Spring Break had me on a reading binge so while I haven't really cooked or baked anything special, I've spent many evenings curled up on the sofa with a stack of books
History was my least favorite subject in school. Except maybe for PT (physical training) which was downright horrible, thanks to my inherent couch-potato-ness and the ill-tempered PT instructor Miss Ruby. But anyway, history class was tedious and I struggled to get it over with so I could get to the fun subjects like English and Biology. I wretchedly memorized seemingly random dates and wars and treaties without any context to what I was being made to learn.
It is only now, decades later, that I feel like I am re-learning history bit by bit, through books that are not history textbooks at all. Instead, they are novels set in particular historical periods, or mysteries set in foreign lands, or memoirs from a particular era. And thus, through the art of story-telling and the formation of an emotional connection, I am finally beginning to understand historical events and how they relate to politics and world events today. Here are three books I read last week, each of which provided a better history lesson than any textbook could.
I have enjoyed all of Jhumpa Lahiri's books, especially her short stories, so I got into a months-long virtual queue at the library to get my hands on her latest novel,
The Lowland. It has all the classic Jhumpa Lahiri features- roots in India, a move to the North-Eastern US, culture clash and a search for identity. All this is woven into a family saga spanning three generations.Two brothers grow up inseparable but their lives branch out as one gets entangled in the Bengali communist party and the dangerous and radical politics of the Naxalite movement while the other brother stays in the safety of academia and moves to the US. I've heard the word "Naxalite" hundreds of times without understanding at all what it was all about. This novel explained a great deal of the history and politics behind that movement. The story, however, was too heavy and sad. The characters too unwilling to change their situation. An emotional read, but I just wish the emotions were not all opp ressively negative.
Communism is also front and center in Anya Von Bremzen's
Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing. The title is rich with irony, and the book is a highly personal, searing and funny romp through nearly a century of life in Soviet Russia- in Bremzen's words:
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