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Books No. 37-38
Jul. 3rd, 2018 10:01 amBook No. 37 was "The Dew Breaker" by Edwidge Danticat. The title refers to Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier's use of a secret police force known by the Haitian people as the Tonton Macoutes (i.e. the Haitian version of the boogeyman) who come at dawn and "break the dew" as they drag people out of their houses to be interrogated, tortured, and killed. The novel's central character is a former Tonton Macoute who has fled Haiti and is trying to live a quiet, anonymous life as a barber in New York. It opens with a story from the viewpoint of his daughter, who thinks her father was a prisoner, not a guard. Each chapter afterward is told by a relative, victim, or neighbor of the barber, and it ends with his own story. Almost every chapter in the book was originally a short story, and they were collected together, modified, and added to in order to create this novel. It does feel episodic and switches between many narrators, some of whom are only tangentially related to The Dew Breaker. But Danticat's prose is beautiful, and the way she frames the story is quite clever. I have read one other book by this author that I also enjoyed, and I plan to read more by her.
Book No. 38 was "Blameless in Abaddon" by James Morrow. This was a selection that my husband and I read out loud to one another over many months as part of what we jokingly refer to as "The Infidel Book Club," and, thematically, this was a good choice for the club! This book loosely follows the action in "Towing Jehovah" which my husband J. and I have read twice before. In "Towing", the body of God falls from the sky and lands in the ocean, sparking a worldwide crisis of faith. In "Abaddon," we find that God's body is comatose, not dead, and its hauled to Florida where a theme park about miracles is built around his body. Our main character, Martin Candle, is a Job-like character who is an upright, Republican judge who loses his wife, his house, and his health, and decides he wants to bring a lawsuit against God in the world court and request that God's body be taken off life support. The rest of the book is a trip through the arguments about theodicy, or the problem of evil - how can an all-good, all-powerful God allow evil and suffering in the world? The book does get bogged down a bit in theological and philosophical arguments, but it's also leavened with humor. If you didn't know much about what the various arguments are in the area of "the problem of evil," you'll be well-versed in them after reading this book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this particular book to other readers unless you enjoyed "Towing Jehovah," but I do love James Morrow's blasphemous books in general.
( The other books I've read so far this year: )
Book No. 38 was "Blameless in Abaddon" by James Morrow. This was a selection that my husband and I read out loud to one another over many months as part of what we jokingly refer to as "The Infidel Book Club," and, thematically, this was a good choice for the club! This book loosely follows the action in "Towing Jehovah" which my husband J. and I have read twice before. In "Towing", the body of God falls from the sky and lands in the ocean, sparking a worldwide crisis of faith. In "Abaddon," we find that God's body is comatose, not dead, and its hauled to Florida where a theme park about miracles is built around his body. Our main character, Martin Candle, is a Job-like character who is an upright, Republican judge who loses his wife, his house, and his health, and decides he wants to bring a lawsuit against God in the world court and request that God's body be taken off life support. The rest of the book is a trip through the arguments about theodicy, or the problem of evil - how can an all-good, all-powerful God allow evil and suffering in the world? The book does get bogged down a bit in theological and philosophical arguments, but it's also leavened with humor. If you didn't know much about what the various arguments are in the area of "the problem of evil," you'll be well-versed in them after reading this book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this particular book to other readers unless you enjoyed "Towing Jehovah," but I do love James Morrow's blasphemous books in general.
( The other books I've read so far this year: )
