better life. His father was a drug dealer, murdered in Puerto Rico. Being raised in New York by his mother, Javier visits his father when he is murdered. That experience, the strict upbringing of his mother, and a teacher at his school offer lessons of life and opportunity to Javier. With the help of his teacher, Javier becomes a college-educated’ writer who struggles to become a literary and financial success.

It seems the window of opportunity for Javier depends on his intelligence, the help of his teacher, and retrospectively, his friend, Gio.

At first reading of “Victim”, Gio appears to offer an alternative life like that which Javier’s father followed. Obviously, what happened to Javier’s father influences Javier’s choices in life. Javier tries to influence Gio to abandon the drug-mule’ road he is following. Javier fails Gio, himself, Lena, and the Latino students he teaches in his neighborhood.

Javier meets Lena in college.

Lena is Latino but comes from a more financially secure family in the Bronx with a strict father and loving mother. In contrast, Javier is being raised by his widowed mother who is barely making enough money to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. Lena is a social activist for Latino rights. Javier and Lena become lovers but from quite different economic and family backgrounds. They move in together, but their place of cohabitation is the old neighborhood in which Javier is a teacher and struggling writer.

Lena pursues her activist career with little pay and a difficult adjustment in an unsafe neighborhood in the Bronx.

She grows to feel isolated and unfulfilled in her pursuit of equal rights, both as a Latino and woman. Javier understands the neighborhood in which they live but to Lena it is too dangerous, and her job does not offer enough personal satisfaction and income for her and Javier to improve their lives. Javier ignores her concern because he understands life in the neighborhood and feels comfortable in dealing with its risks.

Javier and Lena are at a crossroads in their lives. Javier decides their crossroad has a meaning that is worthy of a story that could be published in the paper for which he works part time while teaching at the local school.

His story disingenuously describes the conflict between Lena and himself. Javier believes and writes that he would be abandoning the fight for Latino rights by leaving his neighborhood for a safer community that Lena desires. Javier does not take into consideration their common goals or the difference between a woman and a man when living in a tough neighborhood. The story he writes about their relationship and its breakup makes him famous. He is offered a higher paying job as a full-time writer. He quits teaching but the break-up is irreversible. The reason for its irreversibility is substance of the story. His story distorts the truth of why Lena leaves Javier and the neighborhood.

While Javier strives for success as a writer, Gio is arrested for drug dealing and sentenced to prison. Javier loses touch with Gio because of their different life decisions.

Earlier, Javier tries to rescue his friend Gio from the gang life of the neighborhood. Ironically, Gio saves Javier from a false understanding of what happened in his life. The mistake Javier makes with Gio is similar to the mistake he makes with Lena. Gio’s and Lena’s lives are only their own. Javier fails to appreciate their personal experiences and how they made them who they became. Gio’s life is changed by his gang and later prison experience. Lena’s life is formed by the influence of her parents and life as a middleclass woman who wishes to help her race succeed in a prejudiced world. Javier sacrifices his relationship with both Gio and Lena by not understanding their personal identities and reasons for being who they become.

Javier makes the mistake of using Lena and Gio as subjects of his stories that do not represent who they are from their personal life experiences.

However, Javier’s stories are so well written that he becomes a coveted writer by his newspaper and a book agent who wishes to represent him. The problem is that his stories are made of facts that are not truthful representations of either Lena’s or Gio’s evolved lives.

Javier is publicly exposed for his distorted stories about what it is like, and what it means to be a Latino American in a white-biased culture.

Javier’s wish to become a renowned writer is halted by a you-tube interview by an investigative reporter. He is fired by the paper who employs him. Gio tells Javier to quit feeling sorry for himself and tells him to get on with his life. Gio has overcome the trials of his imprisonment and is on the way to becoming a positive contribution to society even though it continues to be biased against his success. Javier begins to understand the importance of factual accuracy and understanding of others when writing a story purported to be the truth. One wonders if that is why the author chooses to identify “Victim” as a novel and not a report of his or anyone else’s life.

The story of “Victim” is that inequality is a fact of life but not an insurmountable obstacle to peace and prosperity for determined individuals.