A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré

I guess the library restocked this, and put it on the “new books” shelf because there is a movie adaptation being filmed as I type.  I am happy all this occurred.  The book came out in 2008 and I was wrapped up that time almost exclusively with the radio station, KGGV. 

Le Carré is one of my favorites; my taste for him taken to an extreme when I found myself working in England for close to a decade.  Now it is nostalgia for me, those OxBridge men with their funny quirks who populate the management of British corporations and other positions of power. 

For a lover of Carré, this is an exquisite book, a spell-binding read that will make a great movie.  The author is aging, as I am.  The author pulls into the story lots of characters, and scenes that have been his trademark stable of ideas over half a century of writing.  There are bits of stories retold, like the Russia House escape from the inescapable grasp of the spook community; the interview methodology of George Smiley along with his deeply thought out strategies to entrap his enemies.  As always the spies are conflicted: conflicting with other spies, some home team, some visitors. 

Le Carré is a masterful story-teller.  The best.  This tale is riveting.  It’s freshly updated with Chechens, Turks, and Arabs, but with generational back-looks to Russians, Germans, and Brits.  Interestingly, the Americans are still a powerful force, but only introduced at the last minute, despised by all, and really not that relevant to the entire story other than as an ultimate bad guy to take on a lot of the blame for a situation gone wrong.

The characterizations are compelling.  I’m sorry that the BBC didn’t get the rights to do this film.  “Tinker Tailor” and “Smiley’s People” each were 6-hour adaptations of Le Carré’s works and show-cased the author’s ability at personality characterization.  That will be missing in the American movie.  Culture and ethnicity are such important factors in these sorts of novel’s dramatizations.  American film-makers tend to blend all foreigners into the “all Asians look alike to me” mindset.  In the smallish world of the EuroZone, French, Italian, Greek, and German national and cultural traits are extremely important and subtly recognized by other members of the European community. 

Because of the thoughtful interweaving of old plotlines with new, older generation characters with younger ones, I think this story will survive as one of Le Carré’s best.  It captures the hint of what our elders told us was the evil, bad old days of the cold war, with the reality of today’s jihad.

A captivating read – 10 out of 10 for this, still interesting author.

This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich

This was an interesting read, for a text that might be periodically referred to, as one would, to any 19^th century explorer’s text.

In that style, it is clearly an amateur scientific diary with the common trait, from a century ago, of being overly, almost didactically profuse in the descriptions, to the minutest detail and profundity.  The audience in mind is a fellow quasi-scientist/explorer captivated obsessively with a guide book to continued exploration of this fascinating country and peoples.  I have several such books in my library.

I would draw the line however, at this being a book of general interest to a broad community of adult library readers. 

The author has an amazing ability to capture scenes of nature {and culture} with wonderful simile and metaphor, such that the reader is left mesmerizingly drained with the beauty captured in her scenic words, and awed by her insight into the meaning of civilization’s encroachment into this stone-age culture. 

Unfortunately, the scenes and the insights are not enough to carry this book beyond a reference text book.  All too often, our book club selections are left to the extremely east coast PC white wine sippers{ecwwsps}, who in this case are sending the message, “You must empathize with these beleaguered Inuits and their disappearing land – read this book and then support their cause.”  Of course, the truth is that, for those having read the book {not the ecwwsps}, this is the way of the Earth – things may change, or be made to stay the same; doesn’t matter the world goes on – species go extinct by the dozens each year.

There is no lacking in Ehrlich’s passion for the subject matter, or her thorough recording of events, nor her wonderfully comprehensive historical recap of the last centuries (& more) events.  The problem is – she is not a mass media author, certainly not a fictional author, although, with her flights of fancy, she has possibilities there.  Alas, she violates so many “rules” of writing {aptly codified}, that her antiquated style quickly becomes droll, and encourages the reader to skip on forward to the next “activity”.

I am reminded of my next-door neighbor when she and I were in graduate school together in Tucson.  We had lengthy discussions about the plight of the western Indians.  I, of course, proposed monumental sieges, battles to the death: honorable; but with great loss of life.  She spoke of love and of oneness with nature – of nature’s ultimate victory over strife.  Our focal point in these discussions was the movie “Easy Rider”, 1969 - Dennis Hopper, Jack Nickolson, Peter Fonda.  What was the message you got from this movie.?

Padma's Comments on History of Love

In many ways I found this book quite lovely and in many ways quite confusing. I felt I need to read it again and hoped that would help me understand it better. I read it again (skimmed, I admit) and I did understand the “plot” better; but still not very interesting.

The writing was nice, humorous, and at times poetic. I liked the children but could never figure out the significance of the religious fanaticism of the brother, Bird. I did like that he was called “Bird” that was original.

I enjoyed Leo’s reflections on his life, his sense of humor, his relationship with Bruno. Although I could not figure out when Bruno, or Leopold, for that matter, actually died. I thought the scene of Leo posing for the art class was truly funny, and realistic.

I did not understand the idea of pages with one or two sentences on the whole page. Did someone think the book should be longer? Perhaps this also was the point of a few characters for whom I could not figure out a purpose.

For example what was the point of the old professor Alma meets who is a paleontologist? Or the scene with the rich man who is locked out of his home and pays Leo with a $100 bill?

Some of these things just felt thrown in with no particular purpose. As if the author had a clever idea that she could not resist writing about, so she put it in this story. I think perhaps she should have resisted, maybe saved her ideas for another book where they might be more relevant.

I also did not get the purpose of the photos of her grandparents. Were they supposed to be characters in the novel? Did she want us to be certain that she actually had grandparents? Is there something special about having grandparents that I missed?

All in all I could have passed on this one.

 

Just finished “Dearie,” the Julia Child biography and cried at the end. I was even inspired to get her first book, The Art of French Cooking, and have enjoyed cooking from it.

Engrossed in “A State of Wonder,” by Ann Patchett. Only about 1/3 into it; but so far very good, mysterious with good character and plot development.

Sorry to miss the group. I’m at a craft fair at the Airport Club to benefit their Cancer Wellness program. Curious to hear news of how others liked this book.

padma

History of Love Comments From: "Sharyn Ferguson"

Hello Group,

First, an apology to Mauri. When I first saw the latest book, "History of Love", I made the snide comment that it couldn't have been very good because I remembered the cover distinctly but the story not at all! Therefore, it must not have made much of an impression on me.

How very wrong I was. I don't know why it didn't register with my memory but, suffice to say, I could not have been more in error.

This is beautiful book. Although challenging for me to keep track of the characters and their history in the history of love, I feel it is one of the better books our group has read. It was funny, mysterious, and, for me, an entirely different approach to presenting a story. I honestly cared about the people; I honestly wanted to know what happened; I honestly wanted a happy ending. Did it have one? I think so, but would like to know what the group thinks. I really wish I could be there with you.

This story had me so interested, I didn't even notice if there were any editorial errors...I didn't care.

The following are just a few of my favorite passages:

Page 115 --

"He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard."


Page 156 --

"He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant."

Page 192 --

"Every year, the memories I have of my father become more faint, unclear, and distant. Once they were vivid and true, then they were became like photographs, and now they are more like photographs of photographs. But sometimes, at rare moments, a memory of him will return to me with such suddenness and clarity that all
the feeling I've pushed down for the years springs out like a jack-in-the-box."

These last two quotes are ones that are extremely specially to me. My only child was killed seven months ago.

These words succinctly express how I feel and how I worry about the potential for fading photographs. May you never have unwanted jack-in-the-boxes.
 

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

 

No plot – all character development.  That’s the way I described this book last Sunday on the radio (Peter & Pat on books – 1^st Sunday of the month at 8pm).

The orange prize is an obscure sort of inside literati New York/London scene award for young female authors who are innovative in their approach to fiction.  Well I’m old school and did not find Nicole’s approach either thoughtful or stimulating. 

I found the stream of consciousness blather to be like reading snippets from someone’s diary – and the some ones were people to whom I didn’t take a liking.  They were boring people.  Alma Singer was totally forgettable.  Leo Gursky was a putz.

The missing plot gimmick leaves the reader without a “hook”, something you can grab a hold of so you can look over to your bedmate and say, “I’m reading a great book about murder on the orient express”.  ---PLOT--- and quickly, dozens of subplots and themes come to mind, so your partner says, “Tell me a little more about it”.  But we don’t have a defensible plot for Leo, so leaning over across the bed, I would say, “I’m reading a book about this nebbish who comes to America after the war and looks up his old girlfriend but she is married now, so not a part of the story anymore.  But she had Leo’s son, so fifty years later Leo tries to look up the son, but he has died by now … .. but at this juncture my bedmate would be snoring, in their loveable way.

For ten years, I’ve finished even the “worst” of book club selections.  This one was just too blah.   I will leave a backdoor open.  Maybe it was me. 

This past few weeks has been an emotional and stressful time for me.  My sister went back to Waterloo Nebraska and laid to rest our mother’s ashes; her estate was settled which allowed me to pay off my home mortgage, and commit to the completion of my house renovations; I have been distracted enough that I forgot and missed the casting call for the Library’s Reader’s Theater 2013 program.

 

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

I’ve had to kiss 40 toads waiting for a book like this to be selected by our betters at headquarters.  It was worth the wait.  Now I can only pray that I am able to do justice to this magnificent book: capture the euphoria enveloping me as I read each line, each paragraph of this lyrical, sometimes haiku-like prose; conveying the enrapturing power of the author’s metaphorical ballet while he weaves his literary web to draw together millennia of eastern and western culture; all the while simultaneously and expertly constructing a well-detailed story with well-developed characters, prize-worthy simile, and convincingly fated plotline.  A 10 out of 10 book.  It still puts me in a yoga-like, deep-breathing state when I think about the book.

Well, why are books like this so popular and revered?  Many reasons come to mind.  The book, its 1940’s action-line, and its contemporary retelling gimmick both revere the elderly.  The world has lost a lot of “revered values” this past century.  We longingly grasp at this current reverence.  This 75-year-old war has been thought of for decades as a good versus evil war, as is the right of the victors, until they all die out.  These past few years, literary readers enjoy books about the periphery of WW-II: the U.S. interment camps, NAZI post-war friends, the horrors of the Soviet front.  This book clarifies that all sides, and there were dozens, were ignorant of their enemies, stupid about their own actions, and to the greatest extent, caught up in a maelstrom of God’s making which left all humanity with no option other than to survive, and start the cycle anew.  We are experiencing part of that renewal.  Good and evil exist in all cultures.  Skin color, religion, and lineage do not really separate us.  We are all the same. 

As Cher sang, “Love one another; sisters and brothers”.

 

The writing of this text is moving and I must take a few words to quote a paragraph [p.236: p.6] of it:

“It was quite chilly, the wind carrying a trace of the rain that now fell almost as unseen as the baby crabs, as though the clouds had been scraped through a fine grater.  A solitary figure stood staring out to sea as waves unrolled themselves around his feet like small bundles of silk.  I walked up to him, feeling the coldness of the water.”

 

No movie for this book.  The Japanese are sadistic war criminals: the Chinese are either looney Communist Reds or opium-smoking Imperial slaves: the British are colonial exploiters: the Malays are ignorant wretches. The only “good guys” in this book are so by a self-reappraising and revisionist history of the times.  They are those who survived.!!: the well-bred, well-educated, property and business owners, who stuck it through the “bad” years to come out the other end as the history writers, a silk purse from the war’s ear.

And yet it is a cautionary tale for immigrants to America this past half century: Koreans, Vietnamese, and Central Americans: establish yourselves; hang on through thick and thin; and you may eventually persevere to write your own fate.

Margaret Mclaren's Review of The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato

 

I feel a “ . . . sick reluctance in my chestspoon” to review this book that is “. . . tugging at my innards”. Although I enjoyed the visual renditions of “ . . . silver palaces roosting in the twilight along the canal”, I found myself growing so annoyed that by the end of it, my resentment had grown hotter than “ . . . a sleeping salamander”.

 

But every cloud, they say, has a silver lining! This book is more good news for aspiring novelists! You too can become an award-winning author. No need to worry about a depressingly predictable (and silly) plot line, bad grammar, or even downright weird word combinations. In fact, you can obviously get your novel published even though it was written by a Microsoft Word spell checker.

 

Isn’t it comforting to learn that you don’t need talent to win book awards? Perhaps once you’ve worked “with” Russell Crowe, Angelina Jolie, the Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith, anything is possible. All I can say is that Oxford University must be busy hiring a public relations firm to help them cope with the embarrassment of having this woman claim that she studied history there.

 

Sorry I don’t have time to comment further - I’m too busy rummaging around my office for that half-finished novel.

Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates

 

Joyce Carol Oates, JCO as she calls herself, has been wrapped up in reflective memoir-type books for the past few years now, ever since her husband and thoroughly-bonded life partner died suddenly.  Mudwoman is a great novel, in my opinion her best since The Falls, this time chronicling the life of a person who has cared too much, maybe because they haven’t cared enough.

This JCO novel is great because she has returned to using her brilliant writing talent to dig deeply into one person’s life.  She delves into their waking thoughts and late night dreams, and often halfway in between.  She stirs the seething broth of her protagonist’s crazy thoughts, bubbling in and out of sanity, finding it hard to keep a firm grasp on reality. 

JCO explores most deeply, the thoughts of her protagonist as she ages, losing parents.  The odd thing about Mudwoman is that her protagonist is cut awfully close to the bone of JCL herself.  M.R. is an academic – a professor of philosophy at a distinguished New York University.  Does JCO’s character overreach to obtain the Presidency of this august university?  As JCO unfolds MR’s life story, we learn of a great deal about M R’s psychopathic tendencies.

Adopted kids, like twins garner a lot of interest by authors and certainly a huge crowd of readers who share in their uniqueness.  M R is a defensive loner all her life – not just no sex life {but rich fantasies}, but no family or friends {except the King of Crows}.  JCO is a master at expressing fantasy from an otherwise normal character she has developed.  She contrasts the 99% outwardly acceptable stable character with a shockingly violent, sadistic inner 1% of this same character, which normally never actually surfaces.  Thus we readers are sometimes left with the questions:

a)   Was her character normal, just like us?

b)  Or was that character demonic, like we might be capable of becoming?

c)   Or is it JCO that is demonic, trying to channel Ann Rice?

 

It may not be real, but for me, JCO is reviewing her life in this novel.  She talks about morals and political imperatives; 9/11; choices along the long road of life: books, teaching, academics.  She dwells on children, marriage, relationships, friendship, and duty.  There is rarely romance in JCO’s writing.  To be frank, there is rarely much joy or happiness.

The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato

O.K. then, The Glassblower of Murano was a fun read; and although it took 348 pages to do it, the author did bring tears to my eyes with the fantastic, last-50-page wrap-up.  But fantasy is the operative word here.  Marina Fiorato doesn’t just tell two similar stories linked across a dozen generations.  That is not an uncommon literary device for historical novels.  She conveniently skips over the intervening years and paints the patriarch saint of the glassblowers almost in intimate father/daughter discussions with our present day heroine.  The names don’t change; the faces don’t change; their passions and life stories don’t change.

The historical, informational aspect of this book was well done, as one expects from an Oxford educated English major.  I found the interpersonal efforts at friendship, romance, travel, and women’s issues to be simplistic and tawdry.  Fiorato’s lack of depth in writing about these personal areas is to some extent balanced by her excellent command of the English language.  The author has a penchant for liberally using superlative adjectives: the best table with a peerless view.  She brings up her Oxbridge bias when describing her first, sterile husband, Stephen as a Cambridge man with old world manners.

It was all so predictable: they, her old, can’t get pregnant, but her new, pops a bun in the oven within a few weeks [Gosh, I guess it wasn’t me!]; she falls in love with a tall, dark, handsome Italian [Duh, who’d guessed?]; and amazingly too much, she winds up with a baby male heir, a great beaux, the envy of her workmates, a good mentor friend, and the keys to Murano, where the world will honor her as the greatest glassblower and a beautiful woman to boot [who’d of ever thunk it?].

The shallowness of the plotline is further evidenced by the total lack of anyone “bad”.  The only two possibilities are Vittoria and Roberto: Vittoria is excused because she is merely a journalist, and after all, what can one expect; Roberto is off the hook, well it’s not clear why, he’s just trapped in a complex Greek tragedy.  The only true bad guys are the shades [yes, she’s channeling Greek tragedy], all dark, ominous and usually hooded.  Thus, Marina has re-crafted a Shakespearian drama {her major}, which in turn has its roots in Greek tragedy.

Writers are a fickle bunch these days.  Of course there’s a rationale, for all this lack of depth and the simplistic plotlines -- movies.!.!  Let’s review the features of this movie:

·                 Beautiful blond, upper middle class, artistic English heroine

·                 Blown marriage to a prissy Cambridge boring doctor: new guy has abs

·                 Summer vacation in Italy diddling with her glass blowing hobby {& sex}

·                 Gorgeous scenes of eateries, museums, canals, men, money, women, sex

·                 Striving, righteous artist fights male chauvinism to win acceptance

·                 The ever popular Mae Bush {Laurel & Hardy sidekick}

      search for an historical ikon [the note]

 

This is an Academy Award Winning Film.! [Sorry Marina, they never made it]

The Last Resort by Pat Nolan

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun reading a book.  That means I read “The Last Resort” slowly, savouring each chapter; allowing the previous chapter’s outrageous plot twist to settle in. 

The author, Pat Nolan, was completely successful at suspending my disbelief, but keeping things right at that edge.  The characters are developed, revelation by revelation, like a simmering paella on a slow burner. 

It’s sort of a classic detective/murder mystery in the Chandleresque style.  But we, the readers are faced with a gorgeous, blond supermodel instead of a grizzly shamus.  The incongruity is right there, up front for the reader to have to come to grips with, every chapter.  The author pushes, but it’s so intriguing, that we are successfully bonded to this bitchy, spoiled Lee Malone.

Another aspect of the Lee Malone “Adventure” is that it takes place in California’s remote Western Russian River area.  Again, the author has tactfully avoided making this a “local’s” niche-market only book.  The remoteness is an integral part of the plotline, but it could be anywhere in the world.  Still, for true locals, there are plenty of scenes and people to be recognized.

I mentioned the outrageous plot twists in the opening lines of this commentary.  These go on right up to the end.  It’s hard to figure who’s good and who’s bad.  Of course, the bigest twist on the classics is with the detective being an over-thirty supermodel who frequently finds herself scantily clad.  But the reason this book is so much fun is that Nolan introduces something wildly weird with each chapter: drugs, arson, motorcycles, kidnapping, murder, or porn.  Strangely, this all works – maybe I have been living in this area too long; or maybe Pat Nolan has; or maybe he’s just a good author who can spin a great yarn.

Whether tongue-in-cheek or not; and whether the author simply wants to cram as much as possible into this first Lee Malone Adventure, or not: this book, “The Last Resort”, makes a delicious summer read, of something stimulating to go with a northern coast salmon steak and a Russian River Pinot.

Nemesis by Philip Roth

This memoir style piece has all the makings of a well-crafted short story.  And I’m sure that’s what he intended, originally.  Roth fell somewhere between mine and my mother’s generation.  He went through this stuff as a fearless teenager; but his mother could remember back through two world wars.  The effects of polio and the fear surrounding it are almost forgotten now, except for people seventy and above, like his and my age group.  I’ve heard the stories of the war time fear all my life from my mother. 

Roth does a good job of capturing the parental fears, but also blends in a stronger, secondary human foible: pride. 

PRIDE.

It’s hubris [ ὕβρις ] in Greek.

It goeth before a fall –“ Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

Proverbs 16:18

The seventh, and worst, deadly sin.  Classic.

Roth develops a character that is tainted with the humiliation of being rejected by his male peers as a warrior symbol.  So the response of his male lead character is to make himself even more perfect in every other physical attribute -- an icon -- an idol of the other boys around him. This is gray area -- Does he become obsessive? -- even arrogant about his abilities -- an arbiter of perfection in others -- the perfect dive -- the perfect javelin throw -- the perfect body of muscles -- doesn't an arbiter of these things have tendencies to arrogance.?

It's that subtle over-reach that turns this into hubris. Maybe it's just a cultural thing, some sort of Greek or Catholic or Jewish thing – a Roman or an Ohioan White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant would never worry about the problem of being an arbiter of other people's perfection. Mitt Romney is a case in point -- he thought there was nothing wrong with saying that England and America had a "special bond", because of their white, Anglo-Saxon heritage: Long live the king.

The Bucky character, to his eventual end, was plagued by this all being some sort of hideous, monstrous test. He had been destined for greatness, but denied all forms of pleasure here on Earth. God speaks to him. God gives him seven challenges.  My main point is that he should have kept it to 10-15,000 words.

Then we get the Philip Roth/Woody Allen classically conflicted character, making a 36-hour decision, which he spends the rest of his long, tormented life regretting.  Not like Frankie S.,

“Regrets  I've had a few  But then again too few to mention  I did what I had to do  And saw it through without exemption.”

O.K., so we’ve learned a little bit about Polio, but mostly anecdotal, like Mama told us. 

We’ve been told again and again how fear causes panic. – “There is nothing to Fear, but Fear itself.!!”

And we’ve watched a man, not unlike Oedipus, deconstruct in all aspects of his life, over what: indecision?, lack of commitment?, faith?, bad genetics?, bad hygiene?.

I would give “Nemesis” a 5 out of 10 points.  After all, it is a Philip Roth book – hopefully his last.

I’ve included my own little memoir of Polio on the next page.

 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

My family moved from Detroit (Industrial core of the WW-II effort) to San Jose in 1948.  My tenth year and I was coming into the fifth grade.  I was good friends with two fellows, Tremaine Adrian (L) and Skip Smith (R).  Our common interest was secondarily mathematics, but mainly our youthful and beautiful mathematics teacher, Mrs. Pat Bergna.  We all three had a crush on her.  She had announced her engagement to be married before classes ended that year, 1949.  I don't remember her maiden name, because she married the soon-to-be 30-year career District Attorney for San Jose.

Undaunted, we volunteered to mow her lawn all summer in exchange for math lessons.  I'm sure she realized that we all had this crush on her.  We dutifully arrived at her little house every Saturday morning on our bicycles and spent a few hours trimming the yard so that it looked like it had been to the barber shop.  She kept her part of the bargain and when we were done, she would serve us lunch and give us an algebra lesson.  Life moved on in the sixth grade and we put our efforts into Boy Scouts rather than Mrs. Bergna that year. 

The next year was when, first time in my life, I thought about myself as a unique individual who would live and die.  Sort of like Descartes, "I think, therefore I am."  I had this thought while walking home from an evening Boy Scout Troop meeting at the school.  These days you wouldn't let a twelve year old kid walk the streets in the dark.  In my English class, for a book review, I choose "Of Time and the River" by Thomas Wolfe.  [No, not the current author, this one died in 1938.]  My teacher was astounded and unbelieving, since it was almost 900 pages and weighty writing like Faulkner's stories about the South. 

In the summer, between sixth and seventh grades, the word came to my mother, who was good friends with Tremaine's mother that he had been diagnosed with Polio and was in an Iron Lung.  I was kept away from all that early trauma.  The mothers must have shared their agony.  I know my mother had a great fear of Polio, stemming back to our early days {1944} in Detroit.  I started to visit Tremaine once a week after school.  I was not forced, nor even encouraged to do this.  I had to take a bus over to what is now the Valley Medical Center on Bascom and Moorpark and back again.  It took a whole afternoon.  I didn't know, or comprehend, at the time what the prognosis was. 

My visits dwindled to once every two weeks during the eighth grade and once a month during the ninth grade, by then I'd figured out that there was no hope and it would be over soon.  Each year I would twist the arms of various singing groups at Christmas time to come with me to the hospital.  I love to sing Christmas Carols, although I have no real voice for it.  But that was something I could do and it elated everybody for a while.  It's strange how some of these sorts of things stick with us.  I still join in with Christmas groups that will have me, shouting out, "God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen."  A favorite time of life was when my good friend Donna Roberts used to have annual Christmas parties in Bernal Heights and drag out the sheet music for all to join in and sing carols.  I joined a hospital choir group when I returned to Tucson for graduate studies.

Tremaine died during the spring term of the ninth grade.  We had slowly lost an oral connection for speaking about current events.  This was understandable with all that goes on in a young life between twelve and fifteen.  We still talked about feelings, wishes (his to get out of that lung), and the future (me - cars, him - girls).  I know that at the end, he understood that he wasn't going to live much longer, but how does a 15-year-old relate to that?  I'm sure there were other deaths around me during the preceding 15 years, but this was the first that affected me so personally.

Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanan

Seems like I’ve been talking about this book for a month.  I think I’ve just drawn out the pleasure for as long as I could.  This was a brilliant book by the same author as “The Good German”.  It was good for me because it combined my love of spy thrillers like those of Le Carre, and my recently acquired love for the latest hot-spot, “in” place in this world, Istanbul.  Jason Goodwin got me started on the place with his writings about Yashim, the 19^th century, Ottoman detective.  This “Passage” book takes place in late 1945 – the war is over and neutral Istanbul, Turkey is readjusting to normalcy after being a city much like Casablanca, but still thick with spies from all over the world, dining and drinking with each other at places not unlike Rick’s.

Our protagonist, American Leon, and his peers were tobacco people, R J Reynolds, Liggett Myers types before the war and most can’t wait to get back to the States.  Just like Rick, Leon has run a few guns and these days, Jews to Palestine, now under the British Mandate.  And yes, the author has liberally lifted plot line from Leon Uris’s Exodus: the broken down ship with the salty Captain and 400 starving passengers heading for Cyprus.  Our Leon is now confused: he has a wife in a coma at hospital; he speaks fluent Turkish – stay or go maybe not even up to him – he accepts doing one more covert job – a person coming from the East, needing to get to the West.  Leon isn’t formally a spy, but he helps the US Consulate doing American State Department business at a low level because of his Turkish language ability.  I hope you’re picturing Matt Damon by now.

Of course, the simple hand over goes awry, people get shot, and Leon slowly finds that everyone, except him, is a real spy, only he’s not sure who’s with who.  He has to learn quickly as the situation continues to become more and more complicated.  His consulate boss is killed, severing the ties he had, to accomplish what he thinks is his job.  A romance with his boss’s wife doesn’t help to clarify things.  The action in Kanon’s book is fast-paced, and he paints a fascinating picture of Istanbul.  It is the type of place in which I would like to spend a few months discovering the food, the locales, and the people.  I was lucky enough to do this in Jerusalem on a consulting job, staying a few months in a downtown apartment, long enough to develop a romantic relationship.

This is a well-balanced book: good character development of a dozen primary people and another dozen secondary characters are captured well-enough to make them recognizible and motivationally understandable; excellent plot development, continually raising the tempo bar, right up to the end; and most of all, a captivating and compelling description of Istanbul through an American’s eyes, one who has sort of gone native.  There is a requisite sprinkling of Turkish words, but no so as to be distracting.

I’d recommend this book to others for a spellbinding summer read.

I would give “Passage” a ten out of ten.