The people of Warsaw were especially proud of their zoo. In 1937, after less than ten years as zookeeper, Jan Zabiński and his wife, Antonina, had succeeded in developing a population of animals that rivaled that of any Zoo in Europe. That year, the Zabińskis attended on the birth of a baby elephant, Tuzinka, only the twelfth elephant ever delivered in captivity. The zoo’s herd of Przywalski horses, rare in captivity, with a lineage dating back to the time of the Mongols, were the envy of zookeepers everywhere, especially in Germany.

Jan and Antonina were not merely curators of their animal charges. Jan’s respect for and curiosity about animal behavior came from his scientific background. Antonina identified closely with animals sharing empathy so deep that it seemed to put them at ease with their human keepers. “There was something almost alchemical about living so intimately with the likes of lion kitten, wolf cub, monkey toddler, and eagle chick, as the zoo smells, scratching and calls mingled with human body and cooking smells, with human chatter and laughter in a mixed family of den mates.”

The word ark comes readily to mind when thinking of the Zabiński menagerie, and the villa where Jan, Antonina and their son Rýs lived did have the character of an ark in the wooden sea of the zoo, set beside the Vistula across the river from Warsaw’s Old Town. But it would take on a different sort of passenger when war began in a short while, when Antonina compared it to “Captain Nemo’s submarine, gliding through deep ocean on its journey to a safe port.”

In the following year, Germany would seize the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia, and Poland braced for invasion. “Cursed by its strategic location in eastern Europe, Poland had been invaded, sacked and carved up many times, its borders ebbing and flowing…” [Ackerman] Caught between Russia and Germany, who had secretly decided to divide Poland up once again, and with allies determined not to provoke Hitler, the people of Warsaw awaited their fate.

In September of 1939, Nazi bombers flew 1150 missions against Warsaw, acting on Hitler’s orders to “recklessly exploit the region as a war zone and booty country, and to reduce to rubble its economic, social, and political structure.” Much of Warsaw, including the zoo, was destroyed. Animals either perished or were released by the keepers to make their way as best they could. But the villa was left largely intact and Jan and Antonina resumed their lives in the midst of the occupation, tending to the few remaining animals and working with the Polish Resistance to relocate people—for the most part Jews—out of the city.

As the net drew tighter on the Jewish population, those who were not killed outright were forced into the Jewish Quarter (“The Ghetto”), a district about the size of New York’s Central Park. Many chose to go underground rather than face what was described as “an organized form of death,” and they passed like shadows among the Aryan occupiers.

Antonina’s empathy and compassion found new outlets as individuals, and sometimes whole families, appeared at the Villa looking for food and a place to stay until their escape could be arranged. Great friendships were forged within the confines of the old Zoo, and bonds were forged that allowed the Resistance to grow and strengthen. True to her nature, Antonina tried to make life not just bearable, but enjoyable. She also displayed unbelievable courage in the face of danger. On more than one occasion while Jan was off fighting with the Resistance, she used her animal cunning and empathy to defuse potentially explosive situations. She exuded calm, and her calmness brought potential aggressors, whether German Officers or renegade Russian troops, to their senses. It is a tribute to her courage and resourcefulness that the Germans never discovered the secret of what was going on at the Villa, a secret that was carried on right under their noses, “hidden in plain sight.” No wonder the Polish Resistance referred to the Villa by cryptonym as “The House Under a Crazy Star.”

The literature that emerges from World War II is full of tales of bravery and unsung heroism. Diane Ackerman has done a splendid job of bringing the story of Jan and Antonina Zabiński to light. While the story of the Zabińskis is remarkable, The Zookeeper’s Wife really tells the story of the heroism of an entire city, which may be credited with saving 28,000 Jews. “Keeping one person alive often required putting a great many in jeopardy, and it tested them non-stop as they resisted both propaganda and death threats. Yet 70,000-90,000 people in Warsaw and the suburbs, or about one-twelfth of the city’s population, risked their lives to help neighbors escape.”

To get the flavor of war-time Europe, especially in the Eastern European countries, there can be no better guide than Alan Furst. His novels of intrigue are set in wonderfully exotic places like Istanbul, Paris, Prague, Berlin, and, of course, Warsaw. His most recent novel, The Spies of Warsaw, takes place in the years leading up to the German Occupation.

What lives for centuries but can still die before its own birth?

Living in a century of genocide and other abysmal human rights failures we have become almost inured to the scope of suffering that has been endured by people and peoples in our world.

Though there are now those who deny it, the Holocaust still serves as a reminder of the fact that racial hatred can exist beneath the polished veneer of civilized society. But as one genocidal atrocity follows another, Cambodians killing Cambodians, Turks killing Armenians, Iraqis killing Kurds, Bosnians killing Serbs (and Serbs killing Bosnians), Rwandans killing Tutus, Muslim Sudanese killing Christian Sudanese, it takes historical perspective to appreciate the seemingly endless plight of the Jews in the history of the madness that passes for civilization in "modern" times.

For Jews it is vitally important to keep the memories of these events alive, which is why through the ages they have been recorded and lovingly transcribed. The Torah, which makes up the first five books of the Christian Bible, is a record of the Exodus and the search for the Promised Land. Early Jewish families would have a Torah in their genizah, or depository of sacred books. The genizah would also include a haggadah, which recounts the events of Passover. The word "haggadah" comes from the Hebrew root "hgd" meaning "to tell." It is inspired by the Biblical injunction instructing parents to tell their children the story of the Exodus.

These books are often exquisitely illustrated with images both fanciful and ornate. In The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon we read of a manuscript "illuminated with bird-headed letters. Hoopoes, owls, thrushes, European goldfinches, and peacocks.... Lacy, geometrical patterns and arabesques form the backgrounds. A bright carmine and the blue of lapis lazuli are the dominant colors."

This points to one of the central mysteries of Geraldine Brooks' exciting new novel, People of the Book. The book in question is an illuminated Hebrew manuscript, a haggadah, from Medieval Spain. The book was housed in the National Museum in Sarajevo until it disappeared in 1992 at the height of the bombing. The assumption was that it has been looted, but it is restored after the war by Museum curator Ozren Karaman, a librarian (hurrah!) and also a Muslim, who heroically rescued the book during an attack. The United Nations decides to have the book restored and returned to the collection as a symbol of unity for the people of Sarajevo. Hannah Heath, a conservationist from Australia, is called in to oversee the restoration and as she picks her way through the manuscript, she becomes absorbed in the book's history.

She realizes almost immediately that there is a great deal more to the book than meets the eye. Jews in Spain during the Middle Ages did not embellish manuscripts with lavish decorations. Everything about the manuscript, from the lavish illustrations to the ostentatious binding is inconsistent with the work's supposed provenance. Resisting pressure from all sides to restore the book quickly, Hannah reconstructs not only the history of the haggadah but of an entire people, from the Inquisition through contemporary Serbia. In alternating chapters, Brooks leads us through those interlocking histories. As Hannah makes a discovery, for instance, a thin white hair caught in the binding, we learn the circumstances leading up to it. A butterfly wing, a set of missing clasps, two red stains, and some salt residue, provide Hannah, and the reader with clues to the book's historical context.

When Dr. Karaman asks if she intends to return the book to something resembling its original glory, she demurs. "I think you have to accept a book as you receive it from past generations," she tells him, "and, to a certain extent, damage and wear reflect that history."

Saved not once but twice by Muslims from destruction, preserved from the flames of Inquisitorial fires by a Rabbi with a penchant for gambling and a Catholic priest with a dark secret he hides even from himself, this book has more than it's share of history to share. It is a remarkable story, made even more so because it is based on actual events.

Books mentioned:

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, Richard Zimler

The Spanish Bow

Andromeda Romano-Lux

Gustave Mahler, Second Symphony

            Who among us has not made bad choices, or at least things we might have done differently?

            We live with regrets—coping in our way, or not coping very well at all. Was it Alexander Pope who wrote how each of us has an allotted span of years but how many of us are truly alive during that span?

            The attacks on September 11, 2001 served as an inspiration for any number of artistic works but  The Spanish Bow must surely be one of the most unusual. Andromeda Romano-Lux was a journalist working on a biography of Pablo Casals when the tragic events of 9/11 caused her to question her modus vivendi. Like many Americans, she was jerked awake. “If I could do only one more thing with my life,” she pondered, “if I could write about one more thing—what would it be?”

            As she tried to piece together an answer to these questions she found that she had the necessary materials already at hand: the life of Casal and another Spanish musician, pianist Isaac Albeniz. Their fictional counterparts in The Spanish Bow—cellist Feliu Delargo and pianist Justo Al-Cerraz—bear only superficial resemblances to the real life figures who inspired them. Casals, like Feliu, was born in Catalan and had pro-Republica views. He also possessed a gem-studded bow. Delargo’s bow features a sapphire presented to the cellist while he served at the cort of King Alonso and Queen Ena in the days before the monarchy was toppled in a military coup. The Queen herself, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, presented Feliu with this keepsake for his dutiful service to her and her husband, and along with the bow it became the one possession he retained throughout the turbulent years to come. For the years of political anarchy in Spain paved the way for the rise of Franco. As elsewhere in Europe, Fascism in Spain threatened to destroy everything that stood in its way, especially artists and the intelligentsia.

            Music is an all-encompassing passion for Feliu Delargo. Ever since the bow arrived at the Delargo household among the effects of his dead father when he was a young boy, Feliu knew that he was destined to play the cello. It brought him advancement, from his obscure origins in a dusty, seaside town, to an academy in Barcelona, and finally to the Cort in Madrid, where he became one of the Queen’s favorites. Whatever his surroundings he played with passion, losing himself to time an space. His collaboration with Al-Cerraz, who had a prodigious talent not just for his chosen instrument but for survival, enabled the duo to get by in the anarchic years following the abdication of the throne. Until, with the rise of Franco, they were forced to flee.

In Paris their musical skills brought them worldwide renown. In fact so great was Delargos’ fame that Hitler and Goerring were devoted fans. In the novel’s denoument, Delargo agrees to play at an historic meeting between Franco and Hitler, though it is against everything he stands for, in order to facilitate the escape of Al-Cerraz and the woman they both love, an Italian violinist who is also Jewish, named Aviva. She dies attempting to escape and Al-Cerraz vanishes. Feliu spends the remainder of his life in obscurity living in exile in Cuba, until Aviva’s son, who was taken from her at birth, tracks him down and gets him to relate his story. It happens that Feliu has been holding another secret, an unpublished musical manuscript by his old partner, Justo Al-Caerraz.

Throughout the novel the author poses the question, also born from the events of 9/11, but applicable to any time when the earth appears to stay poised on its axis and the forces of darkness and light compete for dominance: in difficult times, is art an indulgence or a necessity? Delargo and Al-Cerraz offer point-counterpoint to the question, but it is the author who offers the final word. When the Museo de Musica in Madrid opened after the monarchy is restored in Spain in the mid 70’s, Delargo’s bow is received into the collection. At the same time, Al-Cerraz’s triumphant Spanish Piano piece is played for the first time in public. This climax, along with the recurring motife from Mahler’s Second Symphony, “Prepare thyself to live,” are clear affirmations of the importance of art in the most troubled times.

Like fire, air and earth, water is a sacred image common to many religions. These elements also figure prominently in mythology and in great literature. Water is a sign of retribution and renewal… of God’s favor (“And the Sprit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters”) and fury (“And behold I… do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh…”). It cleanses and corrupts. It sanctifies (baptism) and soils (the Flood. Compare the version in the Gilgamesh epic which describes the gods descending upon the sacrifice like flies after the waters recede. The aftermath of Katrina is a contemporary example). Water is much more than an image in Sarah Hall’s 2006 novel Haweswater. It is an essential element.

Hawewater tells the story of a small group of villagers in the Lake Country of Northwest England who are displaced by the construction of a dam in their valley. For the good people of Mardale, water brings an end to the only existence they or their forbearers have ever known: tending sheep and horses and sustenance farming. For the members of the Lightburn family it will mean this and more: untold grief and tragedy.

            Ella and Sam Lightburn met when Ella was a nurse at a veteran's hospital where Sam was recovering after being wounded in action in WWII. Her aunt had a piece of property in Mardale and the couple returned there after the war. Once there they fell into the familiar rhythms of agrarian life, governed by the tempo of the seasons and the staccato bursts of wild, Cumbrian weather. Their lives were part of a pattern that had been impressed on the region since feudal times: God-fearing, independent, taciturn people who didn’t have much but were happy with what they have. In a way, the birth of their two children, Janet and Isaac, portended the disruption of that pattern before plans for a dam were ever revealed.

Ella Lightburn struggled with both deliveries and her curses and oaths filled the night. She was duly penitent afterwards but the circumstances of the births seemed to suggest that she had borne something not-quite human, even preternatural, proof against bloodshed, death, and the harsh climate that are part of their rural lives. They were more of the elements, especially water, than of the earth, like creatures from Faerie. Isaac would hold his face down in freezing cold currents to study the life trapped underwater. Janet worked fearlessly by her father’s side, seemingly impervious to pain or her personal safety. Once, when she and her father are cornered by an escaped bull, she climbed a nearby tree to safety then hurled herself down on the bull when her father is unable to contain it. Later when Jack Liggett, a representative from Manchester Power who has been sent to negotiate settlements with the local residents on their property to make room for the dam, and Janet find themselves trapped together in a rainstorm, she surrenders herself to him but only after she hurls her head back against the bark of the tree under which they are sheltering. “Her scalp is cut on the sharp wood, as if she is demented, trapped in an asylum with walls of precipitation.”

            Janet and Isaac are wild and exotic creatures, like the wild orchids Janet takes Jack to see, sheltered in the lee of a waterfall at the bottom of a steep incline. Janet swims naked in the freezing water of the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and Jack watches from the edge. “As he inched along, he wondered at the contents of the pool, strange prehistoric fish with fat lower jaws, jagged spines and the inevitable decaying carcass of a sheep.” When she emerges from this primal soup, she stands naked before him, still “except for the water running from her body. She looked like a statue of rain.” It is an erotically charged scene and this, along with the raw physicality that characterizes their relationship, seems to represent the collision of two worlds: the timeless tradition of the valley being destroyed by the incursion of the modern world like a lightening bolt cleaving a fallen tree trunk.

            Even though Janet succeeds in seducing Jack with the rural charms of the Lake Country, its demise is a foregone conclusion. As are the deaths of the characters who find themselves clinging to the old ways: Janet, Isaac, and, once he has been converted by Janet, Jack himself. The characters do not so much inhabit this landscape, as they haunt it. Indeed, in an after word, the author, who actually grew up in Cumbria and became intrigued with the story of the town that lies beneath the lake, suggests that Janet is based on a figure in local legend.

            “She has become a character in the novel, a real girl, a ghost, and a motif of the area in which she still walks. Janet, the novel’s protagonist, is full of her own land—she stewards it with her father, conducts a turbulent love affair outdoors, in secret, and enables her lover Jack to view the valley he has helped to condemn in a new light. Like the land itself, she is capable of both violence and tenderness.”

 Though water is their natural element without the land, Janet and Isaac are condemned to die.

One of the most revered books in the Southern canon, Fair and Tender Ladies is getting some unwelcome attention lately in our local reading area. On behalf of an unidentified local citizen, a Washington County Public School Board member has requested that Fair and Tender Ladies be removed from the Advanced Placement reading list for college-bound Juniors. This is ironic and sad. I can think of no other book that is better suited to an audience that is preparing to discover the larger world outside of the confines of rural Southwest Virginia for a couple of reasons. It brings them into contact with conflicts that are present in the lives of all young adults in the passage into adulthood: loss of innocence and the weight of responsibility that comes with the imagined freedom from the restraints imposed by being a dependent, along with having to make difficult decisions and the onus of having to live with the results, even when things don't work out. It also brings them into close proximity with the surprising complexity of Appalachian culture and illustrates a life-affirming solution to what could have been a dead end existence.
In her book Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobby Ann Mason and Lee Smith, Paula Gallant Eckard offers insights into why the book is deserving of critical attention and also why it might strike some people, especially White, Southern males, as controversial. “Her [Smith’s] Appalachian women characters by virtue of their gender and culture, stand in opposition to Eurocentric patriarchal traditions.” [Eckard, p. 133] She makes a clear distinction between the male and female experience in Appalachia; though the two are inextricably intertwined they are based on radically different perspectives: matriarchal versus patriarchal, linear versus non-linear dimensions of time, and “traditionally female immanent art,” like quilts, food and storytelling, which is inherently useful, versus “traditionally male transcendent art.” [from The World of Lee Smith, by Ann Goodwyn Jones].
“Male transcendent art” is identified with writing and Ivy Rowe, the chief protagonist in Fair and Tender Ladies, seeks to beak free of the restrictions that keep women in “their place,” which in the South has traditionally meant bare-foot and pregnant, through her letters. “Women who achieve voice in some way—whether through storytelling, personal narrative, songs, letters, or just plain talk—seek to survive the oppressiveness of their culture.” [ibid, p.134] Through her dedication to reading and writing, Ivy constructs abridge between the two traditions, finding her own voice in the process. “Thus, Ivy’s full engagement with language and with life leads to the development of a wholly integrated self within a culture that silences and destroys other women.” [p. 158]
Ivy seeks to redefine her life in her own words and in so doing she redefines the narrative tradition in which she is working. “Ivy clearly demonstrates Smith’s intent to reconceptualize women’s relationships to writing, the self, and society.” [p. 162] Ivy’s pregnancies and maternal experiences follow a well-trodden path which is reflected in other women writers over the years. “Her language evokes images of entrapment and death not unlike those found in the works of Gilman, Dickinson, Woolf, Plath, and the Brontë sisters, writers that Ivy has read or to whom Smith otherwise alludes.” [p. 164]
In the Eurocentric, patriarchal tradition, women serve at a man’s pleasure. In Judeo-Christian folklore they represent all that is pure and the virginal. In the days of chivalry, knights defended the honor of fair maidens and troubadours extolled their virtuous charms. Of course, women have always enjoyed an iconic status in the South, far removed from the gritty reality of the lives they are sometimes forced to live (as portrayed so vividly in Fair and Tender Ladies). The literary tradition that has emerged from this heritage, referred to earlier as “male transcendent art,” seeks to place women on a pedestal and leave them there. Supporters of this tradition are not interested in the possibility of women within our culture having “wholly integrated selves.” Rather, they are anxious to adhere to the two-dimensional, biblical stereotype of woman as man’s “helpmeet.”
Ivy describes her sexuality and childbirth with what Eckard calls “loud vocalization.” Ivy’s description graphically demonstrates the merging of body and voice.” [p. 167] “Smith invokes a primal female power and establishes a maternal voice that echoes the body’s experience, producing a kind of language that is radically dissimilar from symbolic paternal language.” [p. 168] Patriarchs have always feared and sought to subjugate primal female power. And as the present controversy suggests the threatening maternal voice is one that they feel needs to be silenced.

Note: Since the 1998 edition of Fair and Tender Ladies was added to our collection the six copies acquired by the Library have circulated over a hundred times, with 32 renewals. We can't say for certain how often previous editions may have circulated but that the level of interest has been sustained over almost two decades speaks volumes about the value of the work as well as the level of discernment among the local population.

Sources:
Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobby Ann Mason and Lee Smith, Paula Gallant Eckard. Accessed through NetLibrary 10/03/07
“The Voice Behind the Stories,” in Voicelust: Eight Contemporary Fiction Writers on Style, by Lee Smith (Allen Wier and Don Hendrie, Jr., editors)

            To give the devil his due (and Ms. Rowling her due) Harry Potter, along with the other recent upstart on the shire-scene Bilbo Baggins, are worthy representatives of this tradition. Our Circulation maven, Deb Legg, inadvertently coined a phrase recently which will henceforth always be associated in my mind with myth and magic in the age of commercialism: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce. This is all well and good as long as we acknowledge the people who laid the groundwork for today’s commercial success, authors like George McDonald and Lord Dunsany. If you are interested in how this tradition may have looked and sounded in a more primal form check out Katherine Paterson’s Parzival: the Quest of the Grail Knight.

Interestingly, Katherine Paterson may have directly benefited from the interest in folk and faerie that has emerged in the wake of Harry and Bilbo’s commercial success (as did local wizard Charles Vess.

Bridge to Terabithia, her classic tale of childhood innocence and the power of the imagination was beautifully adapted to the screen earlier this year thirty years after its original publication. Charles’ Stardust will hit the big screen some time in August. Like J.K. Rowling Paterson’s work has run into irrational opposition. In fact, it is number 9 on the list of most challenged books compiled by the ALA from 1990-2000 (Harry Potter is #7). Just as the Victorians feared sexuality (at least in public), so today there are those who fear the imagination. Writers like Rowling, Paterson, Philip Pullman, Lord Dunsany, The Pearl Poet, writer of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and countless others through the ages, have succeeded in harnessing the imagination and sharing its vast and wondrous possibilities.

Postscript: In the months to come the library community will be participating in a community read and discussion of Fahrenheit 451. Censorship and freedom of information will be discussed at different forums coinciding with the book discuaaion. Stay tuned for details.

Michael Chabon is author of the critically acclaimed Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, published in 2000, and The Wonder Boys, which was made into a successful film (two Oscar nominations). His most recent book, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, continues the tradition of excellent, if off-beat storytelling which began with those earlier works and others (see bibliography below).

Still, after about 150 pages I found myself asking, “What is this book about?” Yiddish Policeman’s Union is filled with wit and creative energy. Its plotline, an intriguing premise that postulates the failure of the State of Israel after which the Diaspora finds temporary refuge on the Coast of Alaska, is often overwhelmed by the anarchy of word-play and verbosity that has become Chabon’s stock in trade. Michael Chabon is a wordslinger; the fastest talker in town. You can get whiplash trying to keep up with his verbal exchanges, like trying to watch Venus Williams play tennis against herself. Chabon’s good, though; he’s the Jascha Heifitz of wordplay. At times, though, the sheer volume of words obfuscates the action, meaning sometimes you can’t see the forest (the plot) for the trees (the words).

The story of a wise cracking shamus, rendered “shemmes” by Chabon throughout (more wordplay: a shamus is a detective, a shemmes is the caretaker of a synagogue, waking up the faithful and calling them to prayer), is the perfect vehicle for a bit of lexical legerdemain. Private detectives are legendary for mouthing off and getting their teeth knocked out for their pains. Chabon’s hero, Meyer Landsman, is no exception. But in fine detective fashion, Landsman carries on in defiance of the odds that are stacked overwhelmingly against him, in defiance of his ex-wife (who is also his boss), and in spite of the fact that he has been relieved of his badge by “people of influence”  who are, he conjectures, the same shadowy figures he is pursuing. All this against a fusillade of one-liners and snappy repartee that is as steady as the Alaskan rains.

Tough but compassionate, world-weary yet quixotic, Landsman presses on to the bizarre conclusion of his case. He is reunited with his beloved Bina but everything else seems to have fallen apart.

Our library Guardian Angel, Goddard, says she was disappointed with the book. She was enthralled with the first 200 pages or so and then she lost interest. Or perhaps Michael Chabon sacrificed her interest to the god of unrelenting loquaciousness. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union doen't pretend to be something more than what it is: entertaining and occasionally thought provoking. It has flashes of brilliance and it is consistently (almost) entertaining. A good summer read by an accomplished writer.

Other books by Michael Chabon:

Mysteries of Pittsburg (1988)

A Model World and Other Stories (1991)

The Wonder Boys (1995)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)

Summerland (2002)

Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist (Graphic Novel—2004)

Michael Chabon is also a frequent contributor to the N.Y. Times Book Review

“A turkey?”

“Stuffed?”

“Yes, and it’s very easy to make. I made garlic, pepper, cumin, oregano, bay, basil and parsley leaves into a paste and, naturally, bitter orange and salt and basted it well inside and out with that paste. Then I threw in plenty of big slices of onion.”

“Then, as I’d already got black beans on the boil, I started to prepare a tasty sauce: I took two strips of bacon I cut and cut into small pieces and fried, and put more onion in the fat, but cut tiny with ground garlic and plenty of chili, and there you go. I poured the sauce over the beans when they were almost cooked and added a cup of dry wine…”

“And what else?”

“Well, I poured in the white rice to make a congrí, a bit more oregano, and for good measure a pinch of salt and a handful of finely chopped onion. Then I waited for the rice to dry out, before the grains went soft, of course, and switched it off and stuffed the turkey with the congrí, so it cooks inside the bird. You know what I didn’t have? Toothpicks to close it up so I used a few stems from the bitter oranges…”

 From: Red Havana

Leonardo Padura has been described as the Cuba’s answer to Dashiell Hammett. Not to take anything away from Hammett, but I believe Padura is a more rounded author. His influences include J.D. Salinger, Cervantes, Mozart, and Lennon (note: –non, not –in.)His prose is dense and the subject matter is in turns cerebral and muscular. Havana Red, originally titled Masks (Mascaras, in Spanish) deals with the death of a transvestite in a Havana park. Inspector Mario Conde, known as the Count, who is about as unpredictable as Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, is given the case. His superiors are not over-eager to unearth the murderer of a person of such questionable morals—it is Cuba, after all. But the one way that Conde is predictable is in his tenacity in seeing his cases to the end. In the course of his investigations he comes into contact with an aging playwright who has been blacklisted for his moral turpitude and anti-socialist tendencies. The playwright, Marqués offers insights into the steamy underworld of Cuban artistic (bohemian) life. In so doing he sheds light on a case that just about everyone else is content to allow to remain in darkness.

The conversations between Marqués and the Count are illuminating in other ways as well. Through them we follow the brief renaissance and long decline in Cuban art after the overthrow of Batista in the late 50’s. Perhaps decline is too harsh. Sublimation might be a better word. As we learned from Ry Cooder’s visit to Cuba in the 90’s which resulted in the Buena Vista Social Club sessions, Cuban art is and has been very much alive. Only it is hidden from the outside world.

Bitter Lemon Press is taking steps to redress this imbalance. In addition to Havana Red, Havana Black and Havana Blue are now available in translation. Bitter Lemon, "the best crime and roman noirs from faraway places," features not only contemporary crime authors but classic authors such as Fredrich Glauser  as well.

Washington County Public Library also owns a copy of an earlier Padura novel, Adiós, Hemingway.

A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park

Fans of Fantasy are eagerly awaiting the midsummer release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and the cinematic release of Charles Vess’ Stardust.

In the meantime I’d like to recommend an exciting new series in the Fantasy realm by Paul Park. Book One, A Princess of Roumania, is about a young woman named Miranda living in Massachusetts who dreams (as young women sometimes do) that she is really a princess from Roumania (This is the spelling used by Paul Park). In fact, she was an orphan in Roumania, adopted by her American parents in the aftermath of the revolution that overthrew Nicolae Ceausescu in the early 90’s. It appeared at the time that her real parents had been killed in the revolution and in the chaos that followed she was abandoned. Miranda remembers a luxurious seaside villa where she thinks she lived with her aunt and a frantic escape on a train. Her adoptive parents were given a bag which contained a book written in Roumanian, a bracelet and some coins. Miranda is convinced that the bag holds the secret of her true identity. And it does.

The bracelet has a pattern which features a tiger crafted in white gold. A professor of Romance languages at the College where her father teaches translates some of the handwritten notes on the flyleaf of the book which speak of the return of the White Tiger when Roumania will be freed of its oppressors.

The book was actually written by Miranda’s aunt, Aegypta and there are only two copies in existence. The second copy is discovered in a trunk at a flea market in Bucharest by a Baroness Ceausescu. The Baroness recognizes the significance of the book and destroys it, believing that that will weaken the Countess Aegypta’s claim to the throne, as well as that of her niece who has disappeared. In burning the book, the Baroness proclaims, “The world is in two places. One false and one real.” All this transpires in a much earlier time frame and the story proceeds along these parallel tracks until the book is destroyed and Miranda, along with two of her friends, is transported back to the earlier time. The Baroness is a conjurer and she summons spirits to search for Miranda. Miranda is captured along with two of her friends, but the transformation works in their favor as they take on characteristics of strength and bravery that allow them to escape.

Miranda believes that her destiny awaits in Roumania and she and her miraculously transformed friends set out for New York where allies of her aunt can arrange her return. The stakes are very high, though; besides the Baroness a German mage is also anxious to capture Miranda and forestall her attempts to rally the Roumanian people. As the book ends Miranda disappears, caught up in his enchantment, leaving her friends to press on.

There are elements of The Lord of the Rings and Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” in this marvelously crafted story. Because the heroine is a young woman, unsure of who she is and anxious to prove herself in a real-life test, it will appeal to older YA readers. Book Two of the series, called The Tourmaline, was published last year. Book three, The White Tyger, came out this year. Pulman’s work has been adapted for the screen and this, along with the release of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’ “Stardust” will bring attention to these and other deserving works in the realm of fantasy.