Under the Banner of Heaven

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Like the mangled remains of a car wreck, Jon Krakauer's investigation of the murder of a mother and her baby by fundamentalist Mormons is magnetically hypnotizing. One is appalled and horrified by the carnage, but the author's ability to get inside the mind of a killer echoes conversations Capote and Mailer had decades ago with equally hideous men—and this book is every bit as engrossing as those earlier works.

In the process of shining a light on the mind of Dan Lafferty, one of the two Utah brothers convicted of murdering their sister-in-law and her child in 1984, Krakauer also illuminates the fanatical religious thinking that led to these savage acts. The fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) is actually comprised of several sects of Mormons who adhere to a strict interpretation of the prophet Joseph Smith's teachings. Most American readers will be familiar with the FLDS' controversial embrace of polygamy—and that is one of the main points of divergence from the mainstream Mormon Church, but Krakauer's research shows to what comically absurd lengths "plural marriage" has led to:

"As his sixth wife, Debbie became a stepmother to Blackmore's thirty-one kids, most of whom were older than she was. And because he happened to be the father of Debbie's own stepmother, Mem, she unwittingly became a stepmother to her stepmother, and thus a stepgrandmother to herself."

Sadly, what may get lost in our eye-rolling derision is how tragic this can be, particularly for girls unlucky enough to have been born into an FLDS life:

"Before she vanished, Ruth Stubbs was living in the Phoenix home of her aunt Pennie Peterson, who ran away from Colorado City herself at the age of fourteen, when the prophet commanded her to become the fifth wife of a forty-eight-year-old man. Sixteen years later, Peterson remains very bitter about the UEP's polygamous culture. 'Polygamists say they are being attacked because of their religion,' she told the Salt Lake Tribune, 'but where in the Constitution does it say that it's OK to molest and impregnate young girls?'"

Ultimately, it's this cruelty in the name of God that the book highlights so effectively, and how formerly functional members of society such as Dan Lafferty can be reduced to barbarity by their quest to live in accordance with what they perceive to be a divine plan. In these times of widespread religious violence, Under the Banner of Heaven is a cautionary tale about the dangers of dogmatism. Even those of us who are spiritually unaffiliated would be wise to heed its warnings.

View all my reviews.

Dreams From My Father

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
On the bright side, the current U.S. president has come a ong way as a writer since he was merely known as Barack Obama, Esquire.

Unfortunately, that also means his first book, the much-lauded Dreams From My Father, is a disappointment. having been moved to tears by Obama's speeches on the campaign trail and afterward, I expected this memoir—the story of Obama's struggle to come to terms with his absent father's legacy—to touch me in similar ways. but as Obama admits in his 2004 preface, written 10 years after the book was first published, given the chance to write it again, he would have cut more.

At first, I thought this was just false modesty, but Dreams could have been half as long (it runs 442 pages) without losing anything essential. The main problem is that while Obama has a fascinating story to tell, of growing up a mixed-race man and discovering the father he met just once, the book reads like a soap opera filled with family squabbles and the small-minded conflict one encounters at work. Some of that is relevant to what makes Obama's life story compelling, but the bulk of it just feels like the unedited pages of a journal.

It's a pity, too, because clearly Obama has something important to tell us—about our rigid racial attitudes and how we might make sense of a deceased parent's mistakes—but extracting those lessons from amidst all of the unnecessary detail included here is much more trying that it ought to be.

It seems President Obama has learned a lot about writing these past 15 years, acquired great speechwriters, or maybe is just an exceptional orator. Whatever the reason, I sit up and take notice when he speaks, but could scarcely pay attention while reading Dreams From My Father.

View all my reviews.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
No doubt an epic work, Michael Chabon's 2000 novel is written with a sharp eye for historical detail and such vivid characters that it's impossible not to be enveloped in their world. The backdrop of the Holocaust and World War II add an urgency to events at the individual level and the themes of love and loss, revenge and redemption, are ideally suited to a book of this scope. Ultimately, however, it is the concept of escape--from lives lived in shadows and in opposition to one's true essence--that makes this work most satisfying.

At a sentence and paragraph level, Kavalier & Clay stands up to just about any fiction--the author's rich tapestry of vocabulary is breathtaking. Perhaps the only caveat that would give a potential reader pause is the book's length. At over 600 pages, there are moments that drag, provoking a desire for return to the plot's driving forces.


View all my reviews.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rarely has a book dropped so dramatically in my esteem during the time I was actually reading it. Oscar Wao is one of those books, having fallen from a whiz-bang five stars for the first 50 to 100 pages past four stars during the middle of the book before finally coming to a thud on three stars by the conclusion. Why the steep decline? Well, there's no doubt that the novel, ostensibly about a "ghetto nerd" from the Dominican Republic via New Jersey, grabs your attention right out of the gate. Junot Diaz is a masterful writer, who slips effortlessly between political polemic and the Spanglish descriptions of his main character's tortured existence. His prose is lively and infinitely creative and I sensed that he has a great book in him, but this just ain't it. As he rails against the evils of the Trujillo dictatorship, Diaz is simultaneously telling the sad tale of this miserable young man. Unfortunately for the reader, the two stories don't form a coherent narrative, and by the end, it's impossible to figure out why he chose to base the book around Oscar, whose life may be brief, but is certainly not all that wondrous. I kept waiting for the big connection, the tale of redemption that might explain why Oscar was chosen, by the story, by this author, for his fate. It seems I was waiting in vain.


View all my reviews.

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
As much as I consider myself a sensitive New Age guy, I got the distinct feeling while reading The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing that the novel wasn't written for me. I suppose the title should have been my first clue. But that's not to say I didn't find the book fairly enjoyable overall. The narrator, Jane Rosenal, is offbeat and a bit awkward, but she reliably delivers a droll retort to a boyfriend or otherwise unsuspecting man on about every other page. This adds some much-needed levity to the The Girls' Guide, which confronts some pretty heavy subject matter, from a parent with cancer to infidelity to the angst inherent in contemporary New York City courtship rituals.


View all my reviews.

Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is an outrageously funny book, full of enough explicit sexual tales and graphic language to make the filthiest comedian blush. One can only imagine how it was received upon publication 40 years ago. And that's certainly what one notices immediately--the profanity, and to this reader, some frankly disgusting sexual habits of protagonist Alex Portnoy. But after one acclimates to the language and subject matter, there is a depth amidst the vulgarity that's well worth plumbing. Roth writes fearlessly from the perspective of a narrator consumed by fear—his own, his parents', and the existential dread that runs through all the Jews of this novel. Simply put, Portnoy's Complaint is a masterpiece.


View all my reviews.

Deer Hunting With Jesus

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a fine, if imperfect, book. Bageant writes from an interesting and somewhat unique, perspective. A child of Virginia's white working class, he details his return after several decades in the bigger world, to the town of his birth, Winchester. What he finds is troubling, to say the least. While he was off becoming a liberal writer, his family and friends were left in near poverty to "cling to guns and religion," as an imprudent politician might put it. Bageant devotes most of the book to this tendency, portraying it as a symptom of the class war he blames on right-wing ideology and left-wing indifference. Where the author goes wrong is in his gonzo, take-no-prisoners style. It may be entertaining to read, but as social science, it's pretty weak. All too often, the book devolves into a series of diatribes against such familiar tropes as the latte-sipping liberal who sees himself as "too good" for Bageant's kin. But that's not to say there isn't value to be found here, particularly in the section on gun control, where Bageant's view that progressives need to drop this non-issue ASAP, may prove instructive.


View all my reviews.

In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Any discussion of In Defense of Food must of necessity start with the author's beguilingly simple summation of the book's central message: "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much." These seven words connect in both tone and content Michael Pollan's follow-up to his stunning expose of the American food landscape, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Their simplicity belies a number of challenges readers may face in striving to abide by them, but the words themselves are still a precious gift from Pollan.

The skeptical may ask why changing the way we eat is so important. Well, as Pollan notes, those peoples not wedded to the Western diet have "thrived on seafood diets, diary diets, meat diets, and diets in which fruits, vegetables, and grain predominated." The key to optimal health has been "a traditional diet consisting of fresh foods from animals and plants grown on soils that were themselves rich in nutrients."

So our challenge isn't, contrary to what we've long been told, to consume the perfect balance of vitamins and minerals, fats and carbs. This prevailing logic, which Pollan dismisses as "nutritionism" and the result of an unholy alliance of food scientists and food marketers, has bestowed on us precious little but the misery of "a predictable series of Western diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer." Our challenge is how to break free of a diet that while it may be killing us, is also as American as Hostess Fruit Pie (Apple).

This is where readers may feel Pollan's book is somewhat lacking, since its relatively short length (201 pages) doesn't allow for an in-depth discussion of just how to implement such a wholesale change in the way we eat, particularly given how surrounded we are by what Pollan terms "edible foodlike substances." The facts alone, as compelling a case as is made here, don't diminish the cravings we may have for that Snickers bar or can of Diet Coke, even if the facts do increase our level of guilt.

In fairness, Pollan's "Eater's Manifesto," as this book is subtitled, doesn't claim to offer a prescription for how to eat, much less a rigid diet. Pollan is a journalist, not a preacher, so remaking our own diets may just fall to us. Fortunately, Pollan does help us figure out how to interpret the essential message of the book by offering guidelines which are as useful as they are pithy, and include the following:

• "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." This means you, Go-Gurt Portable Yogurt tubes! Jeez, have an apple already.
  
  
• "Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number, or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup." You really don't need 41 ingredients (certainly not azodicarbonamide, whatever that is) to make bread, but that's what Sara Lee uses to create Soft & Smooth Whole Grain White Bread.
  
  
• "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle." You could also put it this way: Food on the outside, fake on the inside.
  
  
• "Pay more, eat less." Sounds backwards, but if you want good, real food grown in healthy soils, you're gonna hafta pay for it. And while no one likes the latter piece of advice, if we all just took a little less on our plates and avoided seconds, we might just be healthier.

I, for one, am greatly thankful for Michael Pollan's efforts in defense of food. To celebrate, I think I'll go have a salad.

View all my reviews.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Omnivore's Dilemma, as author Michael Pollan sees it, is the horrendously complicated process of how Americans today go about answering the simple question of what to have for dinner. Fortunately, we have a writer as skilled as Pollan to uncover what happens to our food before it gets to our mouths, and how we can use the knowledge we gain along the way to nourish our bodies as well as our minds. Subtitled A Natural History of Four Meals, the book tells us not just what we're eating, but where it comes from, how it gets to our plates, and what impact those processes have on the world we live in.

Pollan's genius is in both how he structures the book and how he uses the characters behind each meal to engage the reader; it's clear this guy knows a thing or two about storytelling, not to mention food.

Those with a weak stomach, be warned: Part I, in which we are introduced to the industrial food chain that flows on a "river of corn," is a tough read. Most of us know in the deeply denied backs of our minds that life for a steer on a factory farm is pretty grim, and as Pollan follows "cow 534" from ranch to feedlot, even the most carnivorous among us may lose our appetites. But it's not just the treatment of animals one finds troubling here; it's the degree to which our entire food chain is awash in corn, and the implications that has for public health, the environment, and the economy of the Heartland, that is most unpalatable.

To bring the point home, we meet George Naylor, the Iowa farmer who understands exactly what he's doing as he sells corn for less and less money every year, why his grandfather's multi-crop farm made so much more sense, and ultimately, why he can't afford to change anything he's doing.

One's appetite improves somewhat in Part II, which takes us through the world of "Big Organic," or as Pollan dubs this section's meal, "supermarket pastoral." On the one hand, the more we buy from large-scale organic farms, the supposedly healthier our food is, not to mention the people working the fields where pesticides aren't sprayed, and the waters in which chemical fertilizers don't wind up killing all of the downstream marine life. Unfortunately, all that organic produce we feel so virtuous for buying? It's shipped thousands of miles in many cases, particularly to those of us on the East Coast, and the carbon footprint created is significant.

Gene Kahn comes to symbolize the contradictions at the heart of Big Organic. Once a pioneering hippie founder of the organic movement, Kahn is now a General Mills vice president running Cascadian Farms, the massive organic operation that supplies a great deal of what we purchase at Whole Foods.

And then, as soon as have a grasp of what big business has done to our food system, Pollan takes an abrupt left turn in Part III, and spends about 100 pages talking about grass farming. Yep, from the point of view of Joel Salatin, the "Christian-conservative-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic farmer," it's all about what you do with a pasture. Salatin's Polyface Farm becomes in many ways, the ideal the book is searching for. It's practically off the grid, but it still finds a way to prosper economically because its efficiencies aren't dictated by the free market; they're based on how nature itself works. By harmonizing Polyface's operations with the natural world, Salatin is a throwback, but given what Pollan has to say about the meal, this crazy farmer is doing something right.

The fourth and final meal occupies the rest of the book, and since it's primarily acquired by hunting and gathering, two omnivorous dilemmas are central to Part IV: the ethics of meat eating and, with respect to mushrooms, how do we know which ones won't kill us? Pollan devotes a great deal of energy (and angst) to the first question, and it's a great service to all of us who've ever flirted with vegetarianism. The second question, in which he ventures to the top of the snowy Sierras to forage for fungi, is no less fascinating. As are his hunting and foraging companions. One of these is Angelo Garro, a Sicilian archetype of the "slow food" movement, who guides the author through the sometimes bloody world of the 21st-century hunter-gatherer, at least as far as one who resides in Berkeley, California, can be spoken of in such terms. Ultimately, Pollan's "last supper" is probably the most satisfying, but it requires the most work on his part, and as he points out, it's not an option for most of us. What is an option, now that we've learned where our food comes from, is to make more conscious choices about what we eat. We may just figure out what to have for dinner after all.

View all my reviews.

The Kite Runner, a review

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

A devastating and inspiring work, if a flawed one. On the positive side, there are beautiful and heart-rending descriptions of both Afghanistan and the friendship at the heart of this book. It's impossible not to be profoundly moved by the journey of the narrator and protagonist Amir— geographically from his boyhood home in Kabul to his adult residence near San Francisco, and ultimately, the denouement of his trip back to Afghanistan. Amir's spiritual journey is no less affecting, as he struggles to overcome internal demons brought about by his complicity in tragedy. Where The Kite Runner trips up is in the improbable twists of plot leading Amir on his path. Characters reappear in convenient places and their actions are so symbolic and useful to the narrative that they wind up seeming contrived. None of this ruins the overall power of the book, but its formulaic presentation makes Hosseini's writing seem fit more for Hollywood than for literature.


View all my reviews.