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Literary 2003: BOOK REVIEWS

Buddha Wept
Rocco Lo Bosco

Buddha Wept, a first novel by Rocco Lo Bosco, is the story of
Ona Ny, a visionary mystic and artist who survives the Cambodian holocaust under Pol Pot’s despotic rule in the 1970s. Through the telling of one family’s experience living with the daily presence and cruelty of the Khmer Rouge, the book raises universal questions about humanity, suffering, hope, life, death, and violence. The writer, like his main character Ona, is driven by the belief that our suffering can be transformed into something meaningful in order that we may contribute positively to the world, and so that pain does not consume us.

One of the best things about Buddha Wept is that it raises questions that can’t be answered, and the strength of the book is that Lo Bosco doesn’t try to. Why do humans prey upon each other? What is the source of our commitment to live life, regardless of how desperate the existence? The characters struggle within their extreme dehumanization to understand that there are some things that just cannot be explained. Ona’s teaching to us is that one has to make peace with that in order to keep oneself from drowning in despair. Her small triumphs of spirit occur in day-to-day life, as she refuses to lose her dignity and deny her humanity, mostly in the form of asserting her love as a mother. She risks her life and confronts soldiers and a Khmer Rouge commander in order to visit her dying child in the children’s labor camp. This is one of the tender moments of life under an oppressive regime Lo Bosco conveys; in the midst of hopelessness, senseless work, Ona fights to keep her heart and mind intact in a world that seems to have gone mad.

The most uncomfortable part of the novel was the epilogue in which Lo Bosco drops all pretenses that he is using his main character as a vehicle; the characters in the book suddenly disappear after a brief synopsis of chronological events, and we are simply left with Lo Bosco’s voice—an “I” that makes disclaimers about “cheating” by repeating Ona’s words. This thinly veiled way of making sure that the reader understands what the major questions of the book—and of human existence—are does not do justice to Lo Bosco’s powerful theme and his message: That it is each of our responsibility to own and channel our suffering for good. I admire Lo Bosco’s motivation, but the delivery could have been more effective.

—Valerie Linet

Gundrun’s Tapestry
Joan Schweighardt

Who is this mysterious woman, and why is she risking everything for an audience with Attila the Hun? The opening pages of Gudrun’s Tapestry introduce us to a determined, savvy woman on a mission, traveling under an assumed identity in a time of great change. Literacy and Christianity are in their infancy, dwarves and frost giants are vivid in recent memory. Gudrun opens her tale by musing that perhaps it should take a different form—that of a lay sung in the Great Hall to a spellbound audience.

Schweighardt proceeds to draw us effortlessly into Gudrun’s heart and times. Flashing back from her imprisonment in the camp of Attila to her girlhood and youth, we experience a feudal Europe where life is harsh, often short—fathers still routinely kill sickly infants at birth—and ruled by the whims of a pantheon of gods more powerful than mortals, but no less mischievous, greedy, and even jealous. So intimate is the connection we make with Gudrun that we can comprehend her spiritual exaltation as a lamb is sacrificed and shared, bringing the family closer to Wodan.

Gudrun’s family has been forever changed, decimated by invading Romans and mercenary Huns. Depression and bitterness rule. But Gudrun, young and full of hope, finds joy in the attentions of Sigurd the Frank, and comfort in the company of her younger brother, Guthorm, allowed to survive despite his disability. The web of intrigue, emotion, and jealousy that begins when Sigurd rescues a mysteriously beautiful woman who claims runic powers builds to a shocking, tragic climax.
Throughout the family drama—and the political one that surrounds it—we are aware of how little has changed about the human heart. Daily living may have revolved around physical survival, quests, and dragon’s gold—but love, grief, greed, and envy are as real as they are today, family dynamics just as capable of creating mischief, children just as mischievous. Gudrun’s life—even her transformation into an assassin—is as believable and fresh as yours or mine.
Schweighardt’s got a lyrical, graceful voice and good psychological sense, so that Gudrun’s tragedy, healing, and eventual quest never slip into the realm of soap opera. It might be unexpected to find a literary novel based on ancient lays and factual history that’s also a genuine can’t-put-it-down page-turner, but this is that book.

—Anne Pyburn

Hannah’s Gift
Maria Housden

Hannah at three is the kind of luminescent, impish child one thanks the gods for every day—funny and caring and intelligently stubborn. Hannah is the embodiment of the life force.

Hannah is dying a lengthy, painful death. As the mother of a daughter Hannah’s age, I knew this would not be the easiest book to read. It’s not. Maria Housden lets us into the nightmare—the initial diagnosis, the agonizing decisions, the decline that is at once interminable and far too fast. I defy anyone human to read this book without tears.
If you’ve ever wondered how a parent could survive such pain, Housden’s walk through the valley of the shadow is enlightening and strengthening. We adults, of course, base our thoughts about death on a cultural mythos built on fear. To Hannah, in her newness and wit, it’s more like the other door of a room. She doesn’t need to become as a little child to comprehend the Eternal—she’s already there, and is able to offer glimpses of that reality to her parents, brother, and doctors.

The agonized mother is wise enough to become her daughter’s pupil—along with primary caregiver, defending tigress, and number one fan—and although nothing can truly mitigate such enormous pain, Hannah’s insights and courage lead Housden on a spiritual journey that will shake her out of complacency and change her world forever and eventually for better. Concepts like faith, love, and healing are distilled to purest essence, stripped of clichés, and made new.

The book also offers much wisdom for those who need to convince an often-stubborn medical machine to bend the rules and display its human face. Hannah’s parents are determined to maintain quality in a life so shy of quantity. To some extent, they succeed; one of the book’s sweetest moments comes when Housden, after Hannah’s death, learns that her daughter’s journey through the children’s ward has led those in charge to greatly humanize their policies.

In less tasteful hands, this story would have been in danger of becoming maudlin. Housden just lays it out: imperfect humans, unbearable tragedy, stumbling—and stunning—personal growth, and a sense of the immanent presence of an underlying reality that can take the nastiest horrors and turn them into teaching tools. Hannah is here to help us. It is wonderful indeed that she was born to a mother who was able to let her clear, small voice be heard.

—Anne Pyburn

Wandering Warrior
Da Chen

Luka is born to be emperor—it is foretold by the very moles on his feet. But the circumstances in which we meet him are hardly imperial. With his mentor, the beggar-monk Atami, each day is a struggle for basic necessities. Atami is training Luka in the mystical and martial arts he will one day need.

Atami, the only caregiver the 11-year-old has ever known, is captured by minions of the evil invaders who hold China under their sway. Luka must fend for himself—and thus begins the classic young hero’s journey through imprisonment, betrayal, and a series of narrow escapes. A good heart, quick mind, and ancient Kung Fu knowledge bring him through.

There are comrades, of course—a couple of homeless street kids—and fantastic creatures to befriend and battle. The bad guys are ham-fistedly evil. The exotic Chinese backdrop and the eternal, universal nature of youthful curiosity and brashness work together well—anybody who’s ever been to middle school will recognize the bad vibes Luka encounters, Holy Boy or no, at the temple school he finds himself attending.

Da Chen has fun with the story, racing from one episode to the next, throwing in lots of humor without talking down to readers. Luka may be a Holy Boy, but he’s neither a prig nor a walking example of perfection— he’s a kid, wise beyond his years but still capable of getting scared or letting his ego sneak up on him once in a while. The villains are loosely disguised petty bureaucrats of the worst sort, a type children certainly need to be warned about early on.

By book’s end, Luka—who when first encountered was starting to chafe at the strict regimen of study a Holy Boy must follow—is thinking that days full of study of spiritual knowledge might not be such a bad thing after all, a message parents ought to appreciate. One doubts Luka’s life will stay placid for long—not while the evil Mogoes still hold China in their sway, not while there are still magical treasures to be reclaimed, not when he’s just discovered the secret of his paternity, not when he and lovely, courageous young Hali have just been reunited.

The plot may be faintly reminiscent of Harry Potter or Star Wars, but the Oriental landscape of Chen’s own childhood and his unpretentious tone create something that’s more than a little different. And the theme—the hero’s journey, the wisdom needed to become a righteous warrior—is one that never gets stale.

—Anne Pyburn

India Poem
India Radfar

India Radfar explores India’s geography and recovers its spirit through meditative poetry found in India Poem. In every untitled poem there is a thoughtful grace that becomes a brief moment of solace. Radfar feeds her experiences of visiting India to her readers in small savory mouthfuls; each poem is to be chewed and rolled around the mind, tasted intently.

Radfar’s India Poem envelopes the conflicts and harmonies found in the earth, beast, and humanity’s communal existence. Each poem is a brief meditation that Radfar explains in actions occurring within her as well as in the physical land of the country for which her namesake originates. In one of her poems Radfar describes walking in a body of water and seeing another person wading also. Radfar exclaims out loud “…this is India!” The reader can interpret this line as Radfar observing the country but it can also be taken as Radfar declaring her own existence. At the end of this poem Radfar realizes that she is not in the water and that there is no horizon and “everything is liquid.” Radfar then asks “is this what it looks like / inside my mind?”

Radfar also utilizes simple actions with colors to describe the scenery of her poems. In several of her meditations Radfar establishes her love of color; the absence of colors in many of her poems seem to evoke the idea of loss or death. In one poem Radfar says “beyond heat is color”; she breathes life into landscapes with her colorful descriptions when she writes “swimming through rain / the cries of yellow birds.” The colors Radfar chooses to describe a moment communicate the emotions of that scene; several poems present pictures of despair “black crows / gray silk / we have lost the blue formality / of living.”

India Radfar brings her journey through the mind and country of India to the pages of India Poem and allows her readers to observe the meditative pictorials she writes. On each page readers can engage themselves further into Radfar’s thoughts and ideas while tasting the essentials that the land has to offer. Radfar informs her readers that “ragas need rain and / we need meals in the rain / eating slowly / bowl after bowl / including sweets.” These meals are Radfar’s poems, eaten slowly, becoming as pleasurable as sugar to the tongue.

—Amy Ouzoonian

Always the Mountains
David Rothenberg

Why, when we need our philosophers the most, have they fallen so far from fashion? We used to have thinkers; now we have commentators, mathematicians, artists, physicists, rappers, therapists, and editors. We have life coaches, consultants, and comedians; we have sports reporters.

David Rothenberg is, unabashedly, a philosopher. Always the Mountains isn’t about mountains, though it contains its share of summits, along with mountainous thinking by Petrarch, Dogen, Diderot, Muir, Abbey, and others. Rothenberg is concerned with what it means to be human, both in and out of nature; what it means to remove ourselves from nature, yet strive to preserve it. Along the way, we read of artistic elephants, the follies of the Internet, eco-cultural restoration, the need for deep ecology, the doubtful provenance of words attributed to Chief Seattle. We follow Rothenberg as he grapples with the nature of knowledge and knowledge of nature, from his Mid-Hudson doorstep and the surrounding peaks, rivers, and valleys.

Rothenberg’s writing is by turns challenging, poetic, insightful. He chases meaning like a lovestruck hound, meandering off the trail to investigate tantalizing scents and muddy holes along the way, only to return to the chase with undiminished zeal. The landscape here ranges from the airily abstract to the ponderously concrete—from the primacy of the soul to the struggles of Scenic Hudson and Con Ed.
Yes, philosophy makes a difference; but to whom? Asks Rothenberg in his epilogue:

And do the mountains care? Does the current notice? Does the tide mark the years or only follow the moon? I want to believe that they do, but I think they do not. Faith and reason here disagree. We are the species of worry, concern, and the idiotic power to lay waste to it all. We need to save this nature from one errant part of itself, or else change our mission into something that is worthy of the place that has made us possible. It’s a tough spiral of survival, the hunt for an excuse to make necessary the human race.

David Rothenberg, a musician whose cds have been reviewed in this magazine, is an associate professor of philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He edits the journal Terra Nova: Nature and Culture and has previously authored Sudden Music: Improvisation, Sound, Nature; Hand’s End: Technology and the Limits of Nature; and Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes.

—Todd Paul

Tales from the Revolution
Lorna Tychostup

For the last 30 years, the word “revolution” has been used lightly; everything from toothpaste to the latest pop icon has worn out the title “revolutionary”. Poet, photographer, and Chronogram senior editor Lorna Tychostup doesn’t reinvent the meaning of “revolution” in her book of poetry Tales from the Revolution, she reminds us of the word’s true meaning. Tychostup invites her readers to journey with her through several honest accounts of a revolution that she has struggled to produce and be a part of through her actions and words; to cause change in a society human beings have accepted for so long.

In her 23 poems, Tychostup beckons the reader to travel with her and experience Chiapas, to walk along the beaches with a young lover, to find oneself in Tychostup’s fearless world of change.

In a time when women are relegated to the duties of being a housewife, Tychostup takes a stand in her poem “Lost My Mind” when she writes of taking her children and leaving her husband and house to pursue a life that didn’t confine her and helped her to grow. She also writes an affirmation for her children: “I tell my kids not to / ever tell me / or anybody else / that they love THEM more / than they love themselves.”

In her poem “The Little One She Feels All the Time,” Tychostup asks her readers to question the “norms” of society—like being in a world that judges a human being’s worth based on physical image. Tychostup states that we ought to “strike the mirrors from the house.” She fiercely challenges her readers to dare to change what society accepts as beauty: “anorexic made to order / computerized surgeon assisted redos.”

In “The Word is War” Tychostup defines words that have almost lost meaning in American society: “war” and “rally”, “stress”, and “distress”. She also gives definitions for little understood words like “jihad” and “intifada”. Tychostup defines these words to remind her readers of the true meaning of “war”, just as Tales from the Revolution fulfills the true meaning of the word revolution: a dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people’s ideas about it. Lorna Tychostup’s poetry in Tales from the Revolution achieves that and more.

To purchase a copy of Tales from the Revolution, contact the author at www.lornatychostup.com.

—Amy Ouzoonian

13 pOems aSoF
Philip Levine

Phillip P. Levine’s recently self-published chapbook 13 pOems aSoF is a mixed salad of prose poems and free verse that all live in the same bowl. As a collection, the poetry dwells on language and the search for the right words. It also explores the dissatisfaction and sense of unfulfilled desire that comes with a less-than-spontaneous life. There are a couple of non-traditional love poems thrown in, and still one or two others that left me wondering about their role in the collection as a whole.

This is a poetry book that will make you think and feel, but it will not make you comfortable—both because of its content and its dips into stream-of-consciousness and prose poetry. Levine, who believes that we humans are desperate to find meaning in our lives, introduces the reader to a cast of characters who exude a sense of wanting and oftentimes melancholy. There is, for example, the clown who cannot stop trying, through language, to connect to the girl in front of him; an awkward and afraid narrator who wants to howl and liberate himself with words in “Tonight’s Feature”; and the “you” in “Rant 64: In a Minute, On the Subway,” who is struggling with apathy and the desire for freedom. In this piece, the reader is told that “you” have probably never jumped naked into water and that “you” must let go all the things “you” have ever dreamed of.

I appreciate Levine’s honest reflection of the mind and its movements and his offbeat images. The poems I resonated most with—especially because they provide some amount of balance in the book—were those that present a sense of hope in the midst of a somewhat burdened life. “Carpentry & Gardening” rests in the tangible things of this world like splinters and lilacs, and acts as a lovely metaphor about persevering, starting over after hurting someone’s heart, making mistakes. The failure and hopelessness of some of the earlier poems shift into the possibility of momentary redemption in the fabulous “Full Moon Saturday,” where one gets a sense of a weary speaker, briefly turned on and ready to roll because of the full moon. This poem contains some of the best lines in the collection, with its stanza, “But it’s the moon’s move, / And with her one wide eye, she presses hard on / everyone’s pedal.” A good move on the author’s part; after so much wanting and trying, it is wonderful to encounter the howl that “Tonight’s Feature” was hoping for.

—Valerie Linet

Distant Kinships
Anthony Bernini

In his first book of poetry Distant Kinships (apd, 2002), Bernini presents each poem as if it were a story. Bernini’s poems focus on people in their environment and the period of time each moment takes place.

The deliberate language use in Bernini’s Distant Kinships makes his poetry very precise. Each poem is constructed and every word is chosen with great care. In his poem titled “In This Donut Store,” Bernini captures the essence of being in an urban atmosphere in the early hours inside a place where “customers come in and carry off / the dark vitality in paper cups.” Bernini evokes the image of the walls in the establishment coming to life when he writes “…against the wall / coffee thickens, turns cool / as the sea around exhausted limbs.”

Bernini’s poems pay homage to the earth and its natural surroundings. His poems “Death Watch,” “Mass of Resurrection,” and “the Matriarch’s Funeral Dress” are similar—they address the subject of death as a part of the cycle of life that is inevitable. While many people may try to strive to hold on to their loved ones, Bernini lends his wisdom in the poem “Death Watch.” The narrator addresses a dying friend: “You smile with relief. / They wait near the door / like bags of grief / you will not have to open.”

In his three-part poem “Below The Conklingville Dam,” Bernini writes of the vitality of the earth. He names “her” elements and emotions in the form of storms, which come as a response to men causing destruction. Bernini writes that “They,” the industrialists and colonial settlers, “had come to evict her, uniforms / badges, guns, and papers, tool of schemers.” Bernini then writes of the building of “the Dam at Conklingville” in 1929 as the uncovering of “the valley to an open grave.” The poem resolves that evil as well as goodness exist everywhere.

The poetry of Anthony Bernini in Distant Kinships takes readers in various directions as far as theme is concerned. However, the one common destination that Bernini leaves is storytelling. With his thoughtful, intentional language Bernini provides a structure in his poetry that bears the resemblance of a story’s plot many times over. His main goal in every story is to share his wisdom of the human condition and the wonder that originates from the earth.

—Amy Ouzoonian

Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be...
J.T. Bunnell & Irit Reinheimer

How do you define gender? And once you’ve defined it, how can and should you shape your life, and the lives of your children? These are the points being raised in the new, self-published Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be...Coloring Book, created by J.T. Bunnell and Irit Reinheimer. “What would the world look like without gender?” is not only the central question but the inspiration behind this “homespun”, “genderless” coloring book (available for a sliding scale fee of $4 to $6 at colormegenderless@facehugger.com).

Addressing issues of gender inequality is, for someone like me—a liberal, feminist, working, full-time single mother of boys—as essential to good parenting as love. As such, I approached Girls Will Be Boys... with high hopes. With 19 pages of ready-to-color illustrations (14 of girls, 10 of boys, and five of both sexes), taken from various sources (old ads, children’s books, and actual kids’ drawings) and accompanied by challenging statements and claims (“Toys have no gender”; “Clothes have no gender”), the book is jam-packed with provocative material. The only problem is, I couldn’t quite figure out exactly who this material is meant for. On one hand, it’s a coloring book; but on the other hand, its text is too sophisticated for toddlers, who aren’t going to understand a statement like “Just because you looked up my skirt doesn’t mean you know what gender I am!” But while the nine-to-12-year-olds to whom I showed this book understood what that last statement meant, they weren’t comfortable with it—and not one of them would be caught dead, at their ages, coloring.

Of course, Bunnell and Reinheimer meant well. Their childhood experiences of “grownups squashing their self-expression and trying to mold their friends into dainty young ladies and rugged young men,” they write, led them to “take action against all the rigid gender roles that had been unwillingly placed upon them and their friends.” They decided to create this coloring book after discovering Nancy R. Smith’s poem that begins with these lines: For every girl who is tired of acting weak when she is strong, / There is a boy who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.

It’s too bad that the authors didn’t stop right there and create a coloring book illustrating Smith’s poem. Nonetheless, I do hope Bunnell and Reinheimer return to the drawing board with this idea. Their end-product is a hodge-podge of feminism. So what, my own kids said.

—Susan Piperato