Laila Lalami

I’m still trying to get over an infection, and I just can’t seem to get better, despite antibiotics. I’ve been “ordered” by my better half to stay in bed all day, drink water, and rest. Anyone who knows me will understand that it’s pure torture for me to be confined to bed all day. My one saving grace is that I’ve been able to read (I’m terrible about updating the “current reads” section on this blog), so here’s what I’ve enjoyed lately:
Arafat’s Elephant by Jonathan Tel. The collection was pretty uneven. A few really good stories, others not so great. What drew me to the book was a story titled “Zaghrouda” which appeared in Granta last month.
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander. I enjoyed this book just as much on my second reading as I did during the first, about a year ago.
“Here Comes” by T. Coraghessan Boyle (or is T.C. Boyle these days?) in the November issue of Harper’s. I was impressed by the way he delved into the homeless guy’s perception of himself. I also liked how the action took place over only a day or two, but the protagonist’s entire life is there for us to see.
The much hyped “Varieties of Religious Experience” by John Updike in the November issue of The Atlantic. I didn’t like this story very much, although I think the premise is quite clever. The portion where he dealt with the hijacker felt entirely too simplistic, for lack of a better word. It would have been much more challenging to do a multi-dimensional section on the hijacker, but I suppose in an age when we are asked to believe in an “axis of evil” this is no surprise.
“Travis, B.” by Maile Meloy in this week’s issue of the New Yorker. This story really broke my heart. I admired how Meloy dealt with all the things that are left unsaid between people.
Best American Short Stories 2002. Just started this.
In terms of non-fiction, there is an excellent article in this month’s National Geographic on weapons of mass destruction. Very chilling. And I’m also reading “The Fifty-First State”, an analysis of the likely aftermath of war (and victory) in Iraq.

On a related note, 100,000 people marched in Washington today to propose the “pre-emptive” war against Iraq, although coverage of this has been rather subdued. At any rate, here’s what the Post had to say:
“Tens of thousands of people marched in peaceful protest of any military strike against Iraq yesterday afternoon, in an antiwar demonstration that organizers and police suggested was likely Washington’s largest since the Vietnam era.”
More here.

We went to the Nuart tonight to see The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a documentary about the alleged role of Kissinger in some of the 1970s’ most dubious U.S. foreign policy actions. The idea started with two articles by Christopher Hitchens for Harper’s Magazine, in which he claims that Kissinger should be tried as a war criminal. The articles were later developed into a book. The filmmakers interview Hitchens, a score of Kissinger associates and colleagues, as well as journalists who had covered the events of the time.
The film leads one to make some interesting parallels between what the U.S. was undertaking in the 70s in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, and Timor, and today’s actions in the Middle East and elsewhere. Makes you wonder whether twenty years from now, we will be seeing a documentary called The Trials of Rumsfeld and Cheney.
The movie is in limited release right now, but certainly worth your time. Go see it before it disappears out of theatres. (BTW, celebrity sighting at the theatre: Ron Eldard, looking quite down to earth, and politely sitting through the credits and question/answer period.)

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather and have been slacking off at home, but will try to get back to blogging sometime soon.

We went to see a Korean movie called Chiburo (the Way Home) tonight at the UCLA Seoul Cinema series. I loved the movie’s well-crafted scenes–amazing economy of language but incredible visual lyricism nonetheless. I think Paramount Classics has picked it up for distribution and it will be coming out on November 15. Don’t miss it!

Sean Penn puts his money where his mouth is. And good for him.

The National Book Award Finalists have been announced. Some surprises in the fiction category: no mention of The Lovely Bones or any of the other books that have made a big splash this year. But a debut collection of short stories by Adam Haslett, You Are Not a Stranger Here, made the cut.
Elsewhere, MobyLives mentions that Bill Buford, the fiction editor of The New Yorker, will be stepping down. No, that won’t do a thing to their slush pile, so don’t bother sending that masterpiece. And lastly, I just heard that Stephen Ambrose passed away two days ago, a mere five days after being mentioned on this site. I do hope it’s not a curse, for Doris Kearns Goodwin’s sake.

Last September, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced that its incoming and transfer freshmen would be assigned Michael Sells’ book Approaching the Quran. The decision was challenged in a federal lawsuit by the Family Policy Network, a “Christian group that claimed that UNC was advocating Islam, and thus violating the establishment clause of the Constitution.” Bill O’Reilly, the patron saint of the conservative right, and never one to pass up an opportunity for gross misrepresentation, called the move akin to making students read Mein Kampf. In a speech to the National Press Club, the Chancellor at UNC described some of the hate mail he received for his decision, and explained why the book was chosen. And now that the book has been read and discussed, and no mass conversions have taken place, and the Earth continued to turn, new charges are being made against the Sells book, by William Buckley (who admits he didn’t read the book). The charges are that it presents too “clean” a picture of Islam, that it doesn’t explain why 19 Muslims chose to blow up the WTC. Have you ever heard of a book on Bible exegesis that also had the burden to somehow explain the actions of the Ku Klux Klan? Neither have I.
Now, UNC announced plans to hold a series of round tables and seminars, sort of an Islam awareness week, taking place November 11th through the 15th. So what does the Family Policy Network do? It adds a new motion to its suit, to try to stop UNC from holding the seminar, on the grounds that the university is trying to spread Islam. Specifically they think that “the university is in essence trying to show the religion in a good light.” You see, if it had held round tables on how to best bash Islam, they wouldn’t have had such a hard time with it.

After the plagiarism allegations that have dogged best-selling historians like Stephen Ambrose and Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, now new charges are being leveled against Jose Camilo Cela, the Spanish novelist and Novel Prize winner. A new book is due to hit shelves in Spain, which claims that Cela used ghostwriters. Oy.

When Bridget Jones’ Diary came out I bought (and enjoyed) the book. But over the years, Bridget spawned a trend, dubbed “chick-lit”, which I found rather distressing. The books (e.g. Confessions of a Shopaholic) all have a heroine that is usually self-centered and dumb, faces a challenge, meets a mysterious man who seems like a complete asshole, but turns out to be her savior when he gets her out of a thorny situation she somehow managed to get into. Boy saves girl, and happy ending follows.
In this New York Times article, Tamar Lewin reviews the latest addition to the trend, Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It.