Modern Warriors

 

Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes by Pete Hegseth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While the media and pop culture would have you believe that it is traumatizing at best, and devestating most likely, to be a modern soldier, this is the other side of the coin. These are the soldiers (mostly officers) who were able to turn their experiences into ultimately positive outcomes. Granted, most of these perspectives are several years after retiring, but even those with significant loss (double amputees, loss of an eye, death of comrades) were able to find a successful way forward. They credit the discipline and drive they learned in the military, and their stories are inspiring, and their insight is motivating. It is well to honor and learn from these soldiers, without forgetting that for others the struggle to cope and carry on is real too.

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And that word "can't: is one of the most debilitating words that these guys, including myself, will ever have to deal with, whether you can't go downrange anymore, you can't avenge this guy's death, or you can't do this or that.  It's a heck of a psychological disability, really.

Fear has become an addiction.

Fear operates best in an environment of uncertainty.

Once I saw the effect and Knew that I'd killed someone, I'd get this metallic cast in my mouth, it was like a piece of my soul.

I tried not to think about how shocked a lot of the people I shot looked.  That would make me think about what if it was going to happen to me.

Every Day Is for the Thief

 

Every Day Is for the Thief by Teju Cole
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A beautifully written novel with no real plot. A Nigerian raised in Lagos, now living in New York, goes back to Lagos after fifteen years. Most chapters tell vinaigrettes of ways that the people of Lagos steal, or are stolen from, both from systemic corruption, brutal poverty, ineptitude, governmental abuse, lethargic economy, etc. Pictures are sprinkled without which gives the novel a memoir-like fee, though I'm not sure I really liked the protagonist (angry and self-righteous). The observations and descriptions are eloquent and thought-provoking though, and makes it a must-read.

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Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut.

Power comes back at 4: 00 A.M. or later. The fan resumes its spinning like a broken conversation continued in mid-sentence.

There is a disconnect between the wealth of stories available here and the rarity of creative refuge.

What, I wonder, are the social consequences of life in a country that has no use for history?

This is a secret only because no one wants to know about it.

But it is as yet a borrowed progress and it is happening in the absence of the ideological commitments that can make it real.

in Nigeria, there is tremendous cultural pressure to claim that one is happy, even when one is not. Especially when one is not. Unhappy people, such as grieving mothers at a protest march, are swept aside. It is wrong to be unhappy. But it is not necessary to get bogged down in details when all we need is the general idea.

The idea that saying makes it so, that the laws of the imagination matter more than all others.

afraid that I will bind to film what is intended only for the memory, what is meant only for a sidelong glance followed by forgetting.

Yes Please!

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. Poehler starts out shaky, complaining again and again that writing a book "is very hard". It is hard knowing that what you are writing most certainly WILL be published and WILL be read by a very lot of people. Which is not the same "hard" as trying to get a book published and maybe getting read by a few people. You can almost hear her questioning herself on how she can be entertaining but not embarrassing, truthful but not offensive. Then, as she goes along, she gets more comfortable and by the end, some of her best writing is almost transcendent. "Gimme that Pudding" starts it out by talking about the backstory of those hilarious bits she and other comedians did at awards ceremonies, and "My Boys" is a brilliant essay about helping in Haiti while having to coordinate the details of hosting the Oscars. The trouble with many comedians books are that their strengths--Poheler's is playing off of others and improvisation--don't always translate well into books, and we as fans don't allow for different personas. Once Poehler stops bemoaning this fact and just writes she becomes quite the writer.

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The strange thing is that the moment people start looking at you less is when you start being able to see through people more. 

The Castle of Otranto

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This story is held to be the father of Gothic fiction. So interesting that a story written almost as a lark to have such a profound impact on literature. Walpole didn't even want to take credit for it at first. It is a slightly entertaining story but it takes some digging to find out why it is so important.

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cryptomnesia--occurs when a forgotten memory returns without its being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. 

Almost all Gothic novels are motivated in the same way.  At some time in the past a crime was committed but was not avenged.  The criminal is usually a murder and usurper. 

It might be said the the Gothic novel is a primitive detective story in which God or Fate is the detective.

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

 

A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee's Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival by Melissa Fleming
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Honestly one of the most inspiring stories I've read in a while. The weird thing is that I can't really explain why. The writing is third person in a very journalistic style, which should place distance between the reader and the protagonist, but somehow works here. The pacing is also not ideal: there is one section in the middle where Bassem is courting (pining for) Doaa and it goes on a little long. It is a heart-wrenching story and the ending is ambiguous but it is a story that stayed with me, weirdly uplifted me, and inspired me to try harder to find ways to help others, especially refugees.

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Here We Are

 

Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares by Aarti Namdev Shahani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shahani writes a beautiful memoir of her experience in coming to America as a child with her family, her father's struggle to find his place and the consequences of being an immigrant accused of a crime. (Interestingly, as far as I could tell, she never explained if he was actually innocent or guilty of the crime). Throughout she covers several issues: growing up in America while trying to balance with her family's traditions, the tension of the newfound opportunities for women in America vs. traditional roles, the easy targets that immigrants make for both criminals and scapegoats for the legal system, the no-win situation that some immigrants find themselves in, with deportation being the ultimate and final outcome regardless, and the truth that the American dream is still not equally accessible and maybe not the ultimate destination for every situation. Intriguing, insightful, and well-written, it was a thoughtful and interesting read.

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A fight without a resolution.  Dad smoked to cope with real world pressures.  Mom hated cigarettes because they killed.  Where one saw life, the other saw death.

What a difference the tiniest bit of knowledge makes.

A River in Darkness

A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not all refugee stories can be inspiring. Just as there are those who cannot overcome other traumas, not all refugees are going to be happy survivors. Masaji Ishikawa is bitter. He says so himself in the epilouge: "My only true possession...is bitterness. Bitterness at the cruelty of life." It is easy to pick up on that even before he says it. To be fair, his life has been full of cruel disappointments, brutality, and hopelessness. His family was persuaded to go to North Korea where the propaganda turned out to be nothing but false promises. The fact that he survived and made his way back to Japan is small consolation when he has lost everything and has little to hope for or work towards. It is not an uplifting memoir, but it is important. It is important to know and understand the atrocities that are happening in closed countries and that escaping them is only the beginning of healing for these refugees.

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This was laughable , of course, but that's always the ways with totalitarian regimes.  Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom.  Repression is liberation.  A police state is a democratic republic.  And we were "the masters of our destiny."  And if we begged to differ, we were dead.

The Graveyard Book (graphic novel) Vol. 2

The Graveyard Book, Volume 2 by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

See review for Graveyard Book, Vol. 1

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The Graveyard Book (graphic novel)

The Graveyard Book, Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having read The Graveyard Book, I was curious to see how it might be turned into a graphic novel. I re-read the book simultaneously and found that very little is left out. Each chapter is drawn by a different graphic artist and it was interesting to see the different styles. I liked some artist's renderings better, and admired others for their ability to lay out the panels in an intuitive way. It was also interesting to see how the action/characters were interpreted, and which parts were changed to thoughts/spoken words vs. straight narration. I will say that the book still stands supreme in my estimation, if only because the opening lines. "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." just cannot compare with a actual image of the hand and knife. (Also, Silas is much more handsome in my mind...)

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