Dan's Reading Journal

1945 by Robert Conroy

I love alternative history -- the what if exploration of what history might have been like if just one thing had happened differently.  What if Genghis Khan had not died and thus the Mongol army had not retreated from the borders of Vienna?  What if John Wilkes Booth had missed or What if Robert E. Lee had accepted a commission with the Union Army.  Harry Turtledove has made a career out of these -- but I find them hit or miss.

Robert Conroy has written three alternative histories, and the latest, 1945, is an exploration of American and Japanese politics and military strategy.  Here's the deal, the militarists in Japan seize Emperor Hirohito before he can surrender and the United States (with no help from its Russian Allies) is forced to proceed with the invasion of the Japanese mainland.  As the casualties mount, support for the effort produces hawks and doves in America and political unrest rises.  In Japan, desperate fanatics use desperate tactics to "protect" the homeland and repel the invaders. Real Japanese military patriots try to find a way to save their country from massive loss of life.  American military commanders who now have men in the field try to minimize casualties while maximizing territorial gains -- and hold off the nuke 'em into the stone age factions.  Add a couple of plot twists like a Japanese-American spy for the US who happens to find out where the Emperor is being held and a still active (and still arrogant) General MacArthur and you are off to the races.

I found the military strategy to be simply fascinating - and though I do not know how much real research Conroy did, it was pretty convincing to me.  This was a quick, entertaining and quite interesting read.  Have fun with it.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a wonderfully written and inventive work of fiction.  Do not let the fact that it was chosen by Oprah's Book Club set you off of it.  Wroblewski's first novel is an intriguing story that weaves multiple (but very familiar) themes together with great skill, terrific prose, and gut wrenching emotion.  Edgar Sawtelle is also  fantastical in very interesting and compelling ways.

At its simplest, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a family story -- and as it has been said, each family is dysfunctional in its own ways.  The Sawtelle family raises and trains a (fictitious) breed of dog whose reputation for companionship, courage, and comportment has made them popular and desirable.  Edgar, born mute, is the only child and dog raiser and trainer-in-training for the family business set in the beautiful country of rural Wisconsin.  Trouble comes when Edgar's paternal uncle, Claude returns to the farm and with the subsequent unexpected and sudden death of Edgar's father. At its most complex, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a rural American retelling of Hamlet with a bit of fantasy built in.

Wroblewski's prose is lyrical and detailed, lovingly crafted and a delight to read.  One of the various small sub-stories within the novel is the art and science of naming the pups -- a job of heavy import and responsibility that falls for the first time to Edgar early in the story.  Wroblewski's exploration of the meaning, the options, the seriousness and love and care that Edgar devotes to this task is a small wonder.  I for one would not have thought that dog-naming would be a topic that held much interest.  Wrobelski makes it fascinating and engaging.

Intertwined with the other details of dog-raising and training that Wrobelski makes interesting and even fascinating, he has also made the dogs into characters themselves.  The litter of pups that Edgar gets responsibility for training (also his first go at this task) each develops real, individual personalities.  Edgar's best friend, and a first-rate example of what the Sawtelle dog breed represents, is his companion Almondine.  In a way that seems to fit the story, without being overly weird or fantastical, Almondine narrates a few chapters -- Wroblewski's use of the dog as observer of the human condition while not original, is very well done and believable.  The reader comes to feel for Almondine as one would for a human character that was well drawn.

Of course, the idyllic existence is not to last.  I give nothing away by telling you that the plot convention is that Edgar suspects Claude's nefarious involvement in Gar's (Edgar's father) unexpected death.   When a well-developed but ultimately failed attempt to implicate Claude goes disastrously wrong, the mute Edgar takes to the wilds of Wisconsin with three yearling dogs.  Wroblewski's ability to bring you close into the life of the family is equally well done as he describes how a young teenager and three spectacularly trained dogs can survive on their own in the woods of Wisconsin.

This book has marvelous touches.  The description of Edgar's mother taking her "unusual" child to the local wise-but-strange old woman after having endured the long run of doctors with no diagnoses and no suggestions is but a glimpse of Wrobelski's weaving of the normal with the 20-degrees off normal and making it work.  Later in the book there are interactions between the humans and an almost ephemeral stray dog that seems to appear and vanish.  Wrobelski's painting of the rural Wisconsin environs - the wind, the rain, the sunlight are pictures painted with words.

This is a book worth reading for its wonderful use of language and its details of life.  Upon my first reading of the book, I was angry with the ending.  Upon reflection and with a couple of re-readings of the ending, I have come to appreciate what Wroblewski has created with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Remember how I describe the book at the beginning of this review.  I encourage you to pick this up and enjoy it.

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

I do not know what fascinates me more about India -- the fact that it is the world's largest democracy, a technological nuclear-armed marvel with the greatest disparity imaginable between the haves and have nots or the fact that it is so entirely foreign to me - caste system, Hindu-dominated, unbearable weather, and an education system that graduates more superior engineers in one year than the US does in 5 years.

Regardless of the source of my fascination,  The Space Between Us reminded me that yes, again, the things that make cultures different are dwarfed by the things that are similar -- in this case, the fact that all families are dysfunctional in their own way, that the gulf between the servant under-class and the well-to-do is more about opportunity and luck than it is about desire and wisdom and finally, that power corrupts -- those that have the ability to exert power over others and do so for their own pleasure do so because they can - plain and simple.

The Space Between Us is reminiscent of A Fine Balance but is set in modern-day urban India.  It is a very personal and intimate story of three women -- Sera Dubash, an upper middle class housewife trapped in an abusive marriage; Bhima, her servant of twenty years and Bhima's pregnant college-dropout grand-daughter, Maya Phedke.  There is also Sera's daughter-in-law, Dinaz and her son, Viraf and her husband, Feroz.  This book is about family drama and culture and the intermingling of both.  This book is also devastatingly drawn around the pain of everyday life.  While caste, religion and culture color everything - -and India is very clearly a foreign place (to this reader), the themes and results are universal, they happen everywhere, to everyone.

The magic and miracle of The Space Between Us lies in Thrity Umrigar's ability to have us feel for Sera, Bhima, and Maya while despising Viraf and Feroz without it becoming a parody.  We have empathy for the women and disgust for the men and it feels right.  So, culture, tradition, and economic disparity all combine to create empathy amidst tragedy. Umrigar is able to put us in these people's homes and lives in a way that creates familiarity - or at least a sensitivity - regardless of the foreignness of the reality.  I have never lived in an urban Indian slum, but I have visited there with Bhima and Maya.

The Space Between Us is not for the faint of heart, nor is it a great book for those who are depressed.  The themes and outcomes are dark and full of hurt and injustice -- and are very, very real.