The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (“Sometimes, all you had to do was exist in order to be someone’s savior.”)

“The last time I met Ishigami, he presented me with a mathematical conundrum.,” he said. “It’s a famous one, the P=NP problem. Basically, it asks whether it’s more difficult to think of a solution to a problem yourself or to ascertain if someone else’s answer to the same problem is correct.” 

Is there anything like a good mystery? I mean, a really well-thought out puzzle resembling a mathematical problem which begs to be solved? Such is the mystery which Higashino gives us in this novel. 

But, maybe the most important part of the novel isn’t about who committed a crime. 

When Ishigami comes forth with the confession that he has killed Yasuko’s ex-husband, the whole point of the novel suddenly becomes clear. It was never about who committed the crime.

It was about the devotion of one of the suspects. 

In fact, perhaps this should be labeled more of a desperate love story than one of murder. Although there are an abundance of clues, and curiosity about who will discover the truth (the detective or the physicist), these aren’t the most important elements.

The most important element is Ishigami’s character. He is a lonely teacher at the High School, working there only for the money as his passion is solving mathematical problems. Bur, his passion extends to his neighbor, Yasuko, as well.

I am gobsmacked by Higashino’s cleverness. He masqueraded a tale of devotion as one of murder and had me sidetracked all along. The Devotion of Suspect X is as brilliant a thriller as I have ever read.

Sunday Salon: Life is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction

 

This week, one of my sons’s grandfathers turned 94. 

The other grandfather died.

You can’t make it up. Sometimes, I’m reading a Japanese novel, and I think, “This could never have happened. Never!” And then I look at my life and think, “But, it does.”

My husband took the photo of my mother and I with my father on January 15. (I am in the black shirt, she is in teal; people often confuse us since I am silver now.) He is strong, and no one is more amazed than I am. If you have been around my blog for a while, you may know of the prayers I’ve asked for him, this man with 34 stents in his heart. He even had several open heart surgeries before stents were placed. If there’s one thing I learned it is do not worry. I could have saved myself thirty years of anxiety if I had obeyed that philosophy.

In January 14, my son texted me that he’s just learned his paternal grandfather had died of a heart attack in Ohio. Quite suddenly, he had woken up with chest pain, driven himself and his wife to the hospital, and suffered the attack which took his life. 

My son had to go to one grandfather’s funeral, while missing the other grandfather’s birthday. 

Our days are not in our hands.

I sprained my foot, quite badly, and so I have been reading on the loveseat under the window in the dining room and gaining weight. It’s really a lovely time over here. But, I have finished three books for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, two other books which were not, and am now starting The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino which Lesley must have sent me ten years ago. She wasn’t a fan, but she knew of my passion for Japanese literature and sent it over. I am a great fan of Higashino, so I am going to devour it today. 

We will also watch the Bears in the playoffs against the Rams. Those poor Rams, coming to play in Chicago temperatures when they are used to Los Angeles. Imagine that the Bears have made it this far! It’s been a long time since I watched them win the Super Bowl when I lived in Germany. In 1986.

Find more Sunday Salon links here.

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

 

It always amazes me to see the books that are selected for Reese’s Book Club, or Oprah’s, or The Good Morning America Book Club. They are nothing if not trite. Or, poorly written. At least Marisa Kashino seems to use her experience as a reporter, and her Japanese-American ethnicity, to support her novel, Best Offer Wins.

When I put this book on hold at the library, I actually thought it would be suitable for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19. 

It is not.

Instead, it is a novel that resembles The Devil Wears Prada in that we have a young, professional woman, aspiring to achieve more than she has. In fact, Margot borders on having a psychosis so eager is she to have a house. And a baby. But first, the house.

When she hears of a home which will soon be listed, she stalks the owner, getting herself invited to the owner’s home for dinner, and consequently ruining any chance of buying it before it hits the market when her ruse is uncovered.

But, her plans to obtain this house continue to unfold, each more bizarre than the next, until we are left with an outrageously tragic scenario that further spoiled the whole plot with its unbelievable, overly dramatic, nature.

Maybe it’s because I already have a house. Maybe it’s because I’m not materialistic. Maybe it’s because I know that things do not a person make. But, I am shocked by the accolades that this book has received, from Alex Michaelides for one, because personally, I cannot wait to return to a piece of true literature.

And, I have some advice: do not get sucked into reading what celebrities endorse. It’s has never been worth the effort for me.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Part Two) “He stood gazing at his own coldness, so to speak.”

 

(Click on image for information.)

I learned about Chijimi linen in Part Two of Snow Country. Ojiya Chijimi is the art of turning plant fibers into fabric with the help of sun and snow. One of the last steps of making this special fabric is to lay it on the snow for ten to twenty days, where it is bleached by the elements. 

Why does Kawabata include this tradition in his novel? To be sure, he tells of one of the art forms in the country he is depicting. But, maybe, in the stretch of my imagination, it also points to the condition of Komako’s heart. For surely she loves Shimamura, just as surely, he cares very little that she does. Her heart seems to be bleached by the coldness of his heart just as the linen is bleached by the sun when it lies on the snow.

It makes me sad.

Kawabata won the Nobel Prize, for which Snow Country was one of the novels commended, in 1968. It is an incredibly spare, and often, to me, disjointed novel. As the characters speak, they don’t seem to be answering one another. It’s as if each is carrying on with his or her own thoughts, regardless of what the other has just said. I found myself reading, and rereading, certain passages for clarity. And maybe that is just the point: Shimamura and Komako are never truly communicating. Not in any meaningful, or lasting, way.

How can this be called a love story? To me, a love story involves two people who care about each other, and it is clear that Shimamura is able to care for little but himself. 

If a man had a tough, hairy hide like a bear, his world would be different indeed, Shimamura thought. It was through a thin, smooth skin that man loved. Looking out at the evening mountains, Shimamura felt a sentimental longing for the human skin. (p. 85)

This longing doesn’t mean it becomes actualized, however. Kawabata doesn’t give us a clear indication as to why Shimamura is so emotionally detached. Could it be, in part, because he comes to the snow country from Tokyo?

Tokyo people are complicated. They live in such noise and confusion that their feelings are broken to bits. Everything is broken to bits. (p. 90)

Maybe this accounts for some of his emotional aloofness. But, Komako attributes this distance to gender. 

It will be the same wherever I go. There’s nothing to be upset about…And I can’t complain. After all, only women are really able to love. (p. 98)

Even as they watch a fire destroy a cocoon-warehouse, and a woman’s body fall from the balcony, it is Komako who is screaming and Shimamura who is passive. 

If Shimamura felt even a flicker of uneasiness, it was lest the head drop, or the knee or a hip end to disturb that perfectly horizontal line…Komako screamed and brought her hands to her eyes. Shimamura gazed at the still form. (p. 128)

I have no ability to comprehend such a cold and heartless person; whether a person comes from a city or a small mountain town, whether a person is male or female, whether a person has a tough hairy hide or a thin skin, we are meant to love one another. It is a sad story that Kawabata gives us, and the fact that Snow Country contributed to a Nobel Prize means it must have a lot to say to a lot of people who ponder the heart of mankind. 

Or, the coldness therein. 

On The Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle (“I want to escape this day, but there is no escaping.”)

“His name is Henry Dale, and I don’t need to tell him that time has ground to a halt. He already knows.” p. 3

I was surprised, upon opening Volume III of On The Caluclation of Volume, that Tara has met someone else who is stuck in the eighteenth of November. More and more, I am reading this book less as a piece of science fiction, or fantasy, and more as a work which is actually applicable to real life.

“I could never have imagined that I’d meet someone already walking around in my loop.” 

How many times have I thought that? Have I searched for someone else who “walks around in my loop” and therefore understands the experiences which have made me who I am? I can’t tell you how often I feel completely alone.

Tara’s thoughts, her experiences, often mirror my own. “Why am I here?” I think, and, “While I am here, surely I can do some good?”

“I lived in one November day. On repeat. I had tried to make time pass. But it stood still. The eighteenth of November was a container, or at least that’s how I saw it. I had tried to figure out why I was here. And to do as little damage as possible.”  p. 18

She is happy to have met Henry, who is a companion and not a lover, stumbling around in the loop of living the eighteenth of November ad nauseam. But, it isn’t without sacrifice.

“There is the certainty of having gained a travel companion, but also the sense of having been assigned some of the responsibility for their baggage.” p. 33

Henry looks at reliving the eighteenth of November with a different perspective than Tara’s.

“In many ways, the repetition of the 18th of November came as a relief. A day that made no assertions of progress and propulsion and promotion. At least the eighteenth of November is honest, he said. It wipes the slate clean.” p. 35

I would like a clean slate. I would like, as my third graders used to say, a “do over.” Have a chance to get things right, or at least better, than I have in my first attempt. It seems I am not alone, for at the end of the novel, two more people join Henry and Tara. Olga has come to Tara, at Henry’s advice, to have someone help her find Ralf. The two of them, Olga and Ralf, have an idea of seizing the opportunity to make this world a better place.

“She (Olga) didn’t want to return to standard time, as she called it, without having seized the chance to change the world. She saw the repetition as an opportunity. To see things more clearly. To get your fucking eyeballs polished, she said.” p. 130

Well, that’s certainly one way to look at one’s purpose in life. But, I am more inclined to side with Tara, who says, “I do not feel unhappy. I feel I am among friends. But I don’t know what I’m doing here, and I wouldn’t know what to say if anyone asked.” p. 157

How fascinating it is to look at these questions through the eyes of Solvej Balle, in her imaginative world presented in these slim volumes.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (“Do you know what Sputnik means in Russian? Traveling companion.”)

 

I remember very well the first time we met and we talked about Sputniks. She was talking about Beatnik writers, and I mistook the word and said ‘Sputnik.’ We laughed about it, and that broke the ice. Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in Russian? ‘Traveling companion.’ I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the earth. (p. 98) 

This novel has been sitting, unread, on my shelf for years. I was under the impression that it was filled with some “outer space” kind of weirdness that I wasn’t ready to embark upon. Actually, it probably wouldn’t be a novel by Murakami if there wasn’t some other world weirdness. But, Sputnik Sweetheart doesn’t start out that way.

Instead, the term Sputnik Sweetheart is an endearment, from one girl to another; from one who was referring to Jack Kerouac as a “Beatnik”, while her new friend heard “Sputnik”. In the beginning, there’s nothing to do with space. But, there’s a lot to do with love and misunderstanding.

As I read, I find myself feeling as I did when I first read a book by Haruki Murakami: he gets me. I don’t know how an American woman can find herself so “understood” by a Japanese man, unless the very vulnerability with which he writes is accessible to many. Or, maybe it’s the way that he writes of feeling isolated. Alone. Perhaps, even living in an alternate reality. 

I’m not going to give a complete review of this novel, which has struck me more deeply than any of his previous works. Why would I dare to interpret for you what Maruakmi has shown me? You may have an entirely different experience reading this book yourself. I will tell you, however, it is about love. Loneliness. Wondering just where, exactly, we exist in this world (or another).

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it’d lose even its imperfection.” (p. 4)

“A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world in the other side.” (p. 16)

“Imagine ‘The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin’ minus ‘Mack the Knife.’ That’s what my life would be like without you.” (p. 65)

“I was still on this side, here. But another me, maybe half of me, had gone over to the other side…And the half that was left is the person you see here. I’ve felt this way for the longest time - that in a Ferris wheel in a small Swiss town, for a reason I can’t explain, I was split in two forever…It’s not like something was stolen away from me, because it all still exists, on the other side…But I can never cross the boundary of that single pane of glass. Never.” (p. 157)

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” p. 179

“So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us - that’s snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way in silence, we draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.” (p. 206-7)

My God, I loved this book.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Part One)

There were patches of snow on the roof, the rafters of which sagged to draw a wavy line at the eaves. (p.45) 

Winter is my favorite season. The pure air, the white snow, the very “newness” that I feel when it has just fallen eclipses every other season for me. And so I find myself highlighting descriptive passages such as the quote at the start of the post. Or, this one:

The sky was clouding over. Mountains still in the sunlight stood out against shadowed mountains. The play of light and shade changed from moment to moment, sketching a chilly landscape. Presently the ski grounds too were in shadow. Below the window Shimamura could see little needles of frost like ising-glass among the withered chrysanthemums, though water was still dripping from the snow on the roof. (p. 61) 

Of course Snow Country is about more than snow. In this chilly landscape we read of Shimamura, whose heart seems to be just as cold as his surroundings. He is taking the train to a hot spring in the snow country, observing those around him as we observe him. He sees a young girl taking care of an obviously sick man, and I am struck by this line: 

The man was clearly ill, however, and illness shortens the distance between a man and a woman. (p. 13)  

Illness shortens the distance between a man and a woman. This could happen in two different ways: are they clinging to each other out of fear of losing one another? Or, are they frustrated by the care one requires of the other? I’m pondering this distance that comes with illness, as I am living it in my own life these past few years. 

 

Another point of interest that strikes me is how the geisha, Komako, and Shimamura discuss the keeping of a diary, for that has long been a great passion of mine. 

“When did you begin?” (he asks her, and she replies,) “Just before I went to Tokyo as a geisha. I didn’t have any money and I bought a plain notebook for two or three sen and drew in lines. I must have had a very sharp pencil. The lines are all neat and close together, and every page is crammed from top to bottom..I write in my diary when I’m home from a party and ready for bed, and when I read it over I can see places where I’ve gone to sleep writing…But I don’t write every day. Some days I miss. Way off here in the mountains every party’s the same. This year I couldn’t find anything except a diary with a new day on each page. It was a mistake. When I start writing, I want to write on and on.” (p. 36)

I want to write on and on when I write, as well. It’s not so much that I have fascinating information to relate, as much as that I have a desire to put my thoughts down, to clear my head. 

I’m wondering what Komako has written about Shimamura. It seems, at the end of Part One, that she has fallen in love with him. Yet he returns to his home apparently indifferent to her affections. 

We leave Yukio, suffering due to intestinal tuberculosis,  in the care of Yoko, a young girl with “an extraordinarily pure and simple face.” We leave Komako in the train station, who has accompanied Shimamura as far as the platform, standing inside the closed window of the waiting-room. They are separated by this window, but perhaps there is much more than glass which sets them apart. We will find out in Part Two.

Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan (What would we call a tower for people who make good choices and live responsibly?)

Architect Sara Machina has designed a tower to be built in the center of Tokyo for criminals. I'm sorry, I mean victims. For in the current line of thought, morally corrupt individuals like Masaki Seto have reimagined what it means to commit crimes.

“Seto proposes the neologism “Homo Miserabilis”  - meaning “those deserving of sympathy” - to replace the conventional label of “criminal.” By contrast, Seto identifies those previously considered “non-criminals” as “Homo Felix,” in other words those who are “happy” or “fortunate” in life…These new perspectives underpin a fundamental reassessment not only of criminal actions but of societal structures at large, and are crucial in realizing a framework for greater social inclusivity and well-being.” p. 23

I am resentful of the way that personal responsibility for one’s life is so often excused today. There is always a reason, it seems, that people don’t have to be accountable for the decisions they make and the consequences which follow. But, it doesn’t seem that the Architect, Sara Machina, adheres to the “blaming others for my problems” philosophy. She is a determined person, and one who values the power of language. 

“If I used weaker materials - words like “maybe” or “could,” as fragile as sand before it met cement - how could I expect to keep myself in one piece for the several decades I had left to live? It didn’t matter that they were just words, words with no physical form of their own: If I didn’t strip them from my interior, they would render my foundations unstable.” (p. 43)

Masaki Seto persists, however, in justifying the placement of cruminals victims in the newly built luxurious tower:

“Preparations for its (the tower) construction are well underway with completion planned for 2030. I eagerly await the day when those we know now as Homo Miserabilis move out of the wretched prisons in which they have so far been housed and into the beautiful and pristine setting of this central Tokyo-tower.” (p. 50)

Who of us doesn't live in a “wretched prison” of some sort? This world is full of pain, of disappointment, of evil which must be battled every day. By every one of us. We are not victims unless we choose to be.

In other words, in the vast majority of cases, before they were “criminals” or “offenders,” these people were victims. Victims who, because they couldn’t explain their circumstances to others, have never received the care or support they needed. (p. 55) 

I think that at one time or another, in all of our lives, we need “care and support”which seems elusive. We don our courage, hopefully, and carry on.

 “…a clash of opinion can take the shine off something beautiful.” p. 80

It was relieving to me, that the more I read, the more I realized that the author, Rie Qudan, is not condoning the viewpoints of which I have taken such offense. Instead, through dialogue and the narrative of other characters, such as Takt (who works in a designer clothing shop), or Max Klein (a journalist), Qudan shows us how unproductive it would be to house a segment of society, at no cost to them. Max writes:

“…I found myself wondering if there was any difference at all between the life of a Miserabilis and that of some celebrity lounging away their afternoons in a luxury Shinjuku high rise. I guess one big difference is that, unlike celebrities, the Miserabilis aren’t allowed to leave the premises…Another difference is that celebrities have to pay astronomical rent themselves, whereas the Miserabilis have their existence funded by the taxes levied on the hard work of all the people living outside the tower…FU-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-CK!!! I shouted. “I want to live in the damn Dojo-to!” (p. 135)

There’s such a poignant irony depicted in this scene. Who doesn’t need care and compassion? Who doesn’t want to live in a beautiful, pristine, sophisticated tower in central Tokyo rent free?  It is easy to forget what Robert Heinlein write years ago in his book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” 

I am mesmerized by Sympathy Tower Tokyo, which is so deserving of the Akutagawa prize for Qudan’s imaginative, and deeply thought-provoking writing. She has woven today’s philosophies, with today’s societal problems, technologies, and language, into a most insightful novel.  One which so aptly depicts a world into which we may be headed, if we aren’t living in it already.

Snow Country Read-along, Anyone?

This masterpiece from the Nobel Prize-winning author and acclaimed writer of Thousand Cranes is a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. • “Kawabata’s novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time.” —The New York Times Book Review

When I saw that Karen, of Literary Excursions, posted Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata as one of her potential choices for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, I got all happy inside. It seems the perfect choice for Japanese literature and Winter. When she suggested a buddy-read, I was even happier.

So now, we open up this reading experience to any of you who wish to join us. Here’s the plan: Snow Country is a 192 pages written in two parts. We will read, and post about Part One, on January 9. We will post about Part Two on January 16. 

Feel free to read and post about it with us, we’d love to have you.

Review Site for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19

This is the place where you can leave a link to the books you have read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, as well as visiting other readers who are participating. I’m looking forward to seeing what it is that you will choose, from short stories to classics to contemporary fiction. Your participation is always a great enrichment to my own reading life as I learn of a new title, or a new insight regarding a book I have previously read.

I will make the button in my sidebar connected to this post so it will be easily accessible.

Perhaps you would like to start with an introductory post sharing your reading plans in Japanese literature January and February? 

ありがとう

Arigatō, or thank you,

Bellezza

Sunday Salon: “A Little Sweetness”

For as long as I have known him (Interlochen National Music Camp, 1977), my friend Kevin and I have shared smiles about Winnie The Pooh. Specifically the episode where Pooh brings a pot of honey for Eeyore’s birthday, and eats it on the way. Piglet brings a balloon, and falls on it in the way, such that it is a bit of limp rag when it is delivered.

“Great,” says Eeyore, “an empty pot and something to put in it.”

Last night, Kevin sent the drawing at the top of the post.

It makes me smile, because there is something to be said for joy in the empty things. The things that might not be what you expected. 

May you find joy, not disappointment, in the unexpected this Christmas. 

Japanese Literature Challenge 19 (to come)

 

Snow at the Shrine Entrance by Kawase Hasui 

I’m drawn to this print for several reasons. For one thing, it is Japanese. For another, it is Winter, which is my favorite season of all. Lastly, it shows a person walking through a gate. 

Are they leaving something, or someone, behind? Are they headed toward a new adventure? Are they stepping in to worship, or simply to stroll? There is a lot for me to contemplate, as I, too, find myself embodied in this figure.

I began the Japanese Literature Challenge in 2006. In many ways, it has fostered a greater awareness and affection for Japanese literature, both for myself and for other readers. Tony, in particular, comes to my mind, for the ways that he has shared this love of translated literature and gone on to host January in Japan. I can think of many others who have faithfully participated, such as Emma and Nadia, too many to name, really. 

When Winter comes, when I think toward what I’ll read in January, it always focuses on Japanese literature. Yet, I find myself challenged this year, not because of my blog, necessarily, but because of my heart. Literally. In May, I passed out cold such that my husband called an ambulance to carry me off to the hospital. Since then, I have had a series of tests done, and it appears I need surgery on my heart this December. No one is more surprised than I am.

So, I will host the Japanese Literature Challenge, but I must warn you: I am not certain how involved I can be. If nothing else, it can be a central spot to leave your reviews and find others, and that is surely a lovely thing. I will do my best to respond as I can, to visit you and share what I read myself.

If this plan sounds acceptable to you, do join us. We will read from January, 2026 through February, as usual. All Japanese works in translation apply.  I will leave a link to the review site in my side bar, where I have also left a list of a small sampling of titles for you to peruse. 

Until January, then, if not before. 🇯🇵❤️

The Widow by John Grisham

 

If there was ever a case for reading literature in translation, John Grisham’s latest book, The Widow, would  make an excellent one. My goodness, reading this book is arduous. 

The writing consists of horribly stilted sentences. There is no instance where he shows us the character rather than telling us who he is outright. There seems to be a mishmash of each of his previous legal thrillers included into his latest. 

So, why am I reading it? I am curious to find out if the eponymous widow does in fact have the millions she has claimed to have inherited upon her husband’s death. And, I vaguely want to find out who killed her by putting thallium in the ginger cookies her lawyer brought to her hospital room, because we know it wasn’t him.

But, truly, there is a reason I haven’t read a John Grisham book in a while, which is the same reason I won’t be picking up another of his books any time soon: like a loaf of Wonder Bread, they could all be squeezed into one slice.

(I am perusing my shelves and my stacks of translated literature, for as Winter approaches, I find myself longing for Japanese fiction. Still. Is there any interest in a Japanese Literature Challenge 19 to begin this January?)

Flesh by David Szalay

 

Credit here.

Usually, I have no words for how horrified I am by the books which judges have selected to win a certain literature prize. (James by Percival Everett, which won the Pulitzer Prize this year, comes to mind as the most recent travesty.)

But, I have just closed the cover of Flesh, by David Szalay, and I am powerless to describe its impact. I am, after all, a reader, not a writer.

May I tell you, that without a doubt, it is the best book I have read all year. It is a masterpiece of fiction, outstanding in every way, and I would be remiss not to tell you this in my half forgotten blog. 

I applaud the judges for the Booker Prize 2025. They have awarded the prize to the most worthy piece of literature this year, restoring my faith in the recognition of truly outstanding writing. 

For that is what David Szalay has offered.

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar…a quietly beautiful book for Women in Translation Month 2025…for the Historical Fiction Challenge 2025

How is it that you can make people stay somewhere they want to leave, and make people leave who want to be there? (p. 111)

In 1979, when Shida Bazyar begins her novel, I was a senior in high school. I was not concerned with politics, or religion, or being oppressed by my government. I knew little of the terror under which other people in the world were living by the so-called leaders of their country, although I did know of the Shah. Of the Iranians holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, under Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran begins with the perspective of Behzad. He is a young revolutionary in Iran, working against the Shah’s regime with his friends Peyman and Sohrab. He is in love with beautiful Nahid, who will only look down, demurely, when he tries to make a connection with her. 

When I look at her, because I can’t help it, because there is no other face in this room and in this country that I want to look at so much, she quickly looks elsewhere, as if her head had never been turned to this corner of the room where I am sitting and waiting, and there is a little smile on her lips, as intelligent and proud as the rest of her. (p. 55)

When Peyman is arrested, Behzad knows it is time for him as well; surely his name is on some list, too.

We follow the story to 1989, this time from Nahid’s perspective. She is a young mother now, living in East Germany, an Iranian in exile. How ironic, I think, to go from the oppression in Iran to the oppression of communism in East Germany. (I lived in Germany when the Berlin Wall was still up. I know what it was like there.) But there, at least, she has freedom to dress as she chooses, to make friends with the neighbors and mothers of her children’s school friends. Yet freedom has a price. What if her daughter chooses to sit in boys’ laps, to sit laughing on a wall, wearing bright colored leggings?

Then I think that I never want to walk down here and see my Laleh sitting by the fountain. My Laleh on a boy’s lap, without the love from Hafez’s words. It’s lucky that my Laleh will never be an adult here, and I’ll never lose her to a fountain and brightly colored leggings; by the time she’s that age, we’ll be back, Khomeini will be dead, everything will be different, everything better, and until then I will keep saying no when she asks for chewing gum - that might be how it all starts, first she starts chewing gum, and in a few years she’ll want to sit by the fountain in brightly colored leggings. (p. 102)

And now this daughter, Laleh, is telling us of taking a trip back to Tehran in 1999. Her little sister moves her head to the sound coming from her Sony Walkman; her brother, Mo, puts down his Game Boy to have his passport photo taken. She tucks her hair back under the hajib she must wear now that she is no longer living in the “freedom” of East Germany. Freedom…what a relative word.

The nights are quiet in Tehran. The days, so loud. The people in the house so loud, talking so loudly about unimportant things and hesitating so loudly about unimportant things. Their laughter so loud, the names they call out so loud, the way they say those polite sentences so loud, throwing them out like breathing, their presence so loud, fabric-swathed bodies in a protected space, the clatter of crockery so loud, as they cook, eat drink tea - a constant silvery, dry clatter of one thing against another. (p. 141)

It is Mo’s turn to continue the story, in the year 2009. He is living a college student’s life in Germany: drinking too much, sleeping too little, while unrest abounds. He witnesses the upheaval arising from the Iranian presidential election, during which protesters demand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be removed from office because they see it as a fraudulent election. (Is there any country which doesn’t accuse the leader of being fraudulently elected?! We face it ourselves, in America, which I had once believed to be fair and true…almost above reproach.)

It has taken me several days to read this book of only 266 pages, for the concepts of oppression and freedom, family and individuality, are so familiar. They are themes so applicable to any of the decades which have gone before us, and they will be applicable to those yet to come. We have much to learn from our mistakes, and it is difficult to hope that peace is attainable.

Thank you to Scribe Publications for sending me this gorgeous book. I’m so glad you brought it to us, to me.

On The Calculation of Volume II by Solvej Balle “…I was never going to be able to escape from the eighteenth of November.”

…I go on writing, conscious that my loose sheets of paper may contain my last hope that this fault in time is only temporary, the hope that the next sheet will never be filled, because time will return to normal and there will be no more eighteenths of November to write about. (p. 65)

When I read On Calculation of Volume I, I couldn’t understand the parameters of Tara Selter’s new life. She wakes up to the eighteenth of November over and over and over again. Her husband is shocked when she comes home, much like Lucy’s siblings in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe when Lucy comes back from the visiting Mr. Tumnus. “I’m here,” she shouted. “I’m here. I’ve come back. I’m all right.” But, time is a funny thing; in some ways it isn’t the same for everyone. 

“So,” I thought, “if Tara is living the same day on repeat, aren’t the people around her living the same day, too?” Now I see, with On The Calculation of Volume II, that there is a fault in time. And Tara is the only one who is aware of it. 

She constructs seasons for herself, with the help of a meteorologist she has met. She travels to different cities to meet the longing she has for different seasons. Stockholm in November is Winter. To encounter Spring she travels to London where the names of foods in her grocery cart will have to suffice: spring greens, spring onions and a plastic tub of spring soup. 

I left the shop clutching a little bagful of spring, not much, but enough for me to feel that I was in the right track. (p. 105)

Early Summer is found on a beach in Montpellier, where there is sun in the middle of the day. Tara has begun a seasons book, as she calls it, where she records the places she has visited and the temperatures there. (Later, when her bag containing this green, cloth covered notebook is stolen, I can’t help but think of the irony that the seasons themselves have been stolen from her.)

It occurs to Tara, in Düsseldorf, that she cannot make time change. She cannot make it speed up to where she wants it to be.

You can’t jump-start a year however closely you follow the meteorologists’ graphs and calculations and you can’t construct a year out of fragments of November. It cannot be done. I try not to think about years. It isn’t easy, but now I will think about days. (p. 139)

How much do the months, and days, govern our lives?  

What is time, anyway? 

Here there is only a neutral, gentle November day, because my time is not a circle, and it is not a line, it is not a wheel and it is not a river. It is a space, a room, a pool, a vessel, a container. It is a backyard with a medlar tree and autumn sunshine. Coffee and sunshine on a day in November. Danke. (p. 146)

Maybe, what Balle is hinting at, is that time is now. The moment you are currently enjoying. The place where you are currently living. The life you are currently experiencing. I know it has done me little good to wish for what was, or to wonder what will be. That is no way to live, either. 

My search is no longer a hunger, it is not a longing or an urge. I frequent lecture halls and cafeterias, museums and libraries, and when the day is over I go back to my place. I let myself in and I know: I will never find the explanations I seek. I will only find new questions and new answers. (p. 183)

This is as appropriate an ending I can find to a book’s premise which encompasses time. Place. Connection. Meaning. What do we know? We can only find new questions and new answers, and, I think, accept the moment in which we dwell.

Sunday Salon: We’re Sitting on Hell’s Front Porch

Do not be deceived that this cool and shadowed path is what I am enjoying this Summer. It has been above 90 degrees for what feels like most of July, and I am chafed and irritable. As much as I dislike the Halloween displays all around me in Walgreen’s and Jewel, which have completely bypassed the Back to School displays, I am ready for Autumn.

Does this picture from last October not appeal?

Lest I continue complaining, I will share some highlights of the week. It was my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary. As I found it impossible to find cards for celebrating so many years, I put together this little olive tree for them. They don’t need things, but we do need to be reminded of life. Of growth.

I had fun celebrating Bullet Journal Day on August 8, with the Livestream hosted by Ryder Carroll and Jessica Chang. I felt honored to have my question chosen to be addressed. But, at the end of the day, I find myself needing to journal as I have always done: record my thoughts, feelings, and events for memory and clarity. I do not like to dwell on Habit Trackers, Gratitude Logs, Daily/Weekly/Monthly Reflections. Too much navel gazing is not good for me. I much prefer a Highlight/Insight page at the end of each journal.

And reading? I have had a lovely time reading On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle. The Shadow Jury for the International Booker Prize deemed this the worthy winner, and while it did not officially win, I wholeheartedly concur. I was fortunate to find On The Calculation of Volume II at our library, and I will be reviewing them both in the week to come.

May your week ahead be blessed. May you be cooler than I am. May you find lovely things to write about. And, find more about others’ week at Sunday Salon here.

It’s Bullet Journal Day, and Ryder Carroll Answered My Question on His Livestream

I have loved to journal since I learned to write. Before Social Media was even a thing, and long before Bullet Journal was born, before I could spell “Winnipeg” on the train trip I took with my Grandmother at the age of five, I was recording my thoughts and adventures in whatever notebook I could find. It was not only easy to do, it was necessary to my peace. I have never had to find a routine, or be consistent. I simply had to write.

 

Then came the awareness of Travelers Factory Company notebooks. Paper Republic journals. Hobonichi Techos. I went down the journaling rabbit hole revealed to me on Instagram and now have an embarrassing large collection of each brand. (This photo shows only a part.)

Don’t get me wrong. Each vegetable tanned journal, or limited edition cover, each size of Traveler’s Notebook, has been a joy.  I have taken them to Switzerland, Italy and Japan. I have written in my own quiet study. And I have kept awake into the night pondering which I should use consistently.

Then came the Bullet Journal. What an idea! Record your thoughts in bullets! Now they are categorized into an acronym for NAME: N (Note), A (Action), M (Mood), and E (Event).  It’s easy to capture what is happening, how you are feeling, what you are thinking or doing with a simple bullet point.

But, where does the journaling I’ve done all my life come in? How can I adapt the speed of my pen, which matches the speed of my thoughts, to a single point? And so, while listening to the Bullet Journal Livestream today, I asked this question:

“How can I incorporate long form journaling, which may examine feeling too much? (I have journaled in long form for decades, and it is my preferred method of journaling.)”

I was amazed when I saw my question appear on the screen. Apparently, it was deemed worthy of answering…

The first thing Jessica Chang said, after she read it out loud, was that it sounded like a lot of self judgement was going on. (Imagine her discerning that from the first part of my question alone!) But then, Ryder answered it like this (paraphrased):

Bullet points anchor myself. What is most alive for me? I can unpack it in a long form entry. Long form journaling can be immensely valuable, but it is too time consuming for me…Long form journaling is getting an idea of what’s happening; get to the purpose of why.

I realized that Ryder’s ADHD has required him to journal one way, and I journal in a completely other way. But, that is the beauty of his system: it is flexible enough to adapt to the journaler’s needs. And, I loved how he suggested that those who keep a bujo need to determine why something is going on, and why they are reacting to it in a certain way. What changes need to be made to meet your intentions? 

There was so much meaningful content in this livestream today, which can be found on YouTube. I can see how the Bullet Journal system has evolved over the twelve years it has been in existence, and it is so very much more than what I’ve seen online: pasting down cute stickers, and highlighting headers with Mildliners, and calling it “journaling.” 

Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig for Paris in July 2025

 

“I am terrified of being bored.”

It is in the knick of time that I complete this biography of a French woman, written by a German man,  translated into English by British translators. Had I known that I was embarking upon a book of almost 600 pages (my edition is a pdf from Pushkin Press on my kindle), perhaps I would not have attempted it halfway through Paris in July 2025. But, I was riveted in Marie Antoinette’s life because no detail is too small for Stefan Zweig to record. He made this woman known to me in ways I never had, for he turns a factual, and sympathetic, eye onto her life.

He begins the picture of Marie Antoinette, youngest daughter of Maria Theresa, the Archduchess of Austria, with her life at the age of fourteen. We catch a glimpse of her childishness, her playfulness, her impetuous spirit that in no way seems prepared to marry Louis XVI and become the Queen of France. At the age of nineteen she ascended to the throne, still unprepared for what was required of her to lead her country.

She was still too young to know that life never gives anything for nothing, and that a price is always exacted for what Fate bestows. 

Almost everyone knows the luxury which Marie Antoinette took for granted, as her right, and the price she had to pay for living such a self-centered life style. But, perhaps we do not know more detailed aspects of her life which Zweig portrays. Do you know, for example, very much about Little Trianon? This “playground” was created to fulfill her every whim, costing approximately 800, 000 livres at the time. She went there so often that the aristocracy in Versailles stopped coming to visit; the servants’ positions were no longer required with any regularity. And, her people suffered in their own lives while she blithely carried on with hers.

Photo credit here.

Zweig writes that she “wanted a ‘natural’ garden, a blamelessly innocent landscape, which must be the most natural of new-fangled natural gardens. With this end in view, she summoned to her aid the most noted, the most highly refined horticultural artists of the day, that, in the most artificial way possible, they might design and create for her an ultra natural garden.”

(I must admit that this reminded me so much of Disneyland: an artificial world, created at great expense, for nothing more than the amusement of its visitors. I cannot abide artifice any more than I can superficiality no matter how natural it pretends to be.)

After relating the building of Trianon, and the inordinate amount of time Marie Antoinette spent there amusing herself, Zweig goes on to tell about the fraud concerning an incredibly expensive diamond necklace. Two scoundrels conceived of a plan which involved Marie Antoinette ordering the necklace, which she did not, and pocketing the diamonds themselves. It is a long and convoluted story, but it has a significant place in her demise.

Had it not been for the levities and follies of Trianon, continued year after year, this comedy of lies (concerning the necklace) would have been inconceivable…no one in his senses would ever have ventured to suspect Maria Theresa, for instance…

We see the seeds of discontent, of distrust towards Marie Antoinette, beginning to grow. The Queen’s people were not living in anything close to such splendor, let alone with such a playful spirit. No, the cost of bread is becoming dear and dearer; their barns are becoming bare and barer, as their awareness and subsequent wrath grows.

…the peasants’ houses were falling into ruins and the barns were empty. She never knew that millions upon millions of the French people toiled and hungered, alternating between hope and despair…None but those who are unacquainted with the realities of life can play so light-heartedly. But a Queen who forgets her people is taking great risks.

Contributing to their disillusionment is the ideology of new philosophers. Suddenly, the masses are becoming aware of their plight.

The bourgeoisie, its eyes opened by such writers as Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau, began to judge matters for itself, to blame, to read, to write, to win self-knowledge.

And what do they see? State debts piles up to an “monstrous figure.” Paper money continually dropping in value. The burden of taxation becoming heavier and heavier. Who can be blamed for this? Not the passive, innocuous King Louis XVI. No, it was the woman who had a wall in Trianon studded with brilliants, the woman who sent her brother, Roman Emperor Joseph II, a hundred gold millions to help him carry on his war, the woman who lavished “sinecures upon her bedfellows male and female.”

(Sinecures? What’s a sinecure? Over and over I found myself documenting words in English, which had been translated from German, neither of which I knew. Perhaps in another post I can list for you the 20+ new-to-me words in this translated biography.)

Of course, the Bastille is stormed on July 14, 1789, and the French Revolution begins. Marie Antoinette is eventually forced to turn from the woman concerned solely with her playthings and jewels. In this half-finished portrait, we see a different woman altogether:

Unfinished portrait of Marie-Antoinette by Kucharski

Kucharski shows us a woman who has achieved tranquility and loves it. At length this half-finished sketch discloses to us a human being. In it alone, among all the life-size portraits, the miniatures, the pastels, the status, the ivory carvings, we for the first time discern that Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, had a soul.

In this tragic history, find much applicable about the life of Marie Antoinette to our lives today. I see governments in power trying to outwit and manipulate each other, creating an atmosphere of general distrust such as the Emporers, kings and princes did after the French Revolution. I see people, even in so called democracies, crying out to “Vivre liber ou mourir” - Live free or die. I see the power of excess and selfishness overcoming those who have it, and the suffering of those who don’t. 

I can clearly see why Marie Antoinette is considered to be one of the most influential and definitive books on her life. Based on actual letters between Marie and her mother, as well as the correspondence between Marie and her one true love, Count Axel Von Fersen, we can’t help but be impressed by the magnificent work Stefan Zweig has done.

(Thank you to Pushkin Press for the review copy of this book. Thank you to Emma at Words and Peace for hosting Paris in July this year. As usual, my life is enriched by what you have provided.)

Paris Baguette for Paris in July 2025

 Oh, Paris Baguette is food for my soul! When I walk in, I see this:

And this:

 Next to temptations like this:

and this:

but invariably, I choose this:

which always makes me feel as close to Paris as I can get. Here in Illinois.

Bon appetit!