News of the World by Paulette Jiles is a Western told from an unusual point of view. Jiles is interested in the psychology of children captured by Native Americans then recaptured by whites and returned to their original families.
In the note at the end of the book she tells us that the captured children adapted to their native lives, became Indian, rarely readjusted when returned “home,” and wanted to return to their Indian tribes. I wonder if some genetic memory ingrained in us for millennia is triggered by a return to hunter/gatherer life.
One of the two main characters, the captain, is an older Civil War veteran tasked with returning the rescued captive child Johanna, the second main character, to her less than welcoming aunt and uncle. The return to her relatives is the plot that drives their odyssey through lawless Texas. The very likable characters are the strongpoints and invest the reader in the outcome. Johanna, only ten, has been traumatized by two violent uprootings and struggles to understand the incomprehensible white ways. The one good fortune in her young life was to be entrusted to the captain, grandfather, kontah, as she eventually calls him.
The captain, in his 70’s, earns his living by reading newspapers to assemblies in small towns, presenting them with news of the world. We in turn get to read the news of the west in post-Civil War times.
There is a movie based on the book which does an excellent job of bringing the times and the place to life. Tom Hanks makes a fine Captain. The story line, though, is very different – not as believable as Jiles’s with quite a few sappy touches. But it is Johanna who spoils the show. The fire, strong willed independence, and Indian fierceness of the book’s character are all missing, and we are left with a sympathetic little girl in a “nice movie.”
Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez, is an AARP recommendation with three distinct story lines.
The first introduces Antonia, a new widow exploring the supposed tried and true methods of dealing with grief. The second presents her as part of a closely knit family of four Latina sisters. The last is the rocky love story of illegal teen immigrants whom she befriends while she vacillates as to how much she can offer them as she tries to recover herself.
The title brings to mind at least two possible meanings: how the one who has died lives on in the words and actions of those left behind, but also what it is like to build a new life after the known life ends. I thought all three of the story lines sounded promising and I could foresee how they could all weave well together. Alas, I was too optimistic; Alvarez’s stories fell flat. But perhaps she was more realistic than I as life’s sections don’t tie themselves into nicely resolved packages.
At first, I put Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh on my list of most disliked books. Not that it isn’t well written; it is. It does an excellent job of portraying its subject matter. That is the problem. This is a book about the Middle East and why men go there to wage war and die as martyrs.
I don’t like books, or movies, about war, but the summary I read didn’t alert me strongly enough, and there I was with a purchased book and an agreement to read it for a book group, so I struggled through. By the end, I found this novel and the questions it raised compelling. What is it that has to be missing from life for someone young and healthy to prefer death? What is it exactly that we want to live our lives for?
In the story, the martyrs-to-be are religious, but I didn’t see that as the underlying motive for their desire. The author explores the other reasons that have brought this group to “this place of assisted suicide,” to fight one chaotic senseless battle after another and to find a kind of peace in doing so. The dismal scenes are balanced by the unexpected presence of poetry and art, brought to the space by artists, journalists, and the soldiers themselves.
I was not acquainted with Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins when I was a child but met them as an adult. I remember discovering Beverly Cleary at a time when I felt particularly overworked and found her stories so funny and relaxing. In her honor, I reread Beezus and Ramona and found it as charming as I remembered.
Cleary, an Oregon author who died recently, wrote about the universal experiences of childhood: getting a new sibling, the first day of school, jealousy and anger. Although her stories are about children, adults can extrapolate and recognize the situations of meeting a new manager, walking alone into an unknown group, exasperation with a family member. These timeless children’s stories with simple family plots are a good respite from more serious fare.
Another fine introduction to three very different books, as well as, remembrance of Beverly Cleary.
I must look for News of the World.
Thanks, Diane.
I read Afterlife with Diane and thought Alvarez did a very good job of relating her theme in all three of the not so separate stories. I think she wanted to show the power of her kindly husbands afterlife effect on Antonia , the protagonist. He hovered over her until she was fiancé lily able to find herself
And I also liked Out of Mesopotamia. Diane spoke well about the many strange reasons that these particular men in this particular war were there. But the author’s theme was the senselessness of any and all wars and I thought he did this very powerfully.
I totally agree with your assessment of the movie, News of the World, The slow building of trust between Johanna and the captain, the learning of the language, the adaption to a new culture, were all missing in the movie. Even the “big scene”–the shoot-out–was short-changed; where was Johanna’s scalping song?? Well, it did have Tom Hanks.