Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Kruse's Keys 2018 Reading List:

You can see our lists from 2009201020112013201420152016 and 2017.  You can also see my Reading the African Continent List here.

Memoirs of a Porcupine

So this is a difficult novel from renowned author Alain Mabanckou. Hailing from the Republic of Congo (the good one--hint: if a country has the name "democratic" or "democracy " in it, it's probably not), ubiquitous writer Mabanckou has penned a pointed tale aimed at taking down the role of backwoods superstition amidst modernity--at least that's what really smart people say he was doing. I will admit I didn't really understand the point of this novel and had to do some research to come to this deeper aforementioned conclusion. As I finished the last pages of this story, I was pretty disappointed I hadn't picked a different Congolese novel for my Reading the Continent project. But in my research afterwards, I discovered the book was the 2006 Renaudot prize winner (given to the best original French language novel) and so in the aftermath, I've decided to give it a second chance--at least on an intellectual level.

*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.









Sing Unburied Sing (*Audible)
Early on in "Sing, Unburied, Sing," the young son of a barely-there-back-country-voodoo-meth-addicted mother, makes the damning pronouncement that his mother Leonie "kills things." And indeed, death hangs heavy in this novel and a sense of dread is immediately present as the Ward reveals a forgotten place in the backwoods of the South where everything is upside down, where everything is in decay, and where death is not a permanent state but rather is transitory. I'd liken this novel to Daniel Woodrell's revelatory "Winter's Bone" in that it unveils a segment of America that is largely forgotten, ignored, and written off.

 Ostensibly, this is a fairly straight forward narrative. Single mother Leonie, her two children, and her junkie friend embark on a road trip to pick up Leonie's boyfriend when he gets out of jail. The story's depth emerges as Ward reveals that three of the characters can see certain wandering dead ghosts--ghosts that it turns out are looking for answers. Ward's literary mastery is evident, though, in the way in which this novel doesn't become a some supernatural story. She's able to do this because she's created characters with whom she so deeply empathizes that their visions don't seem fantastical but seem instead real and necessary as this family tries to come to grips with its past as they are mired down in a present quagmire.

My full review is here.








Beyond the Rice Fields
Malagasy author Naivo has crafting a heart-wrenching tale of love sets amidst one slave’s seemingly impossible yearning for success and upward mobility. Impressively, the author’s expansive piece of pre-colonial historical fiction doesn’t hold back in addressing some oft-considered taboo subjects in Madagascar such as slavery and the wholesale execution of Christians under Queen Ranavalona’s reign in the 19th century. The narrative centers on Tsito, a child whose family were “forest people” and captured, then sold into slavery by the ruling Merina highlanders (called amboalambos, i.e., pig-dogs by the atandroy or antakarana--it’s unclear which tribe the author refers to when he uses the denotation ‘forest people). He grows up with his master Rado’s family and develops a bond with Rado’s daughter Fara. The story unfolds through dueling narratives between these two characters.

The book reads as a mixture of hainteny (oral tale/poetry) and tantara (historical narrative) with a liberal dosing of Malagasy proverbs/adages (I counted 29 of them). One in particular proves emblematic as Fara ponders her destiny:

Love is like rice, when you transplant it, it grows, but never in the same way. It retains a bittersweet memory of its first soils. Every time it’s uprooted it dies a little; every time it’s replanted, it loses a piece of its soil. But it also bears fruit (188).


Naivo proves himself a skilled and brave writer in Beyond the Rice Fields. With the publication of his novel in English, he has illuminated a period of Malagasy history previously hidden from most of the world. Along the way, he has brought to life the rich traditions and deep culture of a country and people that are all too often wrongly associated solely with lemurs and coups by radio DJs.

*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.



African Kaiser (*Audible)
It quickly becomes apparent in the impressive tome, African Kaiser: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918that author Robert Gaudi is a bit of a von Lettow-Vorbeck fanboy. But this admiration is not without merit as the reader quickly learns the insurmountable odds faced by the German general fighting alone (i.e., without logistical support) and unafraid in German East Africa during World War I. While the general ends his four-year struggle in unconditional surrender at the hands of the British (after being ordered to following the actual Kaiser’s abdication), he completed his military service as a victor, having succeeded in his mission of pushing Great Britain to expend immense treasure and forces in its pursuit of his small army of guerrilla fighters.

Historian Edwin Palmer Hoyt described Lettow-Vorbeck’s campaign as “the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful." He did this largely by eschewing the traditional army tactics of the previous century and decentralizing his command in order to attack British supply chains and force them to commit greater and greater forces. His success did come at a high price, however, as his highly disciplined, nail-tough Askari forces (porters and soldiers) died in untallied numbers (although much less proportionately than their adversaries). There’s much evidence though that he was widely respected by his men as seen in a return trip to Tanzania later in his life as an 80 year old retiree in which he was greeted with cheers by again former soldiers and hoisted above their heads.

Despite this being Gaudi’s first book, this lengthy book (18 hours on Audible!) flies by on the strength of his story-telling and narrative prowess. The author also ties up Lettow-Vorbeck’s life story neatly with a well-researched retelling us his life-long quest for love and a notable distaste for Hitler which culminated in his telling Hitler to “go F*** himself” when the genocidal dictator offered him an ambassadorship.

*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.


Turn the Ship Around
I first heard about “Turn the Ship Around” on college classmate Scott Macke’s Service Academy Business Mastermind podcast. In it, he interviewed the author, retired Captain David Marquet, and delved into both his writing process and his revolutionary leadership philosophy. I let the book rest dormant on my amazon wishlist for months, however, because of my unfair bias against submariners. Despite some of my best friends being bubbleheads, I just didn’t associate leadership with that community. I wasn’t even a chapter into the book when I realized how misguided my bias had been.

There’s one episode in particular that sold me on Marquet as a leader that I would follow. My emphasis is on ‘as a leader’ because really, someone can put together a snappy, clever, well-marketed leadership product but people don’t follow a product--they follow a person. About midway through the book, Marquet shares the story of a nighttime passage the the strait of Malacca. This is a high risk evolution that nearly resulted in a collision with a tugboat if not for the exemplary and timely actions of one of his petty officers. As soon as the sub was clear, Captain Marquet immediately awarded the petty officer a Navy Achievement Medal on the spot. This floored me because despite it being a recognition that any Commanding Officer can give, I’d never seen it awarded other than at the end of someone’s tour. I’d say with confidence that my personal observations are indicative of trends across the Navy. If anything, commanding officers today tend to be more worried about awards inflation (i.e., too many O-4s getting DSMS for example) than actually providing timely recognition. Beyond that, I’ve had to put myself up for every award I’ve even gotten and usually end of tour awards arrive a year after you’ve already PCS’d (i.e., moved to your next assignment for my civilian readers). So I appreciated that Marquet not only cut through the bureaucracy (he did the write up afterwards, but also that he quickly and publicly recognized exemplary conduct. Marquet also made sure to have family members present whenever possible for awards--something commands often overlook. My full review is here.


Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work
Pastor Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor is not a beach read. It’s a hunker-down-with-a-highlighter-and-pen-philosophically-deep examination of what work means to God and what it should mean to anyone following God. Against a backdrop of much dense and completely thorough analysis, Keller seeks to lay out the Bible’s answer to three central questions:

Why do you want to work?
Why is it so hard to work?
How can the story of Jesus’ life lead us to find satisfaction in our work?

It’s in Keller’s examination of this last question that the reader will find the utility of this book. It’s evident from reading the New Testament that Jesus lived a life devoted to changing the culture he was in (i.e., one obsessed with a showy, outward following the letter of the law) through service and love. So in the example of his life’s “work” we see a template for how Christians must also approach work. And indeed, regardless of our station in life, we must seek out how we can serve others in our workplace.

This is obviously easier said than done but it’s a lot easier when we have a true appreciation for God’s love. You see, God made us because he loved us and he even more importantly, he made us for eternal love. In the Bible we have the Trinity as an example of eternal love: that is, three persons who have loved one another from all eternity. We are created to share love and joy. Practically, understanding the magnitude of this should lead us to not discard work’s importance for that of our personal relationships and leisure, but instead it should drive us to make the most of our time at work. While at work it should cause us to pour ourselves into pursuits that help people give and receive more love.

Ultimately, Keller points out that how we approach work from a non-religious socio-cultural aspect can model the Bible’s version of of these things. That is, how we handle adversity, how we handle difficult decisions, how we incorporate our family, how we incorporate colleagues into our own family where possible, can point our coworkers towards Jesus’ examples. More than any marches, protests, online petitions, or Facebook rantings, our work is our greatest opportunity to shape culture. It’s Keller’s hope that readers of Every Good Endeavor will leave it understanding that “We must think persistently and deeply about the shape of work in our field and whether (in biblical terms) it accords as well as possible with human well-being and with justice.”  My full review is here.

The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears (Ethiopia)
Before Adichie was regaling the world with her story of a relatively privileged immigrant experience in her brilliant 2013 novel “Americanah” (I wrote about it here), Ethiopian author Dinaw Mengestu was pulling back the curtain on a much bleaker immigrant experience in his 2007 “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.” I came across his debut novel after reading his masterful “All Our Names”, a story that I dubbed the “Great African Novel” (you can read my review here).

It’s telling that Mengestu chooses to frame his brave, funny, and sad story under the auspices of a key line from Dante’s Inferno. In particular, the title comes from the closing lines of Dante’s Inferno, as Dante and Virgil emerge from their voyage through the 9 circles of hell on Easter morning. With a journey through purgatory and paradise still ahead, the travelers look up to the star-soaked heavens:

“Through a round aperture I saw appear/Some of the beautiful things that heaven bears/Where we came forth and once more saw the stars.”

It is this experience of capturing beauty following unspeakable evil and adversity that Mengestu likens to the immigrant experience for so many (Africans in the book’s case). In the case of the narrator Sepha and his friends, they have escaped the violence in their own country and arrived in America, “seeing the stars.” Only they soon discover that while their new life in the United States may not be hell, it will likely be much more like the penance of purgatory than that of paradiso. Sepha emphasizes the direction of this journey a la purgatory as he notes: “As it was, I did not come to America to find a better life. I came here running and screaming with the ghosts of an old one firmly attached to my back.”
*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.



What the Day Owes the Night (Algeria)
What the Day Owes the Night is one of the saddest love stories you will ever read--in it you’ll witness the stillbirth of a romantic love and the lasting depth of a filial one. Khadra’s novel brings to mind the beautiful writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the melancholy sorrow of Neruda’s “Poem 20”, and the powerful narrative arc of Mahfouz’ The Cairo Trilogy. The height of the story’s narrative comes as the woman who should be the love of Younes’ life indicts him with the damning charge: Have you ever dared? And indeed, Younes’ sorry story is one of impotence as he never has dared and we bear witness to the slow disintegration of his life. In contrast, after centuries of subjugation, Algeria the country awakens and dares wildly, breaking its colonial chains, bloody link by bloody link. It’s in his ability to craft a story through these simultaneously ascending/descending narratives that Khadra displays true literary mastery.
*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.









Dancing in the Glory of Monsters (*Audible) (DRC)

I listened to this lengthy journalistic endeavor by writer Jason Stearns while driving home from work to Annapolis during the month of June. In it Stearns attempts to unravel the most complicated conflict that the world never cared about: the two wars in the Congo as he notes: “generally we do not care about a strange war fought by black people somewhere in the middle of africa.” This stands in stark contrast to the conflict in, say Kosovo, by contrast (Ch 23: 21:10).

As Stearns digs deeper and deeper into the wars, however, you are quickly struck by the overwhelming intensity of violence. Eventually it starts to weigh down upon you as you hear tale after graphic tale of rape and murder by every side (and there are many). In particular, the sheer level of sexual violence in incomprehensible as there’s likely no one in the country of 64 million who doesn’t know someone who was raped or assaulted (this Guardian piece notes that 12% of women in the Congo have been raped at least once). The reality of this becomes readily apparent as Stearns cautiously queries a gathered mixed crowd in one village as to whether they know anyone who’s been raped. Their reply: “We’ve all been raped, every single one of us!” (Ch 19: 40:36) The women go on to explain that in most cases, the rapists still live in their community.

Ultimately, it is the absence of justice that marks the conflicts in Congo as distinct from those elsewhere in Africa. There have been no truth and reconciliations commissions or gacaca courts to salve the deep wounds of most in the country. When one couples this festering infection with the lack of any effective state institutions, one is left without much hope. As Stearns observes, with no real state or effective governance, people default to ethnic identification which in turn only amplifies instability and further conflict (Ch 16: 44:31). The book does not end on a hopeful note but this was never the author’s mission. Rather Stearns has sought to reveal an incredibly complex issue that will hopefully inspire action and understanding. As the renowned Congolese singer Koffi Olomide notes in one of his songs: “Lies come up in the elevator, the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually” *My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.


The Memory of Love (Sierra Leone)

“We all were happy here once” reminisces Kai, the local Freetown surgeon, after the death of his last link to the time before. In “The Memory of Love”, with beautiful, striking prose author Aminattah Forna reveals the soul of a nation where nearly everyone is stricken with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the time after. And while PTSD may be the official western diagnosis, as one local notes: “You call it a disorder, my friend. We call it life.” The life that the reader discovers is one of contradictions as buddinglove constantly collides with the memory of pain. On one hand, Forna expertly frames the bittersweet nature of love as character Elias Cole remarks: “People are wrong when they talk of love at first sight. It is neither love nor lust. No. As she walks away from you, what you feel is loss. A premonition of loss.” On the other hand, Cole’s daughter Mamakay shares with her British lover Adrian why she and her friend slipped on jeans when they rebels broached the city: ‘Have you ever tried to get a pair of tight jeans off in a hurry? It was the only thing we could think of to do. To stop them raping us. Well, to make it harder.’ 

This painful history of sexual violence plays a prominent role as British tourist-psychologist Adrian tries to unpack a the mystery of one wondering, perhaps-possessed patient, a budding friendship with Kai, and the story of a dying man named Elias Cole. In this journey Forna examines what it means to love and to survive in Sierra Leone. And the author does not give in to easy storylines about the courage of the war’s survivors as Mamakay notes: “Courage is not what it took to survive. Quite the opposite! You had to be a coward to survive. To make sure you never raised your head above the parapet, never questioned, never said anything that might get you into trouble.” So how does a society, how does a nation go on with this twisted corporate history of incestuous betrayal and violence? How do a people wake up each day? It is Kai who reveals Forna’s central thesis: “And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love.” It is the memory of Sierra Leone’s before, that is what gives people their strength to slowly put their lives together again. Ultimately, Forna rejects any pitying outsider’s assessment of her nation: “People think war is the worst this country has ever seen: they have no idea what peace is like. The courage it takes simply to endure.”

*My full review is here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.

The Gunny Sack (Tanzania)
Currently reading.
*My full review will be here.
**One of my "Reading Around the African Continent" books--the full list is here.





















American War: A Novel (*Audible)

Egyptian-Canadian (by way of Qatar) journalist-turned-author Omar El Akkad has penned a tale of what I’d call “future-historical fiction(ish).” We are dropped into a world 40 years in the future where America has erupted into a chaotic conflict over the federal government’s outlawing of fossil fuels. This north-south split is aggravated by accelerated global warming and rising ocean levels that are swallowing up coastlines everywhere. 10 years ago this type of novel might have seem far-fetched but a casual perusal of today’s headlines place in squarely in the realm of scary-enough-it-just-could-happen-maybe.

Amidst these cataclysmic events, we witness the tragic arc of Sarat, a young girl whose life is quickly thrown into chaos as the violence of war encroaches and overwhelms her family’s life. Sarat quickly becomes a hardened women-turned sniper-turned prisoner of war-turned mass murderer.

The staying power of this novel comes from Akkad’s mastering in capturing the ways that media and political rhetoric can distort reality and inflame the populace. It’s also a good lesson on why it’s important for students to learn to evaluate events (past and present) from a diversity of viewpoints and sources.

*My full review is here.

Kruse's Keys: Read "Beyond the Rice Fields" to Experience the Beauty, Love and Tragedy of Madagascar

It’s hard to express how much I looked forward to reading this book.  I spent three years living and working in Madagascar beginning in late 2013 (my collected writings from that time can be found here and here).  Prior to my arrival, I had scoured the libraries and internet for anything that I could find in English on Madagascar (my list of collected articles and books can be found here and here.).  Unfortunately, this was a rather small task once one gets beyond the myriad travel guides and nature-oriented literature.  
Then near the end of 2015, I came across a post from Ann Morgan, who spent a year reading a novel from EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.  In the post, she lamented the fact that not a single novel from Madagascar had ever been translated into English, but that a translator named Allison Charette had received a PEN grant to translate one and  she’d chosen “Beyond the Rice Fields.”  So I’d been literally waiting for the last two years for the book to be released and it did not disappoint.  

Malagasy author Naivo has crafting a heart-wrenching tale of love sets amidst one slave’s seemingly impossible yearning for success and upward mobility.  Impressively, the author’s expansive piece of pre-colonial historical fiction doesn’t hold back in addressing some oft-considered taboo subjects in Madagascar such as slavery and the wholesale execution of Christians under Queen Ranavalona’s reign in the 19th century. The narrative centers on Tsito, a child whose family were “forest people” and captured, then sold into slavery by the ruling Merina highlanders (called amboalambos, i.e., pig-dogs by the atandroy or antakarana--it’s unclear which tribe the author refers to when he uses the denotation ‘forest people).  He grows up with his master Rado’s family and develops a bond with Rado’s daughter Fara.  The story unfolds through dueling narratives between these two characters.  

The book reads as a mixture of hainteny (oral tale/poetry) and tantara (historical narrative) with a liberal dosing of Malagasy proverbs/adages (I counted 29 of them).  One in particular proves emblematic as Fara ponders her destiny:
Love is like rice, when you transplant it, it grows, but never in the same way.  It retains a bittersweet memory of its first soils. Every time it’s uprooted it dies a little; every time it’s replanted, it loses a piece of its soil.  But it also bears fruit (188).
Fara’s observation captures the tension and movement with Beyond the Rice Fields as the central characters and family find themselves uprooted numerous times amidst shifting factions as King Radama dies and the throne is passed to his wife Ranavalona.  Her reign marks the beginning of an increasingly fraught relationship between Christianity and political power in Madagascar, especially since the crown Prince becomes a Christian.  

While neither Fara nor Tsito are themselves Christians, they find themselves caught in the ill effects of Ranavalona’s power consolidation as she upends traditional tribal power alliances and eventually publicly executes thousands of Malagasy Christians.   Within all this chaos, however, Fara and Tsito ultimately find each other.  
In one key conversation, we hear echoes of the fampitaha song from the novel’s beginning as Fara lovingly spars with Tsito:
“And how will you love me?”  
He replies: “I will love you like my eyes, the windows of my soul; without them, I am as weak as a child, but with them, the world smiles at me.”
“Then do not love me, for I will be of no use to you in the darkness.”

“I will love you like the door to my home, protecting me from enemies and keeping the hearth warm.”
“Then do not love, for you push through me without shame to achieve your ends.”
“I will love you like the Sovereign of this realm, mistress of the our lives and destiny.” (238)
Naivo proves himself a skilled and brave writer in Beyond the Rice Fields. With the publication of his novel in English, he has illuminated a period of Malagasy history previously hidden from most of the world.  Along the way, he has brought to life the rich traditions and deep culture of a country and people that are all too often wrongly associated solely with lemurs and coups by radio DJs.  


Key Quotes:

“Sing for your highest dreams, dance for your most starstruck plans.  Then you cannot lose (120).”

Key Takeaways:
  • Unless you live in Madagascar I don't think that I can ever make you understand how important rice is to Madagascar, to its culture.  For starters, Malagasies eat rice AT EVERY MEAL. Living in its capital you see the rice fields everywhere, they are inescapable--RICE IS LIFE in Mada! 
  • Book captures a tension that exists today between the Merina highlanders, who consolidate power across Madagascar and everyone else (in the novel’s case the ‘forest people’ who refer to the Merinas as pig-dogs). While many would disagree as to the level of this tension today, I saw evidence of it, particularly between the Merina highlanders and those living on the coasts (6).
  • Torture as a whole plays a central role throughout the novel, whether in its use to break down slaves (9), or as an overall method of societal control.
  • The idea of “purification” also plays an important role in the culture and tradition of the villages and the palace.  Earlier on, we see the ‘witch doctors/seers’ practice of determining a child’s purity by putting them in the path of stampeding cattle and seeing if they live (56).  
  • Fara’s belief that “the city is my destiny” is a harbinger of doom (64)
  • Short hair done as a sign of mourning (72)
  • Keen insight into rather insidious ways that early white missionaries exercised control and ensured their livelihoods as they spread rumours that “killing a white man will give you leprosy” or “vazaha blood was a slow poison that made anyone who spilled it go deaf” (90).
  • Fampitaha singing/dancing competition is seen as elemental part of Malagasy society (117). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBUxRMAZ6oM 
  • Merina referred to themselves as “People under the sky” (117).
  • Lanterns and lights are associated with childhood and celebration of children (133)
  • Annual Bathing feast described as essentially a sexual free for all, as long as the participants hide while they do it (144)
  • While the Queen starts anti-Christian actions (171), they also had the effects of galvanizing the spread of Christianity (175).
  • Tangena poison test played a huge role until the Queen’s successor outlawed it.  Anyone so accused would be required to drink the poison (derived from the toxic nuts of tangena tree.  Then they’d have to swallow three bird skins.  If they could vomit up the three bird skins without dying then they’d be declared innocent.  Evidently this was a widely accepted method of guilt determination with something like 2% of the population dying from it every year (much more during Ranavalona’s reign) (216).  
  • Under the quee, the palace/government started to confiscate everything from the people (220).  
  • Beautiful writing: “I will love you” (238)
  • Words in English as holding no sacred virtue (267)
  • More beautiful writing: “My heart is as solid as a shield” (274)
  • It becomes evident under the queen that the military generals wield the real power (342)
  • Habits of a slave described (23)
Proverbs:
  1. A slave skilled at valiha: when you ask him to play, he refuses, but as soon as you speak of work, he goes mad for the music. (9)
  2. A crying orphan, only pitied by the back of his own hand. (10)
  3. Do not cook meat without knowing its name (15).
  4. The seer who wants to make the impossible believable is not afraid to make dying men dance (17).
  5. A banana threatened with a knife with eventually be pierced (33).
  6. A lie likes to dress itself up as a story (40).
  7. A servant’s undivided piaster is the master’s esteem (48).
  8. You must not judge the stranger by his yellowish face but think of his family on the other side of the earth (58).
  9. Better a small soul respected by his friends than a great soul who perishes in vain (69).
  10. The tree that grows too tall will be thrashed by strong winds (70).
  11. The sovereign’s word is law; it enters our homes not on tiptoes, but stomping its feet (88).
  12. He who changes lords changes status (93).
  13. The City’s great houses, the first built are soonest dissatisfied (107).
  14. Hope cannot vanquish destiny (110).  
  15. Only simpletons want to be like their fathers (116).  
  16. He who shows his back hides what’s in his soul (125).
  17. He who has a white soul is like a bird of ill fate (125).
  18. If the waterfall rumbles, it is because of the rocks; if kings rule, it is because of the vahoaka (128).
  19. The poor are not friends of the affluent (171)
  20. Love is like rice, when you transplant it, it grows, but never in the same way.  It retains a bittersweet memory of its first soils. Every Time it’s uprooted it dies a little; every time it’s replanted, it loses a piece of its soil.  But it also bears fruit (188).
  21. They can rise to the top as cream does, but milk will always reveal a common ancestor (189).
  22. A meeting of dogs where they only sniff each other’s asses (199).  
  23. Those who are unified are like a rock, those who are divided are like the sand (221).
  24. Love is like the silkworm in winter: touching it makes its eyes open wide(232).
  25. Only halfwits have less ambition that their fathers (242).
  26. The soul is what makes us human (251).
  27. Everyone is in himself a noblemen (251).
  28. Destiny is a chameleon on a tree branch, it only takes a hissing child for it to change its color (318).
Songs and Hainteny:
We’ll go to the City of Thousands
To eat the laying hen
To eat the fatty zebu hump (18)

The village is rich with children
Grandmother is lucky indeed
Her home has a hundred slaves
Her home holds a hundred cattle (26)

To mediate the difficult
        As saffron does (73)

Come forth! Let them appear
        And the most beautiful will triumph
They will be judged
And the ugliest will disappear (126)

Tell me how I can keep your love:
        If I knot it into a corner of my gown
        The thread might break it and I could lose it.
        If I place it in the palm of my hand
        I’m afraid it might dissolve into dampness…
Instead, I’ll put it in my heart
Although it will make me perish
Will that not make me love you all the more? (131)

Bulls fighting within the herd
        The victor is not cheered
        The vanquished is not booed (135)

The trees of sweet-smelling wood
        Counting two, there finding three
        There on the tall mountain
        On Mount Adrigiba
They wanted to sleep
Pressed against each other
At least rejoice, oh my soul,
That you do not possess
The one you do not love (146)

A thousand words
        A hundred stories
        But all talk ends
        At the hour of confrontation (275)

I implore your forgiveness, O my earth
        I appeal to your mercy, O my earth!
        You, who cover our dear ones
        You, their final shelter
        We trample you underfoot
        But you are the water’s cradle
        And you grow the ears of rice
        And you absorb all sorrow
        O my earth (348).

Key References (for further study):

  • Fampitaha competition (12)
  • Fara name (15)
  • Kalanoro (96)--mythical creature--there’s some weird stuff on the internet about this one
  • “Paul and Virginia”  love story of star-crossed lovers in Mauritius.  You can read more about it here(123)
  • Christian holy man who was killed by the Queen--more about him here. (162)
  • Fara describes the dying away of fampitaha competitions, are these still held today? (192)
  • Mantasoa, man-made lake/Laborde built the city there is and is buried there. (193)
  • Royal decree for export rights (227) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Laborde 
  • Menamasos artists society to surpass Vazahas (236) reference book
  • Zafamanelo family right to recite kabary was rescinded by the Queen(239)
  • Crown prince Radama I a christian (243)
  • Madagascar sent ambassadors to England and France in the 1800’s (247)
  • Sidikina derivation of God Save the King played when foreign rulers would visit Madagascar (259)
  • http://kruzoo.blogspot.com/2016/08/veloma-list-of-madagascar-posts.html
  • http://kruzoo.blogspot.com/2016/08/veloma-list-of-poems-written-while-in.html
  • http://kruzoo.blogspot.com/2016/08/antananarivo.restaurantlist.bestofmadagascarhediard.html
  • http://kruzoo.blogspot.com/p/mada-articles.html
  • www.brooklynbookfestival.org/authors/naivo/
  • http://ile-en-ile.org/naivo/
  • http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/december-2015-the-conspiracists-naivo-allison-m-charette
  • https://pen.org/introducing-the-literature-of-madagascar-on-translating-naivo/

Monday, January 8, 2018

Kruse's Keys: Read "Artemis" For Fast-Paced Ready for the Big Screen Action*

NOTE: I don’t typically provide the set Kruse’s Keys set of notes for books that I listen to on Audible.  It’s pretty much impossible/dangerous to take notes while driving so I instead try to jot down my overall impression.

I read author Andy Weir’s blockbuster debut novel The Martian back in 2015 (before the movie) and loved it (I also loved the movie).  So when Artemis came out I added it to my Audible queue.

Artemis is the name of the colony/city/development located on the moon at some point in the future.  The story focuses on a young smuggler/dreamer named Jazz.  As the daughter of an immigrant from Saudi Arabia, she was pretty much raised on the moon and has developed a pirat-ish code of conduct aimed at eventually moving her up in the stratified social order of life on Artemis.

Early on, Jazz is offered a deal that’s too good to be true (of course) and hijinks ensue.  The narrative moves quickly with dialogue and action but Jazz irked me--she comes across as a little bit too enamored with just how cute and clever and irreverent she is (or rather, thinks she is).  This lack of humility and maturity grated me as the story progressed--in fact it ended up distracting from the novel itself at times.

One gets the sense that Weir wrote this novel to become an eventual movie--rather than to exist on its own.  The voice that reads the Audible version, for instance, is the actress Rosario Dawson.  This likely drives the reader to envision what one hears in the realm of a movie on the big screen.  But you know what, I’d probably be doing the same thing if I possessed his drive and talent so good on him.

So Jazz’ personality aside, Weir has done what talented authors do: create a previously unknown world and open its door to readers everywhere.  Buckle up.





Sunday, January 7, 2018

Kruse's Keys: Read "Hidden Christmas" to Understand the True Gravity of Christmas

Tim Keller stepped down as the senior pastor at the renowned Redeemer Church in NYC in early 2017--the church he built into 5000 strong members in one of the most unchurched areas of the United States.  Along the way, he’s published an array of books (one of them, Prodigal God, is on my yearly re-reading list) and Hidden Christmas falls in among them.

Hidden Christmas is the product of a lifetime of Keller’s Christmas sermons.  This amalgamation covers the breadth of the Christmas story beginning with its roots in the Old Testament, as the Israelites yearned for the freeing savior King promised to them.  Whether a believer (in Jesus) or not, a reader will find much of interest in this short read.  And I think that’s really the strength of this book: Keller covers so much that there’s bound to be something in it that will give you pause to consider what Jesus’ birth in a manager means.

Personally, I finished Hidden Christmas with a newfound understanding for just how significant it was that God became man (i.e., the incarnation).  The Old Testament contains volumes on the just how carefully the people of Israel had to approach even the presence of God in their temple.  There are literally pages and pages, in fact, that detail the cloth, the spacing, the colors, the time of day, the season, the sacrifices, the materials, all the prerequisites just for the Israelite priests to commune with God and atone for their people’s sins.

Then God (i.e., Jesus) becomes a baby in a manager.  Now all that has to happen for the people of Israel to approach God is to merely COME.  Come and adore him...in a manager, as a defenseless baby.  That’s changes--that changed everything.  We take the ability to talk to, to pray to, to approach God ourselves for granted today and the Christmas story should remind us of how incredible this is.

This book is from our 2017 Reading List.

Key Takeaways:
  • God has experienced the depth of humanity: despair, death, pain and suffering.  He has come alongside us.  
  • We have more info today than Mary did because we know the Gospel story.  But her faith was amazing because she accepted her role without knowing the scope and breadth of what her son Jesus would do.  She didn’t know then that he would die on a cross, be raised again and save humanity.  How much more then should we have faith in His promises.
  • God/Jesus became man, God laid aside his glory for vulnerability instead.  Think to the Old Testament passages and all the precautions Israelites had to take just to approach God in the temple...then boom, Jesus comes and he’s lying there in a manager for all to see (48-9)
  • The Old Testament lineage and parallels are fairly significant and all point to Jesus’ coming.  It’s worthwhile to read this section of the book for how concisely Keller lays it all out (76).


Key Quotes:

  • “Such in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which science presents for our belief... That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.” (9)
  • “Christmas shows [God] knows what you’re going through.” (14)
  • “Christmas is not “Once upon a time story that happened that shows us how we should live better lives.” No!  He broke into the world to save us.  Christ the savior is born!” (39)
  • “Two questions for professing Christians: “First are you willing to obey anything the Bible clearly says to do, whether you like it or not? Second, are you willing to trust God in anything he sends into your life, whether you understand it or not.” (91).
  • “The [Bible’s] lesson is that the medium is not the message, that we must not ignore uncomfortable truths just because they come through an unimpressive messenger.” (104)
  • “Thy word is like a deep, deep mine;//and jewels rich are rare//are hidden in its mighty depths//for every searcher there.” (107)
  • “The manger at Christmas means that, if you live like Jesus, there won’t be room for you in a lot of inns.” (119)

Key References (for further study):


Key Notes:


2 We give gifts at Christmas because of the gift of Jesus to humanity
3 “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” is a good summary of the entire gospel
5 We string lights at Christmas because Jesus brought light to the world
6 Darkness = evil and ignorance
7-8 The gospel of ME forgets that man isn’t God
17 Some gifts are hard to receive--because you have to acknowledge a deficiency/shortcoming
in your help
21 Matthew opening with genealogy denotes a news story not a fairy tale
29 Matthew lists 5 maternal ancestors of Jesus--that’s unique in a patriarchal
society.  Most of the women weren’t jews and reminded readers of the failings in
Israel’s past
33 Power of Jesus comes as an equalizer between social, economic, racial groups
36 When you are not feeling love = you’re likely putting God on your own timeline
37 7th seven generation is Jesus--the 49th year was a ‘jubilee’ when all debts were
forgiven
43 Power of the fact that Jesus really is God
48-9 God/Jesus became man, God laid aside his glory for vulnerability instead.  
50 Selflessness epitomizes the Christmas spirit
52 Jesus knows the pain of unanswered prayer--his prayer in the Garden of
Gethsemene to God to ‘take this cup’
53 Jesus coming as man broached the transition from fear to love
61 God needed courage:  that’s unique in all religions--and he got that courage from
love
67 There can only be one king in a land or a life
73 Post-salvation we are all still residual anger toward God
76 Wow, Old Testament lineage and parallels
84 Conversion can happen at different speeds for people--not always immediate,
singular event
87 One sign of faith is when you get a sense that God came and found you
90 Christianity is not “of course”--it’s a real miracle
99 We have more info today than Mary did--she accepted her role without knowing
the scope and breadth of what her son Jesus would do
105 Bible is meant to be pondered--not just read
140-1 Christian life starts just as Jesus came--humbling just by asking