Brian Moore, Lies of Silence ****

I first read Lies of Silence back when it was published in the early 1990s, and ever since I have regularly thought about its awesome setup. The manager of a hotel in Belfast lies sleepless because he plans to tell his wife that he is leaving her. Before dawn, however, IRA terrorists break into his house and tell him he must drive his car, rigged with a bomb, onto the hotel property. They hold his wife hostage to ensure that he doesn't inform the police. He does report the bomb at the last minute. Is he a hero for doing the right thing or a heel for risking his wife's life rather than his own?

I refer to this scenario as the "setup" but it actually covers the entire first half of this short novel. The back half doesn't maintain the intensity. Both times I read the book I was disappointed that Moore focuses more on the social issues (should innocent citizens testify against terrorists?) than the personal ones (how does the wife interpret his betrayal?). To me, the most interesting character development would be the tension between his public heroism and his private sense of mercenary motives. I appreciated the later chapters more on this second read since my expectations were properly set.

Lies of Silence tells a very cinematic story, if a now somewhat dated one. When I read it I can't help but imagine how I would adapt it into a film. Needless to say, I would refocus the denouement.

Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game ****

The Great Game describes the 19th-century rivalry between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia for control of central Asia. Britain saw the region as an exposed flank of India; Russia felt a manifest destiny to control the continent. Rudyard Kipling popularized the expression "the Great Game" in his novel Kim.

It's an exciting adventurous story that takes place against a backdrop of exotic cultures and extreme landscapes. Khiva, Bokhara, Samirkind, Chitral; the Karakum and Taklamakan Deserts, the Pamir, Karakoram, and Himalaya Mountains. The story includes secret spy missions, daring escapades, treachery, extreme conditions, sieges, and battles. I enjoyed learning the history and the geography, both of which I was largely ignorant about. 

Hopkirk's writing is very matter-of-fact. He underplays the drama of many episodes. He doesn't attempt to portray the personal character of his many heroes, which makes them hard to distinguish. Which intrepid adventurer was that? Especially in the early going, many of their deeds felt similar.

I referred regularly to the included maps. They gave a good sense of the relative positions of the cities and Khanates, but I wish they had provided better topographical detail. The dramatic landscapes played a critical role in military assessments of the risk of invasion.

It seemed to me that over the century of conflict, Britain typically relied on treaties with their "buffer states" while Russia typically occupied them "temporarily." Given the capricious nature of rulers, the Russian approach resulted in more permanent gains. There was also a persistent difference in attitude between the political and military portions of both governments.

Ross Perlin, Language City **** 1/2

The subtitle of Language City is misleading: "The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York." Perlin is co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, an organization dedicated to recording and preserving linguistic diversity, but the book is more about the lived experience of immigrants than about protecting minority languages. A person's native language is a fundamental aspect of their cultural tradition. Describing how speakers of a minority language like Seke interact with speakers of other languages like Nepali, Hindi, or English is de facto describing the interaction between cultures. Preserving one's language is little different from preserving other aspects of one's heritage. You could likely write a similar book about the world's food traditions and how they mingle in New York.

Perlin celebrates the unmatched linguistic diversity of New York City, where about 40% of residents speak a language other than English at home and individual blocks in Queens might house a preponderance of the world's speakers of an indigenous Asian language. I was most fascinated by his in-depth profiles of people navigating multilingual environments, in New York and in their home countries. They show the forces of assimilation, hybridization, and cultural entrenchment in action. 

What do we lose when a language goes extinct, or when its speakers switch to the language of a more dominant group? Is it meaningful to identify a person's mother tongue or native language when they use different languages (or registers or dialects) in different contexts? What happens when you remove a community of speakers from the village context in which the language developed? Do the pidgins and creoles used by Himalayans in New York represent a new language or a temporary expedience?

I studied linguistics because of the way language usage reveals the intricacies of human psychology; Perlin studies linguistics because of the way language usage reveals the intricacies of sociology and culture. 

The paperback edition has a lovely artwork by Ralph Fasanella on the cover.

Robert Plunket, My Search for Warren Harding ***

It is with great trepidation that I approach any book advertised as a "comic masterpiece," and that goes double for "rediscovered" novels. There is nothing more painful than comedy that doesn't land. I was convinced to read My Search for Warren Harding by its deadpan title, the backstory of its author, and the solid design of the New Directions paperback. But I remained apprehensive.

I was mildly amused. The humor comes from the narrator's voice, from the ironic distance between his observations and reality, rather than from "hilarious" situations. I am assuredly more susceptible to wordplay and sarcasm than to exaggerated ridiculous plot points.

The plot of My Search for Warren Harding comes directly from Henry James' The Aspern Papers: an academic biographer tries to gain access to his subject's love letters by seducing an old lover's young relative. The story takes place in 1980s Los Angeles, allowing Plunket to satire the Hollywood lifestyle as well.

Anton Chekhov, Five Plays ** 1/2

I found Chekhov's plays rather flat on the page. They need actors and directors to contribute their magic in order to come alive. I suspect it's also a situation where modern drama has so completely internalized Chekhov's innovations that they no longer feel fresh.

Each play was richer than the previous one. Ivanov features a one-note title character and solid comic supporting characters. Seagull is nakedly symbolic. Uncle Vanya offers a complete cast of vivid characters. Three Sisters takes on a broader time scale. The Cherry Orchard incorporates Russian politics.

The archetypical Chekhov theme is endurance in the face of misery and disappointment. 

We'll live through many long days, many long nights; we'll patiently endure all the ordeals that God sends us. We'll work for others, never knowing rest. And in our old age, when our time comes, we'll humbly die ... Then we'll look back on our present unhappiness with sadness and tenderness, and with a smile—and we will rest. (Sonya in Uncle Vanya)

 In two hundred-three hundred years... we'll know a new, happy life. Well of course we won't know it in our lifetime, but for now we must live, we must work, we must suffer, and someday it will happen. That's what we're striving for, why we exist: to create future happiness. ... Happiness is not for us, but we must keep on working, working—happiness is for future generations  (Vershinin in Three Sisters)

Temperamentally, the vast majority of us are crude, inept, profoundly unhappy... Only we must work. We must support those who strive for higher truth. (Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard) 

Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse ***

I Cheerfully Refuse feels like a writer of paperback thrillers attempting a literary novel. From the first page, Enger's writing style reminded me of plot-driven mysteries, something about the way he introduces characters and sketches their quirks. Frequent references to Don Quixote, Odysseus, and Orpheus suggest ambitions beyond a ripping yarn. The fictional work that provides the title says "our job always and forever was to refuse Apocalypse in all its forms and work cheerfully against it."

The plot kept me guessing. Its lack of predictability carried me past the many things that irked me. The story takes place after a societal collapse whose details remain hazy. The narrator blithely pulls into strange harbors without considering potential dangers. He sailed once fifteen years ago, yet shows remarkable skill when he escapes onto Lake Superior in a pocket cruiser. The author introduces MacGuffins (the author Molly Thorn and the suicide drug Willow) only to forget about them.

As the story approaches its climax, Enger even seems to forget about the themes he raised in the first 100 pages. The book becomes the action movie it was always destined to be.

Richard Price, Lazarus Man *** 1/2

I associate Richard Price with extremely realistic urban settings, excellent dialogue, and the ability to evoke full-bodied characters with just a few sentences. These virtues are on full display in Lazarus Man. What's missing, though, is any narrative drive. A building collapses in East Harlem, and the titular character is pulled out of the rubble three days later. The book follows a handful of characters in the aftermath of the disaster, but none of them have a clear goal to move the story forward.

Price's theme becomes clear in retrospect as the novel reaches its conclusion. It's about our need to connect with people and the challenges (of trust, mostly) that make it difficult. Price's books have always included peripheral moments of surprising connection and tenderness—a brief scene with an abusive boyfriend in Freedomland is the moment I remember best—but here they are the main attraction. Once the denouement made this clear to me, I re-evaluated earlier parts of the story in a positive light and found myself moved.