Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies - Nick Fonda

A collection of short stories by an Eastern Townships writer from Richmond.  The stories focus on childhood lives and school experiences.  I sympathize with the issues and criticisms he brings up around school culture and its effect on children and parents.  The last story is interesting - in a very tentative way, it seems to be an exploration of cultural difference and perhaps even underlying prejudice within the French school system in Quebec.

Solo - Rana Dasgupta

A bit of a schizophrenic novel.  The first half explores the life of a character born in Bulgaria near the end of the 1800s.  Through this life, you see the various social upheavals that have occurred there since the Turkish period.  It is an interesting social history and focuses on a topic I am interested in, which is the long-term effect on society and personal psychology of living under the Communist system where acknowledged reality and lived reality diverged so distinctly.

The second half of the book changes characters and location - Georgia and the US.  Its focus is organized crime and the exploitation of traditional cultures by the american music industry.  Less successful, less subtle, too trendyish.

Strangely, the guy who wrote this book is Indian.

Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko

Silko is a well-established native american writer from the south-west.
Interesting look into a different perspective on the world based on a native tradition (as interpreted by Silko).
Various themes:
- a pretty clear condemnation of the violent, rapacious and alienated nature of white society
- relationships to nature in a traditional native ethos (she writes beautifully about the natural world around her and the relationship you can have with the land)
- explores the theme of cultural crossover and how difficult it is to live in the two cultural worlds
- though Silko seems to see her salvation in a return to old native values and ways, the book has a fair bit of Christian symbolism, especially in the "ceremony"  that takes place at the end of the book - also in Tayo's days alone in the wilderness

She does a nice job of weaving traditional stories and myths into the narrative.

Find more by her.

Diary of a Bad Year - J. M. Coetzee 2007

An unusual narrative technically for Coetzee - two simultaneous stories running at the same time, sometimes even three.  The top of the page in a collection of short opinion pieces being produced by the author (as a character in the book).
The other narratives are either a) the author's private thoughts around a young Filipina woman he has hired to type for him b) the Filipina's thoughts on the pieces she is typing or on the author who has hired her, or on her boyfriend working in Finance c) for one section, the thoughts and dialogue of the Finance boyfriend attacking and attempting to humiliate the author of the opinion pieces

Not sure how it all ties together.  There is a hint that all the male blah blah, both the author's opinions and the boyfriend's, are essentially a lot of male hot air around a woman who for them remains largely invisible as a person.  And for whom the opinions are both uninteresting and besides the point in terms of living your life.

Within the author's pieces and simultaneous personal thoughts, there seems to be a growing awareness of some fundamental uselessness or besides-the-point-ness of the opinions he has been piling up over a lifetime.  That they become some kind of trap or blinder.  At least in the rather strong and categorical form that they have come to take.  As narrow and categorical of the Conservative, Finance, Survival-of-the-Fittest boyfriend's opinions.

Also and interesting aside, delivered by the boyfriend, that the Finance types have taken of the world from the intellectual, reflective types - which seems to be an accurate observation.

L'élégance du hérisson - Muriel Barbery

Jolie petite histoire.  Très émouvante.  Mais cette histoire montre la même tendance, la même croyance, le même espoir face aux injustices du monde qu'on a récemment vu dans un livre par Amin Malouf.  Cette croyance que l'art, que la culture va nous sauver de nos problèmes, de nos petitesses, de nos défauts en tant qu'humain.  C'est drôle de rencontrer cette foi de nos jours, comme si le débâcle de la première guerre ne s'est jamais produit.  Peut-être que c'est parce que ces deux auteurs viennent d'autres cultures, d'autres régimes sociaux et politiques?

The Gingerbread House - Carin Gerhardsen

Another murder mystery by Swedish writer.  She is truly in the murder mystery style - book opens with a gruesome murder.  Enter investigation.  More gruesome murders may be introduced.
Didn't enjoy this one as much as the first one.  Maybe because I've figured out the formula?  Doesn't seem to have as much depth as spy or political mystery fiction.  Lacks the underlying social criticism of Ian Rankin's work.

Hanging Fred and a Few Others - Nick Fonda

Subtitled "Painters of the Eastern Townships"

An interesting read, not so much because of the elements of Frederick Coburn's story, but because of all the different painters associated with the Townships that you find out about in the course of the book.  Then you get to look up their work on Google Images.
It is a very active artistic region.