BOOK REVIEW: Strength in What Remains

Geography is not one of my strong points nor would I ever win in the category of international politics. I had never heard of the country Burundi nor had any idea of the wave of genocide that took place there in the early 1990’s. Pulitzer Prize winner author Tracy Kidder’s STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS not only made me aware of the horrors of that time in Burundi, but introduced me to some of the people who lived through it.

Deogratias has arrived in the United States with two hundred dollars, no friends and no English. He had escaped the horrors of his native Burundi through a series of what could only be called miracles. He had been a medical student with good grades and a bright future.

In New York he found himself homeless and at times in situations as dangerous as the ones that he had left back home. The only job that he could find is delivering groceries, but fortune brings him to the notice of several people who help him get on his feet.

One of the people that he meets is Doctor Paul Farmer. Doctor Farmer was instrumental in organizing Partners in Health and a personal hero of mine. His influence helped to open more doors in the medical field for Deo and gave him the means to eventually follow up on his dream of opening a health clinic in Burundi.

Deo also came to the attention of Tracy Kidder and he brings us to the heart of the story. Over time, the author was able to get Deo to open himself to talk about the horrors that he had lived through. In time, they were able to make several trips back to Deo’s native village. On a pilgrimage that followed Deo’s journey to stay alive, we,too, are subjected to the atrocities that happen in parts of the world that we never notice

STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS is a brutally honest book, but Tracy Kidder has the talent to keep the reader involved.  Kidder gives us real, live heroes, heroes who should grace the covers of our magazines. I first became aware of Paul Farmer in Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountain. (This book should be on everyone’s must read list.) Now and then his name will appear in a buried article about brave and dedicated people of our times and I feel that I am reading about an old friend. I will feel that way about Deogratias as well’

It is important today that we know that atrocities are happening in parts of our world, in countries that have no commercial importance to the United States - those countries we seem to be aware of. We need to also know that there are many of us who have the courage not only to be survivors, but to do their part in helping to make the situation a little better. Tracy Kidder helps us to know some of these people.

BOOK REVIEW: When the Heart Waits

I said to my soul, be still and wait...

So the darkness shall be the light,

and the stillness the dancing,

T. S. Eliot

This fragment from a T.S.Eliot poem is the appropriate introduction to Sue Monk Kidd’s personal journal, WHEN THE HEART WAITS. Ms. Kidd is best known for her bestselling novels, The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings. I loved both novels, but as an inspirational writer, she hits a personal chord with me.

WHEN THE HEART WAITS is the author’s year long journey during a midlife crisis, going from the depths of feeling that life has no meaning to starting to find the unique person she was meant to be. In a world of quick fixes, Ms.Kidd learns the lesson of active waiting from a found cocoon.

The use of the cocoon as a metaphor for rebirth is not uncommon, but Ms. Kidd puts the emphasis on the fact that the larva is waiting, alone, in the dark. The waiting during a dark period of life is the important part of the growth.

The book is filled with relatable literary references. Naturally we see quotes from Thomas Merton and Henry Thoreau, but Frank L. Baum’s Tin Man is an example of how we can shut off our physical feelings and Rapunzel teaches us that we have the power to help ourselves. (Why didn’t she cut her hair and use it as a ladder to climb down. She allowed other people to.)

Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus is often quoted. I have used this charming, little book as a simple explanation of death. Ms. Kidd uses it  to illustrate how frightening growth can be, but also how rewarding.

One of my favorite quotes in the book comes from the author herself:  

“People who want life hammered down into tight, legalistic certainties seem to me to be the people most insecure inside. Frankly, the folks who frighten me the most are those who are dead certain about everything, who have all the answers and no questions.”

 We are reminded that the creature that emerges from the cocoon is unique onto itself.

Contemplative spirituality should be an important part of our lives, whether we are at the morning, afternoon or evening phase of life. As we age we are changing. Sue Monk Kidd points out that  quiet, self reflection helps us to become the being that God has planned for us. WHEN THE HEART WAITS is an inspirational book written by an author of great talent and spirituality.

William Blake summed it up perfectly:

                      “To see the World in a Grain of Sand                         And Heaven in a Wild Flower,                         Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,                         And Eternity in an hour.”

BOOK REVIEW: In Pale Battalions

Oh, the wondrous things one finds when cleaning the back row of the bottom shelf of a bookcase. Author Robert Goddard was unknown to me, but a copy of his IN PALE BATTALIONS caught my attention and I have added another author to my must read list.

Leonora Galloway’s life had all of the signs of a good Gothic novel. She had been born ten months after her father had been killed fighting in France during the first World War and her mother had died shortly after. Sent to live with her paternal grandfather and his young wife at the decaying manor Meongate, her life became one of loneliness and cold cruelty.

During World War I, Meongate had been opened to select soldiers who needed the peaceful English country side to recover from their wounds. Instead of peace, they found a suspiciously pregnant young widow, a murder, a suicide and a general atmosphere of wrongness. This veil of evil continues to hang over the manor as Leonora grows to adulthood.

As Leonora reaches the end of her own life, she goes back to try to solve all of the mysteries of the family that had so many devastating events in its history.

The plot to IN PALE BATTALIONS is so much more than a typical Gothic novel. Author Robert Goddard takes the reader from the killing fields of Flanders and the horrors of war to the hidden evil of a once elegant English country estate.

His characters are complex. The fact that the story is told from several different points of view, we get a chance to see some of their motivations. I liked the many levels exposed of even some very minor characters from soldiers about to be killed on battlefields to flamboyant artists of the pre beatnik generation.  Even with being able to get into some of the main characters’ heads, there are some mysterious events left unexplained - as there should be.     

Most of all, I loved the mood that Goddard was able to create. The book has an old fashioned feel to it. There is a formality to the language that gives a dignity to the people living within the pages. Considering the time span, from 1916 to the present, it rang authentic. It reminded me in many ways of Daphne du Maurier’s  Rebecca. We have the brooding country estate, the young innocent protagonist, and the evil antagonist.

I liked IN PALE BATTALIONS for the fact that we met some very heroic characters. ( I thought Rebecca’s characters a little wimpy). Here are people who had to make moral judgements, whether it concerned keeping dangerous secrets or facing death during war.

I hope Robert Goddard’s other books are as strong.

  

BOOK REVIEW: The Escape

THE ESCAPE is the third book in David Baldacci’s series featuring John Puller, combat veteran and special agent with the United States Army. After reading Zero Day and The Forgotten, I could not wait for the continuation of John’s story, especially since I knew this one would include his older brother Robert.

Following in his famous father’s footsteps, Robert Puller had been a military hero. Exceptionally intelligent and a computer genius Robert was on the fast track to becoming head of the nation’s top security agency until he was found guilty of treason.

The evidence against him was clear and iron tight. He was caught copying sensitive documents and later photographed giving them to an enemy agent. Crimes that should have spelled his death, but instead he was given a life sentence in a federal prison that had never had an escape. The morning after a violent storm, Robert’s bed is found to contain the corpse of an unknown man, but no Robert.

John Puller is usually the agent called in to solve the unsolvable cases for the government and he is considered the ideal person to hunt down this new threat to national security, his own brother. Pulled between loyalty to his country and love for his older brother, John finds himself in a situation where all of the people around him are suspects.

When David Baldacci is good, he is very good and so far the John Puller books are very good. Baldacci mixes fast action with intelligent espionage and involves characters that can keep a reader guessing. THE ESCAPE has it all. His car chases kept me from breathing at times, yet his creative use of computer skills intrigued me. It seems every time the news programs explain a new use, or danger, of the electronic world, Baldacci has already used it in a plot line.

Another thing that puts Baldacci on my regular author- to- read list is his ability to create complex characters.  His heroes are always slightly flawed. I find myself approaching everyone in the book with skepticism. I think that after reading so many of his thrillers, I start expecting any romantic interest to be killed off, especially if they end up in bed with the hero. In THE ESCAPE John’s female partner, Veronica Knox, was particularly well done. My feelings for her went from full suspicion to pity and back to fearing for John Puller’s life.

Usually I find the first in a David Baldacci series to be the best written and then each book can vary on the scale of good to not so good. So far I am enjoying the John Puller books very much. In fact, I can not wait for the next one. Enough hints have been dropped about his and Robert’s parents that I will have trouble waiting. (The father, a military legend, is hospitalized with dementia and the mother had mysteriously disappeared when the boys were young children. Now, you know there is a blockbuster story there!)

David Baldacci deserves his large fan base.