KING PERRY

KING PERRY by Edmond Manning

Pages: 343

Date: 06/07/2014

Grade: 6

Details: no. 1 The Lost and Founds

Own / Kindle

The blurb:

“In a trendy San Francisco art gallery, out-of-towner Vin Vanbly witnesses an act of compassion that compels him to make investment banker Perry Mangin a mysterious offer: in exchange for a weekend of complete submission, Vin will restore Perry's "kingship" and transform him into the man he was always meant to be.

 Despite intense reservations, Perry agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that will test the limits of his body, seduce his senses, and fray his every nerve, (perhaps occasionally breaking the law) while Vin guides him toward his destiny as "the one true king."

Even as Perry rediscovers old grief and new joys within himself, Vin and his shadowy motivations remain enigmas: who is this offbeat stranger guiding them from danger to hilarity to danger? To emerge triumphant, Perry must overcome the greatest challenge alone: embracing his devastating past. But can he succeed by Sunday's sunrise deadline? How can he possibly evolve from an ordinary man into King Perry?

A Bittersweet Dreams title: It's an unfortunate truth: love doesn't always conquer all. Regardless of its strength, sometimes fate intervenes, tragedy strikes, or forces conspire against it. These stories of romance do not offer a traditional happy ending, but the strong and enduring love will still touch your heart and maybe move you to tears.”

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My thoughts:

I bought this book on the basis of a quote:

“...have you ever done anything so significantly outrageous, so beautiful and insane, that on days when your life feels dull, these shining moments leap out? Do you have an answer to the question ‘Did I live? Did I touch the world?’”

The quote was posted on Facebook by A.J. Rose an author I adore and who consistently blows me away with his words and stories. If he was quoting and recommending a certain book, I didn’t need any further encouragement. I bought the book, started reading and got lost in a world I didn’t know existed. And, as my rating above shows, it was one of my better decisions – even if it did disrupt every plan I had for my weekend. I do not give a book six out of five very often. When I do it is a sure indication the book has touched me in ways I wasn’t expecting and won’t forget.

Before you read on let me warn you; this is not going to resemble a review. This post won’t be like my usual reflections on books. It’s going to be too long, contain too many quotes and won’t stop gushing.

This is the sort of review where I flounder, find myself lost for words. Not a single one of the words I know (in two languages), no sentence I could string together can convey what this book did to me, or live up to the wonderful beauty and powerful expressiveness of the words in ‘King Perry’. Or, as it says in the book:

“Can anyone articulate the language of the heart?”

I’m not going to say a whole lot about the actual story. You can read what you need to know in the blurb and the rest should be experienced. Yes, experienced; you don’t read this book, you live it. You feel every single emotion, see the sights and get lost and found in the wonder of it all. You may put the book down (always reluctantly) because there is something you really need to do, it won’t mean you’ve put the story down; it will accompany you, pull at you and make you hurry through your task to get back to it.

The image of the Kings and Queens losing their lustre, forgetting their power was as heartbreaking as it was recognisable. It is an inescapable fact of life that all of us encounter the end of innocence sooner or later. At some point all of us find ourselves face to face with the real world, suddenly forced to exchange our dreams for the stark reality of having to make our own way. When the things we considered certainties in our lives are suddenly taken away we all have to reassess who we are and how we live. Some of us might wish we had a Vin to help us along. Regardless of his methods.

“They forgot that they served a higher mission, lived in devotion to a kingdom where all men were necessary and equally blessed. Many became lost.”

“This is what the remaining kings called them, the Lost Kings or the Lost Ones. Men who forgot their gold vanishing into a world that looks much like our own.”

On the surface this is the story of Vin saving Perry from himself, from the darkness he’s allowed himself to get lost in, from the pain that has become so familiar he doesn’t even know he’s carrying it with him anymore.

“When Perry sees his gray-suited grief, he barely recognises that part of himself; it’s just another bank customer making his regular withdrawal.”

“I think long ago, Perry’s heart made unwelcome room for sadness, and then believing that it could handle no more, slammed itself shut, preventing joy’s free roam.”

Dig a little bit deeper and the story is about Vin as much as it is about Perry. Perry isn’t the only one who needs to start looking at himself and his life in a new, brighter, light. While Vin may know he has work to do, I think there are a few things about himself he doesn’t see; things that are obvious to those he helps and easy to spot for the reader.

Can a story be whimsically profound or profoundly whimsical? If there is such a thing, this book is its prime example. I think Edmond Manning may have broken every single rule anybody ever established with regard to writing and created something exquisite in the process. His descriptions spring to life before your eyes.

“Staring at these hills already blanketed in soft mist, a person might believe that the land got jealous of the ocean’s whale population and created these hills in loving imitation.”

“The sun seems fascinated to get closer to this paradise landscape, and keeps dropping half inch by half inch in the west. Tenderly he flies to his lover, the Ocean, who twists in delight with his imminent arrival. ‘Patience, my love,’ the Sun whispers in long golden rays. ‘Soon I am yours.’”

And his insights on subjects such as joy, kissing, forgiveness, and the loss of a loved one are almost overwhelming; too close to the truth. They hit home, make you sit up and think, examine your own experiences and your reactions to them.

“I think Joy sleeps in strange places. We’re always looking for her in shiny, happy, fun times, assuming that Joy prefers her twin brother, Pleasure, when she often hangs out with her somewhat stoic big sister, Strength. Joy is not always easy to recognize, dirt-smudged and sweating, brambles in her hair. I want to believe she sometimes wears a ski mask.”

“Kissing is such a surreal way to interact. You press your squishiest part to his and read the connection in a dozen ways: the level of affection, the warmth of feeling, the need to dominate, the ability to explore, and various shades of hesitancy. All that communication from such a slender little strip of flesh.”

“I wonder sometimes why we don’t have more words to express forgiveness. The words we use are so trite, so limited. How do you describe that first melting of a friend’s face after a vicious fight, the moment when you suddenly know that eventually, you will survive this. (...) The body expresses forgiveness before the brain agrees. Where are the words for those shifts that later evolve into full forgiveness.”

“But people underestimate how a father’s death impacts a young boy. They don’t understand what it means when the man you assumed would teach you everything suddenly doesn’t exist. He doesn’t die exclusively that one time when everyone wore black and cried. He dies every birthday. He dies at school award presentations when he’s not beaming amid the proud parents, and when that horny teenager has no one to avoid for awkward discussions of wet dreams. His father dies every time Perry says, ‘Don’t worry, that happened back when I was a kid. I’m over it.’”

Oh my God. The ‘forgiveness castle’ took my breath away. That has to be one of the most beautiful and profound tales (fables?) I’ve ever read. Goose bumps, admiration and wonder only begin to describe how I felt when I read those words. I would love to share them here but can’t help feeling that this review is by now more than long enough. Besides, if the quotes above haven’t tempted you yet, one more won’t make a difference.

This is a life affirming story, a fable to make you think about how you approach life, what is holding you back and all the things you’ve allowed to stand between yourself and true happiness. This book asks you to open your eyes to your past, your present and what you want for the future. It forces you to look at yourself and ask if you truly are being your best self, living your best life.

I’m delighted a sequel to this wonderful book is already available. I’ve just bought it and although I’m tempted to read it straight away I won’t. I need some time to allow this story to settle inside me. I also want to be able to read ‘King Mai’ with as few interruptions as possible and that’s the sort of commitment I can’t make for another 13 days.

This may well be the longest review I’ve ever written and yet I feel it doesn’t begin to convey all my feelings about the book. Like I said above, I just don’t have the words to articulate everything I feel. I will say that Edmond Manning has found himself a loyal fan for life, just as I have found an author I need to read and share with the world.

I’ll end this review with one more quote because it is a truth I was brought up on and something I always try to remember.

“It hurts to live with a broken promise.”

FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE

FOUR LETTERS OF LOVE by Niall Williams

Pages:342

Date: 22/06/2014

Grade: 3.5

Details: Reading Group Read

Libary

The blurb:

'When I was twelve years old God spoke to my father for the first time. God didn't say much. He told my father to be a painter and left it at that . . . ' So begins Niall Williams' magical tale about love and destiny.

Nicholas Coughlan and Isabel Gore were made for each other -- but fate doesn't always take the easiest or the most obvious route to true love. For a start, Nicholas and Isabel have never met and nor are they likely to, without some kind of divine intervention. But as God, ghosts, a series of coincidences and seemingly chance events and encounters conspire to bring the couple together, other -- often more human -- forces attempt to keep them apart. 'What will be, will be,' of course, but that doesn't guarantee a happy-ever-after ending, nor answer the question 'Will they, won't they?'

Written in a lyrical, lilting tone, Four Letters of Love is a glorious, uplifting story about faith, about seizing the moment, believing in your instincts and acting on impulse -- and about following your heart, no matter where it may lead.

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My thoughts:

“When I was twelve years old God spoke to my father for the first time.”

That has to be one of the best opening lines for a novel I’ve ever come across. And there are more gems in this book, like the following.

“Then, my head resting on fists, I sat and listened to the end of my childhood.”

In fact, the book is written in the most beautiful language imaginable. If I were to rate the book based only on the way in which it was written I would probably give it five stars. I require a bit more from my books though. First and foremost what I want is a story that grabs me by the throat and doesn’t let me go until the very last page, or, even better, until well beyond the last page as my mind continues to spin the story that has already ended.

For me this book lacked in story. In fact I found most of this book rather frustrating. Two desperately sad and apparently unconnected story-lines meandered along, introducing heartbreaking moment after heartbreaking moment without any apparent point to them. I didn’t like the different narrative styles either. Nicholas’ story is told from his perspective but he seems to have that universal insight that only a third person omniscient narrator should have. All other characters’ stories are told from that third person perspective and work a bit better for that reason but still didn’t tell me what I really wanted to know.

This book is a wonderful example of how reading tastes change and/or are related to the reader’s mood or where they are in their lives. I remember loving this book and being really impressed with the writing when I first read it, probably round about 1998. This time around I was far less impressed. The writing seemed too elaborate, too descriptive, making the story itself move desperately slowly. I had to fight the urge to skim passages in order to get to the ‘real’ story I knew would come eventually. But then, even when that real story did come, it didn’t manage to pull me in. From the first page until the very last word I felt detached from these characters and their stories as well as wondering what I had seen in this book the first time around.

I really wish I had a review from when I first read the book. It would be nice to compare my thoughts then to my feelings now. Unfortunately I’ve got nothing except the memory of loving ‘Four Letters of Love’ at the time. All I can say now is that you will probably love this book if you adore beautiful words. If you want those beautiful words to tell you a captivating story, this book may let you down a bit.

MORNINGS IN JENIN

TITLE: MORNINGS IN JENIN

AUTHOR: SUSAN ABULHAWA

Pages: 338

Date: 27/01/2014

Grade: 4.5

Details: Book Club Read

Library

The blurb:

“Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never before, through four generations of a single family.

The very precariousness of existence in the camps quickens life itself. Amal, the patriarch's bright granddaughter, feels this with certainty when she discovers the joys of young friendship and first love and especially when she loses her adored father, who read to her daily as a young girl in the quiet of the early dawn. Through Amal we get the stories of her twin brothers, one who is kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised Jewish; the other who sacrifices everything for the Palestinian cause. Amal's own dramatic story threads between the major Palestinian-Israeli clashes of three decades; it is one of love and loss, of childhood, marriage, and parenthood, and finally of the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.”

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My thoughts:

Sweet Jaysus, what a book. A book that will stay with me indefinitely. A story that will haunt me whenever I turn on the news and hear about another ‘incident’ in Palestine. This is a book that puts names and faces, be it fictional ones, to the thousands of people who have been massacred because one people needed a place to flee to and decided to take a land that was already inhabited by others.

In a story stretching nearly 60 years we follow one family as their lives changes beyond anything most of us can imagine. We see them lose the land and home that has been theirs for generations as well as a baby boy; everything taken by the Jewish need for land of their own, a place they may be safe after the atrocities of World War II.

We see a  young girl, born in the Jenin refugee camp grow up in captivity, surrounded by random but targeted violence as well as love, loyalty and the continued power to dream. We witness what love and loss can do to the human heart and spirit.

“In the process of trying to steady my gait in a life that shook with uncertainty, I learned to make peace with the present by unknowingly breaking love lines to the past.”

This is a book that will break your heart time and again and yet it is also a book filled with beauty. While the story shows how oppression, senseless violence, injustice and the loss of loved ones can and will turn light hearts heavy and make merciless killers out of ordinary people it also shows that amidst all the darkness, good can and sometimes does survive.

“We’re all born with the greatest treasures we’ll ever have in life. One of those treasures is your mind, another is your heart. And the indispensable tools of those treasures are time and health. How you use the gifts of Allah to help yourself and humanity is ultimately how you honor him.”

This is a book that will make you think about and question humanity. It made me wonder how the human mind is capable of excusing that which it condemned not much earlier.

“Jews killed my mother’s family because Germans had killed Jolanta’s”

If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand why people feel the need to inflict the pain they have suffered themselves onto others. It is something that has happened all through history and happens still both in small, private ways and in massive, headline making events. It is so clearly portrayed in this book it breaks your heart. The violence, hatred, pain and despair make this a very hard book to read. And to think that more than 60 years after the conflict was created it is still no nearer a solution; it makes me want to cry for the world and those who inhabit it.

There were quite a few times when this book felt more like a memoir than a novel.

Sections of the story would be finished with what felt like a summary of facts about the conflict in general rather than the characters’ stories. Those parts of the book read like non-fiction and would take me out of the narrative.

The shifting perspective was another element that would disrupt my reading. And while this structure made sense in so far as the individual characters had no way of knowing what was happening in each other’s lives most of the time, I think I would have been happier if the whole story had been told by a third-person omniscient narrator. It seems to me that such an approach would have made the reading more fluent and the sharing of facts less surprising.

A part of me feels that I should give this book five stars, if only because of the subject it deals with. And yet I can’t. While I can’t deny that this story took a hold of me and made all too real an ongoing conflict that in many ways had been abstract for me up until now, I can’t get away from the ease with which I could put the book down on several occasions.

Having said that, I also feel this book should be read by as many people as possible. It is important that this perspective on the conflict in the Middle East is seen by the world.

The following is one of the many pieces Amal’s father read to her before he disappeared and also a thought I have loved since I first read it years ago. I have no other reason for sharing it here.

On Children

Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

And he beds you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.