Fried Eggs with Chopsticks: Around China by Any Means Possible, Polly Evans

Bantam • Travel writing

Publication Date: 01/09/2005 • 329 pages •

ISBN: 0553816780

... Did you know that the well-known hero, Sinbad the Sailor, was actually a Eunuch employed inthe Chinese court of a 15th century Ming Emperor? His real name was Zheng He, nicknamed 'San Bao' and retired Royal Navy commander, Gavin Menzies, in his book "1421", credits San Bao with arriving in the 'New World', seventy-one years before Christopher Columbus did. Listen to this HERE

...and did you know that Chinese legend has it that one life was claimed for every stone laid along the Great Wall? When you consider that the Great Wall runs for thousands of kilometers, we're contemplating a staggering figure of lost lives!

...also, were you aware, that the world-famous Shaolin Temple, the originator of Kung-Fu and other martial arts that we enjoy so much was acutally the home of warrior monks?

...finally, did you know that foot binding was started during the Tang Dynasty? The court of the Tang Dynasty was so impressed with how the foreign dancers piroutted on their toes, that the Chinese court dancers also bound their feet to imitate the dancers' moves. Centuries later bound feet would become the norm for all upper-class Chinese women and prostitutes. And while we're on the subject of the Tang Dynasty, did you know that they have the distinction of having had the only female empress? Empress Wu started her court life as a concubine of Emperor Taizong. After the Emperor died she began a liaison with his son and successor, Gaoszong and after he died she successfully wrested control for herself overthrowing all Chinese precepts of male lineage.

No? Well, I didn't either until I delved into Polly Evans' new travel book book 'Fried Eggs with Chopsticks" (to be known as FEWC henceforth in this review). "FEWC" seems like a lightweight travel book to begin with, the kind of book you want to take with you to read at long waits at airports or on an airplane, but don't let its frothy title fool you. Embedded in it's paperback pages are weighty nuggets of information on China---its people, culture and best of all, history.

In an interview with the Transworld Publishing House, the author gave these reasons for wanting to write this book:

"...China has one of the fastest-growing economies on the planet, and the Chinese are pouring enormous resources into their infrastructure - apparently they've built enough roads in recent years to circle the equator sixteen times. Also, at the moment, China is home to the fastest train in the world, Shanghai's Maglev - it travels at 430 kilometres per hour. So I thought I'd go and see for myself how this vast nation was hurtling into the technological age. Of course, when I got there, I found the building work wasn't quite finished yet, and I spent an awful lot of time on rattling country buses, clattering down pot-holed tracks pressed up against Buddhist monks and sacks of squawking chickens. The tale of that trip, "FEWC", will be published by Bantam in September 2005..."

Ms. Evans has a great sense of humor and an astute sense of observation that she blends with some wonderful historical research making this an absolutely pleasant and yet very informative read.

My favorite parts, apart from the historical data, are when she describes her train rides across China orthe hotel rooms she stays in. Here's a bit of what she wrote, describing her hotel room in Datong, China:

"...The hotel was a reasonable one. The Powers-that-be had allocated it four stars. It had a decent restaurant, the room was clean and the bathroom facilities worked. But I was surprised in such a seemingly salubrius place to find a collection of lotions on offer in thte bathroom that suggested some kinds of business conducted here did not require a suit and tie. Next to tiny bottles of shampoo, lay four sachets, two marked 'Man' and two marked 'Woman.'

'Eliminates pathogenic bacteria which can cause the disease of colpitis, pruritis, peculiar smell, ringworm at the thigh area and beriberi. Our product is 99.9% effective in eliminating gonorrhoea coccus', declared the packet marked 'woman'.

It went on. 'Using guide: Please scrub away repeatedly at the position with the product for about two to three minutes, and then wash with clean water'.

The brand name of the lotion was 'Know You Bird'. Across the front of the packet was stamped in big black letters: ' UNCOMPLIMENTARY'.

It seemed strange, really. The crime of organizing prostitution carries the death penalty in China, yet there semed little doubt what was doing on quite openly in this hotel. I eyed my bed with a new level of mistrust and hope the she sheets had been well boiled!..." pg.50

Pick up this book for a train ride through China without ever having to get on a train!

Double Bill: "Geisha of Gion" by Mineko Iwasaki and "Geisha" by Liza Dalby

Mineko Iwasaki was the former geisha who provided a great deal of the information used by Arthur Golden's more famous, "Memoirs of a Geisha". Following a somewhat bitter dispute between Iwasaki and Golden, Iwasaki decided to publish her own memoirs, "Geisha of Gion" or "Geisha: A Life" (as it is titled in North America) to help clarify certain matters that she felt Golden had misinterpreted.

According to an interview she gave the Boston Phoenix, she said her reasons for publishing her memoirs were:

"...there was a lot of misunderstandings about what it means to be a geiko or a geisha The most common misconception is that geisha are somehow high-class courtesans, or prostitutes. And that is very much not the case. And also, geisha are not submissive and subservient, but in fact they are some of the most financially and emotionally successful and strongest women in Japan, and traditionally have been so..."

The book itself, while it lacks Arthur Golden's stunning prose and evocative descriptions still manages to take the reader into an antiquated world that is so exotic, so unlike anything we've been exposed to before that I literally had to remember to close my jaw just in case people thought I was a fool! After all, Geishas have a strict code of secrecy which is the reason why so little is known about them, and to suddenly have all this revealed to us, is like discovering a brand new world!

Mineko Iwasaki came from an aristocratic family who had fallen on hard times. Her parents decided that the only way they could give their daughters a better life would be to have them join a "karyuki" (Geisha House) in Kyoto where they would be fed, clothed, schooled and trained in a profession that would allow them to lead lives that would ensure they were financially independent of any man. This book follows Mineko's life from the time she joined the "Geisha House" at the tender age of five till she left as the unrivalled Queen of Geishas.

Explained in fascinating detail is the training that goes into becoming a Geisha: the hours of dance practice, learning to conduct the "tea ceremony" with all it's intricate movements to perfection, the significance and importance of a kimono, hours of studying current affairs and the arts in order to make lively and knowledgeable conversation with the clients at "ochaya" (banquets at tea houses), living within a strict and often merciless social hierarchy. Sleeping on a wooden pillow at night so as to not disturb their very elaborate hairstyles and the shaving of the face in order to put on the white make-up (strangely enough white is chosen because of the "value placed on pale skin")

"...After becoming a Maiko (novice Geisha), I had my hair donw once every five days. To preserve its shape, I slept on a rectangular lacquered wooden pillow topped with a narrow cushion. At first the pillow kept me awake but I soon got used to it. Other girls found it more difficult. The okiya (geisha household) had a trick tp keep us from removing the pillow during the night. The maids would sprinkle rice bran around the pillow. If a girl removed the pillow, bits of bran stuck like glue to the pomade in her hair and the next morning she had to make an unhappy trip back to the hairdresser's..." pg 158

In Mineko's case, not only does she have to put up with all of the physical inconveniences, but because she was adopted into the Iwasaki Geisha family, she had to renounce her parents in a court of law. It was a very difficult choice for her but something that she had to do. She also had incurred the wrath and jealousies of all the other geishas she worked with because she was one of the most popular geishas of her time.

Her book tells of all the famous people she had to entertain in her role as a Geisha, including, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, Alberto Gucci among others. She describes an incident where Prince Charles asks to see her fan and when she gives it to him for closer inspection he takes a pen and scrawls his signature over it expecting her to be pleased. She is completely devastated that he would ruin her favorite fan and instructs a servant to dispose of it as soon as the event is over.

Mineko grew increasingly wary of her punishing schedule, the politics of the okaya and it's social and financial restrictions, she was itching to have her own life and to be her own person, so, at the grand old age of 29 she decided that she would retire and leave the life of a Geisha behind.

Today, Mineko, 52, is happily married and lives with her artist husband and one daughter in Kyoto.

This is an enjoyable read indeed! Included within the book are two lots of personal photos of Mineko, her family and some of the Geishasshe worked with. I wish she had more pictures of her amazing kimonos which she has described in such vivid detail throughout the book. I also wish the editors had included a glossary. There are so many Japanese terms used in the book and while they are explained in English when they are first introduced, one tends to forget what they mean as you delve deeper into thememoir. A glossary to refer to from time to time would have been very useful.

Although this book is sufficient unto itself with its long,detailed descriptions of the world of a Geisha, a supberb handbook would be Lisa Dalby's "Geisha".Liza Dalby is an anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture. As the only Westerner to have become a geisha, which she did as research for her Ph.D. and her books Geisha and Kimono, she is a consultant for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film adaptation of Arthur Golden's MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA.

Both Liza Dalby and Mineko Iwasaki believe that the golden age of the Geisha is over and that there are not enough truly wealthy individuals in Japanese society with the leisure and the means to support the ' flower and the willow'. Iwasaki is particularly despondant and believes that the traditional culture of the "Geisha Houses" will cease to exist in the future.

Furthur Reading:

Photo Journal of a Geisha (Not Mineko)

Geishas of Japan: A Snapshot

Shout-out for "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell

Little Brown & Company
Copyright © 2005 by Julie Powell
ISBN: 0-3161-0969-X


I haven't read this book yet, but I so wanted to give it a "shout-out" because I always admire someone who can give themself a deranged goal and actually go on to complete it!

Here's a brief summary from the book jacket:

With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Julie Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and saved her soul. Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a tiny apartment in Queens and working at a soul-sucking secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will take her mother's worn, dog-eared copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and she will cook all 524 recipes -- in the span of one year.


At first she thinks it will be easy. But as she moves from the simple Potage Parmentier (potato soup) into the more complicated realm of aspics and crepes, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art of French Cooking than meets the eye.

And somewhere along the line she realizes she has turned her outer-borough kitchen into a miracle of creation and cuisine. She has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through spectacular humor, hysteria, and perseverance.

Ok, so my question to you is this: what insane project would you like to challenge yourself with this coming New Year and do you think you have what it takes to see it through?

I would love to collect every photograph we have collected in our 14 years of marriage and put them into scrapbooks! We must have atleast 5000 pictures lying all over the house, so sifting through them, dating them and then building scrapbook pages around them is bound to drive me over the edge, but I so want to do it!!!

Through her toils, Julie Powell found a crazy inner peace in this almost magical Juliaverse. "In the Juliaverse, the laws of thermodynamics had been turned on their heads," Powell admits. "Here, energy was never lost, merely converted from one form to another. Here, I took butter and cream and meat and eggs and I made delicious sustenance. Here, I took my anger and despair and rage and transformed it with my alchemy into hope and ecstatic mania. Here, I took a crap laptop and some words that popped into my head at seven in the morning and I turned them into something people wanted, maybe even needed." - "The French Connection", Pages Magazine, Sept/Oct 2005

So you see, this insane project might just turn out to be the sanest thing you've ever done! :)

Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg

Product Details:
ISBN: 0385513240
Format: Hardcover, 326pp
Pub. Date: September 2005
Publisher: Doubleday Publishing


Thought I would try a new format for the review of "Wickett's Remedy" . I have chosen to review the book in a series of questions and answers. Hope you find the format enjoyable, but first, here's a quick summary:

"Wickett's Remedy" is about a working-class Irish-American woman, Lydia Wickett , in Boston during the 1918 flu epidemic.

The "remedy" is a mail-order patent medicine invented by her student- medic husband Henry Wickett and flavored by Lydia. Strictly speaking, however, it wasn't really a medicine but just a placebo that had a nice taste to it. The 'real' remedy was the therapeutic letter that Henry always made sure accompanied a bottle of that tonic. "What does it matter if someone buys a bottle of Wickett's looking for a cure inside it and instead finds one in the letter that comes with it?" Henry asks his wife. He is not someone who wishes to profit from the business of selling snake oil - he truly believes he has the gift to cure via words (letters) and wants to do good in this world. Unfortunately, Henry dies early from the flu and his dishonest partner, Quentin Driscoll, turns the medicine into a successful soda drink called "QD Soda" which makes him a very wealthy man, something Lydia Wickett is totally unaware of until much later. The rest of the story is about how Lydia copes with the epidemic and how it affects her life and those of whom she loves.

Why did I choose this book?

This book first came to my attention on a program at NPR.org where author Myla Goldberg was interviewed. Although Ms. Goldberg's first book "Bee Season" was lauded by the critics, she is not the sort of author I would generally gravitate towards, but when I found out that her second novel was about the 1918 flu epidemic, the Emergency Room volunteer in me just had to read it.



What did I enjoy about the book?

I thought it was very clever of the author to make Influenza the central theme of her new novel; with avian flu on the horizon, the "F" word seems to be on everybody's lips. I'm a disease- nut, so all the passages in the book chronicling clinical details of the flu, (the ones that deal with what The Washington Post calls the "yuck factor") are my favorite ones. This book has been meticulously researched (it took five years of writing and research) and provides a lot of detail on how people in Boston where affected by this plague.

Also, the main protoganist, Lydia, after she loses her husband Henry Wickett, her bother Michael and more than a few friends and neighbours to the flu, decides to get a job working as a volunteer nurse in an experimental ward at Gallups where captured Navy deserters are used as guinea pigs to understand how the epidemic is being spread. Here, doctors are willfully infecting people through elaborate snot transfers: The sick cough out phlegm, and the healthy swallow it. Being a volunteer in the emergency ward myself, I totally resonate with Lydia's calling to look after the soldiers despite dangers to her own health.

Finally, I liked that the author didn't try to sanitize her descriptions of the flu but told it as she researched or imagined it.

"... she Lydia) learned to steel herself against the sight of soiled sheets. Her face grew an invisible callus that held her features in place so she did not flinch at the gurgling blue-lipped boy; or the bog-chested woman whose skin was covered in dark blotches and whose nose dripped thick, black blood; or the delirious young man who, in his fever mistook Lydia for his sister, dead days before. But however how hard she tried she could not cotton her ears against the sounds of sickness. Influenza loosed pneumonia into the lungs, and pneumonia's sounds were those of a body drowning from within. Pneumonia turned skin and lips the bruised gray-blue of an evening sky before a storm. She was informed in hush voices by the nurses that those with feet tinged that colour seldom lived through the night..."

Why did the author decide to write such a book?

Myla Goldberg began writing Wickett's Remedy after reading a newspaper article, which listed the 1918 influenza outbreak as one of the five worst plagues of all time. She says she was stunned by the fact that the catastrophe seemed to have vanished from public memory, despite the fact that it killed some 22-50 million people worldwide. "In the United States alone, it killed between 500,000 and 800,000 people," Ms. Goldberg says, "more Americans than have been killed in all 20th century wars combined. And this is something that happened in a six to nine month period. And so the idea that memory is something we just cannot trust -- it was that aspect of it that drew me into the story."



What did I dislike about the book and what comments do I have on the writing style?

I didn't like how the author went back and forth between Lydia's story and the made-up newsletters by people praising the tonic/medicine that her husband's partner turned into a successful soft drink. I found that the made-up correspondance detracted from the real story - the story of how the flu affected Lydia and her family in Boston.

I also disliked how, in the margins of the text, Goldberg had a chorus of voices, ( her characters' ghosts) constantly correcting, challenging and contradicting statements made by the living. I thought it was an ingenious idea initally, but it grew increasingly weird and a bit tedious to read as the story went on. In an interview, Goldberg says she felt compelled to introduce these voices because , as we have seen, memories are really so short-lived and unreliable - in other words, we tend to forget details of even very important or momentous episodes in our lives and essentially we are dependent on each other to keep memories alive. By using these many voices in her book she gave herself a broader canvas on which to paint the picture of the Spanish Flu in Boston. The voices also make us realise that there is no one correct version of history---each voice has his or her own memories.


Is the book cover attractive?

Yes, very. I love the picture of the little girl on the label of the bottle. She looks like she could have stepped out from my mother's photo album from the '50's. She creates in me a sense of nostalgia for the golden days of old.


Would I recommend this book?

Mais oui! If you want to read about the flu epidemic of 1918 in general and how it affected the people of Boston specifically, this would be a great book to immerse yourself in. Because it's fiction, it makes for a more entertaining read than something in the non-fiction genre. This is also a good book to read if you are a writer yourself, for the author has done some very interesting and unusual work on the text.

Christ The Lord : Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT: Anne Rice

Alfred Knopf, 321 pages, $35.95



When I heard that the Queen of the Vampire Chronicles (who hasn't heard of "Queen of the Damned" or "The Vampire Lestat") was putting the nails on the vampire coffin and writing a tale about Jesus Christ instead, my interest was piqued. I also liked the fact that this novel was a fictional autobiography devoted to Jesus' early years. When I think of Jesus I usually think of him as a grown man with long, flowing brown hair, a beard and white robe and sandals; I don't often think of the innocent boy Jesus so, to be exposed to Jesus' early years, before even HE knew he was "Christ The Lord" was a treat indeed! Best of all, Ms. Rice makes the child Jesus the narrator which I think is a unique and wonderful way of retelling the story of Jesus' childhood. That child-voice, which Rice pulls off with remarkable consistency, lends the story a simple but realistic tone.

Ofcourse, Anne Rice's presumption that she can speak for Jesus may not go down well in some quarters; there are those who would certainly consider this work a blasphemy, but I think she wrote it out of a sense of deep conviction and a wanting to tell the story of Jesus the way she sees it.

This novel essentially covers one year in the life of Jesus (when he was 7 years going on 8). It covers the boy and his family's return to Nazareth from Egypt. (They had all fled to Egypt to escape the tyrannous rule of Herod the Great. They returned to Nazareth only when Joseph learned in a dream that Herod had died and that it was safe to return to Israel).

The real drama unfolds as Jesus, the child, initially is confused by these special powers he seems to possess - he is astounded that he can make clay birds fly, stop the rain, bring a playmate back to life and prolong the life of a beloved uncle. The novel follows his development as he slowly becomes aware of his powers, questions, learns, dreams and ponders, eventually discovering the magic of his birth and his role in life.

The other reason why this novel is so different is because Anne Rice borrows tales not from the Bible as we know it, but from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas that scholars agree have no claim to fact.

The lone reference in our Bible to Jesus' childhood years -- the visit to the temple -- is transformed in Rice's hands. She portrays Jesus not as some precocious kid, competing with the learned rabbis in a contest of theology, but as an inquisitive little kid, interested not so much in the scriptures, but about his own past. He wanted to know--- What really happened in Bethlehem? Was there an angel that appeared to shepherds telling them about a babe in the manger? And mysterious visitors from the East? Were children slaughtered?

This novel has received an enthusiastic response at Belief.Net, where reviewer David Kuo predicts it will become the literary equivalent of Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion.” That’s probably an overstatement, but it does show the enthusiasm of Christian groups to have a book like this! A chapter of the new book is available for review at BeliefNet.

Finally, appended in the novel is the author’s note which is almost as fascinating as the actual novel itself. In it Rice tells us the story of her conversion and return to Roman Catholicism owing to the death of her husband and her many recent illnesses. Ms Rice invites us all: “This is a book I offer to all Christians—to the fundamentalists, to the Roman Catholics, to the most liberal Christians in the hope that my embrace of more conservative doctrines will have some coherence for them in the here and now of the book.”

I couldn't resist the invitation and I'm glad I didn't for I will have to say that reading this novel made the Christmas season more memorable.

For a great interview with the author, go HERE

Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Written by: Gabriel García Márquez
Translated by: Edith Grossman

(Latin-American, Magic Realism)
Published: Knopf, October 2005

#12 on the Globe and Mail top 100 books of 2005

Today, I place into your cupped hands, this beautifully crafted book by Gabriel García Márquez, his first after a 10-year long hiatus. Reviews for this book in the media weren't so favorable; the opening salvo from Michiko Kakutani's review in the NY Times, 22 Nov goes like this:
"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" is ballyhooed by its publishers as the first
work of fiction by Gabriel García Márquez in 10 years. It turns out not to have
been worth the wait."

Can you say "ouch"? I think however, the stinging review had more to do with the subject matter the book covered, rather than the writing, which in my opinion is impeccable and very much in the style that the nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez is so revered for. This is my first "Márquez", but people I have spoken to say few have written about the essence of life, love and death nearly as well as he.

The book opens with the 89-year old narrator contemplating how he should spend his 90th birthday and he decides that he wants to spend it with a 14-year old virgin, not just any virgin, but one that comes highly recommend by the owner of the whorehouse that he frequents.

"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin," this miniscule gem begins. When he shows up at the brothel, he finds the girl naked and doped up with bromide and valerian sedatives; he’s unable to wake her and spends his birthday evening sleeping naked next to her.

I think the subject matter touches a very sensitive chord with some because lately, pedophilia has been on the rise. I am sure Márquez only wished that the reader would see the romantic and erotic allure of his story, but unfortunately, the only emotion it creates in some people is disgust. The Miami Herald describes the narrator as thus: The protagonist is a loathsome, unnamed character, a washed-up journalist in a nameless city, a bachelor -- ''ugly, shy and anachronistic'' -- who has always paid for his sexual experiences "

But truth be told, our narrator resides in a lonely ancestral mansion, has no children or any dependents and, save for the family maid (who once harbored an unrequited passion for him), no companionship at home. His pastimes include dipping into Greco-Roman literature, tuning into the classical music station on the radio, writing for the newspaper, and on occasion, visiting a brothel. I see him as a lonely, harmless old man who deludes himself into thinking that just because he can buy this girl, he can also buy her love. Also, he doesn't seem to be looking so much for sex as he is, companionship. This girl gives him something to look forward to, something to live for, something to hope for. He builds a fantasy world around her and names her Delgadina, the heroine of a medieval ballad that tells the story of the incestuous love of a king for his youngest daughter. Our narrator never speaks to the girl nor seeks to know anything about her. She is a blank, faceless, history-less, voiceless landscape, and he prefers her that way because it is the only way he can keep her virginal in his mind. He imagines her to be his first true love, uncorrupted by the world. In somebody else's hands this might have been a sordid story of a dirty old man, but in Márquez's hands, this becomes a celebration of amorous passion in one's twilight years---a love story.

To summerize: I loved the prose, I loved the reminisces, I loved the silent courtship between the two; I am overjoyed to think that you can live well into your nineties and still experience love like an adolescent...this was magic realism in all its glory and it appealed to my senses.

What Was She Thinking: Notes On A Scandal by Zoe Heller

Does anyone remember the strange case of MaryKay Letourneau, the 31-year old Washington State teacher who went to prison for seducing a 7th grader? When it happened it made huge waves in the media and sparked an idea for a story in author's Zeo Heller's mind.

"Notes on a Scandal" by Zoe Heller, but titled as "What Was She Thinking" in the US, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and I have to confess that it surprises me that it was. After all, this novel wasn't ground-breaking in a literary sense, but it was a very creative story exploring social taboos and heavy-duty feelings like obsession, loneliness, jealousy and so on.

On to the characters: Bathsheba Hart is a 41-year old pottery teacher in a High School in England. She's married with two kids: one surly teenage girl named Polly and a mentally disabled 10-year old boy called Ben. She is very cultured in the arts and married to an older academic named Richard. She has always hob-nobbed with people from academia so when she arrives at this new school in a working class neighborhood she is rather disappointed that none of the students seem to show an interest in the arts. Steven Connolly, a 15-year old boy, is the only exception and very soon she is meeting him after class to talk with him about Degas, Monet, Manet etc. We are told that soon these discussions progress to trysts behind the pottery kiln and secret rendezvous in Hampstead Heath.

I find it unusual that although the author chose to use a first person narrative in this novel, the narrator she chose wasn't the teacher (Sheba) or the boy (Steven), but rather a colleague and friend of the teacher, a 61-year old spinster and history teacher named Barbara Covett...

Barbara Covett is a hard person to like. In the book she comes across as lonely, possessive, insecure, facetious, judgmental, controlling and manipulating. But perhaps having a thoroughly dislikable narrator is what makes the story so unusual! Had the author chosen to write the story from either Sheba's or Steven's point of view we might have ended up with a mundane story with fairly predictable perspectives.

Barbara likes to say that because Sheba belonged to the upper strata of society , she was fascinated with people that belonged to the working class and that her interest in the boy Steven was purely anthropological to begin with. Steven Connolly, the boy in question, the teacher's pet, is like most adolescent boys---he needs no real reason for wanting to sleep with his teacher, Sheba, other than a bad case of hormones in overdrive. Infact,when the press got wind of the affair and they caught sight of Steven on his doorstep, they asked him why he did it, his response was: "Well, I fancied her, didn't I?"

After the press hauls Sheba over the coals over her indiscretion, Barbara befriends and mothers Sheba when no one else is on her side. "Notes on a Scandal" is Barbara's retelling of what happened, detailing scenes she couldn't have possibly witnessed but claims to have been retold so many times that she may as well have been there. As Barbara tells Sheba's story she inadvertently exposes her own life---her loneliness, her dashed dreams making us realize she is just one terribly bitter, lonely, old spinster.

The main thrust of the story, as you will tell from the title, is about a very inappropriate friendship/affair between a teacher and a student, but astonishingly, the friendship between Barbara and Sheba, especially how Barbara seems to feel about Sheba, sometimes comes across as the more disturbing of the two. The very fact that the author can make the reader feel that the narrator's relationship with Sheba is more 'interesting' than the scandal , is a testament to the power and creativity of her writing.

This book gives you a lot of meat to chew on. There is the most obvious discussion on why it is that when older men seduce younger girls, they are known as predators but when an older woman seduces a younger boy, she is merely laughed at? Is it because she is an aberration? Or is it because we see young boys as being less in danger of being emotionally abused by these experiences than our young girls? Also, is it even more perverse when the woman involved is a teacher? After all, we expect teachers to set a moral example, but to be fair to them, we all know that with raging hormones, high schools can be natural hotbeds for flirtations and secret passions. It might even be considered part of growing up to develop a crush on a teacher. What happens when a teacher is actively pursued by one of her charges and she succumbs?

There is also the topic of friendship. Was the friendship between Barbara and Sheba a good one or just creepy? When someone does you a huge favor, do you have to spend your entire lifetime being grateful and obligated to your benefactor ?

This book also touches on the famous or rather infamous, British class system. Does such a thing exist in North America? I think it does, but it hinges on wealth and power, whereas in Britain, it usually has to do with birth, education and family name.

This book is soon to be made into a movie, where the talented Dame Judi Dench will star as Barbara Covett and the beautiful Cate Blanchett as Bathsheba Hart. I can't wait!

WATER: A Deepa Mehta Film

Genre: Drama, Romance
Runtime: 110 mins

Cast: Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Waheeda Rehman, Raghuvir Yadav, Vinay Pathak, Rishma Malik John Abraham

Directed by: Deepa Mehta
Written by: Deepa Mehta
Country: Canada/India













Went to see "Water" yesterday. Recently it's been on everybody's lips because it was the opening feature for the Toronto International Film Festival (2005) which, after Cannes, is the most influential film festival (think Oscars!)

Water is set in 1938 in Varnasi a city on the banks of the Holy river Ganges; this was the city most widows in colonial India went to after their husbands died. Many of them lived in "ashrams" (charitable homes) where they paid rent from the alms they received begging on the pathways that led to the numerous temples in and around Varnasi. According to the Hindu custom of the time, the widows must shave their heads and live in a cloister, where, for the rest of their days, they must atone for the sins that must surely have prompted their husbands' deaths. They wore only white, no make-up and had to subsist on very basic food since normal food was considered a luxury and thus a sin. People considered the widows to be bad luck and they had to be careful never to appear at weddings or other auspicious occasions. The only ceremonies they were called upon to attend were cremations, where they would their cries to that of the mourners for a small fee or a fistful of rice.


As always, when there are destitute women, there are men and even women, looking to prey upon them. Some of the rich men in Varnasi had no qualms about having sex with these widows and in many of the ashrams, the youngest widow was the one singled out to service them. She was given special treatment by the older widows because she was their golden goose.

As if this wasn't sad enough, since child marriage was prevalent in those days, there were many child widows, most of whom hadn't even seen their husbands because they did not go to their husband's house till they reached puberty. The husbands picked were usually atleast 10-15 years older than them.

This movie revolves around one such child-widow, Chuiya. She's only 8 years old when her husband dies,shortly after the wedding feast. She is brought to the widow house and is expected to spend the rest of her life there in monastic simplicity. Being a child she misses her mother and is totally irreverant to the domineering boss-woman, eliciting toothless grins from the other widows in the house. Chuiya constantly questions why she has to be there and in one really poignant scene she innocently asks where the men-widows are housed! Chuyia is taken under the firm wing of Shakantula (Seema Biswas), a severe and devout young widow who struggles to believe there is a divine purpose behind her exile. Chuiya (Sarala) gives a rivetting performance and as a member of the audience, you cry your eyes out when the heartless boss-woman sends her across the river to become a plaything for a rich, pot-bellied businessman who likes children.

The child's story is paralleled with that of another widow (Kalyani, played by Lisa Ray), who because she is the prettiest widow is prostituted to the rich Brahmins in the city. Brahmin men in those days had convinced themselves that they were doing the girls a favor by mixing Brahmin essence into their unworthy body and souls! Kalyani meets and falls in love with the high-caste idealist Narayan (John Abraham) and expresses her desire to remarry. Furiously irate at losing Kalyani, the boss-woman stomps into Kalyani’s hovel and hacks off her long tresses (she was the only widow permitted to keep her long hair so that clients would be attracted to her). With one vicious deed, she at once defiles Kalyani’s beauty, her intention being to lessen Kalyani's appeal with her suitor (Narayan).

The backdrop of the film is the rise of Mahatma Gandhi, who not only agitated for India’s independence from Britain but also sought to improve the lot of Hindu widows. Colonies like the one depicted in 'Water' aren’t nearly as prevalent in modern India, but according to Mehta, they do still exist. Through advocacy and activism, however, Hindu widows have become more independent.

The making of "Water" is the stuff of nightmares. During the initial shoot in Varanasi in 2000, Mehta and her crew were set upon by religious fundamentalists who alleged to have seen the script and deemed it anti-Hindu. Pieces of the set were thrown into the Ganges River; Mehta was torched in effigy and received death threats. The protest was a symbol of increased conservatism in Indian society; more immediately for Mehta and her crew, it represented a mortal danger. As a result, the production was shut down. Production started anew in 2004, this time in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. (Because Sri Lanka is primarily Buddhist, Mehta had to recreate a Hindu temple in the shooting locale.

This is what Deepa Mehta had to say about her film:

“...We are very good, as different nations and different cultures, to have a collective amnesia about our own problems. "Water" is about three women trying to break that cycle and trying to find dignity, and trying to get rid of the yoke of oppression, and if it inspires people to do something in their own culture, that’s what’s important...”

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

OK, here's a puzzle for you, what am I describing here?

"...they should be small, narrow,straight, pointed, and arched, yet still fragrant and soft in texture. Of these requirements, length is most important. Seven centimeters - about the length of a thumb- is the ideal. Shape comes next. A perfect one should be shaped like the bud of a Lotus..."

Give up?

Well, this is how the feet of an upper-class Chinese woman in the early 19th-century were expected to be. Without Lily feet (as they were called) she could not expect to have a good marriage and would probably end up as someone's servant . Footbinding was an agonizingly painful process. Here is how Lisa See describes it in her book.

Caution: this is hard to read without wincing!

"...One day, as I made one of my trips across the room, I heard something crack. One of my toes had broken. I thought the sound was something internal to my own body, but it was so sharp that everyone in the women's chamber heard it. My mother's eyes zeroed in on me. ‘Move! Progress is finally being made!’ Walking, my whole body trembled. By nightfall the eight toes that needed to break had broken, but I was still made to walk. I felt my broken toes under the weight of every step I took, for they were loose in my shoes. The freshly created space where once there had been a joint was now a gelatinous infinity of torture. The freezing weather did not begin to numb the excruciating sensations that raged through my entire body. Still, Mama was not happy with my compliance. That night she told Elder Brother to bring back a reed cut from the riverbank. Over the next two days, she used this on the backs of my legs to keep me moving. On the day that my bindings were rewrapped, I soaked my feet as usual, but this time the massage to reshape the bones was beyond anything I had experienced so far. With her fingers Mama pulled my loose bones back and up against the soles of my feet. At no other time did I see Mama’s mother love so clearly...."

It's true, ironically, the only way for a for a Chinese mother to improve her daughter's lot in life was to transform , (some would call it maiming) her daughter's feet. The mother, by creating the perfect bound foot, could help marry her daugher into a "better" family. Footbinding was a status symbol too. Any man who could afford a lily-footed wife was telling his village that he was so wealthy he could maintain a wife who couldn't work. It has a sensuous component, too. For a man to hold a lily foot in his hand was the most erotic thing he could hope for; according to the author, a bound foot also had a peculiar odor which served as a very potent aphrodisiac for the man...

Lisa See's new book, "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" explores the lives of Chinese women in the early 1800's through the lives of two main protagonists, Snow Flower and Lily.

Snow Flower and Lily met when they were 7 years old through the services of a matchmaker who, after comparing their horoscopes, declared that they were suitable to be "lautangs" or "old sames". The Chinese had a wonderful custom of a "sworn sisterhood" for the girls in their family. In a time when women were generally isolated, and were told over and over that they had no value (an oft-repeated Chinese phrase was, "it is better to have a dog than a daughter") these sworn sisters were to provide love, company, comfort and solace to each other, but it was dissolved at marriage.

A "lautang" was different. It involved only two girls and lasted their entire lives. It was essentially a kind of emotional marriage between women, a bond they signed with each other to remain true, faithful and loyal to each other no matter what. Although they were usually from different villages they would meet several times in the year and stay over at each other's homes for a week or so, doing chores, eating and sleeping together and even wearing the same clothes! During the day they would embroider and make their lily shoes or compose poetry in nu-shu and write secret notes. Not surprisingly, when the girls eventually married, they often enjoyed a stronger bond with their laotongs than they ever could with their husbands.

Nu-shu is a secret language exclusively employed by the women of the South-Western Hunan province of China. This script was invented as a code for women, by women. By writing it on paper or fans, embroidering it on handkerchiefs or weaving it into cloth, women could communicate with each other secretly. But since Nu-shu is a phonetic language it is very easy to misunderstand unless it is taken in context. You will see what I mean when you read the book!


This is a truly wonderful story about the beauty and necessity of female friendships and with Lisa See's powerful and gifted story-telling it has the potential to become a dearly-loved classic. This is a book you want to give all the women in your life - your best friend, your daughters, your mother, your sister, your favorite aunt, your most respected teacher...

Footnote (if you will excuse the pun): IMO the 19th century Chinese weren't the only race to be obsessed with feet. Of all the fashion accessories in a western woman's possession, aren't shoes the item we collect the most? And how often do we hear women complain about their big feet? As for surgical alterations, we may not shorten our feet but we do like breast implants, tummy tucks, rhinoplasty etc. Are we that different from the women that lived in the 18oo's on the opposite side of the world? I would say not and this why the story of Snow Flower and Lily resonates even today.

The World Unseen: Shamim Sharif

First-time novelist, Shamim Sharif, writes an interesting novel set in the 1950's apartheid-era of South Africa. The main protagonist is a Indian-Muslim girl, Miriam, whose marriage is arranged with a Muslim boy of Indian origin but who calls Pretoria home. Her family were very approving of the match because not only did they like the idea of a child of theirs living abroad, but also, the boy didn't have parents and they felt that Miriam would have an easy time establishing a home with Omar without the interference of in-laws. How wrong they were because although Omar didn't have parents, his older brother's wife, Farah, was more than willing to take on the role of the strict matriarch of the household and she did so with brutal efficiency making Miriam slave away in the house.

After a couple of years, Miriam, Omar and their kids moved to a farming community in Delhof where they opened a store. Life was slow and the days passed in an agonizingly boring haze of housework,keeping shop, waiting on Omar but Miriam didn't complain because she dreaded going back to Pretoria, to Farah's house. Omar grew increasingly distant with Miriam and started an affair with the fiesty Farah. Miriam's unhappiness knew no bounds. She had no family close by, no friends, no job; all she had was her children and an indifferent and sometimes cruel husband----she felt unloved, unworthy and didn't know where to turn until love came from a most unexpected source---another woman.

This book is unusual in that it records apartheid from an Indian family's perspective. The Indians were neither white (the priveliged class), nor kaffirs (the Africans), but rather like the middle child, somewhere inbetween. Because they were not a huge community not much is known about how they fared during the apartheid era, thus, the book, as its title suggests, truly takes us into a world unseen.

Edvard Munch : Behind the Scream by Sue Prideaux

The biography of the artist who created the most haunting icon of the twentieth century (Yale University Press).


Whenever I look at a painting, I find myself wondering if that painting holds any clues to the painter's life. In other words, are paintings largely autobiographical? Did Gustav Klimt's paintings of all those nudes reveal a sexually promiscuous life? It could well be because his biographers tell us that he had a battalion of mistresses. Does Henri Toulouse Lautrec's paintings of the Moulin Rouge and the women that danced there show us a preoccupation with the shadowy night life of Paris? It could well be since we now know that he spent all his time there. So, what would Edvard Munch's paintings, especially his portraits, tell us about himself? Sue Prideaux set out to find out and the result is a wonderful, moving biography on Norway's most-celebrated artist,titled, "Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream.


Sue Prideaux is a art historian who lives in London has studied the paintings and diaries of Edvard Munch(besides being a prolific painter, Munch was also a great chronicler of the daily events of his life). I can't think of a person more qualified to do this because apart from the fact that she lives and breathes art, she also is part Norwegian and speaks the language fluently and her great-uncle, Thomas Olsen, was one of Munch's most loyal patrons.

Munch's childhood was most unenviable perhaps. His mother died of the consumption when he was not quite five and his father, Christian Munch, who was deeply religious in an almost obsessive way was very strict with his sons, beating them mercilessly for even very minor infractions. He also drummed into the siblings' psyche that their dead mother watched everything that they did. "...I came frightened into this world and lived in perpetual fear of life and of people,” Munch said. Munch and his sister Sophie developed a close bond but when he was 10, she too died of TB. Her death completely devastated Munch and appears to have affected him for the rest of his life. His painting, "The Sick Child" appears to be of her and he has always kept the chair in which she died. Today one can view it at the Munch museum. Illness was all around them in 19-century Norway and to make matters worse, there was mental illness in the family. Munch's maternal grandfather had spinal TB and was also insane, his other sister, Laura, was institutionalized with schizophrenia. Munch feared that he too would fall victim to a mental illness, infact that fear haunted him almost all his life. In his own words, "...Illness, insanity and death were the black angels that hovered over my cradle."


Paintings offered Munch a means of escape from his daily demons. His paintings were his babies, his allies, he couldn't bear to part with them. He was the master of self-portraiture and has done a whole collection of paintings of himself. Munch was very fond of the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and told a friend that no one in the arts had yet traveled as far as Dostoevsky "into the mystical realms of the soul." He aimed to be the first. There is a Munch painting titled, "Salome-Paraphrase, 1894-98," which explains this well. The work depicts a rather sober image of the artist's face . Above him with long flowing locks is the head of a woman. His face betrays nothing, yet the use of such so much red, which is the colour of passion, fire and aggression and the locks of hair entangling him, seem to convey his innermost longings, a peek into his sexual psyche perhaps?

The painting also reflects his complicated relationships with women. According to Sue Pridaux, Edvard Munch had an enormous number of women who were sweet on him, but decided at an early age that he would never marry. To him, women were mystifying and tempting; they lured men from the path of greatness, spoiling and corrupting them. He would allow them to get within a certain distance, but then always find an excuse to retire, lest the price of intimacy be paid at the expense of his art. But one woman, Tulla Larsen, an heiress of considerable fortune, refused to let him go always emotionally blackmailing him to return to her. The last time they met, it ended with a fateful shooting. No one knows which of them originally took hold of the gun in the struggle that ensued, or whose finger pulled the trigger, releasing the bullet that shattered the middle finger on Munch's left hand. Munch recalls the scene in his painting "Death of Marat," depicting himself as a bloodied, sacrificed Christ lying on a bed while Tulla stands nude, facing the viewer, rigid as a statue. In the case of the shot finger, Prideaux believes that Tulla Larsen pulled the trigger, but Munch later wrote an account suggesting that he did it himself - in which case it would be a self-mutilation parallel to Van Gogh's ear-amputation.

Munch continued to travel and exhibit his paintings, but he was drinking heavily and had to be admitted to a nursing home in Copenhagen after he suffered a nervous breakdown. After his mental health improved he returned home to Norway in the spring of 1909 and enjoyed a brief spurt of fame, fortune and also the companionship of some pretty young models who adored him. All that was about the change with the advent of the Nazis, however, who with their policy of Entartete Kunst (Decadent Art), held the 80 or so Munchs in German collections and ridiculed them officially in a mock exhibition and then sold on the international market, including Norway, to raise hard currency for National Socialism.


Munch died in 1944 at age 80, just before the Nazis were booted from his homeland. He bequeathed his works to Norway, an enormous gift that included 1,008 paintings, 4,443 drawings, 15,391 prints and 378 lithographs. Among these were the paintings in his famous "Frieze of Life."

An afterword: Before reading this book I have to confess I didn't know too much about the artist Munch except that he had painted the well known "Scream", which has become synonymous with the anxieties of modern life. "...I went along the road with two friends – the sun set. Suddenly the sky became blood – and I felt the breath of sadness…Clouds over the fjord…dripped reeking blood. My friends went on, but I just stood trembling with an open wound in my breast…I heard an extraordinary scream pass through nature..." This is how Edvard Munch’s visionary experience came to him before he painted this iconic work of art. This book by Sue Perdeaux has now put aface and a story to this painting and for that I am grateful.

पहेली Paheli: Bollywood's Official Oscar Entry 2006

I had no intention of reviewing Bollywood films on my blog, but "Paheli" पहेली ( riddle) deserves to be the exception because it is one of the best movies to come out of Bollywood in a long time.

This story is based on a novel by leading Rajasthani folk-tale writer Vijaydan Detha, set a couple of hundreds of years ago and framed through the eyes of two talking marionettes (voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak) as if told at a traveling puppet show.

A wedding party in Rajasthan (desert state of India) on its way home, stops to rest under a banyan tree on which lives a ghost (banyan trees in Indian mythology are well-known for being the abode of ghosts). The bride, Lachchi, played by Rani Mukherjee, lifts her veil for a second and the ghost falls in love with her. Soon after they arrive at the groom's father's house, which is where the bridal couple will make their home, the slightly dorky groom, Kishan, (played by Shahrukh Khan) is more interested in finishing the wedding accounts than consummating his marriage, and calmly tells Lachchi he's leaving the next day on a five-year business assignment ordered by his dad. On his way out of the village Kishan passes under the same banyan tree, and the ghost, surprised and curious that the groom would leave his beautiful wife so soon after the wedding, takes on the guise of a man and proceeds to chat up the groom for information. Once he's grasped the facts, he takes the form of the groom, and goes to the village home.

To explain his return to the business-minded father, the ghost (but now in Kishan's likeness), invents the story of a sage who has promised him five gold coins if he stays at home. But the ghost doesn't deceive the wife. He tells her plainly who he is and how he wants to make her happy, leaving it to her to accept or reject him. Therein lies the dilema. Now that Lachchi knows he is not really her husband, can she accept him? She has to decide between accepting the true love of a ghost versus the indifference of a flesh and blood person. The young woman accepts her ghostly lover and they live together for three years. After she gets pregnant, the news of her pregnancy spreads through the village and beyond, until her husband Kisna, gets to hear of it, too. He rushes home only to see...himself! The family and villagers are now confronted with two identical sons... you need to see the movie to find out how it turns out.

To many viewers this might just be pure entertainment, after all, this enchanting story is laid out elaborately, in riotous colours and Rajasthani exotica, but "Paheli" is more than that. It brings up questions. For instance, in accepting the ghost as her lover, was the wife being unfaithful to her real husband? After all, a ghost, even if it takes a human form, is still a spirit. If she cheats with an 'other- worldly' being, is it still cheating? And, who was the ghost really? When asked for his identity, the ghost said that he was the love that pacified the longing that is in every unfulfilled woman's heart. So this is plainly a love story on several levels---physical, emotional, spiritual and other- wordly. "Paheli" is also about a woman's right to make choices for herself concerning her own happiness. In Indian society, all too often a woman's fate is tied to her husband. She does what is decided for her by him. In Paheli, Lacchi decides not to take her fate lying down, but to actively and consciously create it. I hope it fares well at the Oscars.

Johanna Papissa or the Cross-dressing Pope

So, who is Pope Joan? According to the OSV (Our Sunday Visitor's) Catholic Encyclopedia, Pope Joan is the legendary female pontiff who reigned as Pope John VIII between the pontifates of LeoIV and Benedict III, roughly between 855 and 858. She is generally regarded by historians and the Catholic Church as a myth, possibly originating as an anti-papal satire which gained a degree of plausibility due to certain genuine elements related in the story.

Donna Woolfolk Cross makes Pope Joan the protagonist of her book of the same name. She tells her story beautifully with a researcher's gift for very detailed descriptions of how life and the church was in the dark ages, and yet, at the same time, the novelist's eye and ear is at work. She feels the flow of events in Joan's life with great sensitivity, after all, ninth-century Europe was a difficult time in which to live, especially for women. Women were not allowed to read or write. Any woman or girl-child shown expressing a curiosity in reading or in how things worked, was considered to be 'possessed'. If a girl ever questioned a decision made by the male member in the house, or showed signs of questioning age-old traditions or rituals, they were whipped until they submitted.

Cross portrays Joan as one of three children raised during this bloody time by Gudrun, a "heathen" woman and a survivor of the brutal Saxon massacre, and her husband, an overzealous Christian canon. So blind was he from ignorance and misplaced Christian fervor, that Joan, their only daughter, is cruelly mistreated by him for her attempts to utilize her intelligence. Despite the abuse to which she is subjected, she refuses to take on the role of the submissive daughter and sister.

After Vikings savagely attack the village, Joan, the lone survivor, adopts the identity of her younger brother, John, who had been killed in the attack. Joan eventually has to disguise herself as a man to escape punishment for aspiring beyond her station as a female. She becomes Brother John Anglicus. Along the way she takes shelter at a Benedictine monastery where she learns medical skills from an elderly monk.

When Joan, still known as Brother John Anglicus, decides to travel to Rome, she is asked to heal the reigning Pope Sergius. She succeeds, gains his trust and stays by his side until his death. Pope Leo succeeds Sergius and promotes Joan to Commander- in-Chief of the papal militia. For Joan this is a soul-searching moment, as Gerold (the man she fell in love with when she studied at the monastery) has come to Roma to ask her to give up all her duties in Rome and to return with him as his wife. Joan is torn, but as has been a pattern in her life, duty comes before everything and she elects to stay behind and work with Leo. Also, she could never forget her mother's advice to her to never give herself up to a man. A most unexpected turn of events then takes place. Pope Leo dies quite suddenly and much to Joan's amazement, she is voted to be the next Pope.

Unfortunately Joan's reign as Johanna Papissa is short-lived. Two years after she becomes Pope, there is an uprising of a rival contender to the Papacy and her lover Gerold is killed while defending her. The shock results in her going into premature labor giving birth to their to their stillborn child. It was only then that people found out that their Papa Populi or the people's pope had been a lady!
"Pope Joan" is over 400 pages long, but makes for a fast read. It provides a vivid record of what life was really like for women in Medieval Europe. The reader is kept in a constant state of suspense, wondering when and if Joan will be exposed as a woman. For me, the best parts of the book is when Joan argues with the bishops about the status of women--- for instance, on page 83, she tackles the story of Adam and Eve:

"...for, as it is well known"-Odo's voice assumed an authorative ring- "St. Paul himself has asserted that women are beneath men in conception, in place and in will."

"In conception, in place and in will?" Joan repeated.

"Yes." Odo spoke slowly as if addressing a half-wit. "In conception, because Adam was created first, and Eve afterward; in place, because Eve was created to serve Adam as companion and mate; in will, becase Eve could not resist the Devil's temptation and ate of the apple."

Odo smirked. Joan felt an intense dislike for this man. For a moment she stood silently tugging on her nose.

"Why," she said at last, "is woman inferior in conception? For althoug she was created second, she was made from Adam's side, while Adam was made from common clay. In place, woman should be preferred to man, because Eve was created inside Paradise, but Adam was created outside. As for will, woman should be considered "superior" to man for Eve ate of the apple for love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him"

In the afterword, Cross dicusses the legend of Pope Joan, explaining the historical and circumstantial evidence that led her to conclude that a Pope Joan probably really did exist.

I highly recommend "Pope Joan" to those readers who enjoy brilliantly-crafted stories about strong women who fight against the social restrictions and injustices heaped on them and go on to live extraordinary lives. The story of Pope Joan will be an inspiration to many women; read and be moved to do something extraordinary in your own life.

A Kiss and a Hickey? :)

When I first started this blog I vowed that I wouldn't write about books that were just mediocre reads for me, and for the best part of 7 months I have kept this promise to myself, however, I have now decided to blog most everything I read, even if the books didn't impress me. "The Painted Kiss" by Elizabeth Hickey is one of those books. The narrator is Emilie Flöge, one of Vienna's best known dress designers in the 1920's , and she tells not only of her life but the life of Gustav Klimt, the multi-talented Viennese painter with whom she has a close friendship(the book suggests they were lovers). Most of the story is told via flashbacks from her WWII hideaway in the Austrian countryside in 1944 where she has transported Gustav's drawings.

Gustav and Emilie first met when Emilie was a young girl of twelve years. Her father decided that Gustav should give her drawing lessons. She was very intimidated by him at first,but as time went on she grew to trust him and very often she and her sister Helene would sneak out of the house to model for Gustav and his brother. Their lives become irrevocably bound together when Helene married Ernst. When Klimt's brother died, leaving Helene a young widow with a baby, Emilie and Gustav shared responsibilities for their niece.

As Emile grew into a young lady she realized she was falling in love with Gustav. Not only was he her art teacher, but to a large extent, by exposing her to his posse of artist friends, models, businessmen etc., he was teaching her about life. Emilie never had the courage to tell him what he meant to her because he was such an important man, so well-known and so popular with the ladies, she didn't think he'd ever return her love. As for Gustav, it is apparent from the book that he loved Emilie too, after all, it was her name he uttered on his death bed, but I never quite figured out why he never told her in his lifetime.

Dispite having such appealing subjects-Gustav, the overly sexual and passionate painter , Emilie his demure muse and Vienna of the early 19th century where saloons, elegant cafés and grand opera houses flourished and avant-garde painters, philosophers etc. flocked to it in abundance, this book doesn't really come alive at any time. Sure, Elizabeth Hickey had very few details to work with, after all, not much is known about Gustav Klint and many of his drawings were destroyed by the Nazis during World War 2. (The story goes that when Hitler was a rising politician, he summoned Klimt to his presence, demanding a private viewing of the artist's works — that is, until the Fuhrer realized how many of Klimt's subjects were Jewish. Suddenly, the paintings lost their value for him.) The author has valiantly tried to fill in the blank spaces of Gustav's life with imaginative detail but it still doesn't make for a rivetting read, atleast not for me.

However, I did enjoy how she wove a story around some of Klimt's best known pieces, like, "Reclining Nude,1888", "Sleeping Girl-1889", "Study for Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1903" and last but certainly not least, "The Kiss, 1907". Klimt's paintings were always very erotic and sensual, and at the same time, bright and overflowing with passion. The book jacket, which to my regret is the only painting of Gustav featured in the book, is a portrait of Emilie Flöge. She stands tall and lean with her hand on her hip in a dress designed by her.

For "The Kiss" (pictured left), Gustav was supposed to have painted himself along with Emilie, but as the painting progressed he found he just couldn't because it would be a declaration of what he felt for Emilie and he didn't want people to know. Why? I am not sure and the author doesn't tell us either.

This was an easy read but one that didn't do much for me. I felt that a character as colorful as Klimt's should have inspired a livelier book, but that's just me.

To enjoy Klimt's paintings, go here

Book Review: Beethoven: The Universal Composer by Edmund Morris

Edmund Morris, who previously wrote three presidential biographies, has traded in his Whitehouse pass for a concert ticket giving us an excellent, concise biography on the eccentric but much-revered and well-known composer, Beethoven, aptly titled, Beethoven: The Universal Composer". What is so enjoyable about this offering is that it reads more like a novel rather than a biography. Morris doesn't bore his readers with dry facts and details about the composer and his rise to fame, but tells it like a story.

We read how Beethoven was pushed into long, arduous hours of practising the piano by his taskmaster of a father who would sometimes wake him up in the middle of the night for more hours of practice. We read how although he lusted after women he was too shy to approach them. In any case he was considered unattractive by the opposite sex because of his "swarthy complexion, skin pits, and short legs". They also thought him half-crazy. He never married but wrote passionate letters to his "Immortal Beloved".

What he lacked in the looks department he more than made up for in musical talent and ambition, and at the age of 21 in Vienna, he became the first bourgeois, self-employed composer in history, feted by Princes and Dukes; they would host him in their palaces and instruct their servants to serve him before they served the Duke or his family. Never before had a composer been given this much attention.

Sadly, at the age of 30 Beethoven started to go deaf. Morris includes in the biography letters Beethoven wrote to friends, as well as notes to himself, where he talks about his fears about growing deaf; the letters are heart- renderingly sad and add a very poignant and authentic touch to the biography.

Beethoven didn't allow his hearing disability to stop him, infact, he went on to write some of his strongest harmonies (Symphones 8 and 9) after he turned deaf. Morris, being a classical pianist himself, does a wonderful job of describing some of Beethoven's best-known tunes. As I read the book, I was tempted to crank up my stereo and listen to the nine symphonies one after the other. I have to confess I have a new found appreciation for Beethoven's music after reading about his life through the pen of Edmund Morris.

The composer died in 1847 from liver problems, three years after writing his best-known composition, "Symphony No. 9". At the premier of this great Symphony, Beethoven, deaf and facing the orchestra, did not realize the audience was enthusiastically clapping until a teenage soprano took him gently by the sleeve of his coat and turned him around so he could see the tumult.

His story will stay with me a long,long time.