Sweetness in the Belly - Book Review

Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb (Canadian author)

A story partially set in a time and place I have some familiarity with, 1970's through early 90's Ethiopia/Eritrea. The story shares much about the practice of Islam and cultural traditions in parts of Ethiopia.

Early in the book author Camille Gibb gives a painfully detailed account of a young girl suffering through a northeast African cultural practice called INFIBULATION. It consists of excising the clitoris and labia of a girl or woman and stitching together the edges of the vulva to prevent sexual intercourse. It is made clear in the book the practice of Infibulation is "nowhere in the Qur'an," and therefore not an Islamic practice.

The story is one of finding one's place, fitting in, and feeling accepted. It is also about love and friendship. The main character, Lily, is a white child raised in North Africa (Morocco) at a Sufi shrine. She has been highly trained in Islam and as a young woman goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia. Here she finds friendship, community, and love, but violence and revolution interrupt her life and those she's become like family to. A change takes place in Lily and all she's become a part of, forcing her and the story into unchartered territory.

Lily on Acceptance:

pg125 - Gishta's acceptance of me was gradual: hard won and mighty. Though she was Sheik Jami's favorite wife, as an Oromo she had once been on the outside herself. And it was for that reason that her resistance to me had been far greater than that of many other women. When you've fought long and hard for it (acceptance), belonging can come to mean despising those who don't (fight long and heard for acceptance).

pg126 - Once you step inside, history has to be rewritten to include you. A fiction develops, a story that weaves you into the social fabric, giving you roots and a local identity. You are assimilated, and in erasing your differences and making you one of their own, the community can maintain belief in its wholeness and purity. After two or three generations, nobody remembers the story is fiction. It has become fact. And this is how history is made.

Had I not enjoyed other books with stories that jump back and forth between two locations and time periods, I might not have enjoyed this book as much. Readers must be patient as peoples and places are introduced in a descriptively poetic way, giving value and depth to events taking place later on.

One thing the book does right away is teach. You are taken into the heart of an ancient walled-in Ethiopian city (Harar) to witness many of the cultural practices and traditions that have been with the peoples for centuries. I found it very interesting how openings in the city walls are there to allow Hyenas to enter at night and forage city streets for food, acting as a disposal for garbage. Some foods are intentionally left out by Harari citizens to appease the scavenging hyenas, keeping them from attacking livestock and other domestic animals.

Anyone who has read about the Ethiopian Revolution knows how brutal those times were for its citizens. It was a time where children were being trained to soldier and kill without mercy. Nobody is safe. At any time, soldiers could come into your home, take you and/or family members, and you are never seen again. Or your corpse is found a few days later battered and mutilated, left in the streets as a message to citizens not to go against the new Mengistu regime (Derg). Prison meant torture, and anyone who survived a stay there left scarred for life.

Yusuf on surviving prison:
pg243 - I had a chess partner in prison, Yusuf says quietly. Although it was months before I knew who he was. Everyone falls silent, even the children. It's the first time Yusuf has offered anything about his time in prison.

We had fifteen minutes in the open air every day, he says, staring blankly ahead. They release us in shifts into this square yard of only dirt and stones. One day I find this pattern of stones of different sizes on the ground, and I recognize it as a chess game. It is something amazing to me. And I see the next move so clearly that I cannot help myself. I move the stone. And the next day? Someone has moved a piece on the other side. Day by day, one stone at a time, my silent partner and I play this game.

pg244 - Who was your silent partner? I'd asked him later. The day I won the match I found the door to my cell unlocked. It was the major. I know because he turned his head as if not to see me pass.

It's all you have when they destroy your body, he tells me, tapping his temple. Sufis deny their bodies, victims of torture detach from theirs: both seek transcendence in their own way.

At least once during my reading I felt so frustrated with the author for introducing a topic but unwilling to follow through with more meaning. Instead, she immediately moved on to something else unrelated to the topic. It's like she hints, suggests and gives quick, short teasing's of information, only to move on from it as quickly as the thought flickers and disappears from the page. 

It happened on page 258 after Lily chastised Ahmed for calling his sister a Paki, which is obviously meant to be derogatory, equivalent to a "lying Pakistani." 

I know it likely only happened this one time, but at the time it left me wanting so much more about what it means to call someone a "Paki." I was so frustrated I almost chose not to finish the book. But as a sign of the good overall writing, I returned to its pages.

I really enjoyed learning more about this Ethiopian era and the Hirari Islamic culture. But boy, if not for the impressive/engaging writing style, at times I felt sure I could have saved myself the wasted story time this book had taken from me. I pick it up, I set it down. I like it, I like it not. It was truly at times a love hate relationship. Even as far as two-thirds through it. whew!!!

Overall, I'm glad I stuck with this book. A bit of a challenging read but fulfilling in its storytelling and history. Maybe a 3-3.5 rating out of 5. 

Quotes and notes from remainder of book:


pg260 - People never say actually suicide, but it happens more often than any of us like to admit. No one uses the word for rear of contagion; we speak of accidents and noncommunicable diseases. It is a crime against God to kill oneself. No one wants to believe that things can get so despairing that one would abandon God.

Harar during the food shortage:
pg273 - There was nothing to leave out for the HYENAS. They were used to being fed well in the laneway in front of the shrine. Feeding the HYENAS was incumbent on each of us. This was an unspoken and highly ritualized agreement. The HYENAS paced back and forth all night, refusing to disappear. No one in the compound enjoyed the retreat of their anguished cries as the sun rose the next morning. Gishta said she could hear them circling, their breathing thick with anger.
She and her co-wives were afraid to leave the compound. Their fears were confirmed by the discovery that the Somali girl who brought them fresh camel's milk early each day had been mauled to death and devoured in the laneway.

pg275 - in a town where there were only two degrees of separation between the most beautiful girl and the ugliest man


pg294 - He's a good man, Gishta said after he left. It's a shame he is so black. So Shankilla, Nouria agreed.

note: Talking about Aziz the doctor. Second or third time i heard reference to darker skin as shamefully ugly. This time its meaning was unmistakable. Ethiopia is a color conscience society, possibly prejudice toward blue black African folks. The women prefer lighter men it seems.

Nouria tells Lily of Twins being Bad Luck:
pg295 - Anwar led us through the Fatihah, the first chapter, that night, but when he began, Bortucan did not follow. What's wrong Bee, I asked, pulling her onto my lap. Nouria shrugged, she forgets. But she knew this chapter.
Her mind is small. Twins are not good. Bad luck. One steals from the other. But she'd made such progress. Allah giveth and Allah taketh away, Nouria said with resignation.  


Note: finally, in this section of book the distinctions in who is who and their relations is revealed. So many women and so little separation of their standing in the community. Also, two different places and eras, Ethiopia and London. confusing throughout, knowing who, where, when.

Even now knowing Anwar and Bortucan are twins gives more meaning to these two kids and their relationship to adults and each other. 

she is quite sure that only a woman can judge another woman's character. It is always best to leave it to your mother, she says. (aliz's mother's matchmaking)

pg303 - Mintiwab, name of a girl Aziz liked while at medical school in Addis Ababa. She did not love him back he said. I mention her only because of her unusual name. it must have some meaning. just saying it feels meaningful: Min Ti Wab...


(Lily describing a street in Dire Dawa)
pg307 - We turned into a beautiful street lined with acadia trees bursting red and purple, speckling the street with colour and shade. The buildings, modern and spacious, were cheerful pinks and yellows and crisp, clean whites. Vines spilled suggestively over their compound walls, saying: There is life here and life is good. It was so much cleaner and brighter than Harar. And so much hotter. The air was unwhispering, utterly still, and the sun blazed white even though it was already late afternoon.

Lily describing Emperor's televised speech:
pg330 - But was he crying as he spoke? Perhaps it was the rain, but for years afterwards, people, regardless of whether they ever saw the broadcast or not, would say they witnessed the exact moment when the lion began to die. With that throne speech it became apparent: a two-thousand-year-old dynasty was disintegrating before our eyes.

pg324 - Entire villages dancing, singing, Long live the emperor, the King of Kings.

We watched footage of a trip to Jamaica, where jubilant, long-haired masses shouted, Jah Rastafari! and waved placards that read Selassie is Christ.
He was Ras Tafari until 1930, the year he was crowned Negusa Negist, or King of Kings, and adopted the name Haile Selassie, meaning Might of the Trinity. God, the Son and the Holy Ghost.


pg365 - In the blue dark we watched as a parade of skeltons wobbled across the screen. 
Women carried dead babies with crusty mouths and giant eyes framed by fly-covered lashes. There was absolute silence.

pg366 - We had heard the words Famine and Starvation, but we had never seen images before. Haile Selassie had only begun using the words the previous month. Until then, he had denied such things existed in Ethiopia. Now we had the images to accompany the words, thanks to a British journalist.

pg367 - The military council thought it was time our people knew the truth. The emperor has been accused of taking a hundred million dollars of state money and hiding it in a Swiss bank account.

pg - Ethiopia doesn't matter to the West, I say, stating the obvious. We offer the nothing they can exploit

So much of what I learned from Joseph, (Joseph Woldu: More than a Survivor), about the war, was also in this book.  Airplane bombings, Khartoum, kidnappings, refugees escaping to Sudan. Also mentions the Derg getting Russian advisors and Cuban fighters to help maintain control and foment war. Very much like the book "Beneath the Tiger's Gaze," by Maaza Mengiste. although, I feel it was a better read.

pg395 - So, the Derg did what the Derg always does and started rounding up everyone suspected not only of fighting, but even of thinking of fighting.

pg396 - And then the Somali army invaded the area. The occupied Jijiga. They even got as far west as Harar. The Derg brought in Russian advisors and Cuban forces to fight the Somalis for them and suddenly the area was full of tanks and riddled with landmines and all this machinery we had never seen in Ethiopia. The Cubans pushed the Somalis back overland as far as Jijiga. And then they dropped down bombs from the airplanes. They deliberately targeted the prison (Aziz assumed dead) in order to obliterate the Ethiopian Somali rebels. They killed a great many other people as well, he says matter-of-factly. 1978

The Derge was ousted in May 1991 when the EPRDF - a coalition of revolutionary forces led by Tigrayan guerilla fighters from the north - rolls its tanks into Addis Ababa and sends Mengistu and his officers into flight.

The Derg is charged with having killed, unlawfully arrested, imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian citizens, abetting and using famine to kill hundreds of thousands more, creating an epidemic of displaced persons and a worldwide diaspora of refugees. Aziz was one of millions.

Notes on book "Beneath the Lion's Gaze

 

I'm reading this novel set in Ethiopia titled "Beneath the Lion's Gaze."  It takes place during and after the fall of Haille Selassie's monarch in 1974.

I want to share an example of what I consider excellent descriptive writing, where the writer awakens all your senses.  A scene amongst beggars:

A SLENDER EUCALYPTUS LEAF spiraled to the ground and twirled gracefully in perfect circles. Sara saw the leaf land on an old beggar crouched on one row of steps surrounding the eight-sided church, his blind gray eyes roving in their sockets like hungry rats.

"Are you back again, my daughter?" he asked, pushing his nose into the air. (blind, he smelled her familiar scent)
"It's my last time." Sara fought the urge to turn away from the stench of rotting skin surrounding him.

At his side, a little girl shuffled on scarred knees that extended to a pair of shriveled legs trailing limply behind her.

(pg.94 excerpt)

I sent the above text to my sister after reading these lines from the book. I like poetry, as does my sister. She and I both recognize Maaza Mengiste as an author with poetic flavor in her writing that is very pleasing to read.

Yes, the novel is a poetic smorgasbord of descriptive words giving readers visual nightmares. I like the short sections and how each new section carries over from earlier ones. Many characters get their say, adding so much color and conflict to the painting. The author is an artist, layering her canvas in all shapes and shades. Haille Selassie is one of those many shades in the midst of being discolored and dislodged by encroaching dark shadows.

Here, Ethiopia is going through a revolution and readers are shown the devastating effects on one family and their community of friends. "Beneath the Lion's Gaze" might be a title more befitting the hunger of power snatchers than the monarchy rule of Haille Selassie. 

Under the new leadership of the Derg a type of communist feudal system took over Ethiopia. Russian and Cuban military support helped implement the Derg's socialist order. And North Korean supplied soldier uniforms. Nationalization, like in China, was replacing a democratic monarchy, now without its once revered Emperor. And it was the Derg who initiated attacks on the Eritrean cities of Asmara and Massawa.

So, this is how Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels came together to fight against a common enemy, the Derg.

Communism had couched itself comfortably in a country that once boasted of a Solomonic monarchy. pg.115

In the beginning, the Derg had promised the people a "bloodless coup," yet had done nothing but prove its own viciousness and murderous spirit. pg.117

So, Sad! Revolution shows no mercy!

Egypt, Israel, and Syria also had a hand in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in the 70's.

Reading "Beneath the Lion's Gaze" is a bit of a challenge until you familiarize yourself with the characters. It takes time to recognize its connective flow, where one incident leaks into and meshes with another. An impatient reader could easily miss the artistic beauty of this book. And scholarly historians would probably find themselves pulling out their hair due to fictionalized and/or the absence of some incidents.

But I have found myself addictively returning to its pages, cautiously journeying along with the family and their friends as they maneuver through a revolution. I suppose I relate to Hailu the father most. Dutiful to his work and family, still mourning loss and having to make ethical decisions that could endanger he and his family. The burden of being head of a household in the midst of a country's revolutionary changes. Nobody is safe, everybody is stressed, distrust and bloodshed are one's diet.

Now that I've read the brutal, torturous methods of the military police, likely taught by the Russians, I feel even more pity and anger over this young, innocent, frightened boy's abusive treatment from military men. Distrust is always a weapon during revolutionary times. But what does a young boy know. Nothing really. And a broken mother wilts and weeps.

The author really does a good job knitting together the quilt of this story. The pacing, while alternating between characters and their dilemmas, gives readers views of the story from different angles. It is as if the reader is a ghost in the story, unable to warn or comfort those who they've grown close to in this book. Danger is always lurking about.

This is as much a book you live, as it is one you read.


Again, Revolution shows no mercy.
"Ethiopia had become a country of watchers"

Finished. Excellent. Bravo!

Author's Note: Nega Mezlekias's "Notes from the Hyena's Belly" and the late Prime Minister Aklilu Habtewold's "Aklilu Remembers: Historical Recollections from a Prison Cell" were significant to my understanding of the political and personal costs of the revolution. I humbly express my gratitude to these writers for sharing their stories so the rest of us may know.

The Derg regime collapsed in 1991


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6171927.stm

The Story of the Gypsies

 The Story of the Gypsies

By Konrad Bercovici  1928

Oct. 13, 2023                                    5 Stars

 

Enjoyed the book for the style of the author, the abundance of well documented research, and the interesting lives of Gypsies throughout history.

I Am Gypsy

From reading this book you get a sense maybe our modern-day lifestyle of working and indoor living and all surrounding it are the causes of our sickness and depressing mental conditions. To live the freestyle, naturalistic life of a gypsy is to be constantly in-tune with ones physical, mental, spiritual health and the external forces capable of enhancing or debilitating it.

This book has confirmed to me the secret of life being Song, Dance, Enjoyment of families and community, Celebration of life.

Growing up in a joyous family surrounded by a closeknit community molded me into a person who cherishes love, laughter, celebration, sorrow.

So many parts in this book I should have committed to notes. But an uninterrupted read was just what this book deserved. It gave me so much confirmation of the detachment from material things I try to practice. My belief that a Home is felt internally with a persons’ concept of life, then it spreads out to whatever he or she chooses to embrace.

Pg282  They train their children, female and male, from earliest youth to such things, just as they train them to sing, deceive, lie, steal, cheat, and flatter: everything needed to lead the life of an undesired wanderer, everywhere, in the marts of London, Paris, Rome, and at Bagdad, at the entrance of mosques.

 

Taking what the Arabs say about Gypsies with a grain of salt.  But then, Arab investigators have said the same things of Jews and Christians. If some people don’t believe what they know, Arabs always know what they believe.

 

Nomads in Asia speaking a language akin to that of Gypsies call themselves Siyah Hindu, “Black Hindus.”pg287

In the year 1860, the Gypsies in England elected as their queen a woman called Esther Faa.

 

Beginning of chapter XIII, final chapter (The Tent in the Wind) pg289

And now the deed is done. I have said all I know, and told what other people know, about the Gypsies. I have sifted my own knowledge and that of others through the sieve of my own temperament and prejudices, and bulked the whole in one lump – formidable in my eyes; slight, perhaps, in the eyes of others.

I have tried to prove that the Gypsies were in Europe long before the year authorities took notice of them; and while I did not go so far as to claim, with Bataillard, that they were the ones who brought bronze to Europe, I do believe that they brought the art of iron-forging, the dance of the East, and orchestral music to the shores of the Black Sea, to the Point Euxine, when they first set foot on European soil.

Did they come two thousand, three hundred years ago, imported by Alexander the Great, or a thousand years later, traveling of their own volition or driven by enemies? Who knows? For the strangest thing is that Gypsies are an even greater mystery to themselves than they are to us.

 

Pg291 But what has caused the Gypsies to remain an entity outside the pale of influence of the civilized world? It seems to me the fundamental reason for this is to be found in the fact that compared to the other inhabitants the Gypsies were already a superior group when they first appeared in Europe. Considering themselves abler, superior, they refused to adapt themselves to the method of life of the inferior native inhabitants in whose midst they camped, and thus prevented themselves from growning with them. To this day, the Gypsy considers himself superior to all peoples in wisdom of life, in ability, in artistry, in strength and intelligence, and refuses the formal school education, not because he is inferior to it, but because he considers the education of the Gorgio unworthy, ridiculous, and superfluous. Duty – private   property – reduction  of  individual freedom . . .

But you will tell him:

“Look at yourself. You are poor, bedraggled, uncomfortable, ignorant.”

And his answer, ready and prompt, will be:

“Yes, but I am happy. The contrary of ‘poor, bedraggled, uncomfortable, ignorant’ does not spell happiness!” And this answer is irrefutable. “And as to ‘ignorant.’ The things we know cannot be found in books. We know you better than you know yourselves.”

“We live in houses’ cool in summer, warm in winter. When we are ill, we call a doctor to cure us.”

“We live in tents summer and winter. Yet we don’t know the diseases you know. We have no need for doctors – until you compel us to live in houses.”

And this answer is likewise irrefutable. Talk to a Gypsy of industry, and he answers you with talk of freedom. Talk to him of wealth, and he responds with a chant on the elimination of worry: the uncontrollable, unhealable cancer of the soul.

And should you launch forth  on pride, he will point out that his tribal pride is of purer metal than any political pride of today. And there is no gainsaying this. He does not have to dress to look respectable. We need beautiful clothes to cover our ugliness. His beautiful body shines through the rags that cover it – to conform to our law. They Gypsy loves nakedness.

The Gypsy lies to preserve his integrity, and steals to maintain his inner honesty, which does not recognize private property. Did Proudhon hear the phrase “La propriete, c’est le vol” from the Gypsies living at the gates of Paris?
The tent-living Gypsies have seen the destruction and disruption of Palestine; and the Jews, once a nomad people, had lived in houses and had founded a civilization of their own that was leaning on what they had borrowed from Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks.

The tent-living Gypsies have seen the crumbling of Darius’ palaces in Persia, the destruction of Babylon and the breaking down of Alexander’s empire. They have seen Macedonia shrink from a cannon ball to an almost invisible grain of bird shot. Greece fell. Rome fell. The Byzantine empire was unglued by its own heat; and in more recent times they have seen the dismembering of empires that had been joined together by the flesh and blood of millions of men through centuries and centuries to give body to the illusion of some ambitious, power-thirsty daydreamer. They have seen the rise and fall of many empires . . . .

“Wind that breaks and scatters the strongest houses is resisted by the bending tent. The wisdom of life is the continuation of life, and so the wisdom of the Gypsy is superior to that of the civilized world.” Pg293

And so unyielding have the Gypsies been that thousands of years of life in surroundings contradicting their manner of life have influenced them but little. Oh, they have changed! They are not exactly what they were three or four thousand years ago. But they have changed according to their own native processes; from within and not without. They have accepted no religion, no customs, no laws, no traditions from the world outside their tents; and they have kept their own language, though they have been subject to a hundred differences in every generation. National entity! No other nation can boast of one as perfect as the national entity of the Gypsies.

Like the tent in the wind, the Gypsy does not stubbornly, openly, oppose the principles and the laws of the peoples he lives with. He bends this way and that. Yet when the wind has blown over, he stands as straight as before – while the wind still blows elsewhere. Moslems while in Turkey, Catholics in Spain, Methodists in England, Greek Orthodox Russia . . .

And what of tomorrow? When shall we have seen the last Gypsy? Civilization, industry, economic pressure, science, hygiene, will they not force the Gypsy to adapt himself to new conditions? To walls, doors, and houses?

A thousand years ago, the world thought that that generation had seen the last Gypsy. Five hundred years ago, the French, the English, the Italians, and the Germans thought they had heard the last of him. George Borrow gave an account of them which reads like a custom-made epitaph for their tomb. Charles Godfrey Leland said the last of the Gypsy had already been seen – and there are a million tent-Gypsies today, as fierce, as passionate, as free as they have ever been – still bending under the wind.

And the Gypsy answers: “The last of the Gypsies will be seen when we return to India, picking our way amidst the scattered ruins of the world.”

For they believe they are eternal; they believe in themselves, and not in us. For they still are convinced that theirs is the superior manner, that they are a superior race of cleaner and better blood – a superior people, oppressed by a hundred inferior ones.

“Bathe as frequently as you may, you only cleanse your skin. Our blood is pure; our breath is sweet.”

But all this I have said. Some of it I believe, and some I do not. Yet what is atavistically* Gypsy in me responds to their claims, to their wisdom, to their passion for untrammeled freedom, and sings the song of the wood and the glen to rhythm of the pebble-bottomed brook and the beat of my tramping feet upon the crust covering the heart of the world.

 

Yet – will the resist all pressure? Can they? Will history not repeat itself and absorb the Gypsies?
History does not repeat itself. Man repeats himself, and repeats the life of his ancestors, instead of continuing it.

 

THE END

Pg251 A language is kept in a purer state by an illiterate people than by a literate one. Literature refines and corrupts a language. Literary people only seldom have ears for speech of the people, and invent an idiom of their own, as different from the national one as a city garb is from the national costume.

Spain and Portugal attempted to rid themselves of the TGitano difficulty by exiling these people to Brazil. A Brazilian authority on the subject, Professor Moreno, has come to the conclusion that not one prominent Brazilian family today is free of Gypsy blood.

 

Pg.207 In May, 1596, under the provision of the statutes against Egyptians or Bohemians (as the Gypsies were then called in England), a company of one hundred and ninety-six persons was brought before the justice in Yorkshire. One hundred and six, being adults, were condemned to death; because as the document set forth, they were idle persons, some of them the queen’s natural-born subjects and descendants of good parentage, who led idle lives wandering about the country in company with these Gypsies, using a speech that was not understood by the other inhabitants of the realm, and obeying laws that were not the laws of the realm.

During the execution of some of those found guilty, the children cried out so piteously, beseeching reprieves for their parents, that the right honorable lords who had condemned them obtained her Grace’s pardon for the offenders, on condition that the company mend it ways and agree to settle down somewhere at the honest pursuit of some trade or occupation; the non-Gypysies who had traveled in their company were to go back to their families. It was also stipulated that the Gypsies should be returned to the last place of habitation where they had dwelled within three years. Then the whole company was charged to one William Portyyngton, who was commissioned to conduct each one to his last place of habitation.

Pg.92 It was in this year -1782- that the charge of cannibalism was brought against the Tziganes. There were no proofs. The charges were brought against them to still their happy laughter. The emperor and his court hated all signs of happiness. They the accusation was only against one tribe, the echo spread over the whole living race of the world. The charge was never proved. The Tziganes who had confessed their guilt recanted, explaining that their confessions had been wrung under duress in the torture chambers. Yet only their confessions were believed. Their recanting found deaf ears. People always believe what they want to believe. Proof . . . bah! There are no proofs. Willing ears, that is important.

The Big Lie of a Stolen 2020 Election

Only deaf people could be really just. The eyes of men have never been trained well enough to check our hearing. The ears are the fake news-gatherers of humanity.

The trial of the Gypsies lasted two months, There were thousands of witnesses. No one dared to witness in favor of the accused. To defend any of the accused was equivalent to suicide. All witnesses not bringing additional proof of guilt against the Tziganes were suspected of being themselves guilty of cannibalism.

The vehemency with which one accused the victims and denounced cannibalism was the measure of his own innocence. Thousands of Gypsies were denounced by whosoever considered their existence an obstacle to his own plans and desires – or just for sport. Two hundred and twenty Gypsies were found guilty of cannibalism and condemned to swing on gibbets. Public opinion, like Moloch at Carthage, demanded victims. The dust of the road to civilization had to be sprinkled with blood.

The whole Gypsy race had been judged and found guilty. Gypsies fled from settled farms and village shops to hide in mountains. (Chapter 5 Gypsies in Hungary)

 

Pg279-80 Many  Gypsies of Asia believe they are Egyptians, while the prophet (a prophet 30 years ago who gathered 30,000 Gypsies in the Arabian desert under one flag to lead them back to their own country and out of slavery.) and those about him were convinced that they came from somewhere in Turkestan, somewhere between the mountains, where the homes their ancestors had left were still vacant and awaiting them –“not tents, but houses dug out in the mountains, and guarded against intruders by tigers and leopards.” Such a thing sounds almost impossible to civilized ears, but one must remember that only a few years ago a band of little, parched, dark-skinned people appeared in Palestine, led by a prophet, who proved to the world they were Yemenites, who had taken refuge in the desert at the fall of Jerusalem, and lived there two-thousand years, unknown to anybody, until he had shown them the way.

For more see Palestine Partition 1948 / Israel established.

Problem with the prophet and his gathering of 30,000 in the Arabian desert was they all couldn’t agree on where ther homeland was.

Grace - Book Review

 

Grace

by Natashia Deon

Poetic, stunning storytelling, complex in its plotting yet rewarding to readers who catch the bug and simply cant put the book down. 

 

Hearing the author online speak at a book reading gave me so much insight and respect for her as a seer, storyteller, and I assume healer. Natashia Deon is so much more than the many titles and awards she has earned. She is a time-traveling soul, and she knows and accepts the responsibilities that come with being just that.

 

The confusion in who is who, who is talking and what happened to who, begins with the first running away from a killing.

The following includes in-depth spoilers with observations during and after reading the book "Grace."

 

Not until almost the end, pg.357, when Soledad Shepard kills her husband and afterward hollers out 'That slave girl killed him.' did i realize the story had circled back on itself. In other words, Naomi would be forced to run a second time, this time while pregnant with Josey. And this time she would die. I think. 

 

This is what trips readers up. The introduction where Naomi is killed, and her baby taken by bobby lee. This occurs after the killing of Mr. Shepard by his Mexican wife Soledad, not after the killing of Massa and boss.

 

As a reader you are caught up wondering throughout the book how is Naomi alive, if she died already and is a spirit. You then get confused, thinking the spirit is possibly Naomi's mother Leah, who was killed by Massa the night Naomi must run away.

 

Recall, the bounty hunters were still looking for a tall black man seen running in the rain after Massa and boss were killed. It was Naomi who was seen actually running with Massa's coat held over her head to protect her from the rain, not a tall black man.

 

The introduction does not have a timestamp, so it is assumed Naomi is running from the first killing of Massa and boss, Faunsdale, Alabama 1846. In actuality, the introduction featuring Naomi's death by bobby lee and his two cousins ray and henry, happens after Mr. Shepard is killed by his wife Soledad in Conyers, Georgia 1848, two years after the killing of Massa and boss.

 

 

So, the first killing of Massa Hilden and boss his buck slave, actually did not result in the hunting down death of Naomi. And when Naomi dies after the second killing of Mr. Shepard, she becomes a spirit watching over her daughter Josephine aka Josey.

 

So, was it the author's intent to scramble up the plot, making readers engage more and revisit what they thought they knew time and time again? Possibly. It made for a mental exercise in the space time continuum. I can see how many reviewers felt they were lost and losing their minds trying to keep on track with the story. It took patient and persistent diligence in overcoming the confusion. I finally made myself stop trying to figure out what was what and just read along. That decision made my reading more enjoyable and much more exciting. To let an author share with you their unique brew, you must first empty out your cup of expectations. (a paraphrase on Bruce Lee’s saying about emptying out your bowl of tea so that he can give some of his tea to you)

 

I must say, never, very seldom, have I almost written off or given up on a book, only to keep reading and find myself so glad I stayed with it. A very rewarding read.

 

Reading Grace requires a mental rhythm not unlike that required in playing a musical instrument. The notes/chords and timing make the brain alternate and fluctuate back and forth, causing a wave. It takes some reading agility and flexibility to ride that wave and not tumble down into the depths of the dark sea that is a deep yet mystical story about women surviving men.

 

I can only imagine the wave a woman must learn to master to survive such a manly sea our society floats on.

 

After finishing the book Grace last night, I took time to take in all that I had read. I chose to sleep on it before writing a review of my thoughts. Not long after coming home from taking a nighttime walk, two things came to me about the book.

1.   The novel’s unique “Composition” challenged me to stay focused and engaged with its characters.

2.   The strength of black women and their commitment to protecting family, even beyond death, against all odds, is clearly the theme. Sacrifice today for the blessings of tomorrow.

 

Once I knew for sure who was the ghost and what incidents happened in which place and time, I recognized everything the author did and why she presented the two stories alternatingly.

The story is told by a young slave daughter who went on the run after killing the white Massa who had violently shot and killed her momma. (Massa had also killed her sister’s fiancée)

Two years later, in a different place, pregnant and on the run again, the daughter births her daughter (minutes before her own death) before being hunted down and killed for a murder she did not commit.

It is what happens in between these two deathly scenes that gives this novel so much depth and suspenseful atmosphere. Survival.

The in-between teeters between what was, what is, and what is yet to be. It bridges peoples, places, and incidents, holding all things in the balance of time and fate. The alternating of place and time, with a ghost who sees both, is to show that our time and place in this life is just an illusion compared to the bigger spiritual picture. Anger, hatred, and fear in this world might keep us from getting to the real promised land. The ghost can move on only after knowing she is loved and can feel il the love overcome the pain and suffering she has lived and died with.

 

The strength and love of black women in this novel, and how that it is infused and passed on to daughters, and then their daughters, is the message. The cycle of birth, death, birth, death is the story of life. What happens in between the alternating states is the story of black women. Love and survival.

Imagine, to feel the strength and love of enslaved ancestors in yourself as a black woman today. And to see it passed on from you to your daughter, knowing that it is the same love and strength that passed from mother to daughter all the way back past slavery, to ancient times. That is the story of human life and survival. To be born, to live, to love, to die.

Grace is a good a book as any I’ve had the pleasure of reading in 2020 so far. What made it so special is I learned another method of reading and writing that can bring out the best in a story and its reader’s thoughts. What better for an author than to have his/her audience so engaged in a story they will give up analyzing along the way and just sit back to enjoy wherever the author wishes to take them. And, to discover in the end it was a better journey than you as a reader could have ever imagined.

Cyclical Composition. In other words, it began at a point, traveled around to other unforeseeable points, and returned to its starting point wiser, stronger, and lovelier than before its journey began. Birth, Life, Death.

 

So, the question it raises to readers is this: What did you do while in-between?

The Nun's Story - Book Review

 

The Nun’s Story (1956)

By Kathryn Hulme

 

I had seen this book several times at library sale and finally this time I chose it, or as I like to say, it chose me.

It is the story of a nun who is gifted with intelligence and natural abilities but struggles with the uninvited attention and recognition those abilities attract from others inside the nunnery.

The nunnery is a place of singularization, meaning those who are indoctrinated into the order must give up any and everything attaching them to the outside world, including name and family. A nun’s only aim, and desire is to please God.

“You have only one aim, one constant dedication, one unique desire in the religious life,” she said. “It is to please God. Nothing else matters, absolutely nothing else.” Pg.92

And so, in trying to shed the old Gabrielle Van der Mal to become Sister Luke, registered as #1072, she makes a valiant effort to please God.

Had she not already been trained in medical sciences by her doctor father she might have found the transition to becoming a nun easier. Her medical training had taught her to analyze, question and seek answers/solutions to questions before her.  Whereas she was looking to help humanity, the nunnery was more focused on pleasing God through prayer, ritual, sacrifice, and obedience to nunnery Rule.

So, the novel is a story of conflicting ideas manifested in the thoughts and actions of one intelligent yet innocent nun.

I am more than half-way through the book; on page 192 of 339. I am most definitely reminded of my own shortcomings in humility and humbleness. I feel as if I’m learning lesson’s about how to be a better person and serve God unconditionally, while at the same time meeting a soul who has walked the walk.

What must have made this book so appealing to the reading public back in 1956 was the graceful way in which the author opens the barred doors to the nunnery, giving a grand tour of the mysteries surrounding this sacred order of female sisterhood.

What started out as a novel full of rules and restrictions has turned into a story of what it means for a woman to dedicate her life to a religious sisterhood for pleasing God. A Nun’s dedication to the nunnery is as much an emotional and psychological sacrifice as it is a physical one. And I suppose it is believed all the sacrifices will lead to a spiritual awakening to God’s order.

“When God orders, He gives.”

This is one of the many great quotes I’ve come across in the book.

I may end up taking as many notes and copying as many lines from this book as I had from the novel “Balzac” by Stefan Zweig. In both novels (biographical) the main characters are gifted persons limited by their environment and circumstances. Yes, Balzac had many faults which led to many failures, whereas Sister Luke’s faults seem to be the shortcomings of her religious order. But both struggled to harness in and downplay their gifted skills.

Example: when she is asked to fail a test to placate the feelings, emotions, and placement of a lesser knowledgeable sister, it feels like the order is condoning lying in order to achieve humility and humbleness.

 

Had the order recognized Sister Luke’s superior training in the medical field as a Gift from God, they might have used her advanced skills in ways to please God, instead of taking steps to dumb-down her skills so that no attention be given her as an individual. (Singularization blinded the order to God’s many Gifts)

I will give credit to the intelligence and warmth of Superior Mothers Emmanuel and Mathilde. It seems they were wise enough to see through the jealousies and phlegmatic (cool, calm, unemotional) ways of others in the order.

“We need combative souls, Sister Luke, not simply phlegmatic ones who accept everything without question. You are one of us who have a taste for struggle. God would not have put you through such tests were this not so. You must count on his graces. Never forget that He tests His real friends more severely than the lukewarm ones. Pg. 132

There are so many lessons this book imparts if only readers take the time to digest them fully.

I believe the film may hint at a romantic relationship between Sister Luke and the Doctor. So far, I haven’t really noticed it in the book. Sure, the Doctor admires her medical skills and ways of administrative organization in the hospital, but any other admiration appears only as a friend concerned for her well-being.

As of now, I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. It’s not a book I find myself jumping back to with excitement after perfusing other books, but it does have an inviting pull on me the further in I get. Although it’s about nuns and the nunnery, It is not a boring read at all. As Gabrielle’s father said, “It is a life against nature.”

So, is it the story, the writing, or just my curiosity which makes this book so enjoyable to read.  I would have to say the writing and how the author engages the reader. As I stated earlier in this review, author Kathryn Hulme “opens the barred doors to the nunnery and gives a grand tour of the mysteries surrounding this sacred order of female sisterhood.”

I am one of those readers who loves to be taken on a tour of the unknown. There is so much satisfaction along the way when you realize you are being led by a master author who shows things, allowing you to fill in your own answers to earlier mysteries. She shows instead of tells. Writing 101…

Over time the reader’s mind realizes what is and what is not meant by the many thoughts and actions taking place in the story. It is then that one sees the motive behind an author’s assault on its victim’s reading senses.

Yes, I have grown more, yet again, while reading a novel written by a master author.

June 16, 2023 - 9:07am

I just finished this book and feel as if an understanding, solitary friend has stepped out through my front door, leaving me in peace and serenity.

I suppose watching the life of a nun is like watching someone perform tai chi or meditation; peaceful, calm, balanced.

I felt so familiar with this novel. I wrote down many passages from it. I can’t believe actress Katharine Hepburn could ever fill the shoes of Sister Luke while portraying her in film. 

Author Kathryn Hulme got it right when she kept much of what Sister Luke thought very private and silent to her outside world. What I learned is how powerful and uplifting the silence and solitude of a nun’s life can be. Again, like that of a meditator who sees the world through a centered lens.

Discipline is what prepares one to withstand the storms of life. Discipline and drawing closer to one’s God Almighty. Sister Luke had a calling for helping others in need. She had the smarts and skills to help medically. And she had the courage to go where others had never gone. People recognized her strength and genuine love for helping others and admired who she was beyond being a nurse.

The doctor recognized her gift of “giving her all.” He told her, in so many ways, she didn’t belong in a nunnery but in the world, helping to care for and heal it. I believe she knew this to be true, and it was then that she began drawing closer to thoughts of leaving the nunnery.

Overall, I liked this book. It had a muted excitement about it. I don’t think it’s for everybody, especially us men, because it is written mostly from one female character’s thoughts. There are times as a man I felt Sister Luke should be more aggressive and direct in what she would and would not think, say, or avoid saying or doing. 

But then you understand she’s in a place with rules and rituals you’re expected to follow, or there’s punishment/penance. The nunnery brings to mind life in a prison where inmates must adhere to many rules. Silence can be a blessing and a curse.

I suppose it seems Sister Luke, like anyone new to any environment, was curious about many of the nunnery practices. What set her apart is she questioned them. Whether she did openly or in thought, she questioned them, and in turn questioned God’s method of charity through them.

There was one quote early in the book hinting to me the sole purpose of the nunnery and that was, “to please God.” How they chose to do it was where Sister Luke questioned and had difficulty accepting.

The book took a turn once she left the Congo. It went from a missionary story to a WWII story, both taking place in hospitals. But the new environment included war, and that gave this sequel a different aspect. It also gave Sister Luke a different view of a world in need of care and healing. She was confronted with healing her own hatred for the enemy.

Had Sister Luke stayed in the Congo, she might’ve stayed in the nunnery longer, but I believe eventually her nursing skills would have pulled her toward civilian life. Nurse over Nun.

The writing is A+, the story is A, and the overall synchronicity of story, writing and message is perhaps A-. There were times it could have sunk into B territory, but because it didn’t go Hollywood on me the book saved itself.

So, I give it four plus stars. Alright, 5 stars, because it gave me peace while dealing with my friend Deanguelo’s life coming to a close. Like the book “Vein of Iron,” when my brother Will was closing out his life. Writers either knowingly or unknowingly provide us a deeper understanding of the challenges we find ourselves going through in life as we partake in their storytelling.

I forgot to say the book does have some dated sentences and words, as well as relevant persons of the era who are no longer mentioned in modern times. Some good history lessons in this book.

 

Vidkun Quisley - Norway's Benedict Arnold (traitor)

Simba – Lion in Swahili

Meaning a person who can procure something – Procoteur

Meaning a clergy is leaving the church – laicization

Meaning cool, calm, unemotional – phlegmatic

The White Tiger - Book Review

 

The White Tiger

by Avarind Adiga

 

I immediately started on another book of which I’d seen the movie and liked, The White Tiger. This book is a wonderful read. Although I know the story from the movie, the book gives so much more feel for the main character and his lowly class culture he emerged from. The book gives readers the bigger picture of the main character’s dilemma, and I’m sure it makes the shocking murder of blank just a little bit more palatable.

I’m about halfway through The White Tiger and every time I return to its pages the dialogue welcomes me back without resentment, like a longtime friend. I expect the book to be as fulfilling as the one before it.

 

---------------

Finished reading The White Tiger. It was so much more than a servant/master, poor man/rich man culture clash. Off the top I give it a six-star billing (five being the most).

I caught myself becoming Balram the servant, seeing the wealthy life from a poor-poor man’s view. I learned as he learned what it meant to be at the bottom of Indian society and what it would take to climb out.

Of all that Balram had to endure as a servant, I would think living with the thought of being responsible for the assassination of possibly his entire family (grandparents, mother, siblings, cousins, babies) would turn him into a madman or a monster. Who but a mad/monster can live with something as haunting as that on their conscience.

Is it poverty that drives a man to madness or is it seeing the corruption of powerful and wealthy citizens you once thought honorable who disturbed your peace and influenced your murderous thoughts.

So, what was it I liked about Balram and the story itself? I like how he took the reader on a journey of his life. He showed exactly who he was and where he came from, showed the cause and effects of his transformation, and summarized exactly how he viewed the newly made Balram; he was The White Tiger. One who comes along, every once in a while, and seizes the opportunity to lift himself out of the jungle of poverty by any means necessary.

The story is not one for the faint of heart. It shows the ugly underbelly of how things are done in countries like India. Money is the language of power and success. Having money and knowing whose political palm to grease to continue making more money.

I also like how the story showed no difference in one political party in power versus the other. Whoever is in power will require their palm greased by those with money seeking favor. As for the poor and the working man, the politician keeps making promises until elected or re-elected into office. Then nothing changes accept possibly the politician whose palm needs greasing.

Far from this book being depressing or sad, it is an eye-opener to those who think poverty in India a social problem. It is a political problem. And it is acceptable to those in poverty and those in power. It's just how things work in a country like India.

I suppose the powerful know the age-old adage “there is no wealthy class without a poor class.”

And its why the wealthy fear Socialism so much. Who but a wealthy man would see his brother dying in the gutter of a slum so that he can live in comfort. Capitalism!

 

The White Tiger is an engaging, educational read. To have a narrator like Balram lead you through his growing pains from servant to master is stimulating. Not only is it engaging to hear how he accomplishes it, its disturbingly mesmerizing to hear him tell it. Murder!

 

I’m sure that many who have read this book couldn’t get into the narration and thoughts of a lowly servant. They probably had a tough time seeing the forest from the trees. I recommend when reading The White Tiger, one envisions what it is to live in total poverty. Then, when reading about the murderous actions Balram has planned, think of what it is to escape such a lowly and filthy place as poverty. There is where the rubber meets the road, and one chooses how he wishes to live life. In India, there is but one choice for a White Tiger. He must feed, as the jungle requires, in order to survive and thrive.

 

The Jungle Creed

Is that the Strongest Feed

On any Prey it can

And I was Branded Beast

At every Feast

Before I ever became a Man

- Deep Cover, Lawrence Fishburn

-  Iceberg Slim Interviews

-  Whoreson by Donald Goins (an iceberg slim story)

Grave Mercy Book Review

 

The writing and inner voice of main character Ismae are what kept me engaged. Ismae, is a living, breathing embodiment of the author’s creative imagination. She was meant to die in the womb, and yet she defied death and lived to become an allied instrument of death. She is young, naïve, insecure, and inexperienced, but somehow manages to survive abusive conditions due to the fate of an unwelcome birth. Ismae is a survivor adapting to changes in her journey as well as herself, and there lies the story's strength.

 

The love story was a bit corny for me. It took up more pages than I would have liked. Or at least her inner thoughts on loving Duval did. But again, that inner voice of hers (Ismae) was written with such pulsating curiosity and hope that I didn’t mind the amorous imaginings of a young woman. 

There could have been more physical confrontations, being that Ismae was trained in combat. I would have liked to have seen more decisiveness and aggressive action from Ismae. However, it is clear her loyalty to the convent limited her actions. The physical battles were too few and far in-between. I suppose it was really a female’s story with men and war as props. At some point it seemed poison, a female's weapon, would be the primary choice of weaponry to dispatch an enemy. 

All in All, I can say I enjoyed coming back to “Grave Mercy” again and again, picking up easily from wherever I had left off. 

I began this book while finishing another, “The Faithful Scribe.” Although the book I was reading was good, full of interesting historical facts about Pakistan, its memoir/non-fiction style did not excite and mesmerize like the gothic, fantasy, feminist, assassin novel that is “Grave Mercy.”

 

Robin LaFevers novel might be categorized as Young Adult, but very often showed itself to be written for older readers. I would recommend it to young readers for its balance and storytelling expertise. I believe a well composed novel helps with mental development and critical thinking patterns of its readers.

 

I personally liked the white witchcraft and politic intrigues surrounding the power struggle for Brittany in the novel. I wasn’t completely sold on Duval as the “knight in shing armor” type. But for whatever reason women in the story did find him manly handsome. His mother Madame Hivern, although well written into the story, along with his bastard brother Francois, could have and should have played more an evil role. As a reader I was attracted to her deceptive beauty, cold evilness and manipulative manner. Ismae could learn much from such a worldly woman, experienced in the ways of seducing men of power.

 

I give the book Grave Mercy an overall review rating of 3.5 of 5 stars. Its faults and shortcomings did not take away from an enjoyably light medieval story. It was a fun mystery-fantasy to follow.

The religious aspect of the story may also have been what attracted me to its pages. That and the brutalness of the times, especially upon women (witch-burning, inquisition).

 

Here are the first lines of chapter one which had me immediately wanting more:

I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch’s poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her wound. That I survived, according to the herbwitch, is no miracle but a sign I have been sired by the god of death himself.

Pg. 545 Ismae confronts Rev Mother (the Abbess) “I wish to serve in honor of his mercy rather than his wrath.” – It is in this line that Ismae courageously chooses her inward goodness over the outward political maneuverings of church and state.

Book based on actual historical events and characters.

Some creative character names throughout the book.

At The Convent

Ismae Rienne

Gullo the pig farmer

Sister Annith

Sybella

Sister Widona

Sister Eonette

Sister Vereda

Runnion, traitor to Brittany and Ismae’s first kill

The Privy Council

Viscount Maurice Crunard, chancellor of Brittany

Captain Dunois, captain of the Breton army

The Breton Court and Nobility

Gavriel Duval, a Breton noble

Benebic De Waroch, the Beast of Waroch and knight of the realm

Raoul De Lornay, a knight of the realm

Madame Antoinette Hivern, mistress of the late Duke Francis II

Francois Avaugour, a knight of the realm

Anne De Beaujeu, regent of France

Norbort Gisors, ambassador for the French regent

Federic, Duke of Nemours, one of Anne's suitors

 

Grave Mercy

By Robin LaFevers

Graphia Publishing (2012)

549 pages