Tag Archives: Fiction

The art of suspended disbelief.

SHEER ENTERTAINMENT

Posted on by
Reply
Pin It

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.com

InfernoInferno: A Novel

By Dan Brown 

Narrated by Paul Michael

DAN BROWN

DAN BROWN

Noah Charney wrote an article in “The Daily Beast” titled “Fact-Checking Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’: 10 Mistakes, False Statements, and Oversimplifications”.  The truth is there are more than 10.  But Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and now Inferno are terrifically entertaining fictions.  Charney’s petty criticism misses the point of reading a novel for sheer entertainment.  If one reads Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Christo or The Three Musketeers), the same criticism is applicable, but great tales are told by both Dumas and Brown.

Dumas’s misogyny in The Three Musketeers is off-putting and Brown’s maudlin farewell to Dr. Sienna Brooks in Inferno is superfluous and a bit cloying.  But misrepresented historical facts, and personal nit-picking can be waged against most non-fiction; let alone Brown’s or Dumas’s fiction.

Inferno resurrects interest in the finest and most terrifying poem of all time, Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy”.  The primary focus is Dante’s meaning in the “Inferno” stanzas.  “Inferno” is the sinner’s part of the “Divine Comedy”–the funneled circles of hell.  Dante meets Virgil to descend a spiral of nine narrowing circles beginning at purgatory’s gate and ending in the maws of hell. Dante returns to earth’s surface and eventually explores heaven but Brown begins and ends the Inferno in the museums of Italy.  The lowest level of Dante’s “Inferno” depicts a three mouthed Satan chewing Judas, Brutus, and Cassius as eternal punishment for the sin of betrayal.

Reference to Dante’s poem in the title of Brown’s book gives notice to a discerning listener/reader.   It has something to do with sin.  It has something to do with betrayal.  It has something to do with people who appear to be one thing but are another.  Judas loved Jesus but betrayed him.  Brutus was a friend to Caesar but stabbed him.  Cassius surrendered to Caesar in Italy’s civil war but plotted against him when promoted to general.

In an apocryphal tale of Dante’s “Inferno”, Brown manages to meld the 18th century Malthusian theory of overpopulation with 21st century genetic manipulation.  From Brown’s first chapter, listeners and readers are swept up in a shooting, a murder, and a frantic escape.  Brown’s hero iconographer, Robert Langdon, is saved by a female doctor that turns out to be much more than the doctor-on-duty.

A whirlwind of action takes Langdon and Dr. Sienna Brooks on an adventure through Italy and Turkey in pursuit of a brilliant geneticist’ experiment. The geneticist is also a scholar of the history of Dante Alighieri.  The geneticist’s plan is to save mankind from extinction caused by over population.

This deranged geneticist has a secret organization protecting him from the World Health Organization which is trying to stop him from affecting his plan.  The secret organization is trying to kill or capture Langdon because he had been hired by W.H.O. to decipher a symbolic message from the deranged scientist.

There are many twists and turns in Brown’s story that will draw its audience into the tale.  The cleverness of Brown’s writing is enhanced by some knowledge of Dante’s poem but the story rests on its own merit.  Inferno, like The Three Musketeers, is a highly entertaining story.

CIVILIZATIONS COLLIDE

Posted on by
Reply
Pin It

Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.com 

Things Fall ApartThings Fall Apart

By Chinua Achebe 

Narrated by Peter Francis James

CHINUA ACHEBE (1930-2013)

CHINUA ACHEBE (1930-2013)

Chinua Achebe explains what happens when civilizations collide in “Things Fall Apart”.  Achebe lived a life that proves the truth of his novel.  He was born in Nigeria but educated in English at the University of Ibadan, the oldest university in Nigeria (founded in 1948).  Achebe, born in 1930, wrote “Things Fall Apart” in the 1950s (published in 1958).  It sold more than 12 million copies and was translated into more than 50 languages.  It is a story of the changing face of Nigeria.  (Sadly, Achebe died this year on March 21, 2013.)

YOUTUBE AN EVENING WITH CHINUA ACHEBE: http://youtu.be/M5OAjnG6rKo

Without knowing Achebe’s background, a first reading of “Things Fall Apart” begins in confusion but as the story progresses its meaning and value become clear.  Two thirds of the book explains life in an African village that is untouched by a white man’s world or any civilization outside of its clan and its related communities. The listener is being offered an understanding of an African village’s culture.

This clan’s insular existence creates an independent patriarchal culture that believes in many gods, supernatural forces, and rigid rules for the conduct of life.  Being a man means following rules of the culture and any transgression is considered womanly, a cultural euphemism for cowardice.  Women are respected but only within the context of their duty as the source of tribal growth.  Women have restricted roles in this society as maternal caregivers.  In all other respects, women become property of men that may be beaten and treated with near impunity.  Boys are raised to be tough, outwardly unemotional, and obedient.  They are expected to revere and emulate their fathers.  Wrestling prowess is a measure of male respect in the tribe.  Farming productivity and honor of tribal tradition are measures of masculine value to the tribe.

War within the clan is rare because negotiated peace and clan interdependence make war too wasteful.  Negotiated peace may mean the sacrifice of children to nearby tribes for transgressions of communal laws but overt war between tribes of the same clan is rare.  Violation of communal laws can be mortal offenses.  A story is told of a father murdering his adopted son because he is told it is necessary to please the clan’s gods.  Though this murder troubled the adoptive father, he accepts the clan’s admonition and rationalizes his grief by knowing he has other sons.

The most serious consequence to a violator of clan’ law is banishment from the community.  Banishment can be either permanent or for a number of years, depending upon the gravity of the violation.  Murder out of anger means permanent banishment.  Murder by accident means 7 years banishment.

A woman having twins is ordered to kill them at birth because twins are unnatural and a curse of the gods.  One woman has twins three times; all are murdered.

As these local customs become known to the listener, an intruding civilization is introduced to the story.  The intruders are Christian missionaries.  The first outsider is a white man riding an iron horse.  This is the first white man who native villagers have ever seen.  The engendered fear causes natives of one of the tribes to murder the white man and tie his iron horse to a tree.  The murder is revenged by returning outsiders that destroy the population of the village.  Neighboring villages of the clan hear of the massacre and choose to respond to the next intruder more circumspectly.

New intruders come with plans to build a church on tribal property.  They ask for permission and tribal leaders meet to discuss the request.  The decision of the tribal leaders is to offer land in the worst part of the village; i.e. land that is used to bury evil Shamans, tribal criminals, and diseased bodies.  The tribal leaders believe the Christians will die from their location in this forbidden human and mystical dumping ground.

The irony of the tribal leaders’ decision is that it strengthens the Christian movement.  The Christians do not die and the church begins to attract tribal followers that begin to believe Christian’s beliefs are stronger than Shaman’ beliefs.  The woman who had been told to kill her twins joins the church.

Over many generations, some tribal members have become outcasts from the tribe.  Their outcast position draws them to the Christian movement because they wish to become part of a community again.  Some women turn to Christianity because it offers a refuge from the violence of their husbands.  Some sons turn to Christianity because it offers escape from the iron rule of their fathers and the tribes’ cultural laws.

From the perspective of the clan’s leaders, “Things Fall Apart”.  Achebe gives the world a first-hand account of how a tribal culture is destroyed.  One proud culture is replaced by another proud culture; first with small steps, and then with generational leaps.  The good and bad of one culture are replaced by the good and bad of another.

After listening to Achebe’s book, one guardedly chooses to believe that cultural evolution is moving toward a better life for Africans.  The following YOUTUBE story about violence in Nigeria suggests civilizations continue to collide and one wonders if African life is getting better:  YOUTUBE-ANOTHER LYNCHING IN WARRI: http://youtu.be/VQUga48SDiY

REINCARNATION

Posted on by
Reply
Pin It

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.com

Life and Death are Wearing Me OutLife and Death are Wearing Me Out

By Mo Yan (Translated by Howard Goldblatt) 

Narrated by Feodor Chin

MO YAN

MO YAN

Cultural understanding is missing from Howard Goldblatt’s translation of Mo Yan’s “Life and Death are Wearing Me Out”.  Mo Yan binds reincarnation to China’s twentieth century history. The choice of reincarnation adds humor but suggests something more than laughs.  The story begins with a murdered man who comes back as a donkey, then as an ox, a pig, a dog, and finally as another man—funny, but is there rhyme or reason in the order?

China becomes communist in the 1940s under the leadership of Mao Zedong.  Communism seeks re-distribution of private land into cooperatives to benefit the many at the expense of the few.  Mo Yan’s story begins with China’s communist revolution and the unjust murder and confiscation of a landowner’s farm.

The murdered landowner is Ximen Nao.  After death, Ximen Nao falls into an imagined purgatory to be, presumably, cleansed of his sins.  Despite severe torture, Ximen Nao refuses purgatory’s judgment of sin.  In consequence, or happenstance, he is reincarnated as a donkey.  The twist in his reincarnation is that he remembers his former life.  Returning to life as a donkey, he meets former employees, a wife, two mistresses, and his children.

Ximen Nao, as a donkey, returns to his homeland and finds that his former employee has married one of his mistresses and is farming 6 acres of his confiscated land.  Ximen Nao, as a reincarnated donkey, gains a grudging respect for his former employee.  The employee steadfastly resists public ownership (becoming part of a communist co-op) and insists on being an independent farmer.  (Communist China’s law allows a farmer to be independent if they choose to work the land themselves.)

The former employee and his wife become emotionally attached to the donkey because they believe it is a reincarnation of an important person in their lives.  (Later, Ximen Nao’s wife consciously acknowledges that the donkey is a reincarnation of her husband.) The independent farmer and his wife cherish the donkey’s existence and its aid in farming the land.  Several incidents involving the donkey, and future animal incarnations, reflect on life in China during Mao Zedong’s reign.

Mo Yan straddles acceptance and rejection of communism and China’s current form of capitalism.  His story skewers both political systems.  In Mo Yan’s story, communism and its belief in public ownership are defeated by human nature’s drive for freedom and independence.  The independent farmer lives through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and witnesses the return of a capitalist form of property ownership.  Mo Yan denigrates communism’s intrusion in family affairs and how it turns a son against father, brother against brother, and compels women to choose between family and a communist’ collective way of life.

Capitalism and unfettered freedom are also ridiculed. Mo Yan characterizes capitalism in a story about the lives of spoiled youth.  Youth that live off their family’s wealth; living for adventure; denigrating love, productive work, and respect for tradition and family.  Mo Yan shows how singular pursuit of wealth corrupts morality; how leisure becomes more important than caring for others or working for human improvement.

Is there some significance in the order of Ximen Nao’s reincarnations?  Ximen Nao is first reincarnated as a donkey, then as an ox, then as a pig, then as a dog, and finally as another man.  It is a clever way of observing history through the prism of different animal’s lives.  It also makes one wonder about humankind’s ethnocentricity and failure to respect all living things.

Finding the right balance in life is an overriding theme in Mo Yan’s story.  As the inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi suggests, “Nothing in excess”; Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and many others have suggested moderation in all things. Mo Yan suggests that both Chinese communism and capitalism fail to offer the right balance in life.