Escaping the Wrath of Little Boy and Fat Man: Two-Time Atomic Bomb Survivor, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Dies at 93

Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only officially recognized survivor of the world’s first two – and so far only – atomic attacks during early August 1945, has died of stomach cancer at age 93. On 6 August 1945, the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb, “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima. Somehow Yamaguchi survived. Only three days later, on 9 August 1945, Bock’s Car dropped the second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” on Nagasaki. Somehow Yamaguchi survived – AGAIN. Once made him truly remarkable; twice made him truly unique.

The world has lost yet another model of humility, justice, and peace.

Here’s a bit of his story:

Beer, Pizza, and … Kafka?: Franz Kafka, “A Country Doctor” (1919)

Recently (ok, it was a few months ago, 23 November 2009), I sat down with a beer, pizza, and … Kafka? Yes, Kafka. I had time for a short story, so I decided to read Franz Kafka’s “A Country Doctor” (1919). How did I come to choose that particular short story? Well, I was reading an article in the New York Times by Benedict Carey called “How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect.” In the article, Carey reviews recent research that analyzes the impact of the absurd, the illogical, the unexpected, and the disorienting on how we think about and respond to the world around us. The resulting sensation – unease or creepiness, really – apparently primes the brain, allowing it to potentially discern patterns that we might otherwise miss as it strives to impose order, meaning, and coherence. Kafka’s “Country Doctor” is proffered as one such example of the absurd that prompts the brain to think differently. I was intrigued, and thus motivated to read it. A strange, surreal, and twisted story, indeed!

To read the story, click here or here or here.

For an excellent rendering of the story into Japanese anime by Koji Yamamura, The Country Doctor (2007), click here (the YouTube version is in three parts, about six minutes each) – Part 1/3, Part 2/3, Part 3/3.

Look Over There!: Jennifer Marjorie Bosch, A View from the River: The Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise (2008)

This is fundamentally an architectural guidebook, to be used during or as a souvenir from the Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise, which explores the built environment’s (locks, piers, buildings, bridges, fountains, etc.) symbiotic relationship with the three branches (Main, North, and South) of the Chicago River. While the pictures are superior, the explanatory text and commentary come up short, and do neither the buildings themselves nor the book’s thesis much justice.

Thus, as an architectural guidebook, A View from the River is only so-so. No doubt the CAF River Cruise, on which this book is based, is spectacular. It is. And the book’s photos by Hedrich Blessing Photographers are equally so. But the explanatory and analytical text and commentary by Jennifer Marjorie Bosch are, more often than not, weak and superficial. Again, I realize this is a guidebook, and it’s really the pictures that matter; but still, some information and analysis would make this a far more worthwhile purchase. However, if you love Chicago, like I do, get the book for the pictures and the spotting map (which includes buildings not pictured and/or discussed, pgs. 94-95).

Via a systematic architectural tour, A View from the River explores a core set of linkages and relationships in architectural, historical, and economic context, the most important being the ones between (a) the City of Chicago, (b) the city’s built environment and architecture, and (c) the city’s essential natural feature, the Chicago River. The masterpieces of design featured in the book, created by some of the most famous architects, engineers, and industrialists, reflect several important phenomena:

· The transition and transformation of Chicago’s economy from manufacturing and commerce to service and recreation. The industrial city becomes the postindustrial city.
· The influence of not just architects and engineers, but of activists and social science innovators, on urban planning.
· Modernism and postmodernism.
· The symbiotic relationship between the built environment and the natural environment.
· The use of public space.

While the explanatory comments, as I have mentioned, are almost universally weak, one clear strength is that they do occasionally make some interesting, useful, and insightful connections between one building and its immediate neighbors. See, for example, how NBC Tower takes cues from and pays homage to its architectural neighbors, most prominently the Tribune Tower (pgs. 30-31).

Again, the photographs and images are superb. My favorite pictures (but not necessarily my favorite buildings) include: Lake Point Tower (pgs. 16-17); the Blue Cross Blue Shield Building (pgs. 20-21); the Michigan Avenue Bridge (pgs. 32-33); the LaSalle-Wacker Building (pg. 50); the Merchandise Mart (pgs. 52-53); the Great Lakes Building/191 North Wacker (pgs. 72-73); the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center (pgs. 78-79); and the Sears Tower/311 South Wacker (pgs. 82-83).

By my quick count, of the 63 total buildings photographed and/or discussed, 39 (almost 62%) have been built in my lifetime, i.e., post-1969. This surprised me a bit, since the older buildings, it seems to me, have more historical resonance.

A few other things that I found interesting:

· Embedded around the exterior base of the Tribune Tower (pgs. 36-37) are more than 150 fragments from monumental and historically significant architecture and other sites across the globe, including the Alamo, the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Hagia Sophia, the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal, and the World Trade Center. To get a close-up view of some of the fragments, see the Chicago Architecture Blog, which has a “Chicago Brick of the Day” feature.
· The dome atop 35 East Wacker Drive (pgs. 40-41) once housed the Stratosphere Lounge, the legendary speakeasy and favorite hangout of Al Capone. Today it is a presentation gallery for the architectural firm of Helmut Jahn.
· Finally, I can’t help but wax nostalgia and point out the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center building (pgs. 78-79). This is the building I worked in from 1991-1994. The Law Offices of Altheimer & Gray (now disbanded) were on the 35th-40th floors of 10 South Wacker Drive (the north tower). Also, the CME has merged with the Chicago Board of Trade, and as of mid-2008 no longer uses the trading floor space between the two towers.

In the end, however satisfying the photographs, nothing truly surpasses a first-hand viewing of these magnificent buildings.

Morals in the Era of Globalization: Umberto Eco, Five Moral Pieces (1997, 2001)

The essays that appear in Five Moral Pieces are far more serious and far more weighty than those that appeared in Eco’s Misreadings. But while the tone is substantially different, the essays are no less provocative and no less insightful. As the title indicates, the focus here is on values, morals, and ethics, and in the context of the increasing interconnectedness of the world – the very process and project of globalization – tolerance is the most supreme of all. Eco notes the fragility of ethical/moral principles in our postmodern world, and he argues compellingly that it is the intellectual responsibility of all people to confront directly the most difficult and challenging moral problems of our time. Robust and compelling, these essays move us effectively and proactively in that direction.

In “Reflections on War” (1991), Eco questions the very utility of war itself, arguing that war is both useless and impossible:

“There is a more radical way of thinking about war: in merely formal terms, in terms of internal consistency, by reflecting on its condition of possibility – the conclusion being that you cannot make war because the existence of a society based on instant information, rapid transport, and continuous intercontinental migration, allied to the nature of the new technologies of war, has made war impossible and irrational. War is in contradiction with the very reasons for which it is waged” (pg. 6).

“The discovery of atomic energy, television, air transport, and the birth of various forms of multinational capitalism have resulted in some conditions that make war impossible” (pg. 7).

So, what, then, are the alternatives? As it turns out, the Cold War, it seems, wasn’t so bad after all:

“It is an intellectual duty to proclaim the inconceivability of war. Even if there are no alternatives. At most, to remind people that our century has known an excellent alternative to war, and that is ‘cold’ war. In the end, history will have admit that cold warfare, the source of horrors, injustices, intolerance, local conflicts, and widespread terror, has proved a very humane and mild solution in terms of casualties, and cold warfare can even boast victors and vanquished” (pg. 16).

As I read this, I could not help but be reminded that, while he did not argue that it was necessarily a good thing, John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, did argue that we would certainly soon (and quite profoundly) miss the Cold War. And he made this argument even before the Cold War officially ended. See his “Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War,” Atlantic Monthly 266, no. 2 (August1990): 35-50. In some sense, then, Eco “misses” it as well.

In the end, Eco succinctly claims: “War cannot be justified, because – in terms of the rights of the species – it is worse than a crime. It is a waste” (pg. 17).

Eco, of course, is not the first to argue that war is useless, impossible, irrational, irrelevant, taboo, obsolete, etc. Most prominently, philosophers, political scientists, and international relations theorists have for decades made this case, albeit from a variety of unique and nuanced perspectives. See for example, John Mueller, Retreat From Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York, New York: Basic Books, 1989, 1990, 1996) and a corresponding review, Carl Kaysen, “Is War Obsolete?: A Review Essay,” International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 42-64. Interestingly enough, all this flies in the face of the ideas developed in Chris Hedges, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning (New York, New York: Anchor Books, 2002). Hedges argues that war often seduces entire societies, its very experience being both exhilarating and addictive, thus ultimately making it integral to our lives and our identities.

Eco wrote this essay during the Gulf War I era. Since then, we have had, Afghanistan, Gulf War II, and the incredibly amorphous, all-encompassing, misnamed War on Terror. Perhaps he remains a bit ahead of his time…

“When the Other Appears on the Scene” (1996) derives from an exchange of four letters between Eco and the now Archbishop Emeritus of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. In this nonbeliever-believer exchange, the two do not engage in a game of rhetorical one-upmanship. Rather, the full exchange, published as Belief or Nonbelief?, is thoughtful and civil, and deals with four questions/issues/debates that divide official Catholic teaching and secular opinion: (1) hope and apocalyptic expectation, (2) when life begins, (3) the ordination of women, and (4) how the nonbeliever can be committed to moral and ethical absolutes. This essay deals with that fourth issue, and Eco’s stance can be pinpointed most directly when he argues: “The ethical dimension begins when the other appears on the scene… Just as we cannot live without eating or sleeping, we cannot understand who we are without the look and the response of the other” (pgs. 22, 23).

In “On the Press” (1995), Eco indicts the media for its complicit role in creating widespread disillusionment with politics. Setting the backdrop, but now considered obsolete, are two major themes:

“(1) the difference between news and commentary, and therefore the need for objectivity; (2) newspapers are instruments of power, run by political parties or economic groups, which use deliberately cryptic language insofar as their real function is not to give news to the citizens but to send messages in code to other power groups, passing over the heads of the reader” (pgs. 33-34).

Having set these aside as being far less relevant today than they were about 30 years ago, Eco turns to the more contemporary concern for and impact of the “ideology of entertainment,” which transforms “what is not news into news” (pg. 42). Newspaper editors and reporters have come to create and construct stories that do not really exist, because newspapers have “to fill too many pages devoted to the arts, variety, and society, pages dominated by the ideology of entertainment” (pg. 43). And the consequences, he proceeds to point out, are immense: “What lingers on to affect social mores is the tone of the debate, the conviction that anything goes” (pg. 52).

There is not really much new here, and Eco’s critiques are perhaps more directly applicable to Italy; but he does address an issue that is still playing out: the decline of published daily newspapers in the face of easily accessible, on-demand information and news. With technological developments as they are (and will be in the future), each individual can set up (and print, if they so chose) their own daily newspaper. “The dailies might die,” Eco warns, “…but a homemade paper could say only what users are interested in, and would cut them off from a flow of potentially stimulating information, judgments, and alerts; it would rob them of the chance to pick up, on leafing through the rest of the conventional newspaper, unexpected or undesired news” (pg. 60). I agree, but I don’t think Eco expressed this jeremiad strongly enough. Readers would, perhaps, be well-informed on some level, but their hand-picked information is really better characterized as cherry-picked – again, with immense consequences on judgment and informed decision-making that should not be overlooked.

From my reading, “Ur-Fascism” (1995) is the most important essay in the collection.

In the first half of the essay, Eco reflects on his own personal experience as a young boy living with Mussolini’s brand of Italian Fascism. In this discussion, I was drawn to several things. First, his use of the terms “freedom” and “liberation,” which, Eco rightly points out, do not always mean the same thing (pg. 65). In fact, freedom and liberation were (and are!) complicated, multifaceted phenomena, defined and experienced differently by different peoples, and this is exactly what William I. Hitchcock, Professor of History at Temple University, examines and analyzes in his recent book, The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe (New York, New York: Free Press, 2008). Hitchcock, moving beyond the much-written-about battles of World War II, captures the experiences not of combatants, but of ordinary Europeans as Allied forces liberated the Continent in the closing months of the war. But Eco, writing more than a decade earlier than Hitchcock, has important insights to offer as well, especially these two: Europeans did not wait passively for liberation – there were active (if not always effective) resistance movements in several countries (p. 67); liberation “was a common undertaking achieved by people of different colors” (p. 68).

Second, I was interested in the way Eco captured and characterized Italian Fascism:

“Mussolini’s Fascism was based on the idea of a charismatic leader, on corporativism, on the utopia of the ‘fateful destiny of Rome,’ on the imperialistic will to conquer new lands, on inflammatory nationalism, on the ideal of an entirely regimented nation of Blackshirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, and on anti-Semitism” (p. 69).

“[Italian] Fascism was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not wholly totalitarian – not so much for its moderation as for the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to commonly held belief, Italian Fascism did not have a philosophy of its own…. Mussolini had no philosophy: all he had was rhetoric” (p. 71).

“It can be said that Italian Fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship to dominate a European country, and that all similar movements later found some sort of common archetype in Mussolini’s regime. Italian Fascism was the first to create a military liturgy, a folklore, and even a style of dress – which enjoyed greater success abroad than Armani, Benetton, or Versace today…. It was Italian Fascism that convinced many European liberal leaders that the new regime was implementing interesting social reforms capable of providing a moderately revolutionary alternative to the Communist threat” (p. 72).

All of these developments, of course, were embodied in and epitomized by Il Duce himself.

[NOTE: For more on Mussolini as iconic symbol of the Italian Fascist movement, and embodiment of the Italian nation and its people, see, Sergio Luzzatto, The Body of Il Duce: Mussolini’s Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy (New York, New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998, 2005). For a good springboard into the academic study of fascism more broadly (and comparatively), see Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995).]

Third, I was interested in Eco’s development of the concept of Ur-Fascism, or “eternal Fascism” (p. 77). He enumerates 14 characteristics, stating that: “These characteristics cannot be regimented into a system; many are mutually exclusive and are typical of other forms of despotism or fanaticism. But all you need is one of them to be present, and a Fascist nebula will begin to coagulate” (pgs. 77-78). I will not replicate that list here (it is, however, available in a slightly abridged format here), but it is worth close examination because of its relevance – at times, direct relevance – to the ways that the term are deployed today. Two ways, in particular, come to mind.

Eco’s analysis is foundational for some who see fascism taking root in the United States. Chris Hedges, in fact, begins his recent book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (New York, New York: Free Press, 2006), by invoking Eco’s “Ur-Fascism” (Hedges, pgs. xv-xx). A key difference to make note of, however, is that Hedges is interested less in the political facets of fascism (although there are clearly plenty of political implications) and more in the religious facets of fascism.

Simultaneously, Eco’s analysis is relevant to similarly highly-charged labels, perhaps most importantly, Islamofascism. For those interested in how this term is defined and deployed, see:

Christopher Hitchens, “Defending Islamofascism,” Slate.com (22 October 2007).
Walter Laqueur, “The Origins of Fascism: Islamic Fascism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism,” OUPblog (25 October 2006).
William Safire, “Language: Islamofascism, Anyone?” New York Times Online (1 October 2006).
Stephen Schwartz, “What Is ‘Islamofascism’?” TCSDaily (16 August 2006).

The term, despite being problematic and reductionist, has been used at the highest levels, including by President George W. Bush. The connotations are so overloaded, so supercharged, and critical, nuanced discussion is so often lacking (or stifled) that is difficult to deploy the term as an effective analytical tool. Words matter, however, and we cannot be reminded of that enough.

Finally, in “Migration, Tolerance, and the Intolerable” (1997), Eco – after providing some insightful jabs directed at dating systems [“the various dating systems in force in different cultures reflect different theogonies and historiographies” (p. 90)], conceptualizations of time, and the coming of the third millennium [“the year 2000 is ours, it is a Eurocentric date, our business” (p. 91)] – turns toward the paramount importance of tolerance in an era of hyper-globalization and the “great cross-breeding of cultures” (pg. 92).

To explain some of the demographic and cultural transformations occurring in Europe, Eco sets out the distinction between immigration and migration:

Immigration: “occurs when some individuals [even many]…move from one country to another” (pg. 93); it “may be controlled politically, restricted, encouraged, or accepted” (pg. 93); “immigrants…accept most of the customs of the country into which they have immigrated” (pg. 94).

Migration: a more-or-less “natural phenomenon” that “no one can control” (pg. 93); “occurs when an entire people, little by little, moves from one territory to another,” where what matters “is the extent to which the migrants change the culture of the territory to which they have migrated” (pg. 93).

So here it is, then: “What Europe is still trying to tackle as immigration is instead migration…. The problem is that in the next millennium…Europe will become a multiracial continent – or a ‘colored’ one, if you prefer. That is how it will be, whether you like it or not” (pgs 95-96).

As a result, intolerance will be on the rise: “Intolerance for what is different or unknown is as natural in children as in their instinct to possess all they desire. Children are educated gradually to tolerance, just as they are taught to respect the property of others and, even before that, to control their sphincters. Unfortunately, while everyone learns to control his own body, tolerance is a permanent educational problem with adults, because in everyday life we are forever exposed to the trauma of difference” (pg. 100).

Therefore: “uncontrolled intolerance has to be beaten at the roots, through constant education that starts from the earliest infancy” (pg. 103). While incredibly daunting, this task is essential.

If intolerance is not “beaten at the roots,” but rather taken to the extreme, the new intolerable becomes genocide. Thus, a whole host of other questions of great significance and consequence arise, especially this one: When and by what criteria, standards, and objectives can one state intervene in another when the intolerable happens? Ultimately, in deciding a course of action, this consideration becomes paramount: “Accepting the intolerable means casting doubt on our own identity. It is necessary to assume the responsibility of deciding what is intolerable and then taking action, ready to pay the price of error” (pg. 108).

As Darfur, Sudan, remains a prominent fixture in our daily headlines, Eco’s arguments should draw careful scrutiny.

“Eternal Questions of Our Eternal Debates”: Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter (1980, 1981)

This book’s brevity belies its thematic scope, sweep, and significance. Ba (1929-1981), a Senegalese author, teacher, feminist, and activist, set as her focus the experience of postcolonial women, drawing in no small part on the events and circumstances of her own life. She had a reasonably privileged upbringing, and she was married to (but subsequently divorced) a Senegal MP, ultimately raising nine children. Just as importantly, she lived through the last years of colonial rule, the transition to liberation, and the forging of independent national trajectories. She embodied the very socio-cultural tensions she analyzed and critiqued. Her unique position thus allowed her to make fundamental contributions to the “eternal questions of our eternal debates” (p. 18) – debates about contemporary issues directly confronting modern African women. Her most poignant observations and insights relate to the sexual and gender inequalities resulting from indigenous African cultural customs, influenced along the way by both Islamic religious and Western colonial traditions. That makes for quite a mix. But while her work may have been specific to Francophone West Africa, her voice and vision were truly continental.

Very telling in its wording, one can see exactly where Ba is heading by going no further than the dedication page: “To all women and to men of good will.” More than anything else, this novel is a critique of patriarchy – a socio-cultural power structure that reflects and perpetuates male domination. And patriarchy manifests and institutionalizes itself in complex, multifaceted ways:

· Through indigenous social and cultural rituals and practices [“…the bog of tradition, superstition, and custom…” (p. 15); “…we suffered the social constraints and heavy burden of custom” (p. 19)].
· Through religious traditions (in this case, Islam).
· Through sex, gender, and marriage/family/kinship obligations and expectations (in this case, polygamy is the focus of attention).
· Through colonialism, decolonization, liberation, and independence projects and processes.
· Through economic and educational institutions and opportunities (or lack thereof) [“We have a right, just as you have, to education, which we ought to be able to pursue to the furthest limits of our intellectual capabilities. We have a right to equal well-paid employment, to equal opportunities” (p. 61).].
· Through political governance [“The right to vote is an important weapon” (p. 61).].

That Ba is able to address all of these in some way in So Long a Letter makes it a rich and powerful book. This is a long, thoughtful, reflective letter from Ramatoulaye to her childhood friend Aissatou, after her husband, Modou Fall, dies. Before his death, Modou had taken on a second wife, Binetou, who was much younger (indeed, she was a daughter’s friend) than Ramatoulaye. Sorrow and resignation mark the letter, as she goes through the motions of burying the husband she once loved so much, while the simultaneous indignities in the face of her husband’s polygamous betrayal are difficult to bear [“He mapped out his future without taking our existence into account” (p. 9)]. Ramatoulaye acts duty-bound to religious and cultural tradition, but she begins to question and challenge the pillars of patriarchy. In her laments, reflections, and advice, she emphasizes the worth of women in and of themselves – traditions and customs relegated to secondary status. While women are clearly important to African society, this letter argues, their actions and destinies are shaped, restricted, or entirely determined by men. Their position must be shifted from the margins, their voice heard and given greater prominence. Women must be given the power, authority, and autonomy afforded men to control the circumstances and trajectory of their lives. The contributions of women have been (and are) immense, their efforts constant [“…first up in the morning, last to go to bed, always working” (p. 20)], and they should be give commensurate recognition:

“Women should no longer be decorative accessories, objects to be moved about, companions to be flattered or calmed with promises. Women are the nation’s primary, fundamental root, from which all else grows and blossoms” (pgs. 61-62).

“I am not indifferent to the irreversible currents of women’s liberation that are lashing the world. This commotion that is shaking up every aspect of our lives reveals and illustrates our abilities. My heart rejoices each time a woman emerges from the shadows. I know that the field of our gains is unstable, the retention of conquests difficult: social constraints are ever-present, and male egoism resists... [But] I remain persuaded of the inevitable and necessary complementarity of man and woman” (p. 88).

For So Long a Letter, Mariama Ba was the first winner of the Noma Award for publishing in Africa.

If alive today, Ba would appreciate the centrality of women embodied in the Millennium Development Goals, and thus contemporary development projects. She would simultaneously recognize, however, how much work remains to be done.

For an even more contemporary perspective by an accomplished Nigerian author, see the work of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a 2008 MacArthur Fellow.

Three Cairenes in the “Kingdom of the Corrupt”: Naguib Mahfouz, The Day the Leader Was Killed (1985, 1997)

Egyptian novelist and winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) wrote some of the most important, significant, and controversial contributions to contemporary Arabic literature, and is most well known for his Cairo Trilogy [Palace Walk (1956), Palace of Desire (1957), Sugar Street (1957)]. In his The Day the Leader Was Killed, I was impressed by what Mahfouz was able to achieve in only 100 pages.

Two things in particular drew me to this novel: historical context and Mahfouz’s commentary on economic development (in Egypt specifically, but also relevant to the Arab world and the developing world more broadly).

Historical Context:
Set in the earliest years of the 1980s, Anwar El Sadat (1918-1981) had been in power as president of Egypt for more than a decade. Internationally, he had made his mark in the October War of 1973 (which made him a hero for retaking the Sinai Peninsula) and as a signatory to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 (which made him reviled, and ultimately resulted in Egypt’s suspension from the Arab League from 1979-1989). Domestically, he had departed markedly from his predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), reviving a multiparty political system and launching a series of economic reforms to open and diversify Egypt’s economy (the infitah). Sadat was assassinated on 6 October 1981. While the domestic context is far more important to Mahfouz, it cannot be completely disaggregated from the international context.

Economic Development:
While in power, Sadat instituted a series of economic liberalization policies, collectively known and popularly labeled as the infitah (the Arabic word rendered as “open door”). Long a centralized, statist command economy, Sadat’s reforms for Egypt sought to shift emphasis from the public to the private sector, “opening the door” to foreign investment and free-market capitalist forces. Economic dislocation, disparity, and often extreme hardship ensued. For ordinary Egyptians, disillusionment only occasionally found an outlet in mass public protests and riots.

Egypt’s economic reform and liberalization policies of the 1970s – infitah – should prompt some consideration of and comparison to that phenomenon elsewhere, particularly in China during the late-1970s and early-1980s under Deng Xiaoping, in the Soviet Union during the mid-to-late 1980s under Mikhail S. Gorbachev (perestroika), and in India during the early-to-mid 1990s under P. V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.

The Day the Leader Was Killed is narrated in three alternating voices, expressing three distinct perspectives, ultimately delivering rich insight into these and other important issues.

First, there is Muhtashimi Zayed, who, as the family patriarch and elderly grandfather, represents tradition and a direct link to the past, and as such a symbolic yawning generation gap. He is religious, regularly invoking God and the Qur’an. Interestingly, he speaks first, last, and most often (8 chapters – the others have 7 each), even though the novel focuses more directly on the experiences of Egyptian youth.

Next, there is Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi, a hapless, sarcastic civil servant who lives with his parents and grandfather. He has been engaged to the woman of his dreams for 10-plus years, never quite able to earn enough money to furnish an apartment, move out, and provide for his bride-to-be. More than anyone else, he is trapped and eventually crushed by infitah policies. He embodies the disillusionment, despair, and disconnectedness that seem to characterize young, modern Egyptian men of that time. Indeed, one of the best, most insightful passages in the book is a meandering diatribe by Elwan, lamenting the economic, political, and socio-culture conditions that stifle and limit his life (pgs. 53-55).

Lastly, there is Randa Sulayman Mubarak, Elwan’s co-worker (they even share the same boss, Anwar Allam), neighbor, and fiancée. While she eventually marries their boss after Elwan breaks off their long engagement, she quickly divorces him. In the end, and emboldened by the news of Sadat’s assassination, Elwan beats their boss to death. Throughout, Randa brings to bear a prominent and important female voice and perspective – often a stark contrast to her male counterpart characters. She, more than the men, embodies the tension between the traditional and the modern playing out in Egypt: “The fact is I want to assert myself but not at the expense of my dignity” (pg. 59). She is also more subtly subversive than they.

Mahfouz makes clear that traditions, values, material well-being – perhaps even an entire way of life – are threatened and in flux. And the stakes are incredibly high. Corrupt politics, limited economic opportunities (certainly no prospects for achieving financial independence), and the inability to meet individual, familial, and religious expectations, all conspire against the characters, and boldly reveal a society teetering on the brink.

And now I wonder… How might this story be different had Mahfouz written it today, 20-plus years later?

The World of Dreams…Both Denied and In Progress: Brendan Short, Dream City (2008)

I highly recommend Brendan Short’s debut novel, Dream City. Not because I know him personally – I do. Not because I went to both high school and college with him – I did. Not even because the cover art is cool – it is (kudos to Dorothy Carico Smith). But while all of these constitute a sufficient rationale, at least as far as I am concerned, such bias sinks the ship of credibility. More directly and to the point, Short is a good writer who tells a good story – and that story sticks with you and makes you think, reflect, and assess, even long after you have put the book on your shelf.

This is not the space to summarize Dream City. I would much rather pinpoint what I found interesting and compelling in order to substantiate my claim in the last sentence of the first paragraph.

Short develops characters – the primary ones as well as the more tangential ones – of complexity and depth. At times, relationships and experiences are intertwined in expected, quite ordinary ways, ways that make the reader comfortable in familiarity. But the more satisfying lines and trajectories are ones that are unexpected and disquieting; and these, of course, are the ones that matter most. Confronted by a variety of moral dilemmas, and following a life-path characterized more by inertia bordering on anomie than by stability and good luck, the novel’s central character, Michael Halligan, struggles not-so-valiantly to forge ordinariness into greatness, as his heroes often do in the Big Little Books he obsessively covets and collects. Michael’s boundless childhood optimism, imagination, creativity, and idealism hurtle with full force into the harsh realities of adulthood.

Ah, but those Big Littles…they offer continuity, solace, an anchor of sorts. For Michael, a mass-culture product provides what all the various human beings that populate his life cannot – a fulfilling, focused sense of purpose. Then again, most of those human beings lead exhausted, even ruined lives. So his obsessive pursuit of every Big Little Book in existence, that very project of collecting, gives Michael some resilience, some traction, some hope as he treads the waters of his chaotic, often cruel life. Michael certainly is not the first, nor will he be the last, to find an escape in the products of American popular commercial culture. Incidentally, Michael collects other things as well, including prostitutes and sexual experiences, and the consequences are just as varied and colorful.

Many readers can relate on some level to obsessive collecting. When I was a kid, while others went off to collect baseball cards, I went off in search of business cards. Yes, business cards. I certainly found them interesting at the time (and still do), but now, as we gallop into the digital age, they are not merely quaint relics, but, I would argue, historically significant artifacts. Perhaps more about that another time…

And speaking of history, as a lifespan story, the historical sweep that Short manages – the 70-plus years from 1932 to 2004 – is noteworthy. He attempts to faithfully capture both the historical and socio-cultural milieu as the story winds its way through these seven decades. This is no easy task, and while the overall effort produced mixed results, Short is probably best when immersed in Depression-era Chicago. Indeed, the crucial context for the first third of the book, and setting the stage for the rest, is the 1933-34 World’s Fair in Chicago. The “Century of Progress” fair becomes the cauldron in which the very meaning of American progress and the American Dream are contested, complicated, challenged, and questioned. They are, perhaps, entirely myths, with social mobility, justice, and equality always just out of reach. The fair may have provided Americans, even in the midst of the Great Depression, with a platform for their vision of prosperity and power, but that vision was far from monolithic or cohesive, its foundations grounded in long-established inequalities. This couldn’t be more evident than in the lives of the Halligans and other characters throughout the novel.

[NOTE: The best books about international expositions and world fairs are by historian Robert W. Rydell. See especially, World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Good websites include: The University of Chicago Library's Century of Progress 1933-34 World's Fair Collection and The Chicago Historical Society Collection.]

There are other historical themes and issues of consequence that Short grasps and incorporates into the novel. The charismatic proselytizer, Eddie Kowal, through his fiery attacks on creeping materialism and his in-your-face cries for social justice, prompt us to think about the role of religious movements – fringe, populist, or otherwise – in American society, then and now. Additionally, one can extract insights about fluctuating gender roles, demographic changes and urban-suburban postwar migration, and the search for order in the wake of economic depression, hot war, cold war, and political upheaval.

Ultimately, Short has done well with this first novel, and I very much look forward to his next offering.

Click here (Amazon) or here (MacAdam/Cage) to order Short’s book.