The epigraph to Ru is the reader's first clue that this novel embraces complexity. The reader learns that the word, in French, means a small stream, literally (and, figuratively, a flow -- of tears, blood or memory). Whereas, in Vietnamese, 'ru' means a lullaby, drawn from what is
Jonathan Goldstein's short reading from I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow was very funny. He read its introduction, along with a short piece about Mary Poppins and The Penguin and umbrella usage, and a longer story about the time his mother asked him to go with her to the store to
Reading The Tea Lords in close proximity to Lawrence Hill's novel The Book of Negroes raises the question of what stories one prefers to hear told. The Tea Lords chronicles life on an Dutch colonial tea plantation in Java in the 1870s, from the plantation owner's perspective. The Book of
So Iris' Dutch Lit month was in June, right? Many of you likely participated during June. Which, of course, was the point: a shared celebration of Dutch Lit. I was planning to do that too. And I did have my copy of Hella S. Haasse's The Tea Lords well ahead
Acts of violence and devotion, rape and worship, funerals and betrothals, love-scenes and convent-life, adultery and illness: this medieval saga has so many facets to it that I was not expecting. Not the least of which being that it gripped my attention more tightly than any of the contemporary novels
