5 comments about Before Night Falls: A Memoir.

1. My review will be quite simple, this book is... marvelous, magnificent, beautiful, brilliant, painful, poetic, and glorious. Read it!!!!!!!!



2. Anyone can put the their life on paper, but few such endeavors are worth reading. A fine memoir must come alive, must breathe, must sweat, must bleed, must become flesh and blood and acquire a `life` beyond that of its creator. A memoir worth reading (more than once) must become a Frankenstein. Reinaldo Arenas` supremely moving and magical autobiographical journey has become just that, a freakish, terrifying and stunningly gorgeous creation that will carry the memory of its creator well into the future. If Arenas had never written anything else, `Before Night Falls` would have been enough to rocket its author into the pantheon of literary greats.
   
   When I first devoured this book more than ten years ago, it gripped me like some nagging fever. I just couldn`t put it down, nor put its collection of macabre images and revealing epiphanies out of mind. Coming back to it once again, I was amazed that its power and pathos can still hold the reader spellbound. And what exactly is the secret of its magic? The answer lays with Arenas`s unflinching desire to lay himself bare before the reader, completely shorn of the disingenuous veils through which we all like to see ourselves and be seen by others. Arenas makes no such attempt to airbrush his forty-seven years of life into a pretty portrait for posterity. Instead, he gives us what was and nothing more.
   
   But was, was truly a life lived to the full. As full as possible within the Island prison of Fidel Castro. When the first page begins with little Reinaldo expelling a painful and ferocious stomach worm (the result of too much dirt eating!), the die is cast. Page after page, Arenas documents his impoverished upbringing within the wilds of Eastern Cuba. With his stark and matter-of-fact diction, Arenas shades nothing. Yet, through the very simplicity of his language, the images of his magical youth do achieve something of that overused phenomenon within Latin American letters, `magical realism.` Whether describing his lonely and forsaken mother, superstitous grandmother or lecherous grandfather, Arenas` tiny familial world comes alive like that of a Marquez novel. And everpresent throughout are the forces of nature, the rich, luxurious island fauna, the extremes of rain and sun and especially, the powerful and mysterious Caribbean. Throughout his life, the sea remained a mythic and revered instrument of freedom for Arenas, always enticing and prodding him to abandon his island prison, which he eventually did in 1980 with the Mariel exodus.
   
   And in a book where the forces of nature play a central role, sexuality is omnipresent. Arenas` homosexuality was central to who he was as a man and as a writer, and he lived a life many would deem promiscuous at the very least. With seering intensity and unmatched candor, Arenas catalogues his sexual history like few have done before. From the group encounters with his childhood playmates (even a few animals) to the legions of encounters and partners in adulthood, Arenas leaves no stone unturned in documenting the importance of sex in his life. Yet, Arenas` lusty descriptions of his extraordinary erotic life are neither strictly prurient nor solely for voyeuristic thrill. Instead, one feels the palpable, if albeit transitory, joy that the erotic held for Arenas. While some parts of the book will be hard going for the puritan, the arm-chair psychotherapist will have a field day constructing theories as to the source of Arenas` grandiose appetites. Yet, Arenas` makes no excuses nor explanations for his behavior, rather he documents what was, without blinders, without shame.
   
   Like in Kundera`s Czechoslovakia, Arenas` Cuba was/is a place of profound spiritual, emotional and physical suffering. A place where the `state` forced its way into every perimeter of human existence. Sexual expression, along with artistic expression, was the only way of asserting any individual autonomy. But even this was/is controlled and oppressed by the all-compassing arms of Castro`s revolutionary state. Arenas suffered persecution and torture for both his uncompromising sexual autonomy and for his individual artistic voice. Branded a `degenerate` and `counter-revolutionary,` Arenas paid a heavy price for his refusal to conform. Some of `Before Night Falls` most endearing and moving passages involve Arenas` internment in the infamous `El Morro` concentration camp.
   
   While the constant references to the Cuban literary milieu and its inhabitants can confuse the reader (who informed on who!), they never wholly detract from the fluidity of the narrative nor from the power of the voice locked within. `Before Night Falls` is like a boulder rolling down a steep cliff. With each page, it only gains in intensity and ferocity.
   
   With Arenas`decision to end his richly lived and endured years, `Before Night Falls` comes to an abrupt stop. But not end, for this is truly an unfinished work. Arenas` spirit stays with the reader long after the last word is digested, feverishly waiting for his country to catch up with him.
   
   Arenas` last words say it best, `Cuba will be free. I already am.`



3. Many readers may have a difficult time getting past the first third of Reinaldo Arenas's memoir. Its opening chapters describe both the author's sexual awakening and his unorthodox (to say the least) adventures at the beaches and in the bushes and even in public restrooms in Cuba before and after the rise of Castro. "In spite of everything, youth in the sixties managed to conspire, not against the regime but in favor of life." He regales his readers both unashamedly and unreservedly with his exploits, and the more homogeneous audience members may be repelled by his homo-heterodoxy.
   
   Yet these tales are an integral part of Arenas's message: in a totalitarian society, everything is an act of rebellion--even sex, which is often subversive and furtive and (in spite of any regime's puritanical attempt to control it) always available. For Arenas, his sexual prowess is of a piece with his literary expression, and his brave and headstrong need to write often overlap with his desire to be a gay man in a society that doesn't want homosexuals--or writers--to exist. The bulk of the book, dealing with his life as a writer, as a rebel, as a fugitive, as a prisoner, and as an exile, is identical in tone and spirit to the early passages about his libidinous youth.
   
   His stubbornness is awe-inspiring. We read about the many times Arenas's manuscripts, often hidden in the roof or left with friends, were discovered and destroyed. Nevertheless, he would shirk off the dangers and re-create them from memory. The novels he managed to smuggle out of the country resulted in a slim international celebrity that made him a pariah of the government yet immunized him from becoming simply a political prisoner. After his arrest, he confessed to "ideological weaknesses," but his public trial was for sexual offences. "By convicting me of a common crime, they would avoid an international scandal," and the court condemned him as "a counterrevolutionary and an immoral person [who] should be sentenced for corruption of minors." (It is almost beside the point that the two swarthy "victims," both of whom recanted their testimony at the trial out of embarrassment, were hardly minors.) All of Arenas's battles were fought at the intersection of sex and literature.
   
   Arenas has little good to say about the Batista era, but his recollections are a bracing and much-needed rebuttal to those who make apologies for the Castro regime. He reserves his bitterness especially for fellow writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alejo Carpentier who have helped prop up Castro with an aura of respectability. He reminds us that Carpentier wrote his best work (in exile) before 1959 but became part of a group of writers who "once they embraced the new dictatorship, never wrote anything worthwhile again."
   
   Arenas begins his book with "The End," a chapter summarizing his final struggle with AIDS and acknowledging the irony that after the "thousand adversities" he suffered in Cuba, "the only escape for me was death." The paradox of Arena's life is that he finally escaped his homeland, only to die in a decade by his own hand in a dingy New York City apartment. Repression, imprisonment, and torture couldn't destroy him in a land that liberty forgot, but the fight ended once he reached the land of the free.



4. No pretty prose passages, no magical realism, no lovable eccentrics. Thank God. This isn't Marquez or Allende. This is true life, sonny Jim, dirty, brutal, hilarious, dark and unrepentant. This is a great book filled with creations, copulations, imprisonments, escapes, knife fights, love affairs and a deep, deep love of a rich beautiful Cuba that one day Arenas hopes will be free from tyranny.
   
   Arenas hates what Castro and his cronies did to him and the island. He shows us the secret police, the prisoners, the informers, the labor camps all in intense and sometimes horrifying detail. He levels his wrath at deluded pro Castroites in the United States and Latin America and doesnt hold back from accusing fellow writers (including Marquez, Carpentier and Paz) of being stooges of the Castro brothers.
   
   I personally could have done without the AIDS conspiracy theories and the copious beastiality, but that doesnt detract from a terrific book.



5. If you're sick of cute little stories that follow some godforsaken formula, you might get some juices flowing with this book. I can count on my fingers all the books I've read that resulted in what I would call "an experience." This is one of them.

5 comments about A Language Older Than Words.

1. The survival of the human species depends on our ability to transcend the confinements of symbolic language. It has its uses but, ultimately, is limited. Derrick Jensen, masterfully and with powerful prose, not only explores his journey of discovering the sacred mundane but also offers a call to every individual, on the basis of how he or she interacts with the world, to reopen the vaults of childhood wonder and ardently refuse the mountains of trash heaped upon our persons by the narrow mind of modern culture. Thank you, Derrick.



2. Derrick Jensen is a brilliant literary stylist. Even if you hate everything he argues for in this book, it's still worth reading.



3. The planet is being destroyed. Endless war, unprecedented ecocide, nuclear weapons proliferation...the aforementioned are just a small sampling amongst the many measures that wreak havoc upon today's world. And how are ordinary human beings expected to combat this hulking giant that is the capitalist military-industrial complex? Consider that millions of people suffer under literal slavery (see Laos, Burma, Thailand, etc.) and scores more endure wage slavery (the "sophisticated" form of slavery...see the United States, Canada, Great Britain, etc.) Then consider the widespread cultural practices that brutally oppress women and the bloody ethnic/racial conflicts that permeate nearly every corner of the globe. When put in these terms, the outlook looks rather bleak. But once again, what can we do?
   
   "I don't have time to think about deforestation in South America, I'm just trying to put food on the table."
   
   Throughout the course of this book, environmental activist Derrick Jensen explores this prevailing culture of violence. We learn that as a child, Jensen faced horrific abuse under the hands of his father. Jensen concludes that his father's violence was not unique in the sense that it is symptomatic of a culture that accepts (even encourages) authoritarianism, oppression, and psychic devastation. Likewise, the Holocaust was not unique, as there have been numerous holocausts throughout the course of human history, all resulting in mass deaths of "lesser" human beings.
   
   To Jensen, silence is the most salient part of the problem. As a child, Jensen attempted to deny the fact that abuse was taking place in his household. The facts were just too gruesome, too overwhelming. "I don't want to think about, so I won't think about it. If I never think about it, it's like it never actually happened." Jensen connects the micro to the macro; claiming that society at large operates under the same pathological mindset. The atrocities we witness everyday are so intense and harrowing that we minimize (negate, really) their impact. Only after breaking free from this cycle of silence will humanity begin to free itself by taking action in the face of destruction.
   
   Jensen's writing style is unique. His prose is very casual and accessible. He weaves together his personal opinions with an ample amount of empirical evidence and varying philosophical and psychological perspectives. Included also are interviews and conversations Jensen has had with close friends, most of them sharing an ideology similar to his own.
   
   Jensen's solutions are radical, not reformist, in nature. He believes that only the complete and utter abolition of industrial civilization will free humans and the environment alike. His position is that of an anarcho-primitivist or a neo-Luddite. These ideas are expanded upon and explained more thoroughly in Jensen's subsequent body of work.
   
   This is a great book, very well written and moving. Even if you do not agree with Jensen's arguments or ideological standpoints (I actually disagree with him on several issues) there is great value to be found within these pages.



4. I can't think of another book that has affected me as profoundly as this one. It woke me up to the living world, or rather, made me remember what I knew as a child and managed under this coercive culture to forget: that the natural world speaks to us, if only we listen. As we witness the world being murdered before our eyes, we urgently need to learn to listen, before it's too late.
   
   In all of Derrick Jensen's work, he offers brilliant insights about why civilization is killing the planet and what we can and must do about it. Many people have described this book as "heartbreaking," and that's true -- it breaks through the surface of hearts hardened by denial, confronts us with despair, then leads us carefully to the other side of that despair into healing and the possibility of conscious action. It combines investigation and well-reasoned political analysis with an engaging personal style and rare honesty that together offer the reader both intellectual understanding, and just as importantly, a deep emotional comprehension.
   
   After reading this book I immediately bought three copies to give to relatives, in the hope that they would be strengthened by it as I have been, to break the silence, join the world, and stop the horrors.



5. As novels go, this one is OK. Too bad it's not a novel. Taken as a work of "philosophy of nature," I am not sure whether I am more surprised or depressed by all of the positive, swelling reviews of this poorly written, terribly irrational and profoundly dishonest book. References to Jensen's courage are sprinkled generously throughout these reviews but having slogged through this book, I would say the author is more narcissistic than courageous, more self-absorbed than profound.
   
   From the first page on, the writing resembles the efforts of the average high school sophomore's early attempts at profundity. On the one hand, page after page of "matter-of-fact" assertions about what is wrong with nearly everyone and everything except Jensen himself are linked by spurts of polemical rant that are simply under-documented or, worse still, totally undocumented. Jensen writes with the sloppy hyperbole and loosely formed metaphor of one who is eager to fill pages. Confirming my suspicion that Jensen is aiming for a "big book" is the endlessly repetitive quality of the events narrated: no event in his life bears telling only once. The resulting text is one of the most poorly written books I have ever forced myself to read. (Some here have claimed this book was the best they have ever read, I personally can't imagine such a dire reading list.)
   
   To defend himself against the obvious charge that his basic arguments are unscientific, irrational and purely anecdotal, Jensen attacks Cartesian philosophy early in his book, making of it a rather flimsy structure and then pompously knocking down the over-simplified Descartes he himself has created. Quoting (without references)someone who may or may not be Descartes, Jensen points out that the philosopher held many of the horrible world views of his day (racism, sexism, anti-Semitism) as if Descartes' philosophical insights are simply invalid because he does not meet the benchmarks of contemporary cultural values some 300 plus years later. Ditto Jensen's dismissal of science and the scientific method. Roughly put, Jensen argues that scientists torture animals and have created terrible and destructive forces, like atomic weapons, therefore the argument that something ought to be demonstrably reproducible and confirmable is just part of the whole evil and silencing system and need not be brought to bear on his own assertions about life, the planet, etc.
   
   One painfully obvious example is the "conversation" Jensen has with the coyotes eating his poultry and the "conversations" he has with the poultry itself asking their permission to kill and eat them. Jensen is convinced, based on his observations, that when he politely asks the coyotes to stop eating his birds in exchange for bird parts he will give them that they hear him and act according to his wishes. He does not consider any other possible explanation for the animals' behavior; they are not agents of their own lives but rather puppets in a world of his creating in which he has the god-like ability to convey his desires to other species and they, apparently conversant in English, obey. Similarly, Jensen threatens his drakes by saying whichever one next sexually assaults a female will be slaughtered. Again, the ducks understand and one "chooses" to be his dinner.
   No need to establish any evidence that such communication happens, just interpret events as they suit your world view and they are so. Oddly, it never seems to occur to Jensen that perhaps the coyotes have communicated with the ducks too, receiving as Jensen does, the ducks' permission to eat them.
   
   This raises the question of Jensen's honesty. Throughout the book he asserts that the stars, the coyotes, trees, his dogs and bees have spoken with him. They are intimately aware of his needs and change their behavior to meet them. And so it goes, it turns out that it is OK for Jensen to eat meat because he bought the chicks he raises to "meathood" and they belong to him, and what's more they gave him permission. But didn't slaves "belong" to their masters, didn't wives 'belong" to their husbands, and children to their parents? No need to answer these or any questions, because Jensen is not interested in a verifiable truth, just in the Truth as he creates it to justify his own actions and condemn the same behaviors in others.
   
   Like the biblical god he emulates, Jensen holds jealous sway over the world he rules, broaching no interlopers or false gods (science, reason, other points of view, his neighbor's home) and swaying wildly between a message of love (with caveats) and a wrathful and destructive impulse to punish the unworthy and the sinful. And, as with proof of god, there seems to be no human or natural event that cannot be ruthlessly twisted to support Jensen's arguments. The list of his evidence is long: the holocaust, African bondage in the Americas, genocide in Rwanda and of Native peoples, extinction of species, rape, child murder, racism, sexism, homophobia and even Jensen's own sexual abuse at the hands of his father. The list goes on and on, but rather than actually analyze any of these events trying to get to understanding through contextualization, Jensen proffers a "you're either with me or with my father who raped me" argument. Believe on him or burn in eternal hell fires.
   
   Clearly from the reviews here, Jensen has many followers (they refer to him by his first name, even in these reviews) but I remain firmly committed to rational discourse and evidentiary argument. But don't just take my word for it, my oregano plant hated this book and the starlings in the tree outside can't stop telling me how awful it truly, truly is.

2 comments about Man's Search For Meaning.

1. It has been many years since my original read of this book, and I won't let it happen again. This thought provoking book is a must read for everyone interested in the study of human behavior. Exceptionaly insightful!



2. This is a must read for all those "woe is me" people always complaining about everything. Man's Search for Meaning will enlighten you to what "having a bad day" really means. I applaud Viktor Frankl for his inner strength to survive such an ordeal and come away with such dignity and inner peace.

5 comments about Taking Woodstock.

1. This book just takes me back to the Woodstock Days....I was 19 and never went as I had a 3 month old baby at the time..lived in Brooklyn..reading Elliot Tibbers book about the White Lake area brings back such funny memories as my parents used to take my brother and I to the bungalow colonies in Monicello NY and Woodridge area each summer.
   I was just cracking up at his accurate discriptions of the area and reading this book reminded me so much of my own Jewish parents and paternal grandmother from Minsk, Russia.
   Wonderful book!



2. The above would be an appropriate subtitle for this heartfelt but energetic and witty coming-of-age autobiography/memoir by Elliot Tiber, whose main claim to fame is that he fought the petty politics and narrow-mindedness of his small town of Bethel, NY, in order to make possible the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
   
   The author (born Eliyahu Teichberg) grew up in the richly ethnic neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in an emotionally-starved but hardworking family with his Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. His father worked as a roofer, while his mother ran a housewares store in which they all helped out. Elliot finished college and began a moderately successful career in art design, primarily starting out dressing store windows and painting murals for rich Manhattanites. A trip to the Catskills resulted in the family buying a run-down motel right off Highway 17B at White Lake, in the town of Bethel NY, and Elliot found himself splitting his time, working weekdays in NYC and spending weekends doing whatever had to be done to keep the motel operational and barely financially afloat.
   
   At the same time, Elliot came to the realization that he was gay, and - for whatever reason - favored the underground S&M flavored scene that existed in NYC in the mid 1960's. He met and partied with Robert Mapplethorpe, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and even encountered Rock Hudson at one point. Of course, coming out to his conservative parents wasn't an option for him at the time, but his "secret life" during the week somewhat served to make bearable the weekends at the motel, scrubbing toilets and dealing with customer complaints (The Teichbergs cut a few corners in customer service. For example, they had phones in each room, but they weren't connected to anything. The TV was an empty box, as was the air conditioner sleeve below the window. Need soap and a towel? It'll cost ya extra, but you're lucky you made it in today, since Dad has hosed off your sheets - the only cleaning they ever got - just yesterday.)
   
   In early 1969, Elliot read with interest the news accounts that the promoters of the planned Woodstock Music and Art Festival had been denied a permit by the town of Walkill, their planned location. As president (nobody else wanted the job) of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce, he had the authority to issue festival permits, and contacted the promoters about the possibility of moving the festival to Bethel, and offered the meadow of a friend, dairy farmer Max Yasgur, as the perfect venue. Much of the book details the whirlwind events that followed, as the festival took on a life of its own, eventually attracting around 500,000 people to the small town, resulting in threats by locals, payoffs to those who opposed it, nudity, drugs, gangsters, people bathing in the lake, shortages of food and water, but - despite it all - the most historic event in music and counterculture history, after which nothing would ever be the same again for Elliot and his family.
   
   The author has a gift in telling a story, even one as obviously self-centered as this one is, for the most part. Witty and engaging, sure to bring back memories of that era. Loved the reversible (regular/psychodelic) dust jacket! 5 stars out of 5.



3. Born Eliyahu Teichberg, poor Elli struggles to break what he calls the "Teichberg Curse" and changes his name to Elliot Tiber--hoping that would break the curse. Always on the brink of financial ruin and trying to hide his deepest secret, he dreams of the miracle that would change his life.
   
   In 1969, he got that miracle. Manager of his Jewish parents' failing resort hotel El Monaco in White Lake, New York on the weekends, Elliot runs during the week to Greenwich Village where he can live the life he chooses as an interior designer and meeting the likes of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams and Robert Mapplethorpe--all the while keeping his gay life a secret from his family. That is, until June 28, 1969, when he finds himself at the Stonewall Inn and the famous "Stonewall Riot" that would revolutionize the gay culture breaks out. With a newfound boldness, he finds out in July that the town of Wallkill has revoked the permit for the Woodstock festival. So he contacts Mike Lang, the concert's promoter, to offer his 15 acres for the concert. While Elliot hopes this is the miracle he has been waiting for, Mike Lang and his entourage arrive by helicopter but they end up feeling that the swampland of his resort hotel won't work for the concert. Tiber assures Lang and company that, since he has been the president of the Bethel Chamber of Commerce and has held a concert and art show for the past few years, he can get the necessary concert permit. Quickly, he calls his good friend Max Yasgur--who supports everything Elli does and only lives four miles up the road--and asks him to hold the concert. Elli explains to Mike that Max has a dairy farm on a hundred acres--more than enough to hold a concert. Arrangements are made and, before he knows it, Elli is caught up in the magic that will change his life forever. He is introduced to the hippie scene where everyone is accepted no matter who or what you are and learns he can love himself.
   
   Whoa! Totally awesome and even far out and groovy! This book is absolutely amazing! This reviewer couldn't put it down--in fact, read it twice before writing this review. If you've ever dreamed of being at Woodstock or even if you were there, the author Elliot Tiber will take you back. The Sixties will come alive and you won't want the trip to end! But that is only part of the story, as Elliot takes you through the time of his troubled past and describes in perfect word pictures the struggles of his secret life, his childhood, the insanity of running the hotel resort, and dealing with bigoted locals who persecute him because of his Jewish heritage. In the end, you'll feel you know everyone and that you were there, too.
   
   See Woodstock through the eyes of someone who lived it, who helped bring it to life - you'll never look at this period of history the same again. Don't pass this one by, as this autobiography guarantees to be one of the best reads of 2007 and is to be released just in time for the media's annual August remembrance of that great music festival. Also an awesome unique feature that this reviewer really likes is the reversible dust jacket--one side conservative, the other psychedelic. This feature, according to Square One's publisher Rudy Shur in Publishers Weekly, represents "The notion of duality [that] has been a central theme throughout Elliot's life, and we wanted the book to represent that notion of difference in a very direct and colorful way." So whichever trip you decide to take, this is one you'll never forget.
   
   Cheri Clay
   Reviewer's Bookwatch



4. wow. a great book to collectors of woodstock trivia and the awful
   stuff during that time of vietnam to one of peace and music! the
   author shows a great ability to tell a story that kept me glued to the
   pages. read it overnight!!! someone ought to make a movie of this
   unusual tale.



5. Being just a bit too young to have lived the Woodstock experience, I have been left to rely on the tales of others, mainly from an audience point of view. Having read Tiber's accounts of the experience from conception to fruition, brings a new appreciation for the era, the event and the effect on those who were a part of it.

5 comments about Reunion in Barsaloi.

1. Well I read the White Masai with the intention to be as open minded as possible and to try to understand why a White European woman would want to marry someone who was of another race and culture. Well the first book was entertaining in that I found myself reading to find out what kind of horrible situation this silly woman would find herself in next. She showed total disrespect for the Masai people and their culture and then ran off wit the man's daughter when things didnt go the way she imagined they would go which must have been very embarrassing for him as a warrior.
   
   Anyway this book, was probably the most boring book that I have ever read. I had to force myself through it, waiting for something to actually HAPPEN. But nothing never happened worth note, it was just the author cashing in on the story once again. I have had more interesting trips to the grocery store that I could write about.



2. Corrine Hoffman wrote 3 books regarding her life experience in Kenya. She is the first white woman to marry a Masai Warrior, lives in the Bush and has a daughter with him. She goes back to Switzerland and then visits Kenya again 14 years later. This is a non-fiction series that is exciting, well written and easy to read. It shows courage and relates to life. The first book is called the White Masai and the second book is Back From Africa. This is the third book where she returns to Kenya for a visit to her family there without her daughter.



3. This book can stand on its own but ideally you should read "The White Masai" and "Back From Africa" first. You will not regret traveling with Corinne Hofmann on any of her journeys. She has had an amazing, colorful life....and I'm sure there's more she'll share with us. I do hope she'll write at least one more as she does have unfinished business in Africa and I'm looking forward to hearing about its resolution.



4. I feel the same way! These books are a waste of time. I am a very open minded person and have a family who lived with the Masai people for 5 years. That's why I was interested in her books in the first place. But my family can truly appreciate what these people have gone through and lived with them for years and still visits.
   They received much more respect and attention from the Masai than she seemingly ever did. She just seems as though she is making a good living off of a lousy experience.
   Did she have to go through intense rituals to become a member of their society? No, she just slept with a member of their society? Did she even do any of her own chores to get water or wash clothing? Hardly, she hired a girl to do it for her!
   For those of you who know nothing about lust and travel, tourist can easily find a Masai man to sleep with and Masai men can easily find a tourist to help make a living for themselves. Its a give and take relationship that most people accept as just that. Sure some fall in love! This is mainly what her story was! Nothing more!
   I'm not sure about what Lketinga's feelings are from reading her side of the story, but I can tell you that alot of men from these tourist countries thrive off of finding a foreign woman with money to help them survive. That's how I saw her story.
   Not many Outsiders can truly become a member of the Masai society like my family member did. And he is of a race and culture, you'd least expect to live in a home made of cow dung!
   Also her ignorance affected not only that sweet man but her daughter. That man was living out his culture and his beliefs and didn't deserve her abandonment with his child.
   I don't mean any disrespect to their daughter by talking about her parents but, I just feel her mother doesn't deserve the rights to profit from this tale. I personally know other people who actually deserve more reputable respects than she does for living with and understanding Masai people and they don't receive any movies or acknowledgments like she does. They just continue to live their lives and look back on their past experiences with joy.
   Basically, her experiences were nothing to write a book over or to make a sequel to. I suppose if you know nothing about lust and tourism, or Masai culture you could easily find this book amusing. But a romantic tale, it is not!!!!!



5. A great follw up to the two previous books - i really enjoyed this easy to read book.

5 comments about Turtle Feet.

1. This book is the closest thing to English "ter" (spiritual treasure) I've come across. Grozni transfers the Buddhist understanding of emptiness magically through his brilliant use of prose. Tsar, the indulger is the symbolic embodiment of Guru Rinpoche. While in sexual union with his consort his monastic and lay vajra brothers attain insight into unborn wisdom along with the reader. Nikolai surprised me, this is the best book I've ever read...in English.
   Sarva Mangalam



2. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R267LYJ1OP3CA9



3. For anybody who would like to read a book about Tibetan Buddhist spirituality - this is not about this topic. Unlike most Westerns the author does not join Buddhism in search of mystical experience but enters the path at its most repressed, intellectual and dogmatic - as a Buddhist monk specializing in philosophical debate. Surprisingly, at the same time he is full of rebellion and describes his Buddhist teachers and fellow monks and nuns as incredibly stupid, uncompassionate, sex-crazed and even abusive. The majority of this book deals with the author's friends which are a drug-taking, prostitute-visiting, violent and foul-mouthed bunch who have no interest in Buddhism whatsoever. All in all the author comes across as well-intentioned but incredibly immature.



4. I can't say enough good things about this wonderful, exciting book. It has everything in it: vivid descriptions of horrid conditions, cuddly rats, snakes named Mona Lisa, very insightful passages about Buddhist teaching presented in a non-dogmatic way, linguistic trivia and examples, and of course extremely vibrant human characters. You might think that if Tsar, the Bosnia ex-monk who is constantly playing chess, fighting, making love and planning to escape India, is the central character, and he is, that the author couldn't paint others in as realistic a light. And yet he does. Vinnie, the crazy 70-year-old German who pisses on the floor of the kitchen and whose feet are oderiferous in the extreme, comes across in full living technicolor. But surprisingly, the author paints himself as a real human in no-less detail, which was really really neat. I almost feel as if I know him. I certain feel as if he and I share the same common human traits of desire for englightenment, and everything baser. But it is more than that. The book's details and word painting are just staggering. Excellent job! I wish I could read Bulgarian in order to enjoy your other books. You (Mr. Grozni) are one superb author!!!!



5. While the author of "Turtle Feet" is a very talented writer, (when he is describing the beauty of his surroundings, he sometimes verges on the poetic) in this book, he spends way, way too much time detailing the exploits of his manic, foul-mouthed, Bosnian, ex-Monk friend, Tsar. Grozni's religious/spiritual experiences as a novice monk take a back seat to Tsar's theatrics.
   
   People in India - like people everywhere - all share certain human traits. You get a bunch of young men living together in a community (even a Tibetan Buddhist community) and there are going to be some there with bad tempers, some with mental problems, some who swear like sailors, some who love to talk about sex, and some who use drugs. Maybe the author thought it was important to let us know this. But there is so much more that he could have shared with us - things unique to his life in India - that he did not.
   
   While the book offers a glimpse into a far-off world, it left me wishing the author had "waxed poetic" on more occasions and spent less time on his friend's passport/housing/woman troubles.
   
   
   
   
   
   

1 comments about The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive.

1. I rec'd my book in the mail Monday evening. I didn't get around to reading it until late which means I stayed up all night long reading it until early Tuesday morning. This book is so inspirational and i'm so proud of this young lady putting this book out here. Watching her on CNN's Black in America and hearing her story and her purpose-I knew I wanted to support her by purchasing the book. Everybody has a little piece of Marvelyn Brown in them be it, the desire to be loved, the desire to want to leave a legacy, and the hope to break stereotypes. I must say that if you or someone you know needs inspiration...GET THIS BOOK. It's a bold story and it's the TRUTH!

5 comments about The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea.

1. Boo hoo. Jenkins wants everyone to think he was some innocent victim. He made the decision to switch to the other side, no one pushed him into doing it. Once he got to North Korea he found out their utopian propaganda was all Bravo Sierra. If he hadn't been so gullible in the first place he wouldn't have to be making excuses now. He may not have enjoyed rock star treatment while he was their "guest", but you can be certain his quality of life was much better than the average native-born citizen. He was a useful propaganda tool, starring in NK movies as the "Evil American". Maybe not treason, but close to it. I haven't read this book (and won't), but I served on the DMZ so I'd say that qualifies me to give my "review".



2. In this fascinating and quick-paced book, Jenkins answers questions that have nagged many people for 39 years. Why did he cross over to North Korea? Did he work against US interests while in North Korea (including being an interpreter in the capture of the USS Pueblo)? Did he want to be that kind of a communist? Did he want to leave North Korea?
   
   Along the way to learning the answers to the questions above, the reader gets a chilling glimpse inside the closed-off country that proves to be at least as backwards and brutal as we understand it to be. We learn about how he met Hitomi Soga, his wife, and the life they endured with their two daughters. Contrary to the accusations made by many scorned Americans, he wasn't living in the lap of luxury as a treasured guest of Kim Il-sung. He had it better than most North Koreans did, but it was far from a life any of us would want. These were the consequences suffered by a man of quite limited aptitude (why did the Army have somebody like him on the DMZ) who, by his own admission, made a cowardly decision for the wrong reasons.
   
   I believe the Army's decision to give him a light one-month sentence in exchange for whatever information he had was appropriate. Jenkins says he was treated well, and his wife and daughters were even given dependent privileges until his discharge. I was happy to see the Army resolve this situation so honorably. Jenkins returned to the US to visit his family and now lives in his wife's hometown in Japan. Many aspects of his terrible mistake will always be with him, but I'm glad he has the opportunity to move on.



3. To be honest, I got this book with the idea that I would hate the main character, Jenkins, a defector I had heard of from the bad old days. However, his life after walking north and his confession that it was all done out of cowardice and criminal stupidity won me over somewhat. I understand considerably more about the decision-making process which allowed him to do relatively light punishment upon his return.
   
   This book is very insightful about the corrupt society of communsim in general and the fantasy world that the DPRK has constructed for itself in North Korea.



4. I picked up the book out of curiosity and now am glad that I read it. Before reading the book, I thought of him as a strange man who defected to North Korea of all places, lived the good life as the token trophy, and now decided that he had had enough. I now feel more sympathy for his plight as he's revealed as a man whose momentary stupidity consigned him to forty years in hell. I was touched by his courtship of his wife, who was even more grievously wronged (at least he walked in with his two feet), and am glad to know that they are doing well in their new lives in Japan. A fascinating personal glimpse into the most isolated, brainwashed place in the world.



5. For the other side of the story, see "Crossing the Line," an award-winning BBC documentary.

5 comments about About Alice.

1. A touching in memorium to the author's wife, who recently died of lung cancer. The couple's relationship is tenderly depicted, but I found myself not liking Alice all that much. She is definitely a complex person, but she also seems a bit superficial and showy at times. i suspect this is my misinterpretation based on a few episodes described by Trillon. I really enjoyed Trillin's writing and his sensitive treatment of his relationship with his wife, though.



2. About Alice contains some very powerful stories about the transforming power of human love. The story about the handicapped girl at the end of chapter VII (p.65-66) is especially moving.



3. It's all been said before, but never so eloquently. A true loss. An amazing spirit.



4. This is a slim book and a quick read but don't let the small size fool you; it packs a punch. Readers of Trillin's other works may recognize a version (or two) of Alice in this book. He never nails down Alice's essence which may be a disappointment for anyone who picks up the book with the hope that Alice's true personality would be revealed. This is a love letter about Alice and their marriage.
   
   Love can be the culmination of stories told (some details are naturally remembered differently than your partner) and shared experiences. Trillin visits many different stories and memories (his and others') about Alice and their life together. There is no doubt he loved her and was inspired by her to be a better writer and a better person.



5. Calvin Trillin's wife Alice died of cardiac arrest in 2001. During their 36-year marriage, Alice had served as Trillin's muse and first editor, and she often featured as a sort of character in his writing. (I confess I've only read one other book by Trillin, his 2001 novel Tepper Isn't Going Out). In About Alice, published in 2006, Trillin seems to be trying to define his wife's personality, to preserve a piece of it for the record, to explain why she inspired his devotion. It is not a maudlin account. He writes about Alice's attitudes toward parenting and money, for example, about the role she played in his writing, her charity work, her cancer scare in 1976. The book is a sort of extended love letter to Alice, to be sure, but a further point of the exercise is to be found on the book's dedication page. About Alice is dedicated not to her, but to the couple's grandchildren, who will never know her. The book is a nice gift to them, and to Alice.
   
   About Alice is brief--it only takes about an hour to read--and Trillin's prose goes down easy. The book should be of particular interset to readers familiar with Trillin's characterization of his wife in earlier books.
   
   -- Debra Hamel

5 comments about Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century.

1. Make no mistake the late, lamented Hunter Thompson was always something of a muse for me going way back to the early 1970's when I first read his seminal work on outlaw bikers, The Hell's Angels. Since then I have devoured, and re-devoured virtually everything that he has written. I have reviewed many of those efforts elsewhere in this space. As I noted recently in reviewing his 2004 work Hey, Rube, a screed on the misadventures of a gambling freak (himself), not all his efforts have been equally compelling. That was the case in my panning of Hey, Rube but here we are back on much more solid `gonzo' style from the old days. Maybe it is because this work is in the form of a memoir and thus intentionally places the good Doc's actions in the center of the writing that puts this effort in the mold of his better compilations like the Great Shark Hunt and Songs of the Doomed.
   
   Thompson uses his patented stream of consciousness trope to create amusing stories starting from the then present (early 2000's) and his then current doings and splices them together, in some segments randomly, to events as far back as his childhood in Louisville, Kentucky. Along the way we find him at age nine in trouble with the FBI, and none the worst for the confrontation. Later, it is down and dirty in Rio with the crazies. Throughout, we find him incessantly testing his beloved guns and various `hot' motorcycles at various and sundry appropriate and inappropriate times.
   
   Additionally, we have some compelling and insightful stories as this radical journalist tours the news breaking global spots, taking trips to places like Vietnam just before the fall, Cuba, Grenada just after the invasion and elsewhere wherever the journalistic action might be and a story, in the Thompson style, might develop. Needless to say there is plenty of ink about sex, drugs and rock and rock including his deeply affecting and traumatic tangle with the law in Aspen the early 1990's. That, my friends, was a close call.
   
   And throughout, as usual, there are pithy political comments about the various idiots-in-chiefs, their henchman and hangers-on that he spent his life hammering. Maybe not hammering your way, definitely not my way, but his way. His fateful run for Sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket in 1970 probably accurately set the tone as a lifelong description of his politics. For those who have read other works by Thompson some of the signature language may be old hat as he meanders along in this volume. For others it is a chance to learn the lingo. Damn, especially this election year, I miss him. Read on.



2. Mr Thompsons autobiography is somewhat lacking compared to his other works. It seems, that he in his later years didn't have that much new to say, and this volume shows it very clearly. It deals with the legend of HST, not the man Hunter Stockton Thompson, and only plays the same tune that we've been hearing since F&L in Las Vegas, only in a strongly diluded form.
   
   A great drawback is that he recycles a lot of stuff from his earlier work, which if you're a fan/reader of his you can't help but feel a bit cheated about. The book isn't that long as it is, but when half the material already has been printed before, and therefore probably, for fans at least, is on your shelf already, it gives the feeling of the good Mr Thompson not really making an effort writing this volume.
   
   It's not all bad though. There are highlights in the book. His description of his childhood is enjoyable and very biographical. The last chapter is also very enjoyable, although not that good as biographical material, it does for a good reading.
   
   It starts out legitimate enough, but quickly turns to his rambling and at times incoherent style of writing. Worth reading if you're a completist. I would recommend the compilations of his letters "The Proud Highway" and "F&L in America" as biography instead. They are much better.



3. This book (2003) and "Hey Rube" (2004) appear to be the last of HST's books. While "Hey Rube" contains lengthy discussions of gambling on professional football and basketball (including "March Madness"), this book is more far-ranging, containing everything from Thompson's reminiscences of his youth to his (highly negative) thoughts on George W. Bush. There's even a chapter from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972," one of the finest political books ever written.
   
   The quality of the writing on the recent pieces is not quite up to that of his best from the past, but is still infinitely better than the mindless slop produced by other contemporary "writers." The man was an artist.
   
   As always, one of the disturbing things about Thompson is his ability to assess politics correctly in real time. Reading back, you think "Why didn't people take this man seriously at the time?"
   
   "Indeed," as Doc would say.



4. It's true, there are lots of parts of this book that can be found in other books, but this is still the best HST book I've read. It's sort of like a greatest hits. The new parts however, are the best part of this book.



5. By far simply one of his best collections. It seems the good doctor saw what was on the horizon and unforunately he was right. The world is a lesser place without him and we should all cherish every word. His insight was frightening an accurate. BUY THIS BOOK!