Book reviews, Cogitas

"A Good Man In Evil Times" by Jose Alain Fralon

Review by Jemma Hooper, 30th June 2009 . Tags: biography, non-fiction, Portugal, war, WWII

De Sousa Mendes certainly deserves recognition for his flagrant flouting of Salazar's rules and saving the lives of numerous refugees. Whether this is the book to achieve that is more questionable.

The prose is lightweight and the content sparse, which can't all be put down to it being a translation (possibly one which loses a verve present in the original). Much of the book is taken up with Salazar himself and comparisons which only mean something to a French readership. Indeed, it maybe should have been called "Paralell Lives".

Also, there is the question of why is there a need for this book? Apparently he has been honoured around the world and books have been written about him. If this were the 60s or even as late as the 80s, in his native Portugal, there would be a reason for a campaigning treatise. This seems a bit late in the day, lacking focus and the Ladybird version. None of which detracts from De Sousa Mendes deserving to be spoken of in company of Oscar Schindler.

Link to this post: http://www.cogitas.net/bookworm/search.php?p=3

"Hand To Mouth" by Paul Auster

Review by Natalie Masse, 29th June 2009 . Tags: autobiography, baseball, card game, detective novel, money, New York City, non-fiction, Paris, theatre play

The book comes in at over 400 pages but be warned that most of it appendixes. The actual auto-biography section is only about 120 pages, which is worth knowing if you were looking forward to an extensive auto-biography. So, what are in the appendixes? Three early theatre plays, a baseball card game and a detective novel he originally published as Paul Benjamin.

Fans of Paul Auster's writing will be delighted for this glimpse into his earlier writing. The themes of the plays are very similar to those of his New York Trilogy stories and display his love for the absurd.

The detective novel is written in the first person and throws you into the story. Being him, of course, don't expect a straightforward “whodunnit” story. His style is a bit less flourished than in his later published work but you can already recognise it as Paul Auster, even though the genre requires him to stick to certain conventions (action over thought in most scenes, even though the latter scenes rely on thought over action).

This is highly recommended, for both Paul Auster's die hard fans and those mildly curious as to how a writer can financially survive in New York City.

Link to this post: http://www.cogitas.net/bookworm/search.php?p=2

"Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer

Review by Natalie Masse, 25th June 2009 . Tags: adventure, Alaska, death, non-fiction, wilderness

“Into the wild” is the story of Alexander Supertramp, aka Chris McCandless, an idealist American youth who died aged 24 in the wildnerness of Alaska, in 1992. This is also the story of Jon Krakauer, an American writer and mountaineer, who understood what Chris tried to achieve, who understood the concept of testing himself against nature.

The book includes interviews with those who played a role in Chris' life, be it his parents or people he met on the road while hitchiking. Almost more important than the interviews is the central chapter during which Jon relates his own experience when he climbed a new route up the Devils Thumb, Alaska. Even though this chapter is about Jon, it feels very much about Chris.

Whether you admire or criticise Chris for what he has done (I'm personally on the fence), this book will help you understand what goes on in the mind of those giving themselves extreme physical challenges, something the film based on the book failed to do.