The Testament of Mary

The Testament of Mary

By Colm Tóibín

The Man Booker Prize was awarded to Eleanor Catton for her novel her novel The Luminaries (Congrats Ms. Catton). At 28 years old, Catton becomes the youngest winner of the Booker Prize. But that is not the only superlative we can superimpose one this year's crop of nominees for (arguably) literature's most prestigious award. Colm Tóibín's 81 page novel The Testament of Mary is the shortest book to ever be shortlisted (or even long listed for that matter). It barely qualifies as a novel. I've read novellas longer that The Testament of Mary. But what it lacks in density, it more than makes up for in controversy. Not only due to it's subject matter, but also due to the delivery of the narrative.

The controversy involved in Tóibín's novel is twofold. First, any novel written from the historical perspective of a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth is contentious by nature among those who will take issue with the way in which Jesus and other Bible personages are characterized. There are always going to be those who will take issue with elements of Biblical accuracy. Of more interest, though, is the literary controversy The Testament of Mary has generated, particularly the unconventional way in which Mary has been characterized. 

The Testament of Mary is a first person account of the life of Jesus as told by his mother, many years after the crucifixion. Mary has been kept protected (hidden) by the disciples and is tended to by several watchers at Ephesus in Asia Minor. The disciples themselves often visit to gather stories from Mary, but only those that fit their particular needs. It is at this point, in her extreme old age, that Mary feels compelled to disclose the truth of her son's life as she recalls it. I suppose her motivation is the direction in which the disciples are steering the ship: toward a division with the Jewish tradition and the founding of a new religion.

What Mary recounts is a far more ephemeral account of the life of Jesus. His miracles as witnessed by his mother are open to critical interpretation and his death and resurrection are recalled in far more corporeal tones. In fact, Mary seems to be confounded by the cult of personality that spouts up around her son and professes to not understanding much of what his followers are saying. This, of course, implies that Mary was never a follower of her son. But Tóibín takes it one step further and hints at a possible reversion to paganism in her old age, a rather confounding notion, to say the least.

Mary is characterized as both brutally honest and absolutely sure about the events that lead up to the arrest and death of her son, but at the same time rather confused about the events that transpired in the days and years that followed the crucifixion. Her voice is lucid and exacting and her attention to the details surrounding both the wedding at Cana and the resurrection of Lazarus are vividly fascinating. But when it comes to the politicking of her son's life and martyrdom, Mary seems utterly confounded. 

Surely one can excuse the bereaved for not entirely understand what is going on in the wake of death, but Mary's complete ignorance concerning the machinations of the disciples in  the aftermath of the crucifixion is inexcusable and a real fault in Tóibín's characterization. Mary seems oblivious to the fact that she is being used by the embryonic Christian Church to further their political cause within the Empire.

Which leads me to wonder what is purpose of this little novel. Surely it's not an examination of Mary as a literary heroine. We learn very little about her throughout the novel. In fact this novel has very little to do with Mary other than the fact that she is the voice in which it flyers through. And surely it's not simply to suggest that Jesus was not, in fact, the son of God. That theme has been done to death in longer and far more insightful novel than this one. So if The Testament of Mary isn't about Mary and isn't about Jesus (in the historical sense) than what is it about?

My best guess is that Tóibín is investigating the nature of truth. The story of Jesus is one narrative that tends to get a free pass on revisionism. Through Mary, we throw the entire Jesus story through the first person wringer, allowing the writer to take license with virtually every detail of the story they see fit to alter. Here Tóibín chooses to reduce Christ to the status of man retrofitted as a godhead. Further to that point, it would seem that Colm Tóibín is examining the politics of myth-making and how an agenda trumps truth when the chips are on the proverbial table. Mary is simply a puppet to be manipulated when the need arises. A tool to be kept alive but also carefully choreographed.

But if that's the case, if Toibin's over-arching purpose was to somehow point out that the Bible is either patently untrue or (at the very least) decidedly unreliable, then this novel seems rather like flogging a dead horse. Only the most fervent zealots believe that the Bible is the literal word of God rather than a flawed and contradictory text written by hundreds of people over thousands of years. If pointing this out was Toibin's intent it's sort of like spending a pleasant afternoon proving that the sky is blue to a group of people, a small percentage of whom are color-blind.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this novel. In the spirit of this blog, I wrote this immediately after finishing the book. But this is the sort of novel that will take days or weeks to sort out. I need to mull over the more intricate nuances of this tight little narrative. I know the novel is flawed, but I'm trying to decide whether or not it is intentionally flawed in order to make a point about the nature of truth, or critically flawed because Colm Tóibín is simply mean-spirited.

Has anyone else read this book yet? I'd be curious to know what you took away from it. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Uncle Tom's Cabin

By Harriet Beecher Stowe

Confession.

Until Uncle Tom's Cabin, I had never listened to an audio book. In fact I'm not really an mp3 sort of guy. Aside from a couple of year in high school when I was an anti-social metalhead with a walkman full of Megadeth firmly stitched into my ears in school, I have never really used portable listening devices. I picked one up a few years back when I started running in earnest in order to while away the doldrums of running 10k. I quickly tired of music because it allowed me to subliminally thing about time (each song is roughly four minutes long and if you count the songs, you can count your minutes. Recipe for disaster). I moved from music to podcasts. Fresh Air, Science Friday, Freaknomics, TED. It was all good.

Then another blogger turned me onto LibraVox. LibraVox is a website that allows users to download novels (that exist in the public domain of course) free of charge in mp3 format. I figured this was an ideal way to read classic novels that I would otherwise continue to pass up. It's an hour of uninterrupted reading (something I don't get with actually reading these days what with a two-month old daughter demanding a fair degree of attention).

Needless to say, I'm sold on audio books. It allows me to get more reading done, it lets me combine two of my favorite things (reading and running) and it means I can read marginally more than I used to. Add to that, I will be able to fill more than a few glaring holes in my reading while staying in shape. What a wonderful tool technology can be. Still won't buy a smart phone though.

Anywho.

So, Uncle Tom's Cabin. A novel that I have had on my shelf more than a few times over the years but have always managed to pass by. Perhaps it was its girth or the fact that it was written in that sentimental 19th century style that I grew to loathe in high school. At points Beecher Stowe's brow-beating melodrama loses its effect. In discussing the cruel and inhume treatment of plantation slaves, she is liable to add enough overwrought imagery to pull your heartstrings as taut as a tightrope, losing the effect (or at least I felt that way, 170 years later in a world not troubled by institutional slavery).

The plot is a loose collection of stories that center on the character of Uncle Tom, a pious slave who, for economic reasons, is sold to a slave trader Haley. Haley takes Tom down river to New Orleans where he is sold, first to a reputable family and then to a despicable man. The novel also chronicles the flight of George and Eliza from Kentucky to Canada, thus ensuring their freedom as well a few other strands though out.

One of the major drawbacks of Uncle Tom's Cabin was that often the characters come across as stereotypes: Simon Legree is the cruel-hearted southern slave driver and there is not a single redeeming quality in his entire person, St.Clare is the well-meaning southern gentleman whose every word is infused with folksy southern wisdom, his wife that sends the belle's heart aflutter, and his wife, the delicate ingenue so pro-slavery that the reader hopes that she'd just hurry up and die already. Never mind the slave  characters in the book who would (much to Beecher Stowe's dismay I would imagine) go on to become the "Mammy" and "Uncle Tom" archetypes that would color a good amount of American culture during the Jim Crow years (pardon the borderline pun).

But despite the stereotypes, one characters stood out from the rest in their complexity. The slave trader Haley is both abominable and plaintive. In one instance he is as cruel a master as Simon Legree and at others he seems to have at least a dose of the compassion of Evangeline. Of all the characters in the book (aside from Miss Ophelia) it is Haley alone who I felt evolved. While all the other characters were fully formed prior to the narrative and showed nothing over the course of the novel that could be construed as growth, Haley alone seemed to morph in front of our very eyes from the hardened slave trader to a man questioning their worth in the world. One gets the feeling at the end of the novel that Haley is perhaps not long for his profession and perhaps a full change of character is not far off.

The novel itself is pretty blunt. It drives its point home not with any subtle nuance but with a sledgehammer of melodrama. At points the novel becomes more of a strident diatribe against slavery and it's not difficult to see why this book's reception and success has been attributed as one of the key cultural steps toward The Civil War. But I suspect such harsh treatment of the subject of slavery was decidedly needed at that precise point in American history. Perhaps subtlety and nuance had run their course by then. One wonders when a novel of this sort will appear in regards to the current sectarian divisions in America.

As a modern reader I also had a problem with Tom's religion. Harriet Beecher Stowe was so good about covering all the different facets and angles of slavery, I was surprised that she neglected to discuss this one. She discussed the role of Christianity and spirituality in the slave communities but handled the topic with kid gloves, never asking the tough questions. I guess religion wasn't yet under the microscope when Uncle Tom's Cabin was written. Pity, though. I'd like to know what Tom would have said if someone had pointed out that he was trying to escape one form of bondage for another. Meet the new master, Tom. Same as the old master.

But I'm being hard on Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel holds up surprisingly well and there is enough action and excitement between the polemics to make this a readable story over and above the issues of the day. Since I listened to this entire book while running, I actually found the chapter dealing with the flight of George and Eliza especially compelling as I felt as though I was running along side them and that every footfall was one more in the direction of freedom. I'm going to miss my runs with Uncle Tom, Eva and George. They helped me through many a difficult kilometer.

Gilead

Gilead

By Marilynne Robinson

In the Bible "Gilead" means the hill of testimony or witness. In Marilynne Robinson's 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead is a fictional town in Iowa circa 1957. While I am not versed in the geography and topography of the state of Iowa, I have been led to believe that there are very few hills or mounds therefore one must presume at the onset of the book that Robinson is focused on the theme of testimony and witness rather than vertical geological formations. This isn't a particularly important observation, but it will help you get settled into the narrative.

The novel is essentially an extended letter from John Ames, an aging third-generation Congregationalist preacher, to his infant son. Ames, who married and had children rather late in life has been diagnosed with an unnamed heart condition and he feels the need to put pen to paper in order that his young son can shed some light on the history of the frontier town of Gilead and how it was intertwined in the relationship between his visionary (and often militant) abolitionist grandfather and his ardently pacifist father during the time of the Civil War. While the letter is clearly addressed to his son, one cannot help but pity Ames as he struggles to reconcile his love for both his father and grandfather despite their irreconcilable differences.

As Ames's writes the letter (over the course of several weeks, one presumes), events in his own life become more interesting when Jack Boughton the son of a close family friend returns after many years away. Ames's reticence prevents him from writing why this return is of such import, but it's plainly apparent that Boughton's reappearance has raised serious philosophical questions. After a prolonged theological debate with himself, Ames finally reveals the long sordid history of Jack Boughton and the events that have lead him back to town.

Robinson sets a slow, easy pace and a austere prairie town tone and maintains it for the duration of the novel. It's a pot of stew simmering on a country kitchen. The action in the novel is subtle, without the usual dramatics (not even a thunderstorm on the horizon). Gilead strolls along an an even pace, stopping often to smell the flowers or admire the pitching arm of a local boy. If a neighbor happens to invite this novel in for tea, it wouldn't object and the visit would be pleasant enough. But there is much laying under that thick layer of contentment. It is a testament to Robinson's restraint as an author that she allows them to resolve themselves in a series of stoic meditations.

Gilead is so many things at once. It's a deeply personal letter between an elderly father and an infant son. For Ames, who seems to value heritage, the letter functions as a generational bridge that would have otherwise become a chasm once the infirm Ames passes on, leaving his son with no understanding of where he came from. Despite his love for his wife, there is a profound guilt hardwired into the preacher's frontier Protestantism and seems bound by his duty to ensure his son knows and understands his father when they day arises that he should ask.

It  is also a confession of sorts for Ames himself as he recounts his own failings and tries to reconcile the actions of his hardline father and grandfather. In that sense, Ames seems to be the milquetoast of his family line, tending toward compromise and understanding. Ames, far more intellectually and metaphysically inclined preacher than his father and grandfather feels inadequate in relation to their convictions. Jack Boughton puts the preacher's convictions on trial when he seeks spiritual guidance from the man who has yet found the courage to forgive him his past transgressions.

Finally, Gilead is a theological treatise on the nature of love, death, forgiveness and faith. While Ames seems to love his own son unconditionally, there is another: John Ames (Jack) Boughton, the proverbial prodigal son returned. In the letter Ames wrestles with his own nature and meditates on his own relationship with Jack. In an effort to be honest with his son, Ames is forced to honest with himself about his relationship with his godson. Furthermore, Ames struggles with the notion of faith:

"Do you ever wonder why American Christianity always seems to wait for the real thinking to be done elsewhere?"

Incisive stuff.

Gilead is an exquisitely written examination of the self. It is written in the stark, language of turn-of-the-century mid-western Protestantism, the plain language of intrepid frontiersmen looking to forge a home on the desolate Iowan plain. It's about heroic love in the face of fallibility and the monumental task of achieving that sort of forgiveness. But don't go expecting a shootout and a car chase. This is the sort of novel that savors its themes, chews them slowly and ponders quietly. Worthy of the Pulitzer.

Second Person Singular

Second Person Singular

By Sayed Kashua

I ran across this title only a few months back over as The Boston Bibliophile. It was among a pile of books she has received and the cover caught my eye. How could it not? Look at that masterpiece! The designer should win some sort of award for that cover. Given the narrative, even more so. Upon reading the blurb, I was intrigued enough to put it near the top of my Kindle purchase list. And now I have finished reading it and have begun writing my blogpost on it.... but that's first person singular.

Anyway....

The story begins with an Arab lawyer (who remains unnamed throughout the novel) living in Jerusalem. He's got a perfect life with a sickeningly perfect family. He does his best to assimilate into Israel's fractured society and spends an inordinate amount of time cultivating his intellectual image via books, and cultural exchanges. He is determined not to look the fool in front of his peers and therefore visits his local bookstore regularly in order to consume the literature that he things a man of his stature should read not for any personal reason, but simply in order to say he has read them. Shallow depth, if I may coin a phrase.

It is on one of these visits to the bookstore that the lawyer purchases a used book only to find a note in his wife's handwriting inside the book. The note reads vaguely like a love letter and it is not addressed to the lawyer. The book was previously owned by someone named Yonatan (Jewish). What follows is a very personal account (and a very odd detective story) of how the note ended up in that novel, the lawyer's irrational reactions to the note and a very honest depiction of the human condition under stress.

But before we get into the thematic deconstruction, what struck me most about this novel was its depiction of life in Israel and the relationship between Jews and Arabs as well as the relationships between the ethnicities, gender and age groups. Kashua paints a fascinating picture of everyday life in Jerusalem. It is a Jerusalem populated by educated lawyers, preoccupied professors and ironic art students, none of which harbor any particular ill-will toward each other. While I cannot say for certain whether it is an accurate depiction of modern Jerusalem, it is the only novel I have to go on and I'll assume it is correct until I'm told otherwise. Kashua treats the reader to a surprisingly (to me, anyway) cohesive society which displays far more tolerance and acceptance than I could have ever expected. While religious fervor is hinted at in reference to those living in the Strip and the settlements, Jerusalem is depicted as a cosmopolitan city rife with cultural nuance. For this reason alone, Second Person Singular is worth a look.

Kashua's prose is versatile, shifting between two diametrically opposed voices with each a as well as skillfully oscillating his tone in reference to the lawyer who, as the novel progresses, increasingly falls off the emotional and psychological rails. Furthermore, Kashua toys with the chronological order of events within the narrative. While many readers find this tactic to be needlessly ambiguous, it adds a certain idiosyncratic appeal that places the reader square within the midst of the swirling narrative. The novel becomes an interactive experience whereby the reader is constantly reassessing their position, never allowed to find a comfortable place within the story.

Admittedly, Second Person Singular is not an easy read. It drags the reader through some serious emotional themes including the nature of apathy and the disappearance of the self. But the emotional theme that seems to tie the entire novel together (especially within the narrative concerning the lawyer) is the way in which jealousy can compromise a person's entire belief structure. Throughout the novel the lawyer struggles to maintain his well-crafted system of beliefs in the face of his jealousy. Principles and personal politics seem to fall by the wayside as the story progresses, leaving the reader to question how firm the lawyer is in his convictions and how much is simply a construct of his image. In fact, the lawyer's narrative often borders on the absurd.

This theme in particular was difficult for me since I have a profound lack of sympathy or empathy for those who suffer from jealous rages (no offense intended if you are one of those sufferers, but I just don't get it). For the record, I'm not a sociopath. I do, in fact, experience the full gamut of emotions, but I've never understood jealousy so I found it extremely difficult to identify with the lawyer's irrational and ofttimes inexplicable behavior in relation to the note. I do understand that jealousy, to a certain extent, is cultural. In Taiwan for example, jealousy is often seen as a visual display of love and devotion. One often sees men or women fly into jealous rages (sometimes in public) in order to express their love. Conversely, a lack of jealousy is often perceived as emotional ambivalence and often leads to behavior expressly designed to generate jealousy, which can only end badly, of course. I can only ascertain that Arab culture must have a similar relationship with jealousy given the lawyer's behavior throughout the novel.

Second Person Singular has a lot going for it. As a piece of literary fiction coming out of Israel it has a certain cultural currency for those who enjoy armchair tourism into worlds they may never visit. Furthermore, the intimate nature of the narrative allows the reader access to the psychological core of Jewish and Arab culture in Israel, which is worth something, I suspect. Is Second Person Singular worth the effort? Yes. Should you be rushing out to find a version in hardcover for your personal library? Probably not. Unless you, like me, really get suckered in by cool covers.

It really is a cool cover.

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Einstein: His Life and Universe

By Walter Isaacson

I've been hearing a lot about this guy Walter Isaacson over the past year. From what I heard he is the world's pre-eminent (or at least the world's most famous) biographer. Isaacson is noted for his in-depth biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissenger. He achieved runaway success with his most recent biography of Steve Jobs (which just happened to coincide with his death.... hmmmmm....). Which such a wide array of subjects (from such a wide breath of history) I figured I needed to get my hands on one of his biographies just to see what all the hullaballoo was all about.

I finally tracked down a copy of an earlier biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe and it's easy to see why Isaacson has garnered such a stellar reputation. Writing a comprehensive account of the life of one of the 20th century's brightest and most enigmatic scientific minds is no simple task and the sheer volume of primary sources (including all of Einsteins papers and correspondence as well as his wife, Else's) must have made the research for this tome Herculean in nature.

Furthermore, since Isaacson is dealing with a genius whose name is synonymous with being a genius, he is unable to hide behind his writing skills in an attempt to distract the reader from noticing that he, like virtually everyone else on the planet, doesn't particularly understand the intricacies of general relativity and unified field theory. No sir! Isaacson went out and figured this stuff out and wrote about it. Trouble is, Einstein's science as filtered through Isaacson remains as unintelligible to the average reader as it was when he scribbled his equations on the backs of old envelopes at the Patent Office in 1905.

I have read books that have presented Special and General Relativity in a far more engaging and entertaining fashion (after reading David Bodanis's book E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation I walked around for about five days explaining it to anyone who would listen.... then promptly forgot it). However, one can forgive Isaacson for his scientific opacity as it pertains to Einstein. After all it is Albert Einstein and after all again, you probably didn't pick up his biography to learn about relativity, photons, unified field theory or quantum physics. If you did, you're doing it wrong.

I imagine that you, like me, are more interested in reading about Albert Einstein the boy, the husband, the father and the unabashed pacifist as opposed to Albert Einstein the scientist. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated all the science (when I understood it) but I was more interested in reading about his relationships with his contemporaries, most notably his complicated relationship with Max Planck, his close kinship with Niels Bohr and his lifelong rivalry with the anti-Semitic (and later Nazi party member) Philipp Lenard. These are names that are familiar to most of us from high school (or university) science class but rarely get discussed as human beings.

Isaacson is an objective observer of Einstein's aloof and often chilly demeanor in reference to his own family. I was completely unaware of his (and his first wife, Mileva Maric's ) first child, Lieserl, who was taken to Maric's home country of Serbia and raised by family members. Her memory is so completely erased from Einstein's personal records that her fate is still unknown. Einstein also maintained tumultuous relationships with his two sons Hans Albert and Eduard of which Isaacson presents Albert as an ofttimes cold and uncaring father (though one may argue that it was just his way). And yet Einstein maintained a tender side that, which not often visible to his friends and family, existed for those close to him, most notably his second wife (and cousin) Else.

Isaacson also delves deep into Einstein's notion of pacifism and his flirtation with Chaim Weizmann's brand of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s. Einstein's obsession with personal freedom and his abhorrence for political parties and the machinations of the establishment made him the perfect spokesperson for the burgeoning notion of militant pacifism that gained a certain credence during the 1920s. Though he retreated from this stance when Adolf Hitler attained power in Germany and even played a small part in the development of the atomic bomb (another fascinating portion of this book), Einstein remained astutely anti-war throughout his life and was an early proponent of a United Nations (though his vision was of a much more powerful UN with a standing army to settle international disputes. This militant pacifism, unsurprisingly, would later get him in a degree of trouble with J. Edgar Hoover during the Red Scare that followed World War II, though absolutely nothing came of that nonsense.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book (for me) was Einstein's relationship with God and religion. I was surprised to note that a young Einstein (not Yahoo Serious... the real young Einstein) dabbled in devout Judaism before abandoning the notion of organized religion and ascribing to a more Spinoza-esque notion of the divine. I was always under the impression that Einstein was either atheist or, at the very least, non-practising. But it turns out that he was quite the spiritual fellow and loved to wax intellectual on the nature of the divine with anyone who would listen.

There is so much more to this book. Isaacson presents a complex man and his world from literally millions of pages of reference. Isaacson discusses his relationship with Germany, Charlie Chaplin, his two wives, his parents, Robert Oppenheimer, his involvement with women, communists, socialists, Caltech, Princeton, Switzerland and Marie Curie. There is dimly no end of the layers in which Isaacson peels away.

I could go on for hours about how Walter Isaacson reclaimed, re-constructed and humanized a figure that long ago was co-opted by though who scarcely understand him or his work. It is a testament to Isaacson's well-deserved reputation as a biographer that he obliterates the lies and half-truths that we have come to accept about Albert Einstein (He never failed math in school, he did finish high school and although he spoke later than most children, he never exhibited serious developmental problems). From the rubble of such obliteration, a comprehensive (and I would add definitive) biography of science's greatest mind has been created. If you think you can stand the science, it's worth the read!

American Dervish

American Dervish

Ayad Akhtar

What follows is definitive proof that my Kindle was money well spent.

I listen to Fresh Air on NPR while I run. I find that it's more interesting than music and a great way to stay informed about cultural, political and social issues while sequestered in one of the most out of the way places on the planet.

A few weeks back, Terry Gross (my favorite radio host) interviewed Ayad Akhtar about his new novel American Dervish. I was intrigued by the premise of the book but, like most things I hear on Fresh Air, I filed it away in my brain. A week later, I read a rave review of the novel in The Atlantic. Two mentions of the book in a week coupled with my weakness for novels with strong religious themes sent me racing to Amazon.com to purchase the book for my Kindle.

Before my Kindle I would have had to wait until A) Someone brought the book to town and saw fit to lend it to me B) I went to Taipei and, with any luck, happened to see it in one of the two English bookstores in the city or C) Asked someone from back home to buy it for me and send it overseas. Option A is a crapshoot, option B happens about three times a year and option C is rarely, if ever, invoked for fear of inconveniencing anyone back in Canuckistan.

For the first time in a decade I have the power to read books that are current (aka published in the same calendar year as I read them) and comment on actual trends as they happen as opposed to years later. For me, the Kindle isn't so much a neat toy in which to download novels and save money and paper, it has rendered me relevant for the first time since 2002. For that I am grateful.

Now, onto American Dervish.

American Dervish is a poignant novel about growing up Muslim in the American midwest (Milwaukee, to be specific). The narrative follows the early adolescent years of Hayat Shah, the impressionable (and repressed) son of a successful, areligious Pakistani-American doctor and his wife. While life in the Shah household is far from perfect, it is turned upside down with the appearance of Mina (a friend of the family escaping an abusive relationship in Pakistan) and her some Imran. Mina presents Hayat with his first Quran and proceeds to instruct him on the nature of Islam, and encouraging him to become a hafiz, one who knows the Quran by heart. What follows is a spiritual awakening (of sorts) within Hayat that skirts dangerously close abject racism and extremism.

I have read other books that have had Muslim protagonists (though, I admit, not that many) and, for the most part, Islam is treated with a degree of respect and awe. I've not come across a lot of novels that have really tackled some of the more nefarious aspects of the faith. While there are literally thousands of novels that question (and even berate) Christianity, I have found that most novels about Islam tend to handle the subject with kid gloves (non-fiction is a different story, of course). Mercifully, American Dervish is not guilty of such evasiveness.

Maybe I haven't read enough novels about Islam but I have read The Satanic Verses. Salman Rushdie has been living in hiding for decades due to what he wrote about Islam in his 1988 novel and I didn't think it was anywhere near as inflammatory (for Muslims, I presume... not me) as American Dervish. I cannot pretend to know much (anything) about the modern Muslim-American experience but Akhtar does not paint the brightest picture. In fact, this book can be quite bleak in its portrayal of Muslims in America (and Muslims in general). Akhtar spends a lot of time discussing the clashes between old world and new world interpretations of Islam which is the root much of the conflict in the book.

At points in this book the author seems to seethe with anger and frustration at the Muslim community in America and raises some pretty provocative questions about racism toward Jews, women's rights, Sharia Law and contradictory Quranic scripture. In the novel, Hayat's father in particular spits vitriolic venom at the established Muslim-American community and their apparent herd-like mentality. But the novel stops short of descending into a acrimonious anti-religion diatribe. Behind the anger and disappointment there is a genuine feeling of warmth and affection for Islam and a real desire to raise questions about the modern nature of a very old religion. It's a testament Akhtar that he can walk the line between disloyalty and fidelity to the faith that has remained under the social and political microscope for over a decade.

I'm not going to lie, although this book is highly entertaining, it is difficult to read in places. There are some real uncomfortable moments when the reader is expected to check their judgmental self at the door and admit to themselves that they cannot understand the cultural mindset (unless, of course, you are a Muslim and have read this book. Then perhaps you could enlighten me as to whether this is an accurate depiction of the Muslim community in America. Obviously I have no idea). Furthermore, I found that more than once I felt as if Akhtar is treading water in the narrative, unsure of where to go next. There is an uneven feeling in the story that bogs it down in places.

But none of this should dissuade you from reading this novel. I think this novel and its over-arching themes were a long time in coming. In a world that has spent a lot of time and energy pigeon-holing and vilifying Islam, it's high time a novelist took it upon himself to spend some time navel-gazing the tradition and its position in the modern world. In 2012, it is refreshing to see a novelist that is prepared to embrace the often contradictory nature of Islam and examine the persistent tensions that arise within the community struggling to reconcile old world tradition in the New World.

As for me, I'm feeling refreshed as well. If for no other reason than I might be ahead of the reading curve for the first time in a decade.