Chaos And Night by Henry De Montherlant

 I must admit that I don’t know what made me select this one from the library – it looked pretty new on the shelf??

Don Celestino is a bitter old man. But is he bitter with himself or with the world as it is?

He stops speaking to two of his friends (or his only two friends) and when they respond in kind, he wonders at the fact they he cannot talk to them about what ails him.

He is living in France, exiled from Spain and all he does is complain about France. He has a daughter that lives with him and he begins to notice a change in her reactions toward him.  She does not engage his rants and articles he hopes to publish and she begins to lie to him of her whereabouts.

Celestino fought in the Spanish Civil War and he is haunted by visions of seeking the enemy with his gun. He thinks at any moment he will be arrested for his participation.  He talks out loud while walking in the street.  He thinks that the handful of people he knows are against him.  He is driving himself mad! 

When his sister dies, her husband tells Celestino that he must come to Madrid to settle her estate.  This only enhances his madness.  The only exciting part of her return are the tickets he bought to see the bullfights.  The story ends with a description of the bull-fighting (tauromachy) practice and Celestino uses that analogy to describe his life, or actually his end-of-life. He then begins to feel for the bull who is already predisposed to die before getting in the ring.

An interesting tale.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera was born in Czechoslovakia.  When they were invaded by Russia in 1968, he lost his job as a teacher and his writings were removed from libraries.  He wasn’t allowed to publish either.  I guess they did not like what he had say. 

This is a book of short stories.  The first story is about Mirek.  He is attempting to retrieve some letters that he left in the house of an old girlfriend, Zdena.  Since they are not in a relationship anymore, she is not very willing to give him his property.   Those letters contain information that could be used against him so they are quite important to him. Unfortunately, he goes to prison and never gets those letters.

The 2^nd story, a different set of characters – are they swingers? Yes…Swingers with a twist because the wife set up the whole shebang!

Tamina is in the chapter Lost Letters.  Her late husband was named Mirek.  Not the same Mirek as in the first story.  She does not want to forget him.  She also tries to retrieve some letters – making her mind go a little cuckoo...

The last story is titled Borders.  All Jan talks about is sex.  Somehow he equates everything in life being within borders – men/women, life/death. 

The story that I liked the most was Litost.  Litost is explained as “a state of torment caused by sudden insight into one’s own miserable self.”  I like to think of it this way – and this is the example he used in the book -  your girlfriend is a top athlete, but you don’t swim that well, so one day you are both in the water swimming and she beats you back to shore but you get water in your mouth, etc but you don’t want to tell her that, and you have an attitude when you return to shore and when she asks you what is wrong, you berate her using the line that she should not have swam that fast, the water was to rough and she could have been hurt, rather than admit that you don’t swim well, you make up false reasons for resenting her swimming abilities.  By the way, Litost is a Czech word – as per authors note.

The theme of these stories are laughing and forgetting. Some characters are laughing hysterically and others don’t want to forget certain things.  However, laughing and forgetting is mainly about Czechoslovakia.  When it was taken over by Russia, old things were replaced with other things so that the old things could be forgotten!   These characters are going through similar occurrences in their day to day lives.

Kundera’s writing is witty, funny, keen and ironic!   His symbolism of people and their struggles and politics and the like are quite perceptive.   

Americanah, A novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ifemelu (Ifem) is from Nigeria.  She moves to the US, goes to school, gets a job, starts a blog and then moves back to Nigeria.  Blaine is her last lover in the US and she breaks up with him just before moving back.

Obinze is her first love (in Nigeria) and you would think they would be together forever, but then she moves to America and she does not return his calls, letter or messages. 

They have their own experiences - Ifemelu in America where she prospers and Obinze in London, where he does not.  He ends up being deported back to Nigeria and then becomes wealthy in Real Estate.  Ifem returns to Nigeria on her own free will.  They both encounter racism in their respective lives. While in America, Ifem starts a blog that addresses that concern and its about the differences between Black Americans and Black non-Americans.  It is a big hit and she does manage to gain sponsors until she shuts the blog down when she decides to return to Nigeria.

When Ifemu returns to Lagos, she gets herself a job and establishes herself before contacting Obinze.  They have a love affair.  Things got messy as they usually do when one of the two are married. 

I thought the authors’ writing was clear and concise.  She touched on points that affect people’s lives today and globally – race and relationships. 

We Live In Water by Jess Walter

This is a book of short stories. 

The funniest story was “Virgo” about a newspaper editor who changed the original wording of the daily horoscopes to be the opposite of what was supposed to be published so that his ex-girlfriend would be upset. It was funny until he realized his father, who went into a hypoglycemic coma, shared the same horoscope.  Oopsie. 

All of the stories had some appeal – even the one that was only two pages.

It is a coincidence that I read another book by the same author – “Beautiful Ruins”.  I liked that book better than this one.

I must say that I am not getting a good impression of the state of Washington from these stories.

Don’t Eat Cat – bizzaro story about zombies.

I keep waiting to see if any of the characters re-occur.  Names do.

My commentary here is in the same format as this short story book.  

Small Island by Andrea Levy

Hortense, Queenie and Gilbert.  Set in 1948, in Jamaica, West Indies and London, Hortense, Queenie and Gilbert are about to meet in different ways.

Gilbert Joseph moves to London after returning from the war.  He thinks life will be grand.  He has to take jobs where he is called boy and discriminated against.  He does all this to make a way to bring his wife from Jamaica, West Indies.  Hortense Joseph moves to London to be with her husband.  She thinks she will find the perfect teaching job. 

They both meet Queenie, their landlord, and have very different opinions of her.  Queenie and her husband Bernard have their own marital issues.  And then there is Michael.

You will have to read it to know what else happens.  BTW, there is a movie version, but once again, I SO enjoyed the book.