More bookishness

I’m back “between books” again, having just polished off “Game Change” (there’s a sequel out now, on the 2012 election, called “Double Down,” but I will hold off on that for a while; still looming in the background is “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” by Richard Ben Kramer, the 1,072-page chronicle of the 1988 election that is reputedly the ne plus ultra of the genre). “Game Change” was entertaining, fun, gossipy and an easy read. I’m thinking “Tropic of Cancer” next, but I never know until I get to the bookcase.
 
But I thought I should mention a book I read a couple of months ago that I absolutely loved – so much so that I literally slowed down as I approached the end to extend the experience. It’s “Birds Without Wings,” by Louis de Bernieres, who also wrote “Corelli’s Mandolin,” which I listened to on CD a couple of years ago and liked (and was made into a movie called “Capt. Corelli’s Mandolin.”) I saw “Birds” at a book sale, thought the cover was cool, was intrigued by the “Corelli’s” connection, bought it and put it on my bookshelf – whence it beckoned to me some time later.

Anyway, “Birds” is a historical novel of sorts (as is “Corelli’s”), in that it unfolds against a background of real historical events and its ensemble cast of characters includes one prominent historical figure: Mustafa Kemal, aka Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, whose career is traced in some detail episodically through the story.  But the rest of the characters are fictional, as is the particular story itself. It is set in a village in extreme southwestern Turkey in the first 25 years or so of the 20th Century – a village that comprises Christian and Muslim populations who intermingle to a considerable degree and who speak Turkish but write it with Greek letters. Apart from the personal stories, the book pretty explicitly is about the toxic result of the combination of religion and nationalism.

Now, I’ll admit, the subject and setting hold a particular appeal for me because I’m fascinated by the mixing of cultures around the Mediterranean – so fascinated that it comes as a surprise to me when I tell people about that interest and they ask, “Why?” I mean, isn’t it obvious? Who wouldn’t be enthralled by a history of Cordoba under the Moors (“The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain”) or of Sicily under the Normans (“The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194”) or by “Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950”? Exactly.