Book 5: Cockroach - Rawi Hage

This book captured me at the first line, the first paragraph, the first page, the first chapter, and it captivated me until the very end. I wish I could recommend this book by telling you that "this is the fastest I've read any book for the Cannonball Read," "it was so good I couldn't put it down," and it was going that way for a while; I read the majority of the book, about two-thirds, within 24 hours. But then, somehow a week passed without reading a single word until last night when I finished it, and here we are. woops. It was really good though. Really good. Read the first four pages and I think you'll know if this book is for you.


Cockroach follows the escapades of an Arab immigrant in Montreal who lives on the fringes of society, relatively unnoticed, and reveals him in the context of Montreal's Middle Eastern immigrant community filled with refugees, exiles, and immigrants - yes, there is a difference. These people aren't 'mainstream' by any means. They all have issues and are psychologically effected by their pasts.

We find out right in the beginning that this Arab man - I don't like referring to people as 'narrator,' let's call him Jihad... Immediately we discover that Jihad is in love with an Iranian exile named Shohreh, he's sitting in his therapist Genevive's office due to a court order because last week he tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a public park. He failed obviously because a runner passing by came to his rescue. Oh, and he also thinks he's a cockroach (sometimes).

Jihad is an interesting character because even though he's not completely 'good,' he is also very charming and likable. He suffers from delirium which is usually triggered by drugs, so at times he believes that he's a cockroach. He hides from the sun, blaming it for his suicide attempt. He's a self-proclaimed thief, and he sometimes breaks into peoples' houses including that of his therapist just to snoop around or eat some food. And, he'll sometimes pick fights for absolutely no reason.

What I liked about this book was that as I was reading, Jihad seemed completely normal - just a normal guy doing his thing, living his life, but then he would do something not so normal like break into his therapist's apartment for no apparent reason. Or at other times he'd be hanging out with people, but then he would start giving physical descriptions of his cockroach self. That sounds a little crazy, fine. But the book wasn't too crazy because Jihad still had a firm grasp of society and the true nature of people including their hypocrisy. He saw through everyone and everything. He was just a little off mentally. Ultimately, if you take away the cockroach talk, this book describes a man living the struggle. He's hungry, and he's trying to eat.

The most captivating part of the book revolves around Jihad's therapy sessions. As you read, through Jihad's present actions you get a feel for what his current issues are, you see that he's a little disturbed and suicidal and that he's at the margins of society, but you don't know why. The therapy sessions are exciting because every week Jihad reveals his personal narrative; he gives the story of what led up to his current psychological condition. Jihad takes us back to the violence of his childhood in a chaotic, war-torn Arab country - I'll assume that it's based on the Lebanese Civil War because that's where the author is from. His past is chilling and at times shocking. You get a taste of Shohreh's dreadful experience in Iran as well: as a political prisoner she was the victim of torture and rape.

I recommend this book in any context. I think this might be my favorite book so far. It's pretty exciting to read regardless of your taste and background. Me, I liked it because I like stories about immigrants, and I especially liked it because the Middle East was represented, so there were certain culture specific elements that spoke to me.


I like quotes, but I didn't want to ruin the flow of my review, so if you're interested in examples of the things I mentioned keep reading -

Middle Eastern context-

For days after the party, I begged that asshole Reza to give me Shohreh's number. He refused. That selfish, shady exile would only say, in his drooling accent, You are not serious about her. You only want to sleep with her. She is not that kind of girl, she is Iranian. She is like a sister, and I have to protect her from dirty Arabs like you.

But, Reza, maestro, sisters also fuck, sisters also have needs, too.

This upset him and he cursed, Wa Allah alaazim. I will prevent you from meeting her again!

Bourgeois Hypocrisy-

I need a bus ticket, I said, and I am short a dollar and twenty cents. I will pay you right back, when I get a cheque in the mail. And without waiting for an answer, I picked dimes and quarters out of his palm. I wanted something from him. It angered me that the socialist does not want to be identified as poor, a marginal impoverished welfare recipient like me. At least I am not a hypocrite about it. Yes, i am poor, I am vermin, a bug, I am at the bottom of the scale. But I still exist. I look society in the face and say: I am here, I exist. There is existence and there is the void; you are either a one or a zero.

Cockroach's suicide attempt-

It was not deceit, depression, or a large tragedy that pushed me to go shopping for a rope that suited my neck. And it wasn't voices. I've never heard any voices in my head - unless you consider the occasional jam sessions of Mary, the neighbour above me. No, the thing that pushed me over the edge was the bright light that came in my window and landed on my bed and my face. Nothing made any sense to me anymore. It was not that I was looking for a purpose and had been deceived, it was more that i had never started looking for one. I saw the ray of light entering my window and realized how insignificant I was in its presence, how oblivious it was to my existence. My problem was not that I was negligent towards life, but that somehow I always felt neglected by it.

New Day, New Year, New Decade...

Happy New Year!

It's 2010 and cars can fly. That's what I watched on my countdown to ring in the New Year - Travis Pastrana breaking the world record for the longest rally car jump ever. And let me tell you, the anticipation was a lot more exciting than a ball dropping. It's so good that I found it for you on youtube; check it out: Jumping into the New Year

New Year Resolution: I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions and hope to be on a constant path toward self-improvement. Always. Losing weight is never one of these things. Neither is quitting things like smoking, drinking, or anything else people try to quit, because, I'm not a quitter. Completing this Cannonball Read can be one of those things, but I already resoluthisized that in November.

Did you notice that some people are wishing other people a "Happy New Year's" with an apostrophe 's.' That bothers me. I was trying to figure out where that comes from, and I think it's because we say "New Year's Day," so somehow it is correct to wish someone a "Happy New Year's." Just like the placement of the apostrophe when you try to make 2009 09. I've seen 09' which means, yet again, we've forgotten the purpose of the apostrophe. When we shorten a word/number, the apostrophe addresses the omitted part. And, I can't believe I just ranted about apostrophes...

Happy New Year!

The upside to life is that when things get shitty, they can only get better (I'm assuming that we have already hit rock bottom), so I have a feeling 2010 will be a much better year.

All joking aside, I had an excellent 2009, and I look forward with excitement as I start another year, 2010. I'm thankful to be alive to see another year... that's all that matters when you break it down anyway, right?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone enjoyed
their Christmas day.


Much love,

Me





This is from my favorite Christmas movie

Book 4: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

In this memoir, Haruki Murakami combines a series of excerpts or essays over the course of 2005-2006 regarding his life, his career as a novelist, and of course running. Through this short work, he reveals the moment that inspired him to start writing and what led him to begin long-distance running. Besides being a world renowned author, Murakami is a dedicated athlete having participated in over 25 marathons and a series of triathlons. He uses these experiences as a runner and, more specifically, his unwavering discipline to describe his personality revealing that the qualities that allow him to be a dedicated long-distance runner relate directly to his success in methodical writing.

Before I read this book, I read the NY Times Review of the book that read,

"I’m guessing that the potential readership for “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is 70 percent Murakami nuts, 10 percent running enthusiasts and an overlapping 20 percent who will be on the brink of orgasm before they’ve even sprinted to the cash register."

That made my laugh instantly because I'm part of that overlapping 20 percent. For me that is a statement, a fact, but for you that will serve as a warning because I inevitably have strong bias in favor of this book.

So I guess what I'll do is give you my impression of the book, which is what I'm here to do anyway, and then I'll give you my honest recommendation.

What immediately drew my attention to this book was that Murakami was talking about his long distance running experience in Cambridge (among other places) which included morning runs along the Charles River. I'm a long distance runner, so that works for me, and I also ran in the Boston Marathon, so I related to the marathon talk - I related to his discourse on training, the difficulties he faced, and his genuine desire to run. But, what really excited me was that he had been running in my backyard this whole time during my college career, and I didn't even know it. I thought to myself, "Imagine if I had been running along the Charles River in 2005, I might have been seeing him every morning." But I wasn't, not at that date anyway. Regardless, I understood the context of his experience, because I experienced these locations myself over the past four years. He even mentions a talk that he gave at MIT on October 6, 2005. I remember exactly what I was doing on that date because I had plans on attending said event, but I couldn't go. In these ways I felt a direct connection to the book.

If I could meet Haruki Murakami I would thank him for sharing this book with us. I use the word sharing because I felt as if I were reading pages out of the man's diary. I'm sure this was a very calculated portrayal of himself, but it didn't feel that way; it felt like a very candid, honest depiction of himself. He writes as if he's having a conversation with you; he uses a very forthright, casual language and you get a feel for what goes on through his mind.

This casual language made me realize that there is a big difference between the writing of Haruki Murakami the man and Haruki Murakami the author. I suppose I have always assumed that an author has one voice, a natural talent, and that voice comes out not only in his or her professional writing, but in all of the writing. I was wrong. This book is written in a completely different way than the novels. His style was no way nearly as refined and sophisticated as his novels. This realization helped me recognize that novel writing is his job, a painstaking task that would be like any other job that any other ordinary person has, it's not just a flow of natural talent (although I do believe that he is still extremely talented).

The most important part of the book, to me, was when he discussed what he thinks about when he is running. People who aren't distance runners just don't understand why people can run for hours - it's boring, how can you run for so long, what do you think about. I just enjoy it. My only motivation is the act of running itself and, of course, general physical fitness. I don't think about anything when I run. I usually say that "I think about nothing and everything." I'm not really successful at explaining this and since people typically don't understand me I start to feel a little crazy in the process, so it made me smile when Murakami confirmed my sentiment:

"I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue."

Overall, I was happy with reading this memoir, but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone because it is clear that it has a very specific audience. This definitely shouldn't be your first Murakami book. You should read this if you like Haruki Murakami's books already or are interested in learning about him. You might even be interested in reading this if you are a runner or are at least mildly interested in running, but if you are neither of these things, I can't imagine you enjoying this.

I'm Craving Tomato Soup

I want Tomato Soup.

I have been craving it for the longest time... I don't want soup from a can, I don't want to eat it at Panera (which is no different from eating soup from a can), I just want to make it on my own. I have a feeling that it is super easy to make, but this is not something that exists in my culture.

Does anyone have a Tomato Soup recipe? Please pass it along.

Sincerely,

Hungry Cannonballer

Book 3: World War Z - Max Brooks

In World War Z, an Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks uses interviews with people around the world to give a hollistic account of the Zombie War that plagued the earth. Max Brooks brings together a variety of perspectives to provide interesting social commentary pertaining to many facets of human society. This book is very scary.

At first, I was convinced that Brooks single-handedly predicted swine flu and the subsequent public and governmental reaction to it - the greedy businessman who created a vaccine that didn't work to make money, the government's perspective to calm people down and maintain crowd control, people panicking due to uncertainty. In the process, through the combined efforts of the government and health department, a useless placebo drug claiming to be a vaccine gets administered to society even before anyone has an understanding of the Zombie Epidemic itself and knowing full well that it does not work. Sounds a little like swine flu and it's corresponding vaccine, doesn't it? How timely. On the cover of the November 2009 The Atlantic it reads, "SWINE FLU: DOES THE VACCINE REALLY WORK?" Scary. Then, as I kept reading, I was convinced that Brooks had a full understanding of the AIDS epidemic - prejudice and extermination for fear of the disease spreading, knowingly infecting people, and creating a vaccine to maximize profit instead of pursuing a cure, just to list a few things.

Then, it occurred to me. What makes this book so scary isn't swine flu nor is it AIDS, what makes this book so scary is that the Zombie War applies to every crisis and epidemic in modern human history. Max Brooks make you realize through these accounts that human nature is relatively constant, and while new incidents may arise, they all boil down to the same thing because we collectively react to them in the same way.
That's the only thing I got out of this book.

The book is clearly well-researched and definitely well-thought out. Max Brooks brings forth an understanding of World History, Current Events, and Global Politics. It was almost as if he was summarizing any History, Political Science, International Relations, students' college career. He doesn't go in depth into any particular world event, instead he gives you a taste of the multi-layered, interdependent global network, all while remaining arguably U.S. centric. I was also very surprised in the intricate details he used. For example, he mentioned the Revolutionary Guards, the Saw Mill Parkway, and the Ossetian ethnic minority. How many people know about the South Ossetians? I thought that was incredible random and respectable.

I thought this book was intriguing, but I didn't love it. It's sad because this book rests on an interesting premise and has the potential to be a GREAT book. Regrettably, the premise of this book is a lot stronger than its writing. The greatest weakness of this book which should have been its great strength had to do with the different perspectives. Different perspectives would normally keep me interested and entertained. However, every interview had the same exact voice, and that made this book utterly boring. Up to the first half, it grabbed my attention because through every perspective you learned a little more about the Zombie war. But once you got the full picture, it was just the same thing over and over - same voice, different event. It was a struggle to finish.

Book 2: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

This book is a gem. I absolutely loved this book, and I think you will too.

Oskar Schell is an intelligent, eccentric 9-year old who is deeply affected by his father’s death just one year ago in the World Trade Center crisis of 9/11. It is obvious that Oskar is deeply traumatized by this incident and is having difficulty coping with it as his mother gets a new boyfriend, he doesn’t get the attention he deserves, and life continues to move forward without his father. It’s not as obvious that he is 9 years old – I had to double check the back cover to make sure – he was definitely too mature for his age.

One day as Oskar rummages through his apartment he finds an envelope labeled ‘Black,’ and in it he finds a key that belonged to his father. Oskar sets himself on a mission to find the lock that matches this key in order to keep a connection with his father and to figure out his secret. The journey to find this lock sets this novel in motion. His first task is to meet every New Yorker with the last name ‘Black.’ The tasks that encompass this fact-finding mission lead Oskar to run into a wide array of people. What makes this novel so beautiful isn’t the encounters or the events themselves, but the point of view of this fascinating young boy. The way Oskar thinks, the way he frames events – well, mainly his train of thought make this book easy to read and easy to relate to.

At the same time, interspersed throughout Oskar’s journey, Foer tells the story of Oskar’s grandparents, how they met, and how they lived, and their marriage. If anything, that story is even more captivating. The characters are again eccentric, especially the Grandfather who chooses not to speak, and their journeys that led them to each other is brilliantly thought out. You discover the Grandfather’s version of the story in the form of a letter, and you get the Grandmother’s version in her personal account expressed directly to Oskar. Let’s just say that Grandfather, in his adolescence, falls in love with Grandmother’s sister Anna in Dresden, and when he meets Grandmother in America they decide to marry a loveless relationship.

“…the center of me followed her, but I was left with the shell of me, I needed to see her again, I couldn’t explain my need to myself, and that’s why it was such a beautiful need, there’s nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”

“It’s the tragedy of loving, you can’t love anything more than something you miss.”

The structure of this novel is also something to consider.
Images. The novel is interlaced with images. (see post photo) That interesting choice of images makes you feel like you’re joining Oskar on his journey to find this lock. When Oskar finds a clue, you do too in the form of a picture. This element of the book, I believe, connects you even more to Oskar – it’s almost as if you’re going through the journey directly with him.
Format. The novel is also structured differently through its unique format. On some pages you’ll find only a word or a phrase.

I actually wrote this review when I was up to page 160, about half-way through the book, while I had my ideas fresh on my mind and thinking that I would have more to write once I finished. Surprisingly, I have nothing more to add. I’d like to reemphasize how amazing this book is… it got even better as I kept reading, and I’ll leave you with this amusing passage that really gives you a flavor of Oskar’s character:

As he walked out of the room, Jimmy said, “Hey, Oskar, who’s Buckminster?” I told him, “Richard Buckminster Fuller was a scientist, philosopher, and inventor who is most famous for designing the geodesic dome, whose most famous version is the Buckyball. He died in 1983, I think.” Jimmy said, “I mean your Buckminster.”

I didn’t know why he was asking, because I’d brought Buckminster to school for a demonstration only a couple of weeks before, and dropped him from the roof to show how cats reach terminal velocity by making themselves into little parachutes, and that cats actually have a better chance of surviving a fall from the twentieth floor than the eight floor, because it takes them about eight floors to realize what’s going on, and relax and correct themselves. I said, “Buckminster is my pussy.”