Recent Readings

Brief notes on several books I've read of late, two graphic novels and two memoirs:

:: Love in a Torn Land (which sports a fairly ungainly subtitle, Joanna of Kuridstan: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance) is a highly effective memoir of a woman who had the misfortune of growing up Kurdish in Iraq during the end of the 20th century, coming of age during Saddam Hussein's dictatorial rule of that country. In the book, author Jean Sasson writes the tale of Joanna al-Askari's life as she related it in telephone interviews and a few personal meetings. Joanna's life is one of unexpected sadnesses and triumphs, of mundane events like schooling and dating and, ultimately, falling in love and getting married juxtaposed with horrors like her brother being taken by the Iraqi police to Abu Ghraib and the poison gas attacks on her people.

Love in a Torn Land is on one level a gripping story of love in a time of war and upheaval, but it's all the more relevant as a personal narrative set within the events that continue to shape the larger history of our world right now. Highly recommended.

:: I Don't Want to be Crazy by Samantha Schutz is a memoir of a young woman who suffered debilitating anxiety disorders through her college years. Not usually the type of thing I read, but what caught my eye was the fact that this book is written in blank verse, which allows Schutz to create some literary echo of the anxiety that nearly ruined her life.

Graphic novels:

:: Age of Bronze, Volume One: A Thousand Ships by Eric Shanower. A few years ago I read The Iliad, and I was shocked to realize that in that work, one of the longest enduring tales of war and adventure in all literature, only a tiny portion of the story of the Trojan War is told. No "face that launched a thousand ships". No Trojan Horse. None of that -- just singing the "rage of Achilles".

Now Eric Shanower is endeavoring to tell the entire story of the Trojan War in comics form. He's done tremendous research into the war (he describes his work in a fascinating afterword), and the "labor of love" aspect of Shanower's work shines through in the resulting product. The art is cinematic, the characterizations sharply drawn, the pacing excellent as the book draws us in.

This is a wonderful example of what comics can be. The only thing it's missing is a music score.

:: This one needs no musical score, since it already has one, and it's one of the greatest musical works ever composed: P. Craig Russell's adaptation of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The tale of heroes and gods and the jealousies and conflicts between them is one of the timeless stories of humanity, and Russell wisely tells the tale pretty much at face value. I've always wondered if the ideal way of doing Wagner's Ring wouldn't be on stage but rather on film, perhaps even with animation. Russell's graphic novel is a step in that direction. Now to track down the second volume, wherein Siegfried and Gotterdammerung are told.