I Finally Finished It!

While we were waiting in the Denver Airport for three hours, and on the two-hour flight, I got a huge chunk read of Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, and I finished it just yesterday. It felt like I had been reading the 900-page novel for months, away on a trip to India. I think I developed my biceps just lugging this book around the house. While I was reading it, I found myself absently repeating the Hindi swear words like maderchod and bhenchod (apologies to anyone who speaks Hindi) to myself since much of the dialogue is peppered with them (they mean pretty much what you think they mean). I found myself perking up at hearing any Indian-accented voice on the radio, and humming the songs from "Monsoon Wedding" to myself.
This is one of those books with a two-page list of characters at the beginning and a 16-page glossary at the end, as Chandra casually uses many Hindi, Punjabi, and other Indian language words throughout. But since half the words I looked up in the glossary weren't even included, I realized he wasn't really concerned with defining everything for non-Indian readers. In an interview with him on amazon.com, he says he wanted to create the experience of being in a different culture, where you are surrounded by cultural references and brand names and slang you don't understand. Maybe this is why I really did feel immersed in the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and textures of India.
The book also refers to lots of classic Bollywood movies, and songs and lines from those movies, and a large part of the plot is about the film stars and starstruck film fans in India. I've never seen a Bollywood film. Chandra recommends a few to see in his interview (Pyaasa (Thirst, 1957); Kaagaz ke Phool ("Paper Flowers," 1959); Mughal-e-Azam ("The Great Mughal," 1960); Sholay ("Embers," 1975); Parinda ("Bird," 1989); Satya (1998); Lagaan ("Land Tax," 2001); Lage Raho Munnabha ("Keep at it, Munnabhai," 2006). Has anyone seen any of these?
The novel is about the rise and fall of a powerful Indian gangster, and is set after 9/11/01, although there are many flashbacks in time to the Partition and its aftermath, and a number of side plots. It's also about terrorism, the criminal underworld, the Pakistan/India conflict, corruption (especially in the Indian police), politics, poverty, religious faith, and the nature of love. What it's really about is the emptiness at the center of a boy who cannot go back home, who searches all his life to replace the father he lost, who ultimately cannot find happiness or satisfaction because of the emptiness inside.
You don't embark upon a journey like this lightly. But in addition to the small feeling of loss I feel after I read something that really captures me, I feel the satisfaction of having been halfway around the world and back inside the pages of a book.

Burns Supper

When was the last time you were at a party with friends reading poetry to each other? Last night my husband and I attended our first Burns supper, an event celebrated on or around January 25, the birth date of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. The highlight of these gatherings, after a meal of traditional Scottish foods (more on that later) , is the singing and reading of poetry by Burns and other poets. The celebrants gathered by our Scottish friends Colin and Caroline were not necessarily highly practiced at either declaiming poetry or singing, but we all joined in gladly to celebrate the spirit of Burns. Some people brought a poem thoughtfully selected in advance in honor of the host, the hostess, or a favorite theme. There were poems by Pablo Neruda, in English and Spanish, and Maya Angelou; an Australian poem; even a poem in Irish Gaelic. Some were silly, some earnest, some heartfelt, some a parody. But it was poetry, and we even sang, quaveringly, “A Red, Red Rose.” I loved hearing the different voices read, in accents Scottish, Irish, Australian, American. Why does a particular poem appeal to a person, like the poem my friend Barbara read, an older woman’s reflection on her love for a soldier laddie? Here is the poem I selected to read, written by Burns to his wife, Jean, during a separation in 1788. It spoke to me of that exquisite heightened sensitivity of separation, when everything reminds you of your love:

Of A’ the Airts

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:

There's wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between:
But day and night my fancys' flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonie flower that springs,
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonie bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.

Of the traditional Scottish meal: it began with bowls of rustic Scotch Broth, ladled from a tureen. Caroline’s Scotch Broth was thick and hearty, filled with potato, beans, and vegetables. I have also seen it as a more refined clear broth with a scattering of barley and beef and vegetables. This was only a prelude to the dish of honor, haggis. Many--especially those of us of British Isles descent--are steeped in lore of the haggis, although I wager few of us have actually tasted it. This is no longer a dish one makes at home. Caroline and Colin wrangled one from a maker in New Hampshire, since their usual California haggis purveyor said they had run out, and then managed to conjure one up in the last minute. Along with the vegetarian haggis, that made a total of three. I learned that before the haggis is served at a Burns supper, it must be addressed by the man of the house with a recitation of Burns’ “Address To a Haggis.” Here are the first three stanzas (it goes on a while longer, as all the hungry guests are gazing at the steaming treat):

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin was help to mend a mill
In time o'need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like ony ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin', rich!

The haggis’s (haggi?) last night were not as "lang" as anyone's arm, but plump, football-sized sausages with their ends tied saucily upward. During the recitation of the third stanza above, the host (in our case the host’s son) plunges the knife into the haggis to let the juices flow. Then everyone can dig in, and add mashed potatoes and bashed neeps (turnips) to their plates. I can say that a little haggis goes a long way. Haggis is made of lamb liver, sheep’s heart, onion, steel-cut oats, beef suet, and a dash of whiskey ground up and stuffed in a sheep’s intestine. For dessert was Atholl Brose, a mixture of whipped cream, toasted oats and nuts, honey, and whiskey. Not exactly California cuisine.

Oh—about one more Scottish cliché: kilts. I questioned one kilt-wearing man and found out that the one he was wearing had been his father’s army kilt, worn as a dress uniform. The kilt’s waist is adjustable, so you can wear it for a lifetime, or—as in this man’s case—longer. It is supposed to contain 30 yards of fabric. Another man wore a “Utilikilt,” invented by a company in Seattle, that combines the style and freedom of movement of a kilt with the practicality of khaki and cargo pockets. I have to say the kilt-wearing men last night looked quite manly and dashing.

Currently Reading Meme

This photo shows General Robert E. Lee shortly after the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Photo by Mathew Brody.

This is another one from Caroline at Food for Thought. Here's the rules:
Open the book you’re currently reading to page 161, and post the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag.

Here's my sentence: "They were forced to watch until their turn came." It's from "April 1865: The Month That Saved America" by Jay Winik.

You can tell it's about something unpleasant; in fact, something horrific--war. The sentence refers to the suffering of Union soldiers at the barbaric guerilla warfare conducted throughout the Civil War by a Missouri rebel named Quantrille and his band.

I don't usually read history, but I have been riveted by this book, which the librettist for Philip Glass' new opera, Appomattox, mentioned as one of his sources of inspiration, among others. So I went out to get it at the library. I am extremely ignorant about Civil War history--I must have been asleep in class for days when we studied it--and wanted to get some context for the opera.

(The opera is about the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox Court House, with some flash-forwards to incidents in African-Americans' long struggle for civil rights. I was lucky enough to see it a week ago during its premiere run here in San Francisco. It was wonderful! Philip Glass wove his own pulsing, hypnotic rhythms and melodies with Civil War era ballads and soldier songs, a few of which he wrote himself. And the libretto! Christopher Hampton used nearly all original words spoken or written at the time. I was completely engrossed from the opening note to the last. You can get a glimpse of the opera at San Francisco Opera's website.)

Here is a more momentous quote from the book--actually a letter, from Lee to Grant, responding to Grant's first overture to Lee regarding a surrender. This letter is sung in its entirety in the opera:

"Genl
I have recd your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinon you express of the hopelessness of further resistance of the Army of N. Va.--I reciprocate your desire to avoid the useless effusion of blood, & therefore before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on the condition of its surrender.
Very respy your obt. servt
R.E. Lee, Genl"

I'm not tagging anyone in particular. If you play, leave me a comment so I can see what you're reading.

The Literary Pub Crawl

Last night my friend Lisa and I went to Litcrawl, the culminating event of Litquake. It's a free, three-hour hop through the Mission District from bar to cafe to bookstore and more, each hosting a reading a different theme. Lisa and I knew we had to strategize, so we chose "Real Life: Memoir Authors Tell It Like It Is," "Girls Tell All," and the MacAdam/Cage publisher's panel, the last one because we both know Susan Ito (also my wonderful writing teacher), who was reading. Other events beckoned--the one featuring SF Chronicle columnists, the TWO/LINES bilingual English-Spanish reading, Mommy Lit, food and wine--but we didn't want to stretch ourselves too thin.

At Double Dutch on 16th Street, the venue for "Memoir," we heard Clayne Hayward on her chaotic hippie childhood, Alan Kauffman on his disturbed Jewish mother, Scott Keneally on being a man who cried at Dove commercials, Brigit Kinsella on falling in love with man behind bars, Rachel Sarah on single motherhood, and Max Velario on experiencing the rush of testosterone as a transsexual. Wow. Six new books added to my "Books to Read" list in 45 minutes.

From there we cruised to the Beauty Bar on Mission Street, for "Girls Tell All," but I guess others wanted to hear what the girls had to tell, too, because it was overflowing out the door. I glimpsed some pink sparkly wallpaper and vowed to return some other time. The Litquake door monitor told us to just go to our next venue and get a good seat. But we decided to peek in at Modern Times bookstore where Seal Press was exploring "...the F Stop: Female Authors Take On Fashion, Fucking, Feminism, Felines, Freestyling, and Felonies." I couldn't keep my attention on Daphne Gottlieb's rant about discovering herself as a thinly disguised character in someone else's writing, and how others kiss and tell but she doesn't and how there is another person living in England with--gasp!--her same name. Maybe it was the result of the glass of white wine I drank at "Memoir." So I looked at the books on the table in the back, and bought two anthologies while Samara Halperin read about craving an Izod shirt. We left before hearing the last reader and hopped over to the Make-Out Room on 22nd Street.

Snowflakes of light danced around on the walls and bounced off strips of silver hanging from the ceiling. We found Susan and shared a booth with her and two friends. She read an excerpt from her essay in the anthology "Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion" coming out next week. Hers was about a pregnancy she had to terminate--either that, or lose her life. She read calmly and didn't seem nervous, although her excerpt was the most wrenching anbd took the most courage to read. Angela Mi Young Hur read from her book about girls in Koreatown, Sheldon Siegel read a description of the Mission District, and Janice Cooke Newman read from her historical novel, "Mary," about Mary Todd Lincoln--another book to add to my "Books to Read" list. We also heard from Clive Clevenger and Eric Martin in short pieces they had written to be performed at Litcrawl--from what they read, I'm less sure what those writers were about.

Besides the literary stimulation, we ran into other people we knew, and gazed unabashedly at other people. And an added bonus for me: now I know about three cool Mission District bars! Maybe I'll even make it to one of them before I go bar-hopping again at next year's Litcrawl.