Back to Picasso's War

I was excited we chose Rebecca Pawel's Watcher in the Pine as our "Mystery Month" selection thinking it was great that we were going to discuss a new topic, the Spanish Civil War. Somehow, I had completely forgotten how much we had enjoyed reading Russell Martin's Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. If you want to jog your memory about the painting, the book and the history behind it in preparation for reading this month's mystery, the Picasso's War website is a fun place to start.

For more visuals of the era, check out UCSD's collection of posters from the Spanish Civil War or Columbia University's collection of children's drawings from the period.  I would love to find more books like Picasso's War that offer great works of art as an entry point into a discussion of history and human rights. Let me know if you know of any or nominate some works of art for this treatment in comments!

Think Like a Hobbit

Alright, I know some of our Loyal Readers are off to see The Hobbit this weekend.  At least a couple of our favorite authors will be right there with you.

Maybe you recall the LotR references in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao? Here's Junot Diaz in a new book about authors' favorite reads, My Ideal Bookshelf,

I think it was the way Tolkien created this extraordinary, secondary world, and how, through that, he enchanted the primary world. That resonated with me. His books had the power to transform what we otherwise take for granted. Reading The Lord of the Rings made me see how a novel was another – and see that I could immigrate there, too, whenever I wanted.

And he expands on this a bit more at NYT:

Tolkien I grew up on, fed my insatiable Ungoliant-like hunger for other worlds; I was a young fan and yet, even as an adult, I continue to wrestle with Tolkien for reasons that have much to do with growing up in the shadow of my own Dark Lord — that’s what some dictators really become in the imagination of the nations they afflict.

(Read the whole article for more reading recommendations from Diaz).

Salman Rushdie was also an early Tolkien fan,

There was a sweet, elderly gentleman called Mr. J. B. Hope-Simpson, who apart from being a good history teacher was also the person who introduced me to The Lord of the Rings when I was fifteen. I completely fell in love with it, somewhat to the harm of my studies. I still remember it in uncanny detail. I really responded to the language project, all the imaginary languages. I got quite good at Elvish at one point.

While you're waiting for The Hobbit Part 2, you might find this 2003 Guardian article, in which Rushdie shares his opinion on the second film in the Lord of the Ring series, interesting. Written on the eve of the Iraq war he examines the appeal of Tolkien's tales of good men at war in a struggle against a Great Evil.


Finally, I think this article from the BBC, The Somme and Tolkien, does an excellent job explaining how Tolkien's tales grew out of his experiences in World War I, and more than Dark Lord dictators  and ferocious battles, why we love hobbits,

In spite of the horror of total war, Tolkien chooses in his writing to focus his attention on the redemptive power of individual human action offered unconditionally as part of a common cause. Frodo Baggins is each of us aspiring to do good within modest limits.

"I should like to save the Shire, if I could," says Frodo early in his quest. "Though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words."

Tolkien's epic works are large-scale memorials to the modest struggles of ordinary people doing their best for good against the forces of inhumanity. They are a brilliantly achieved exemplar of the way the human imagination can configure a better future even in the aftermath of senseless, bloody destruction.

That's right, in the face of the latest disaster, think like a hobbit: light a candle, write a letter, build a better world.

What Is It About A Zoo?

One of the key events in Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife is the 1941 Easter Sunday bombing of the Belgrade Zoo. As it happens, this event was also depicted in the 1995 award-winning film Underground directed by Emir Kusturica. Watch the opening sequence here. You can see from just this excerpt that it shares a certain sensibility with the novel, combining tragedy and humor, absurdity with pathos.  Here's an account of how Obreht visited the Syracuse Zoo when she found herself in need of inspiration. She explains in this interview with fellow novelist Jennifer Egan,

There is something jarring about seeing an animal out of place: there’s a universal feeling of awe when you see an animal, particularly an impressive animal, out of place.

The novel reminded me of some other war torn zoo-themed books: Diane Ackerman's true story of the Warsaw Zoo and the Polish resistance, The Zookeeper's Wife, and the graphic novel Pride of Baghdad, inspired by the destruction of the Baghdad Zoo during the Iraq War in 2003. Poet Brian Turner also meditated on the strange animals roaming about the city in "The Baghdad Zoo" (from his collection Here, Bullet). Apparently, there's even an award-winning play that makes use of the incident, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Last but not least, AIUSA's Human Rights Now blog notes that the website that accompanies Sacha Baron Cohen's latest satire The Dictator, highlights tourism attractions for the fictional Republic of Wadiya's zoo, including endangered species such as "pandas, white tigers, and Amnesty International officials." Hah!  Have I missed any good displaced animal stories? What is it about a zoo?