The Gate

#244
Title: The Gate
Author: François Bizot
Publisher: Libri
Year: 2003
336 pages

Unlike many memoirists of the Cambodian civil war, Bizot was an adult and not Cambodian. In fact, he was the only foreigner actually detained by the Khmer Rouge who survived the experience. This was in the early years of their insurgency and is detailed in first part of the book; the second half has elements that are more familiar to the reader of histories and memoirs of this era and describes his experiences inside the French compound after the fall of Phnom, Penh.

Bizot's child figures prominently, though alwahys as an absent figure; her mother, a Cambodian, is even further removed from the narrative. The time jump between sections is disconcerting and lends a fragmented air to the book. Since Bizot worked with ancient Buddhist texts and objects, perhaps this is deliberate parallelism. Read with one of the Cambodian narratives of the Khmer Rouge period, with Swain's The River of Time and the film The Killing Fields for a rounded description of the foreign experience prior to evacuation.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

#243
Title: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher: Sceptre
Year: 1998
240 pages

An enjoyable early novel from Chabon. I enjoyed his language while in some moods finding it over the top. For example: "As she moved her hands and head in the still light evening, talking about herself, the pearls seemed to string and restring themselves on the invisible thread of her gestures" (p. 75). In  some moods I admire this and in others it tires me. Throughout, I thought of Gatsby and wondered if this were a re-telling with variations. After reading other reviews, I think this perspective is substantiated, so first read The Great Gatsby, then this.

The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison

#242
Title: The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison
Authors: Warren Fellows with Jack Marx
Publisher: Asia Books
Year: 1997
Country: Thailand
221 pages

Fellows makes a reasonable case that despite his crime, Thailand's prisons are inhumane. I don't have any reason to argue this, and he provides plenty of evidence to substantiate it. This rather grim narrative is not artful and could use an editor; however, its roughness as a narrative does contribute to its apparent sincerity and lack of artifice.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves

#240
Title: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves
Author: M. T. Anderson
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Year: 2008
561 pages

This second volume is less engaging than the first, though still ultimately enjoyable. Octavian is bored, and often, so is the reader. This is tale of a claustrophobic, uncertain time, which also affects the reader. I read the first book very quickly, but this volume took more work. I admire this diptych very much, but I'm not sure that this half would hold a young reader's attention well.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

#241
Title: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Author: Barack Obama
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2006
458 pages

While Obama's second book includes elements of memoir, they seem to serve primarily to buttress his agenda, the articulation of which is his purpose here. I don't always agree with him, but found this book useful for understanding his broader intentions, reassuring in some arenas, and interesting in and of itself. A good book for seeing some of his plans (and now policies) in context.

The Graveyard Book

#239
Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Dave McKean
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2008
318 pages

A very pleasing tale built on the premise that it takes a graveyard to raise a child. A baby's family is murdered and only he escapes. Named "Nobody Owens" by the denizens of the graveyard into which he toddles, he is brought up by, and learns from, ghosts and other creatures. Though the plot initially appears picaresque, a sort of "Nobody's Adventures with Dead People and Things," the key elements ultimately are brought together well. Gaiman's usual cleverness with words and ideas is quite evident, and the story is more moving than a summary would suggest. This is a denser and better-constructed story than Coraline; more importantly, it's the first Gaiman I've read where female characters are as sympathetic as the males.

As he has done before, Gaiman also gives the book away. See him read it chapter by chapter here.

The illustration spanning pages 292-293 in the hardback edition sums up the book nicely (and would make a fine tattoo). After this dose of Nobody Owens, I'm off to read more about Octavian Nothing.

The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag

#238
Title: The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
Author: Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot
Publisher: Basic
Year: 2005
Country: North Korea (not my first)
238 pages

A memoir by a child whose family, though highly politically active on behalf of Kim Il-Sung's government, was interned in Yodok, one of North Korea's labor camps. He was there for 10 years, through his late childhood (age 9) and adolescence. Though then released, he remained under observation. Threatened with a return to the camps because he listened to South Korean radio, he fled to China, then to South Korea.

The memoir is interesting and serviceable, if not literary. Although there are many statements about emotions, the narrative is more expository than demonstrative. I particularly would have liked to know more details about the family's interactions in the camp (for example, did they share food they stole, or was it everyone for himself?) and about how he manages the emotional and psychological consequences of fleeing the country, knowing that this would bring potentially extreme negative consequences to his remaining family.

It could have uses a better editor, both for narrative flow and structure. In addition, it would have benefited from further attention to details. For example, Kang reports that his first detail as a child detainee was on a team that carried meter-long logs from the mountains to the village 3-4 kilometers away. He says that it took 12 round trips (72 to 96 km, or about 47.5 to 63 miles) to meet the daily quota from 1:00 PM on. Assuming they worked from 1:00-9:00 PM, probably an overestimate, with no breaks, the children would have had to cover 6 miles an hour at a minimum, on foot, carrying "terribly heavy" meter-long logs half the time. It's simply not possible. He then goes on to say that it added up to 40 kilometers in 12 round trips.That's still over 26 miles in a shift, with logs, but makes each leg of the trip 1.67 kilometers, not 3-4 (p. 71). If you assume that, though difficult to miss, this was an editorial error, that's fine. If, like some reviewers, you think he's exaggerating in a more general way, it is worth taking a look at other escapees' (and Amnesty International's) accounts of oppression in North Korean and similar dictatorships, which substantiate his assertions even if some details are suspect.