Review of "Seven Years in Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer

Undoubtedly made famous by the film of the same name starring Brad Pitt, Seven Years in Tibet, as is usually the case, is a better book.  The story is visually stunning on screen, but the hardships and troubles Heinrich Harrer and his partner experience getting to and surviving in the Himalayan kingdom are revealed in more affective and detailed fashion on the page. Having almost a fictional feel due to larger-than-life size of the story, Harrer’s autobiography of his transition from prisoner in India to adviser to the Dali Lama makes for amazing reading.

Working as an Austrian mountaineer at the outbreak of Word War II, Harrer was suddenly “the enemy” in British occupied India as Germany attacked in Europe.  Placed in an internment camp at the base of the Himalayas, Harrer bided his time and eventually escaped along with Peter Aufschnaiter.  Their escape did not immediately reap benefits, however.  The greatest mountain range in the world greeting them, the pair’s plight through the Himalayas tested every bit of integrity and will to survive they possessed, and is a great travelogue by itself for anyone interested in survival stories of the range.  Staggering into the Shangri-la kingdom in the Tibetan plateau months later, suffering the long-term effects of altitude sickness as well as bone and nerve issues, they hoped life would get better.  Learning of the strange white men who’d found their way into his land, the Dali Lama, then just a boy, opened communication with the duo, and was soon absorbing every ounce of knowledge they had of the outside world.  The rest history, it’s this relationship, and the titular seven years the two spent in Tibet that are the truly poignant side of the tale.

Review of "Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw" by Norman Davies

His wife from the country and the two owning a home there in addition to a residence in Britain, Poland is once again the setting of a Norman Davies’ book.  But where God’s Playground and Poland, Past and Present survey the history of Polish culture (must be ‘culture’ as for significant time periods no country existed) from various perspectives, Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw focuses on a two month event that occurred in Warsaw toward then end of WWII.  Germany feeling the effects of its losses on other warfronts around the world, in mid-1944 the underground Polish remaining in Warsaw saw hope that their city could be reclaimed and staged a rebellion to coincide with the arrival of their allies, the mighty Soviet Red Army.  The outcome of the situation could only have been more tragic for those who lived through it.

Davies divides Rising ’44 into three sections: stage setting, the uprising itself, and the aftermath.  Rather than attempting to outlay the players and game board in linear fashion, Davies opts to divide the first section into three parts: the Germans, the Russians, and the Poles and their allies.  Each group is introduced, their goals outlined, and status set at the time just preceding the rebellion.  Having the effect of three roads converging at an intersection, the uprising bursts from the text in affective detail at the start of the second section.  

Based on the amount of data included, trivial to vital, Davies and his team examined all available records related to the plight of the native Poles and Jews in hiding in Warsaw in the summer of 1944.  Their underground routed through a network of sewers and tunnels, the Poles—with promised but limited assistance from British, Russian, and American allies—maintained their position with guerilla warfare throughout the war, using and salvaging the most basic of weapons.  The Germans never able to fully exterminate them, in August and September that year the Poles switched into full attack mode in the belief their Russian allies arriving on the city’s doorstep would step in and help.  The final section of the book deals with the aftermath of this battle, in particular the state of Polish society and politics from the end of the rebellion until now.  

For those with more than background knowledge of WWII, the opening section can be skipped as many other books offer more exhaustive detail about the movement and mindset of allied and axis powers during the war prior to 1944.  The Warsaw Uprising itself, however, is not to be missed.  The focus of the book, Davies brings it to life in both touching and graphic detail.  Diaries, official documents, written accounts, and verbal histories are all used toward painting a picture of what life was like for the Poles living and hiding in the city, not to mention fighting to reclaim it.  The food shortages, transportation methods, weapons training, communication with the outside world, even a media network are described as they affected events that transpired.  The Germans only mostly portrayed as ruthless oppressors, many of the individual stories involving interaction between the two sides are emotional and transcend scholarly accounts of history.

Davies’ writing, as usual, strikes a middle ground between cut and dry facts and engaging prose.  Confidently and consistently expressed, the uprising comes to life beneath the author’s pen.  What also comes to life is an acknowledged agenda.  Aside from the main goal of bringing attention to the details of the uprising, another of Davies’ goals in Rising ’44, is to emphasize the negative effects of Stalinism.  Not as subtle as the information related in his Europe: A History, Davies’ version of the Warsaw Uprising condemns Soviet involvement in the situation every bit as much as the Nazi’s.  The aftermath section in particular contains specific examples tailored to highlight the atrocities the Soviet “allies” committed against the Poles during and after the war.  Soviet realpolitik not garnering the attention of Nazism has in the half-century since, Rising ’44 makes further inroads toward bringing to light the darker side of Stalin’s regime.

In the end, Rising ’44 is informative and engaging reading for those interested in the history of Poland and WWII.  While the earlier Europe: A History saw Davies riding on the coattails of previous research, Rising ’44 shows the historian and his team more than capable of doing their homework.  The two month window in the history of Warsaw during WWII is examined from many angles and with specific details.  Though biases against the Nazis and Soviets are undisguised, the text suffers none for it.  An emotionally engaging history of the people living beneath the streets of Warsaw and their rebellion against oppression, this is one of Davies’ best works, the quality of human stories that emerge from the chaos worth the price, alone.

Review of "Dr. Bloodmoney" by Philip K. Dick

Based on the overwhelming success of The Man in theHigh Castle, Philip K. Dick set about writing another alternate history/future.  Choosing the Cold War as its crux, he imagined a US wherein the post-WWII threat of nuclear catastrophe manifests itself.  Dr. Bloodmoney: Or How We Got Along After the Bomb is the (conveniently sub-titled) result.  

Having a few main elements in common with that first big success, most of the characteristics of Dr. Bloodmoney set it apart.  The Man in the High Castle being wholly realist save the alternate history aspect, Dr. Bloodmoney finds Dick taking a realist narrative and slowly blending in more and more of his typical motifs, precogs, schizophrenia, and telekinesis, building toward a surreal conclusion.  Though falling short of the earlier novel’s standard, Dr. Bloodmoney is still one of the better books in Dick’s convoluted oeuvre and worth a read.

Told in two time frames, Dr. Bloodmoney opens innocently enough.  Stuart McConchie stands on the street, sweeping the walk in front of the shop where he sells TVs.  Observing the life around him, all seems normal in the San Francisco of 1992.  Slowly and confidently, more characters in the city are introduced, including Hoppy Harrington, an armless, legless man who possesses unnatural skills with technology, as well as the eponymous Dr. Bluthgeld, an atomic physicist who believes he’s suffering from schizophrenia.  Timeline and viewpoint rumbling like an earthquake for a chapter—a great literary touch from Dick—the bombs fall and the narrative jumps ahead seven years to life after the nuclear disaster.

Another important character is Dangerfield.  Intending to start a new life on Mars, the bombs fall just as his spaceship enters Earth’s stratosphere.  With the station that was to redirect him to Mars destroyed, he is stuck inside a rocket orbiting Earth.  In the seven years that pass, Dangerfield becomes a well-known personality, however.  His radio broadcasts of music and books are much appreciated by the scrounging and desperate quarter of the population who survive.  His mental health failing throughout the book, the culmination of Dangerfield’s story proves integral to the main storyline, as well as being one of Dick’s more affecting personalizations.

Thematically, the novel touches upon a variety of subjects, including discrimination.  Stuart being black and Hoppy handicapped, each face a variety of ridicule both before and after the bombs.  Though one can never be certain with Dick, it is possible the book is also a statement on post-WWII allied behavior.  Intentional or not, hints that victory over Hitler gave the US and Russian governments an opportunity to gobble up power before things settled are less than subtle.  (The title is another hint.)  Conspiracy theories seemingly always hanging around in the background of Dick’s stories, this suggestion has proven itself true, the US having since wittingly involved itself in a series of international fiascoes and successes, depending on perspective. 

One of the reasons The Man in the High Castle is considered Dick’s greatest work is due to its consistent development.  The realist albeit alternate history idea presented at the opening is adhered to throughout the novel and form is never broken to introduce new or paranormal elements.  Dr. Bloodmoney cannot say the same.  Like the graph of human population through time, the novel’s tone begins flat, moves steadily forward along realist terms, and escalates smoothly but sharply at the finish into a strange, wholly surreal conclusion.  While feeling natural due to the manner in which Dick develops the story, the tone of the finale nevertheless does not match the realist nature of the novel’s opening and body.  What begins a character driven examination of post-nuclear apocalypse America becomes a weird, supernatural story that may or may not confuse matters, depending on expectation.  

In the end, Dr. Bloodmoney is one of Dick’s better efforts despite its realist foundation giving way to the supernatural at the end.  The story is at least developed smoothly, characterization likewise.  The novel’s plot also moves effectively, a handful of concepts pertinent to the human condition drawn in simultaneously.  With its mix of characterization, realism, alternate history, and the supernatural, those new to the author will find worse starting points to Dick’s works, while fans will not be disappointed.

Review of "A World Apart" by Gustav Herling

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch is the fictional story of a man living in WWII-era Russian labor camps.  Gustav Herling’s 1951 A World Apart is the real thing.  The parallels reciprocal, Herling’s book relates the details of working days in sub-zero temperatures while sharing drafty bunkrooms with weak and sick people at night in more personal and affecting fashion.  By doing so, Herling tells a story that is both depressing for the disturbing treatment of humanity by the Soviets, yet uplifting for the manner in which he pressed on despite personal suffering and the death surrounding him.

Captured as a soldier, Herling spent two-and-a-half  years living in Yertsevo, Siberia at a work camp (a gulag, or Russian concentration camp).  Death slow and painful working 10-12 hours days in the cold (compared to fast and quick in gas chambers), the vast majority who entered the gulags never left, their bodies disposed of in the spring thaw each year.  Soviet Russia establishing its political position ruthlessly, Herling’s fellow prisoners were not only POWs, but any suspected military men or member of intelligentsia captured in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, or other neighboring countries sought by Stalin.  A means of cleansing the opposition, they were put to work, and died slowly for it.  

And it is precisely these people, the fellow prisoners, that Herling spends the majority of his memoire describing.  Characterization effective, the men and women come to life in affecting fashion that proves the quality of his prose.  His depiction of the misery and disrespect doled out to the living and dead so vivid and damning, the Soviets attempted to keep the book under wraps for decades, all the while vehemently denying the content.  With the Soviets soon to be evacuated politically from the country, it wasn’t until the ‘80s that the book saw open publishing in Herling’s native Poland.  Even places like France waited years to make the novel available to the public, despite that the first English version appeared in 1951.  

In the end, Solzhenitsyn’s novel may be read by American high school English students everywhere, but it is Gustav Herling’s A World Apart which should be the real history taught.  Life in the gulag harsh and deadly, Herling’s descriptions are related in engaging prose that never glosses over the defilement of the human spirit propagated by the Soviets.  Umpteen volumes written of Nazi travesties, Herling’s book is an important and strong entry into the field declaiming the exponentially worse evils of Stalinism.  With nearly four times the number of innocents killed during and after WWII, directly and indirectly by the dictator, A World Apart goes a long way toward exposing the reality of Soviet realpolitik.  Thus, alongside being a great piece of insider journalism, the book is not to be missed by anyone interested in post-WWII Soviet history or life in the gulags.

Review of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon

If superheroes were human, they would be…  Kavalier and Clay, so don’t let the title mislead you.  Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel really tells the story of two young Jewish men who join the comic book movement in New York at the outbreak of World War II, exiting the stage some years later after world events have shaped their versions of the American Dream with indifference.  At times digressive and the language more than often gaudy, the sentences nonetheless roll off the page in grand style telling of the heartbreak and joys of the pair.  But if embellishment seems a forte of Chabon, then his natural writing voice and powers of simile are inspired by God – or is it, Jehovah.  

Not necessarily a novel in simplistic terms (there is no natural build-up resolved in a climax), Kavalier and Clay is instead a study/history of what life was like for contemporary Jews living in New York in the middle of the 20^th century.  The story begins in Prague with the exploits of the budding escape artist Joe Kavalier and his attempts at following in the footsteps of his idol, Harry Houdini, across the Big Pond.  While never wholly giving up the art, he finds other talents and better directs toward the comic book artistry after meeting up with his cousin, Sammy Klayman, in New York City.  At once a character study of a homosexual coming to terms with himself, Sammy is also a look at the struggles and triumphs of a writer of comic book pulp and his hopes for greater literary glory.  The two never achieve the world-saving, hero-of-the-day aspirations that play out in the comics they produce, but the adventures—real life adventures—which happen to them along the way are sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, and always sympathetic.  They are what make the book worthy of the praise it has received.

The novel does, however, have a few negative points that are very worth mentioning.  One of the main focuses of the book is unabashedly Judaism.  And while it’s always cultural and never religious, there are a couple moments Chabon takes the idea a bit too far, punctuating the unwritten bias with lines like “enters the grit, filth, and foul atmosphere, ripe with the stench of immigrants, Negroes and mongrels, of Empire City” (p.330).  Though Chabon also sometimes takes the piss out of Jews, this and other potentially subtle digs at ethnic groups are unbecoming.  Another glaring aspect of the novel is the info dumps.  While I don’t mind being educated while reading, it’s another thing for a narrator to change their tone in the middle of the story to directly address the audience, the hard science of space travel in the middle of Star Wars, for example.  Chabon’s relation of the history of the comic book at times just didn’t fit and would have been better more subtly worked into dialogue or narrative. 

The last major issue I have with the novel is the language.  At times astonishingly brilliant, there are other moments when it seems a little over the top, the adjective strings lengthy and nearly unreadable, seeming to go on and on forever, without an end in sight, the writing coming and coming, overwhelming the reader, forcing them to recognize that he has Midas’s touch with phrasing and syntax, beautiful sentences rolling from the tip of his pen, birds singing beneath golden rainbows - are you paying attention literary award voters - and so on.  To Chabon's credit, however, the book remains highly readable; characterization, characterization, characterization the mountain on which the book stands tall.

If you are a fan of Jewish literature, New York in the 40’s, escape artistry, sensitive and empathetic characters, or the early comic books, then Kavalier and Clay may be for you.  If you like your literary fiction with a touch of the surreal (there are more than a few moments which utilize coincidence and sheer caprice to the point the novel points toward magic realism), the this book may be for you. However, if you dislike historical novels without a lot of tension—nothing obvious to pull you along—or purple writing, then certainly steer clear; the book is a calm field of violets telling the life story of two ordinary men who want to be more. It goes without saying that if you are a fan of Chabon's other books, this will not disappoint.