margaret45678's reviews
45 reviews

The Pepsi Cola Addict by June-Alison Gibbons

funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

The only thing I can really say about this book is that, as flawed as it is, I do think it's worth a read on its own merits (and not just because of who the author is). It was eerily similar to reading bad fan fiction from the 2000s, but all the same I think the bizarre plot and the overall tone/mood was enjoyably surreal. 

Going Home: A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation by Raja Shehadeh

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

This is the second Shehadeh book I've read and it reaffirms my feeling that he's a great author for educated/liberal/humanistic types who are like just starting to unlearn the dominant view of the (so-called) Israel-Palestine conflict. Some of it is a bit "old man yells at cloud" (like when he says children are spending too much time on their computers and becoming "obese"), but I think that's all the more reason why a certain segment of Western society will find him relatable. For people used to thinking of Palestinians as either bloodthirsty terrorists or helpless victims, reading a normal guy's thoughts on aging, nature, restaurants, his parents, cutting out gluten from his diet, etc. may break them out of their simplistic perspectives.

I also really like how he incorporates his personal history and the history of Ramallah and Palestine in general into his reflections over the course of a single day. I wouldn't say he's an especially brilliant stylist, and there were a few instances where I found his phrasing a bit convoluted, but generally his writing is pleasantly unpretentious.  

When the Bulbul Stopped Singing: Life in Palestine During an Israeli Siege by Raja Shehadeh

I think this book would be a good starting point for liberal people who are disturbed by the atrocities which Israel is committing against Palestinians but who still can't bring themselves to fully support the idea of Palestinian liberation, perhaps better than The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. As a middle-aged, educated, professional person who is staunchly opposed to violence, Shehadeh is likely to be relatable to many progressive-leaning Americans. I think he did a good job integrating historical information and accounts from his friends and family into his personal experiences, though you would still need to have some background knowledge about the history of Palestine and the occupation to understand everything.

Some of his analysis came across as a little naive, but then again it's an important reminder that Palestine is not just an abstract concept, and Palestinian people can't be reduced to either abject victims or ruthless terrorists. I'm not sure how to phrase this without falling into glib cliches about "both sides" but I do think his efforts to understand and be compassionate towards Israelis - without minimizing the horrors of the occupation and the total asymmetry of the situation - are admirable.

What stood out to me was how Shehadeh and his neighbors witnessed many of the same cruel, sophomoric acts of vandalism by the IOF which we're seeing again in Gaza, over 20 years later.

A History of Modern Lebanon by Fawwaz Traboulsi

A mixed bag. Traboulsi is a good writer and I would have liked to see more analysis of the often very complex sequences of events. At times he explores in detail the contradictory impulses acting upon Lebanese social, political, and economic life, but at other times these contradictions are not explicitly addressed. For instance, I'm still left wondering why the Phalange, with its marked hostility and aggression towards Palestinians in Lebanon (even before establishing a formal relationship with Israel), would accuse the PLO-allied Left of collaborating with "foreigners" and Zionists to destroy the Palestinians (in one instance, making this accusation shortly after Phalangist forces massacred a bus-load of Palestinians!). I understand that politicians of all stripes have no principles beyond what will get them the most power, but why was this a rhetorical strategy that made sense to the leadership of the Phalange at the time? (The question of why Israel would collaborate with a far-right Christian militia which was literally inspired by the Hitler Youth also requires some explanation, at least from people who maintain Israel's "right to exist.")

I also felt like I was missing out on some of the regional context, especially the situation within Syria at any given time, though I can't expect a book like this to give a comprehensive history of the entire Middle East. More maps would have been helpful; the timeline and glossary in the back were useful, though I noticed some terms used in the text were not defined at all in the glossary or elsewhere. 

What I will say is that the edition I read (the 2nd) was full of errata and typos. Generally, this didn't affect the comprehensibility of the content, but it's definitely not a good look. I actually checked Pluto Press's website to see if they provide copy editing because this is the second of their publications I've read that has had these types of errors (apparently they do provide it, but maybe they didn't in 2012?). However, the presence of all these typos really serves to underline Traboulsi's skill - I still found the text very fluid and easy to read, if not always easy to fully understand. 

There were a few things which didn't quite make sense and probably should have been caught by an editor - ex. at the end of chapter 2, Traboulsi makes a fleeting reference to "the 'accident' of the two muleteer boys of Bayt Meiri in 1859," as if this accident had been described in detail earlier in the chapter, which it hadn't - unless I'm completely blocking it from my memory somehow? Maybe things got a bit garbled when the first edition was updated.

Still, very informative and important reading for the current situation of the world. France's ambitions after WWI to turn Lebanon into a "Christian homeland" - not to mention assurances given to the US that Bashir Jumayil's regime would turn Lebanon into a Christian version of Israel - are highly significant. 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

4.5

On a macro level, the construction of the overall story is amazing. The form is perfectly suited to the content. It's like a mosaic where each chapter is a small piece of the larger picture. Last year I read Karen Tei Tamashita's Brazil-Maru, another multigenerational family story with a similar structure and themes, but which took so much longer to tell a much shorter story that it ended up really dragging. I see that some other reviewers were annoyed by the length of the chapters/individual stories in Homegoing, but I think they are pretty much perfect. Gyasi is really subtle, showing you just enough of each character's life, incorporating some recurring motifs and supernatural dream/vision elements which made the story feel cohesive, but not beating you over the head with anything. 

On a micro level, the prose style of this book didn't really blow me away. There were a few instances where the narration used words and phrases that were distractingly anachronistic for the time period of that particular chapter, which was a bit disappointing considering the amount of research that obviously went into the book. However, I can see that it must have been difficult to create a narrative voice that would feel consistent across so many different times and places, and I think for the most part Gyasi was successful. The voices of the characters certainly felt natural and unforced to me, which is very impressive considering how many and varied they are.

One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse by Ali Abunimah

hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

I don't think this is a book that will convince everyone but it's definitely a book that everyone should read. A lot has changed since this book was written but I'd like to believe it's not too late for Abunimah's vision to resonate with people, even if they don't agree with every single point. 

From what I've seen at recent protests, it seems like a lot of younger activists are pushing back against the 2 state solution, but looking at some of the online discourse I think there is an unrealistic belief that most Israelis hold multiple passports and would leave the country if Palestinians ever gained real political power (comparisons with Algeria are common). As maddening as it is, in practical terms it's hard to get around the fact that most Jewish Israelis are not in that situation, and certainly do not see themselves as colonizers. Even as someone with no personal stakes in this matter, I do find it hard to accept this, maybe because the same could be said of white Americans - on the whole we do not see ourselves as colonizers of the land which is now the United States, nor as participants in various (neo)colonial projects in the rest of the world, but we very much are.

Anyway, my American misgivings aside, I think the comparison with South Africa is a much better model for understanding possible strategies and outcomes for a united Palestine. It's also a good reminder that unjust systems which seemed set in stone only a short time ago can be changed. We can't give up!

Avidly Reads Poetry by Jacquelyn Ardam

medium-paced

I think I had the wrong idea of what this book was going to be, and it's probably mostly my own fault. It was more focused on writing (as opposed to reading) poetry than I thought it would be, but maybe I took the title of the book/series a bit too literally. I wasn't expecting it to deal mainly with US-based poetry, but in hindsight it makes sense that such a short volume would zero in on a particular national tradition, rather than trying to make claims about all poetry everywhere throughout all of human history.

About 25% of the time, the writing was really cringey and obnoxious, like typical elder millennial white girl Buzzfeed writer stuff. Ardam is at least a bit self-aware but at times it felt quite performative.

When Ardam stopped trying to be all "how do you do fellow kids" it was perfectly fine. The first and last chapters (sonnets and internet poems) were probably the best. Her reflections on teaching poetry classes throughout the book were also really interesting.

Confronting Empire by Eqbal Ahmad, David Barsamian

hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

I learned of Eqbal Ahmad from Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine. I would certainly like to read more of his work - I'm not sure these seemingly off-the-cuff interviews fully represent his thought. However, they were very interesting and quite inspiring, though I worry that the world has changed too much for Ahmad's flexible, creative, nonviolent positions to be widely accepted or adopted.

I can see why his position on western/US intervention has been criticized as inconsistent, though I think I might be biased by interpreting his comments through a 2020s lens. At one point, he criticizes US feminists for not drawing attention to atrocities perpetrated against Bosnian women. I feel like in more recent years we have seen western feminism (and LGBTQ+ rights) mobilized as hawkish, Islamaphobic talking points (pink/purple/rainbow-washing, homonationalism), so I'm inclined to be sort of cynical about how this would have played out, but of course the perspective of someone in the late '90s would not be the same.

Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

Enjoyable quick read but not really anything special. Similar themes to Foucault's Pendulum (which is like my favorite book of all time) but not as charming. I think it's really meant to be a quite pointed critique of particular aspects of (northern) Italian society in the early '90s which was a bit lost on me, but the general commentary on the press and conspiracy theories still felt funny and relevant. 

I was slightly surprised that all the stuff about Operation Gladio and fascist "stay-behinds" was true, but it tracks, given the USA/CIA's other activities propping up military dictatorship and suppressing democratic movements around the world.

A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man by Holly George-Warren

fast-paced

Pretty well written, with some of the typical music writer corny cliches (ex. referring to authors as "scribes"). The pacing was a bit weird, with the last decade or so of Chilton's life covered in just a few pages, which left me wondering if maybe Chilton's wife at the time of his death refused to be interviewed for the book or something like that (which is fair enough). 
There's a lot of name-dropping and I got a bit confused at points; I think it would have been helpful if the author had reintroduced people more often as they came in and out of Chilton's life. 
One last nitpick - the recording sessions with Jon Tiven et al, but doesn't mention the band Prix, under whose name (some of?) those recordings were released, nor does Prix's "Historix" appear in the discography at the end.