Author: Antonio Muñoz Molina
At a recent party, one of our guests declared that Antonio Munoz Molina will someday win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He has won numerous Spanish awards and is considered one of Spain’s greatest living writers. I hadn’t read a single book of his, and decided to fix this deficiency immediately.
I drove to the library and found a translation of "In her Absence”. It was a short 126 pages and had an intriguing story-line about a troubled relationship between a woman of high society and a bureaucrat. Blanca lived a privileged life with a passion for art like painting, writing or sculpting. While she was not an artist herself, she rubbed shoulders with artists and sculptors who were at the top of their game. She could immerse herself in a great book and be impervious to even the presence of her husband Mario, who was more of an everyday man working to put food on the table, in Madrid. While Mario did not have a single sophisticated bone in his body he was madly in love with his wife Blanca. So he pretends to have a taste for the avantgarde art that so intrigues her.
Molina’s prose is breathtaking as he describes the incompatibility between the two and the ensuing mismatch. The ending, or should I say beginning, is bizarre and I will let you read it and make your own conclusion.
Author: Mohsin Hamid
This is a beautiful tale of an unusual refugee couple. While Mohsin does not name the country where the couple originates from, it is probably based, in no small part, to the turmoil in Syria. Exit West is about a young couple Said and Nadia. You witness them falling in love and trying to make a life for themselves in this big bad world. Escaping from their terror stricken hometown does little to solve their problems as they bounce around from one refugee camp to another.
At the outset you realize that Mohsin blends reality with imagination which gives the book a little surreal twist to it. Even though he throws in some humor and romance, the harsh reality of a refugee life is evident as you go from one chapter to another. The book is a mere 230 pages with double spaced lines, so it is a small price to pay to learn and appreciate the hard lives of the millions of refugees in the world we inhabit.
Author: Amos Oz
Lately, I have been on a reading binge of books written by Israeli authors. A selected set of short stories from Tel Aviv Noir set me off on this exploration. When I saw that Amos Oz, the celebrated Israeli author had a book selected for the 2017 Man Booker Prize, I quickly ordered it from my local library.
The main story is set in Jerusalem in the late 1950s where the protagonist Shmuel Ash, a young Israeli student, is struggling to make ends meet. He finds a job taking care of an infirm old man who is living with his beautiful and mysterious daughter-in-law Atalia. The book is split between Shmuel falling head over heels for the older woman Atalia and a theory that he is developing that Judas was the real founder of the Christian Faith.
The author builds up the suspense and mystery of Atalia, but I was quite disappointed in the story that unfolds. On the other hand the theory of Judas truly believing in Jesus and convincing him to go to Jerusalem and endure the ignominy of Crucifixion is fascinating. I would love to read a more seriously researched non-fiction version of this story if there is any merit to it.
In parallel with the above, there is the story of Shaltiel Abravanel, a one-time respected founding member of Israel’s Zionists, who pushed for integration of Israel’s Jews with the local Palestinians. He clearly did not want Israel to be a Jewish State, but rather a home for both Jews and Muslims from Palestine. It is an interesting time to surface these ideas as Trump tries to broker peace in the region.
Amos describes an Israel that is drunk with power against it's Arab neighbors. His character Abravanel opines that Israel does not realize the fact that "all the power in the world cannot transform someone who hates you into someone who likes you." He goes on to say that he is not against building up Israel's military might as long as we remember that "it can't solve anything. It can only stave off disaster for a while.”
Sobering thoughts for all of us to consider. The storyline however is weak and I was thankful that it was a quick read.
