Better Than Fiction

This one might be out of order, but doesn't matter much given that all my reviews are months behind anyway :) When I go to my in-laws' house, I often pick up something to read there rather than continuing with whatever I am in middle of elsewhere.  One such book was To Sir With Love.  The premise, an educated black man teaching inner-city kids, reminded me of Up a Down Staircase, of which I read a Reader's Digest condensed novel version and enjoyed, back in the day (the black teacher was the added twist as far as I could see).  Only after I started reading it did I realize that it takes place in 1950's London, quite a different scene from the American inner-city, and with different racial overtones as well.  The kids are white trash, the teacher is black upper class, an engineer from South America.  So that's the scene.

The basic story is civilized black man civilizes uncivilized white students, mostly by treating them with respect and shocking them into good behavior.  It's a nice idea, but subject to skepticism - are inner-city kids really just fine adults waiting to shine through? When I started reading, this was my immediate reaction... until I realized something important.  The book is based on a true story.  Now that is a tale worth telling.  E.R. Braithwaite really was a black engineer who took a job teaching poor white Londoners in the years following WWII, and managed to instill both intelligence and breeding (ok, in limited quantities) despite the racial prejudice standing in his way.  Once I realized that, I could enjoy the book free of the niggling "yeah, right" feeling.

And it was a good read.  I, at least, felt a constant tension that some big explosion was just around the corner, but that never happened (no complaints from me about that :)) Small crises arise, but Mr. Braithwaite ably deals with each one deftly and successfully.  And the way the students warm to him is of course quite endearing.  The writing style is spare and a little blunt at times (and of course, with a viewpoint that is occasionally a little dated), and is quite easy to read.  The characterization is excellent (don't know how much liberty was taken with reality here), with each person a mix of virtues and vices in some combination.  There's also a bit of a romance, in an open-ended but hopeful state at the end of the book (this was apparently an embroidery of the truth since E.R. Braithwaite never married).  And it was certainly fascinating to read about racism and society outside of America.

So I certainly enjoyed this book.  And it was short, too, so not too much of an investment.  Pretty light, despite some heavy-ish subject matter.  Recommended :)

4/5

Germans Make For Some Light Humor

Oish, behind, behind.  So far behind order becomes a fuzzy thing.  Luckily I wrote down a list of books to review before I forgot, so Iet's just pick one - Porteguese Irregular Verbs, by our ubiquitous Alexander McCall Smith.  This is actually the first in a series of which I read the other two previously.  They are some of AMS's funnier work, with very little serious intent at all.  Professor vod Igelfeld and his colleagues take themselves very seriously, but I don't think we are meant to take them seriously at all.

(This was, by the way, kindle reading, and free from the library,  if you're wondering)

So I think the first thing to clarify about this book is just how seriously one is supposed to take it.  I mean, the professor's subject matter, linguistics, is certainly not meant to be accorded the importance he gives it.  So that gives you a hint as to the legitimacy of his opinions :) I guess the only question is whether we are supposed to advise his colleague Unterhollzer with the same pity he does and whether his colleagues accord him the respect he seems to assume they do.  Pretty sure the answer is yes, but it makes little difference - overall this is a story of a man quite disconnected from reality, and amusingly so. Most of AMS's books have a good amount of humor in them, but I think these are the only ones with no serious side at all.  Part of the reason is that these are short stories, with no need for real plot development, but mostly it's just because I think.

And as far as the humor goes, I don't know if it's laugh-out-loud funny, but it has its moments.  Once I stopped trying to decide who was sympathetic and who was not, I could just enjoy the ridiculousness of Prof. von Igelfeld's opinions of the world, his colleagues, and himself.  And enjoy the mostly ridiculous plot devices as well.  The book went fast, though there's no denying it's quite short in any case :) Basically, a fun read - can't say I would have wanted it to go on forever, but I think there's a fourth one out on the series, I should really try to get my hands on it.

Verdict: 4/5 (for its genre)

A Serious Study of Serious Study

Remember way back when, I reviewed Allegra Goodman's latest, The Cookbook Collector? I heard about it on Austenprose, but was laughed at when I asked Sarah Sp. and Chava if they had heard of her.  Apparently, I was a little late to the party celebrating this great author.  Since Sarah Sp. owned her other books, I borrowed them from her… and, of course, promptly abandoned them to more pressing materials.  Everyone said Intuition was the best one, but Sarah Sp. told me to save it for last, and that was the original plan.  But however many months later, when S.b. read Intuition and bothered me to read it too, I thought it was time to abandon that careful formulation and at least get the best one read.

So, having exhausted my supply of library books, I looked forward to reading the Allegra Goodman that was the Allegra Goodman to read.  S.b. hadn't loved it, so I knew it wasn't incredible, but I liked Cookbook Collector well enough, and this one was supposed to be far superior.  CC was mildly romantic, so that should mean a substantial romance in this one, right? When I read the jacket flap, I couldn't really see a romance off-hand.  The book seemed pretty serious, tackling the not especially grave subject of academic life, but apparently delving into the discomfort arising from exposure of its dirty underbelly.  Or something like that anyway.

The truth is, though academic life isn't September 11 or the dot-com bubble, it's not a subject that lends itself to the lightest of tones.  First of all, I don't know if there exists a more competitive and tense atmosphere than that of post docs and professors fighting for recognition.  Personally, I never could get up enough ambition to stomach the constant pressure of a life in research.  So it's not suprising I wouldn't enjoy reading about it.  And besides that, there's my not so secret pang of regret at not going for that right to be a Dr :) So even more than for most people I'd say, the academic life holds less allure and more anxiety for me. 

So it's not to say the book wasn't well crafted.  It was exceeding so, with all the characters well developed, the plot moving along at a sedate but steady pace, the writing a pleasure without too much pedantry… but what a serious book! Not that CC didn't have elements of seriousness (and actually was quite serious in tone) but I thought this one was the fun one! The one everybody loved! I understand why Chava loved it, I'd say it's right up her alley - well thought out, interesting territory, and not too happy go lucky :) But I thought Allegra Goodman was my kind of writer, or at least had some of that in her.  I couldn't find a squigeon of fun, of light-heartedness, of simple pleasure here.

The characters, especially the main ones, were deliberately unlikeable.  Even the more sympathetic ones had their, not minor, faults.  The themes, at least, I would say were unobjectionable - it wasn't like the book was a doomsday prophecy or anything, the right values  - family, honesty, loyalty - were squarely championed.  But on the subject of doomsday, the ending was actually much the same as CC - in that it was disappointing.  She just doesn't like to give us what we want, does that Allegra? No one ends up in a particularly good place (I'd say Marion is the only one  who maybe ends up better off) though mostly they end up more enlightened about themselves.  But I guess that's the point of the book.  Academia is a long, hard road,  and the most one could hope for is acceptance of the way forward.  And I guess the same could be said for me and Intuition - at the end of the day, the trek wasn't bad, and I can't say I regretted it at the end, though I don't know what I got out of it :)

Verdict: 3/5