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223. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Dennis Prager

Author:  Dambisa Moyo

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Economics, Public Policy, Politics, Foreign

208 pages, published March 17, 2009

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In the past fifty years, the rich countries of the world have spent more than $1 trillion in development-related aid in Africa.  Shockingly, all of this money has not improved the lives of Africans.  Instead, things of gotten worse.  In Dead Aid, economist Dambisa Moyo seeks to explain how this happened and what can be done to improve the lives of ordinary Africans.  Moyo draws a sharp contrast between African countries that have rejected foreign aid and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase.  She explains how overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the need for more aid.

 

Quotes 

“In a perfect world, what poor countries at the lowest rungs of economic development need is not a multi-party democracy, but in fact a decisive benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving (unfortunately, too often countries end up with more dictator and less benevolence).”

 

“In 2004, the British envoy to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, complained about rampant corruption in the country, commenting that Kenya’s corrupt ministers were ‘eating like gluttons’ and vomiting on the shoes of the foreign donors.”

 

“Africa is addicted to aid. For the past sixty years it has been fed aid. Like any addict it needs and depends on its regular fix, finding it hard, if not impossible, to contemplate existence in an aid-less world. In Africa, the West has found its perfect client to deal to.”

 

“What is clear is that democracy is not the prerequisite for economic growth that aid proponents maintain. On the contrary, it is economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy; and the one thing economic growth does not need is aid.”

 

“It is worth pointing out that there has been some notable success with a concept known as ‘conditional cash transfers’; these are cash payments (in a sense, bonuses) made to give the poor an incentive to perform tasks that could help them escape poverty (for example, good school attendance, working a certain number of hours, improving test scores, seeing a doctor). The idea of conditional cash transfers has met with much success in developing countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru (a similar programme is now being tested in the boroughs of New York City).”

 

My Take

While economist Dambisa Moyo posits an interesting idea that less foreign aid is the key to solving Africa’s poverty issues, her book Dead Aid reads a bit like a master’s thesis.  It was interesting at times, but also a bit boring at other times.  I particularly enjoyed her discussion of micro-lending as part of the solution for Africa.  I was also fascinated to read how much China is investing in Africa, something I was vaguely aware of, and how the future of the continent is likely to be Chinese.

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220. Sightseeing

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Rattawut Lapcharoensap

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories, Foreign, Travel

250 pages, published December 12, 2005

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Sightseeing is a collection of short stories by Thai-American writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap.  Lapcharoensap explores themes such as coming of age, family ties, young  romance, generational conflicts, standing up to bullies, and cultural changes in contemporary Thailand.

 

Quotes 

 

 

My Take

At the end of March, 2018, I am taking my 16 year old daughter to Bangkok and Phuket, Thailand for a two week trip.  In advance of our journey, I wanted to read some books that would reveal some of Thailand to me.  Sightseeing fills that bill with interesting stories about Thai natives and the kinds of lives they lead.  I was also pleasantly surprised at how good the stories were on their own merits.  Lapcharoensap knows how to hook a reader in, especially towards the end of the book.  If you are going to Thailand, or even if you aren’t, I can recommend the short stories in Sightseeing.

 

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216. State of Wonder

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Julie Horowitz

Author:  Ann Patchett

Genre:  Fiction, Foreign

353 pages, published June 7, 2011

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

 

Summary

State of Wonder chronicles the journey of Dr. Marina Singh into the insect-infested Amazon jungle in attempt to find out what happened to her longtime professional colleague Anders Eckman.  Anders, who was sent to Brazil by his pharmaceutical company employer to track down Dr. Annick Swenson, is presumed dead after contracting a mysterious illness.  Marina must find Dr. Swenson, who was her professor in medical school, and report on the status Dr. Swenson’s research on a drug that will allow women to maintain lifelong fertility.  Along the way, Marina will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice.

 

Quotes 

“Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”

 

“Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don’t know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it’s not. It’s a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.”

 

“Everyone knows everything eventually.”

 

“No one tells the truth to people they don’t actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.”

 

“In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.”

 

“There was no one clear point of loss. It happened over and over again in a thousand small ways and the only truth there was to learn was that there was no getting used to it.”

 

“It is said the siesta is one of the only gifts the Europeans brought to South America, but I imagine the Brazilians could have figured out how to sleep in the afternoon without having to endure centuries of murder and enslavement.”

 

“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. That is how one respects indigenous people. If you pay any attention at all you’ll realize that you could never convert them to your way of life anyway. They are an intractable race. Any progress you advance to them will be undone before your back is turned. You might as well come down here to unbend the river. The point, then, is to observe the life they themselves have put in place and learn from it.”

 

“Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one’s partner on both the left and the right.”

“Questions are for the benefit of every student, not just the one raising his hand. If you don’t have the starch to stand up in class and admit what you don’t understand, then I don’t have the time to explain it to you. If you don’t have a policy against nonsense you can wind up with a dozen timid little rabbits lined up in the hall outside your office, all waiting to whisper the same imbecilic question in your ear.”

 

My Take

This was my second time reading State of Wonder (by the wonderful novelist Ann Patchett), although this time I listened to the audio version.  With respect to this book, I must say that Gretchen Rubin’s axiom “the best reading is re-reading,” certainly is true.  The voice work by Hope Davis (an actress that I have always liked) brings State of Wonder to life in a way that I didn’t get with the book.  This time around, I particularly enjoyed the character of Dr. Annick Swenson, an extremely self-confident, domineering woman who charts her own path with little regard to the impact on others. She has most of the best lines of the book and it was a treat to once again visit the Amazon jungle in my second reading of State of Wonder.

 

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211. The Little Paris Bookshop

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Author:  Nina George

Genre:  Fiction, Romance, Foreign

392 pages, published June 23, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

In The Little Paris Bookshop, we hear the story of Monsieur Jean  Perdu who operates an unusual bookstore on floating barge on the Seine River in Paris.  Perdu, who calls himself a literary apothecary, has the uncanny knack of recommending precisely the right book for his varied clientele. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself.  After almost 20 years, he’s still haunted by heartbreak.  Manon, his one true love, left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.  When he finally does read it, he pulls up his anchor and begins an adventure of self-discovery and a quest to heal his broken heart.

Quotes 

“Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you’ve got those autumn blues. And some…well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful voice. Like a short, torrid love affair.”

 

“Reading—an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind.”

 

“Whenever Monsieur Perdu looked at a book, he did not see it purely in terms of a story, retail price and an essential balm for the soul; he saw freedom on wings of paper.”

 

“We are loved if we love, another truth we always seem to forget. …Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation.”

 

“We cannot decide to love. We cannot compel anyone to love us. There’s no secret recipe, only love itself. And we are at its mercy–there’s nothing we can do.”

 

“All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.”

 

“I like being alive, even if it’s occasionally a real struggle and fairly pointless in the grand scheme of things.”

 

“Kästner was one reason I called my book barge the Literary Apothecary,” said Perdu. “I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognized as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognize that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that.”

 

“Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do.”

 

“We are immortal in the dreams of our loved ones. And our dead live on after their deaths in our dreams.”

 

“You only really get to know your husband when he walks out on you.”

 

“Saudade”: a yearning for one’s childhood, when the days would merge into one another and the passing of time was of no consequence. It is the sense of being loved in a way that will never come again. It is a unique experience of abandon. It is everything that words cannot capture.”

 

“All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. And under our skin, under the layer of wrinkles and experience and laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves. Directly below the surface, we are our former selves: the former child, the former lover, the former daughter.”

 

“We turn peculiar when we don’t have anyone left to love.”

 

“Some fathers cannot love their children. They find them annoying. Or uninteresting. Or unsettling. They’re irritated by their children because they’ve turned out differently than they had expected. They’re irritated because the children were the wife’s wish to patch up the marriage when there was nothing left to patch up, her means of forcing a loving marriage where there was no love. And such fathers take it out on the children. Whatever they do, their fathers will be nasty and mean to them.” “Please stop.” “And the children, the delicate, little, yearning children,” Perdu continued more softly, because he was terribly moved by Max’s inner turmoil, “do everything they can to be loved. Everything. They think that it must somehow be their fault that their father cannot love them. But Max,” and here Perdu lifted Jordan’s chin, “it has nothing to do with them.”

 

“…having a child is like casting off your own childhood forever. It’s as if it’s only then that you really grasp what it means to be a man. You’re scared too that all your weaknesses will be laid bare, because fatherhood demands more than you can give…. I always felt I had to earn your love, because I loved you so, so much.”

 

“His father would presumably have signed up without hesitation to the three things that made you really “happy” according to Cuneo’s worldview. One: eat well. No junk food, because it only makes you unhappy, lazy and fat. Two: sleep through the night (thanks to more exercise, less alcohol and positive thoughts). Three: spend time with people who are friendly and seek to understand you in their own particular way. Four: have more sex—but that was Samy’s addition, and Perdu saw no real reason to tell his father that one.”

 

“Jeanno, women can love so much more intelligently then us men! They never love a man for his body, even if they can enjoy that too —- and how.” Joaquin sighed with pleasure. “But women love you for your character, your strength, your intelligence. Or because you can protect a child. Because you’re a good person, you’re honorable and dignified. They never love you as stupidly as men love women. Not because you’ve got especially beautiful calves or look so good in a suit that their business partners look on jealously when they introduce you. Such women do exist, but only as a cautionary example to others.”

 

My Take

While I enjoyed reading The Little Paris Bookshop (the name is a bit of a misnomer; it should have been titled the Literary Apothecary), it started to drag a bit at the end.  However, author Nina George has some great insights about reading, love and human nature which ultimately made it a worthwhile read.  I also enjoyed the adventure of traveling on a literary barge down the Seine outside of Paris.

 

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207. Men Without Women

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Author:   Haruki Murakami

Recommended by:   Lisa Goldberg

Genre:  Fiction, Short Stories, Foreign

240 pages, published May 9, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

Men Without Women is a collection of short stories from Japanese author Haruki Murakami.  All of the stories take place in Japan and, as the title instructs, all have a theme of men without women.

 

Quotes 

“Once you’ve become Men Without Women loneliness seeps deep down inside your body, like a red-wine stain on a pastel carpet.”

 

“Like dry ground welcoming the rain, he let solitude, silence, and loneliness soak in.”

 

“There were two types of drinkers:  those who drank to enhance their personalities, and those who sought to take something away.”

 

“Here’s what hurts the most,” Kafuku said. “I didn’t truly understand her–or at least some crucial part of her. And it may well end that way now that she’s dead and gone. Like a small, locked safe lying at the bottom of the ocean. It hurts a lot.”  Tatsuki thought for a moment before speaking.  “But Mr. Kafuku, can any of us ever perfectly understand another person? However much we may love them?”

 

“But he doubted the dead could think or feel anything. In his opinion, that was ones of the great things about dying.”

 

My Take

While I enjoyed a few of the stories in Men Without Women, overall the book did not do it for me.  It was a bit of a slog to finish it (never a good sign), especially as the quality level of the stories declined precipitously towards the end of the book.  More than once, I wondered what point the author was trying to make.  This will probably be my only experience with Haruki Murakami.

 

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111. Beautiful Ruins

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Julie Horowitz

Author:   Jess Walter

Genre:  Historical Fiction, Foreign

337 pages, published June 12, 2012

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

The story begins in 1962 when Pasquale, an Italian man in his early twenties who runs his family’s Inn with an Adequate View in Vergogna, meets Dee Moray on a rocky patch overlooking the Italian coastline.   Pasquale becomes enchanted with Moray, an American starlet, who has abandoned her small part in Cleopatra which is shooting in Italy, because she believes that she is dying.  The story, which goes back and forth in time, then weaves in many other interesting characters.  Michael Deane, an old time, has-been Hollywood Producer, described as a lacquered elf as the result of too much plastic surgery, who is connected to Moray and Pasquale and is desperate for a comeback hit.  Claire, Deane’s earnest assistant, who strives to make art and is consistently disillusioned with the drek that Hollywood pumps out.  Shane, who pitches and ill-fated movie idea based on the Donner party to Claire and Deane.  Pat, Moray’s illegitimate son who chases the dream of music stardom down a rabbit hole of self-loathing.  Alvis, an American veteran of World War II, whose time in Italy as a soldier fundamentally changed him and who cannot get past his writer’s block when he tries to convey what happened.  Even Richard Burton, who is in Italy to play Marc Antony, has a significant role.  All of these characters and more interact over fifty years to create a compelling, heartfelt, moving and often hilarious story about human longings and our connections to each other.

 

Quotes

“Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

 

“Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life–not so much with the woman, whom he didn’t even know, but with the moment.”

 

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

 

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is real; it’s all part of the story we tell. But here’s the thing: it’s our goddamned story!”

 

“He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.”

 

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.” “That’s only three.”  Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

 

“Stories are bulls. Writers come of age full of vigor, and they feel the need to drive the old stories from the herd. One bull rules the herd awhile but then he loses his vigor and the young bulls take over.  Stories are nations, empires. They can last as long as ancient Rome or as short as the Third Reich. Story-nations rise and decline. Governments change, trends rise, and they go on conquering their neighbors.  Stories are people. I’m a story, you’re a story . . . your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we’re lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we’re less alone.”

 

“This reminded him of Alvis Bender’s contention that stories were like nations – Italy, a great epic poem, Britain, a thick novel, America, a brash motion picture in technicolor…”

 

“Words and emotions are simple currencies. If we inflate them, they lose their value, just like money. They begin to mean nothing. Use ‘beautiful’ to describe a sandwich and the word means nothing. Since the war, there is no more room for inflated language. Words and feelings are small now – clear and precise. Humble like dreams.”

 

“Weren’t movies his generation’s faith anyway- its true religion? Wasn’t the theatre our temple, the one place we enter separately but emerge from two hours later together, with the same experience, same guided emotions, same moral? A million schools taught ten million curricula, a million churches featured ten thousand sects with a billion sermons- but the same movie showed in every mall in the country. And we all saw it. That summer, the one you’ll never forget, every movie house beamed the same set of thematic and narrative images…flickering pictures stitched in our minds that replaced our own memories, archetypal stories that become our shared history, that taught us what to expect from life, that defined our values. What was that but a religion?”

 

“To pitch here is to live. People pitch their kids into good schools, pitch offers on houses they can’t afford, and when they’re caught in the arms of the wrong person, pitch unlikely explanations. Hospitals pitch birthing centers, daycares pitch love, high schools pitch success . . . car dealerships pitch luxury, counselors self-esteem, masseuses happy endings, cemeteries eternal rest . . . It’s endless, the pitching—endless, exhilarating, soul-sucking, and as unrelenting as death. As ordinary as morning sprinklers.”

 

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”

 

“He was part of a ruined generation of young men coddled by their parents -by their mothers especially- raised on unearned self-esteem, in a bubble of overaffection, in a sad incubator of phony achievement.”

 

“He wished he could reassure his mother: a man wants many things in life, but when one of them is also the right thing, he would be a fool not to choose it.”

 

“At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?”

 

“He found himself inhabiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”

 

“And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking–how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe–Pasquale Tursi said, only, “Yes.”

 

“But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”

 

“But aren’t all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos– we know what’s out there. It’s what isn’t that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags– four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon– but true quests aren’t measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant– sail for Asia and stumble on America– and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.”

 

“Be confident and the world responds to your confidence, rewards your faith.”

 

“What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough?”

 

“This is a love story,” Michael Dean says, ”but really what isn’t? Doesn’t the detective love the mystery or the chase, or the nosey female reporter who is even now being held against her wishes at an empty warehouse on the waterfront? Surely, the serial murder loves his victims, and the spy loves his gadgets, or his country or the exotic counterspy. The ice-trucker is torn between his love for ice and truck and the competing chefs go crazy for scallops, and the pawnshop guys adore their junk. Just as the housewives live for catching glimpses of their own botoxed brows in gilded hall mirrors and the rocked out dude on ‘roids totally wants to shred the ass of the tramp-tatted girl on hookbook. Because this is reality, they are all in love, madly, truly, with the body-mic clipped to their back-buckle and the producer casually suggesting, “Just one more angle.”, “One more jello shot.” And the robot loves his master. Alien loves his saucer. Superman loves Lois. Lex and Lana. Luke loves Leia, til he finds out she’s his sister. And the exorcist loves the demon, even as he leaps out the window with it, in full soulful embrace. As Leo loves Kate, and they both love the sinking ship. And the shark, god the shark, loves to eat. Which is what the Mafioso loves too, eating and money and Pauly and Omertà. The way the cowboy loves his horse, loves the corseted girl behind the piano bar and sometimes loves the other cowboy. As the vampire loves night and neck. And the zombie, don’t even start with the zombie, sentimental fool, has anyone ever been more love-sick than a zombie, that pale dull metaphor for love, all animal craving and lurching, outstretched arms. His very existence a sonnet about how much he wants those brains. This, too is a love story.”

“And even if they don’t find what they’re looking for, isn’t it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?”

My Take

I had not heard much about Beautiful Ruins or author Jess Walter prior to reading this book.  However, after seeing it on several recommended books lists, I decided to give it a try.  I’m glad I did.  Walter creates a fascinating world that oscillates between a small coastal town in Italy during the early 1960’s and modern day Hollywood.  His characters are well articulated and keep inviting you to go deeper with them as they struggle with their dreams, realities, ambitions, disappointments, and longings.  While there is meaning here, there is also great humor, especially when Walter skewers Hollywood, both modern day and yesteryear.  I was sad to finish this book, but happy that I got to spend some time in the world of Beautiful Ruins.

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109. The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Lisa Stock

Author:   Jonas Jonasson

Genre:  Fiction, Humor, Foreign, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published September 11, 2012

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

As he prepares to celebrate his 100th birthday, Allan Karlsson does the unexpected.  Still in his slippers, he steps out of his nursing home window and into an incredible adventure.  He will find himself accidentally in possession of a small fortune, on the run from the mob and the police and on the way will make the acquaintance of a colorful cast of characters, including Sophia a former circus elephant.  We learn about Allan’s amazing life and his close encounters with the major players of the twentieth century, along with his key role in shaping our history, through a series of interspersed flashbacks.   

 

Quotes

“People could behave how they liked, but Allan considered that in general it was quite unnecessary to be grumpy if you had the chance not to.”

 

“When life has gone into overtime it’s easy to take liberties,”

 

“There are only two things I can do better than most people. One of them is to make vodka from goats’ milk, and the other is to put together an atom bomb.”

 

“Revenge is like politics, one thing always leads to another until bad has become worse, and worse has become worst.”

 

“Allan thought it sounded unnecessary for the people in the seventeenth century to kill each other. If they had only been a little patient they would all have died in the end anyway. Julius said that you could say the same of all epochs.”

 

“Allan admitted that the difference between madness and genius was subtle, and that he couldn’t with certainty say which it was in this case, but that he had his suspicions.”

 

“But God answered with silence. He did that sometimes, and Father Ferguson always interpreted it to mean that he should think for himself. Admittedly, it didn’t always work out well when the pastor thought for himself, but you couldn’t just give up.”

 

“Never try to out-drink a Swede, unless you happen to be a Finn or at least a Russian.”

 

“Allan Emmanuelle Karlsson closed his eyes and felt perfectly convinced that he would now pass away forever. It had been exciting, the entire journey, but nothing lasts forever, except possibly general stupidity.”

My Take

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a fun book that alternates between the present day, hilarious antics of a 100 year old man and his ragtag gang who are on the run from the police and his adventures through the 20th Century.  Through the inscrutable Allan Karlsson who specializes in the art of blowing things up and has perfected the art of making alcoholic beverages from goats milk, we meet Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman Mao Tse-Tung , Francisco Franco, Charles de Gaulle and, best of all, Albert Einstein’s dim-witted half brother Harold.  Quirky and unique, this book is a fun and fast reading romp.

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50. The Tsar of Love and Techno

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Katy Fassett

Author:   Anthony Marra

Genre:  Fiction, Anthology, Foreign

332 pages, published October 6, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary 

This fascinating and very well written collection of stories set in the USSR and modern day Russia contains a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking.   A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina.  Several women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners, who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love.  Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. Great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.  With its rich character portraits and a reverberating sense of history, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating book.

 

Quotes

“You remain the hero of your own story even when you become the villain of someone else’s.”

 

“The future is the lie with which we justify the brutality of the present.”

 

“A single whisper can be quite a disturbance when the rest of the audience is silent.”

 

“There are so many paths to contentment if you’re open to self-delusion.”

 

“Endurance, I reminded myself, is the true measure of existence.”

 

“Never forget the first three letters of confidence.”

 

“If there is an operation, and if that operation is successful, she says she will move to Sweden. I fear for her future in a country whose citizenry is forced to assemble its own furniture.”

 

“You remember how Mom had that embroidered pillow?  When she got upset, she’d shout into it and no one would hear her.  That’s Facebook.”

 

“Turning I would to I did is the grammar of growing up.”

 

“The calcium in collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are.”

 

“I guess our lives are all dreams – as real to us as they are meaningless to everyone else.”

Read more

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