Culture Wars - Two Books

I have to be honest; Literary Society used to be about the text and now it's about the food.  And the text, but really, the food occupies a lot of my mental energy.  With dishes like this, how can it not?

Chili Rellenos

Chef Campo, husband of Lit Society leader, Nat King Cole, offers to cook for us just about every time we meet.  At first I thanked him and said not to bother, but then I was like, what the heck am I saying?  As much as I want to be nice, as much as I don't want to burden him, I want the deliciousness more.

But I tend to get up on my high horse about book clubs that drone on about the wine (or whatever) instead of the plot, so here we go.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lahiri tells the story of two brothers, born only fifteen months apart and raised practically as twins, in lower-class 1960's India.  The older brother has no issue conforming to his culture and becomes the very essence of a responsible first born Indian son.  His brother, however, his close companion, becomes involved in a growing rebellion against the state that eventually costs him his life.

Spanning across several generations and two continents, Lowland tells the story of how the older brother deals with loss, cultural expectations, devotion, love and learning.  The story is presented through the eyes of different characters, at different times within the plot.  It is beautifully written and is told mostly within the confines of academia:  university life both as a student and a professor.

Read this book when you're in the mood for a solid story that contains several enduring themes.  If this book were a meal, it would contain the complex flavors of delightful (and spicy!) Chili Rellenos.

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I also want to mention an autobiography I just finished that is also about a cross cultural, multi-country journey.

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I'm no news follower, but remember a short while after 9/11 when Theo Van Gogh (the Dutch film producer) was brutally murdered after making a film that called Islam into question, particularly its treatment of women?  He was slain in the middle of a street, while riding his bike, and a note was found on his body, a threat addressed to his film co-creator (and author of this book), Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

This book tells of her journey as a child in Somalia who was subject to genital mutilation (with no anesthesia or medication) at age six, through her experience escaping her family and a fixed marriage by fleeing to Germany to eventually become a citizen of Holland, earn her college degree, become elected to the Dutch Parliament, turn away from her religion, turn away from all religion, speak out against Islam's treatment of women and eventually against countries that - out of "tolerance" - do not ensure that Muslim immigrants adapt to Western society and civilization (including rules, regulations and some secular expectations), only to lose her Dutch citizenship and wind up working at a think tank in Washington, D.C.  How's that for a run-on sentence?

Ali has led an incredible life; I felt like I was reading the story of about 400 years' worth of characters all confined within her individual experience.  As a child, she and her family bounced between Somalia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia.  Her family was (is) Muslim and her father was a highly respected rebel against Siad Barre in the Somali unrest (and Civil War) of the 1980's and 1990's.  Consequently, Ali was mostly raised by her overly strict mother and grandmother, along with a handful of other relatives here and there.  She was often severely beaten by her family and also by a Muslim religious leader.  When she was 16 she asked questions (women weren't allowed to do that - in fact, nobody was allowed to do that) of the Quran and the religious leader slammed her head into a wall so hard that it fractured her skull.  Thanks to doctors in a good Nairobi hospital, she lived.

As I mentioned, after a whole heck of a lot of stuff happened, she was able to get to Germany, then to Holland, then to gain refugee status that eventually led to her Dutch citizenship and the opportunity to learn and then contribute to society.  Her main platform - in a nutshell - is that there's a reason Western societies are advanced, successful and civilized, and Islamic countries are not.  The difference is that Islam rejects half of its own population (women) and promotes ignorance by teaching its children by rote and discouraging critical thinking, entrepreneurship, communication - basically everything except violence and ignorance.  She has nothing nice to say about the idea that Islam is a peaceful religion.

She is an excellent - measured - writer and I have her other book, The Caged Virgin, on my list. 

I feel, after reading Infidel, that I just narrowly escaped Mogadishu and somehow wound up in Denver, with a snotty rabbit... 

I'm exhausted.