Bookseller of Kabul

About a week ago I started reading The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.

I'm going through one of those phases in which I feel woefully uneducated in the ways of the world, especially the world beyond my tiny, safe little universe.

When I was growing up, the evil empire was communism as personified by China and the Soviet Union. I have vague memories of the stories of violence and oppression in Lebanon, Israel, Iran adn Iraq, but supposedly we were safe within our borders because we had more weapons, more powerful weapons, and the star wars defense project.

News reports seem to favor the bloody and the sensational. Finding out that people who live in strange faraway lands have everyday lives and concerns not so different from our own is not in the best interest of advertising or of those who benefit financially from making us suspicious and afraid of what we don't really understand.

People in Afghanistan have families and friends and businesses. They have to figure out how to support their families, how to keep their jobs, how to accomplish their goals and follow their dreams. The Bookseller of Kabul is about one man, his family, and his love of literature, history and his country. It's not an unbiased or typical account of life in Afghanistan, but it *is* a *true* account of life in Afghanistan in much the same way that Reading Lolita in Tehran is a true account of life in Iran and Isabel Allende's writing provides insight into life in South America.

I am also looking forward to reading Seierstad's A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal.

Moonlight & Vines

Part of my lazy Easter Sunday was spent reading a couple of short stories in Moonlight & Vines by Charles de Lint.

"Saskia" is a story I have wanted to read since I read Spirits in the Wires, which is fantastic by the way. It took me a while to find it, and when I finally did, it was by accident as I was trolling the shelves of the Toadstool Bookshop. The story isn't quite what I expected, but then I'm not really sure what I expected.

I'm not always terribly good at reading short stories. On the one hand, they (the good ones at any rate) have an intensity that can be overwhelming. On the other hand, I only just get involved in the story and with the characters and then I have reached the end.

At any rate, there is a wonderful poem entitled "Arabesque" contained within the story. Poetry isn't really my thing, but I found this one exquisite:

The artist closed her book,
returning it to the shelf
that stored the other
stories of her life.
When she looked up,
there were no riddles
in her gaze;
only knowing.

Don't make of us
more than what we are,
she said.
We hold no great secret
except this:
We know that
all endeavor is art
when rendered
with conviction.
The simple beauty
of the everyday
strikes chords
as stirring as
oil on canvas,
finger on string,
the bouree in
perfect demi-pointe.

The difference is
we consider it art.

The difference is
we consider
art.

When it consumes us,
what consumes us,
is art:
an invisible city
we visit with our dreams

Returning,
we are laden down with
the baggage of
our journeys,
and somewhere,
in a steamer trunk
or a carry-on,
we carry souvenirs:
signposts,
guidebooks,
messages from beyond.

Some are merely
more opaque
than others.

I especially like the part "We know that/all endeavor is art/when rendered/with conviction." The first stanza is a powerful image as well, at least for someone like me who spends so much time in the company of books.

One of the things I so like about Charles de Lint's writing is that what he says often strikes a very clear, very deep chord with me, as if he knows me and is writing directly to me because he knows that it is the best way to reach me.

"You know how sometimes you want something so badly, all you can do is drive it away? You keep looking for the weak link so that you can point at it and say, there it is. I knew this couldn't work out. I knew this was too good to be true."

Too often I look for an excuse not to do something, or at least to put off doing it, especially if it is something new or something that I have wanted to do for some time, because then I can justify my own fears.

"You don't trust something to be true, so you push it to the point when it isn't true."

It probably wouldn't hurt any of us to have a little more faith, most of all in ourselves.

"In This Soul of a Woman" is the story which follows "Saskia." It is a fine example of a short story as art, mostly because of the wonderfully satisfyingly vague ending which is the hallmark of a great short story.