Lords & Lemurs by Allison Jolly

This is a fascinating book about Berenty, a lemur nature reserve in the south of Madagascar, that was set aside in its natural state by the de Heaulme family (the "lords"), wealthy transplanted aristocrats who owned sugar plantations on Reunion island to the east, who settled in the region in 1928, and built a sisal plantation for rope as well as mined mica for insulators for electronics.

As an interesting aside, Jolly tells the tale of one Robert Drury, nicknamed Robin, shipwrecked in 1703, who was ultimately captured and then assimilated with the natives, the Tandroy. It is in effect a reverse Robinson Crusoe yarn, where Friday is a black Tandroy ruler, and Robin his white slave.

Most fascinating is the exciting life the de Heaulmes led. In 1953 they drove their Land Rovers from Cape Town to Cairo and then to the Rover factory in Manchester, England. A more modern version of this trip in reverse can be found in Paul Theyroux' Dark Safari, which is a detailed account of his hitchhiking from Cairo to Cape Town, including run-ins with bandits in Chad and the Sudan.

Perhaps the best story concerns the transport of the small two-seater planes, the Chipmunks (which can be seen in the film The English Patient). The Chips had a range of 350 km, which meant 9 refueling stops between Rhodesia and Fort Dauphin, with several stops in Mozambique on the way. That meant stops in Que Que, Salisbury, Umtali, Vila Pery, Beira, Quelimane, Antonio Enes, Lumbo, anf finally the spec of island Juan de Nova. Great stuff ! All 9 amateur pilots made it.

Finally, the book recounts some interesting history, especially during World War II, e.g., the Rape of Madagascar (when the British took control briefly) and the role of France's Vichy (occupational) government.

The Uses of Haiti by Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer is best known to mainstream readers through Tracy Kidder's 2003 book Mountains Beyond Mountains which addresses his Partners in Health activities in Haiti. The Uses of Haiti is a book filled with great passion. Farmer published this book on a private press because he felt no established press would carry it, no doubt because of his vehement stances against the U.S. manipulation of leadership in Haiti, especially in regards to the ouster of Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president. Introductions by Jonathan Kozol and Noam Chomsky set the tone for Farmer's insightful invective.

The book centers around the U.S. support of dictators Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier, all in the name of anti communist sentiment. These murderous regimes were considered a strategic asset by the U.S. State Dept. It was the racism of the U.S. stewards that paved the way for noiriste rhetoric from Duvalier whose principal legacy is ethnic cleansing of the elite and powerful mulatto class.

The central thesis is that it was the Cold War that underpinned U.S. policy towards Haiti. This culiminated in the ouster of Aristide, who was extraordinarliy popular among the peasant masses, who elected him in a fair election. The New York Times' Howard French compared Aristide's Lavalas ("flood", because when the rains came the floods washed away all the dirt) movement to Mao's Cultural Revolution. French had incommensurate influence and was chided by some as "foreign minister." Aristide was the first leader to relinquish the Army, which had been put in place in 1915 after invasion by the U.S. Marine Corps. That Army never had to fight a foreign invasion, it was there only to protect the dictators and control the peasants.

Farmer titles the book The Uses of Haiti because he believes Haiti and Haitians exist to serve the powerful. This is ironic in that the U.S. did not even recognize Haiti until 1844. For half a century, Haitian administrations have received foreign aid as a means to retain power. Haiti had great attration in proximity to the U.S. as a sweatshop for the manufacture of cheap goods, like Hong Kong or Taiwan at the time. The value to the U.S. economy was such that USAID fought hard to prevent Aristide from raising the minimum wage. The Haitian elite supported that effort with an ongoing sabotage of the democratic process.

One final note is an interesting case study of the boat people who were routinely screened for AIDS. Guantanamo had a special Camp Bulkeley for retaining only HIV-positive refugees, who were treated like criminals.

The Rainy Season by Amy Wilentz

I discovered this scholarly discussian of Haiti in the aftermath of the Duvaliers when I saw Wilentz interviewd by CNN soon after the January 12 earthquake. Published in 1989, this is arguably the heavyweight reportage on modern Haiti. At one point in the book (p. 170) Wilentz hears "We Are the World" booming from a huge cassette player, an eerie foreshadowng of the remake that was recorded this February for Haiti's earthquake victims.

Wilentz does an excellent treatment of how Papa Doc Duvalier brought the ascendent mulatto elite to their knees through massacres and confiscation of property and forcing flight, ultimately creating a huge Haitian diaspora, over a million, especially in the U.S. Post Duvalier, two new pseudoclasses emerged. Peasants would refer to the returning mulattos "Li se yon dyas" (He's from the Diaspora), likewise the response would be "Limemn ? Se ti makout li ye" (Him ? He's just a little Macoute").

She also gives compelling explication of the role of voodoo and how it was opportunistically adopted by Duvalier and fused with his thugs the Tontons Macoute. Since the U.S. occupation in 1915, the Haitians have suffered ostracism from foreign forces and subsequently the mulatto elite in an effort to wipe out the peasant voodoo religion. At the onset of the AIDS epidemic, nonbelievers often adopted voodoo as a last resort for treatment, inevitably for naught. The Creole word katrach is fascinating, referring to the four "H"s, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin users, and Haitians.

THe Haitian Revolution in 1804 would be the world's only successful slave uprising and rendered the U.S. and Haiti the only two independent nations in the Western hemisphere at that time. It has been a long hard road since then.

Haitian fatalism is best described in resignation by the Creole motto Bondye Bon (the Good Lord is Good). Doing and undoing is what Haitian politics is all about. "Neg fe, neg defe" (what one man does, another can undo). Haitians generally describe politics as a process of correcting the mistakes of the past.

Brothers by Yu Hua

This is without a doubt one of the most brilliant books I have ever read and highly entertaining and LOL-funny to boot. Even at 641 pages, this wonderful novel is a real page turner, I could not put it down. Fundamentaly it is an epic about the old China vs. the new China as exemplified by two stepbrothers who could not be more different. This book was published in two volumes (2005 and 2006) in China and sold over 1 million copies.

The first chapter is hilarious and details the adolescent entrepreneurial instincts of Baldy Li, who catches a glimpse of the village's most beautiful girl, Lin Hong, in the local latrine. His ability to extract payments from the local population (in the form of "house-special" noodles at the People's Restaurant) to hear his description of her buttocks will leave the reader in stitches. Suffice it to say that he becomes a fat cat capitalist in the scrap metal business and ultimately faces moral issues with choices he has made in life. On the other hand, his brother, Song Gang, is a bit of a loser and is destined to spend a life in poverty, yet generally takes the moral high road. Of course, they both fall in love with Lin Hong.

Graphically violent scenes from the Cultural Revolution are difficult to swallow, especially those involving the beating of the boys' father, who is saddled as being a landowner during Mao's reign. In fact, the transition from that dark era in which millions died of starvation to the hyper-capitalism in evidence in China today is fascinating.

The Immaculate Invasion by Bob Shacochis

I must say that the dialogue found in Amazon and other reviews of this book is decidedly more interesting than the story itself. This is a book that has generated some small degree of controversy amongst Haitian cogniscenti as well as the military personnel that participated in Operation Uphold Democracy (9.19.94 - 3.31.95). Aristide was the first democratically elected President in Haiti on Feb 7, 1991. In September, he was ousted in a coup d'etat. The military leader, Cedras, made a deal with the U.S. (UN brokered at New York's Governors Island in 1994) to peacefully hand over control back to Aristide.

Bob Shacochis (now professor at Florida State Univ.) was an embedded journalist for 18 months within a Special Forces ("SF") commando detachment. In fact his detailed coverage of military organization and protocols, filled with opaque acronyms makes for a distracting read for the uninformed. SF guys who were in Haiti complain that the author's characterization of Haiti as incapable of self-governance is racist. Other comments contend that the Haitian people were complicit in obstructing the restoration of democacy, a theme that Shacochis misses.

In one instance, Shacochis was literally saved by ODA 311 (SF unit) when he was caught in the crossfire in a Limbe casern. One reviewer feels that this shaded his attitude on reporting about the SF behavior. One observer says that the fundamental role of the U.S. was to protect class privilege by stopping a revolution, not a coup d'etat.

The U.S. goal was to restore Aristide, then hold elections to remove him, and go home. It didn't work out that way. Let's hope that our post earthquake presence is more successful.

House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger

This book is very revealing in terms of the degree to which the Bush administration, both father and son, set themselves up in a uniquely close relationship with Saudi Arabia - resulting in unimagined consequences in a post 9/11 world. All in the name of guaranteeing America oil for the foreseeable future. Craig Unger does a masterful job in relating the play-by-play history between the U.S. and the Kingdom, not just in terms of politics and the Gulf War, but also in terms of corporate involvement, especially the Carlyle Group. In a nutshell, the Saudis received military protection in exchange for cooperation on lucrative oil deals. Michael Moore's 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 draws heavily from the book.

The evolving situation in Afghanistan was most interesting, where the U.S. and Saudis were supporting the Afghan rebels against the Soviet Union invasion. The Saudis wanted to show the support of the royal family to the jihad. But no Saudi prince wanted or needed to brave the Afghan mountains. Enter Osama bin Laden, age 22, who took a leadership position and went into Afghanistan without hesitation. The reason for his choice was a simple function of the extraordinary degreee to which the wealthy (construction) bin Laden family was tied to the royals. Unfortunately for Bush, the long-term implications of supporting a network of Islamic fundamentalist rebels was never considered. The Bush attitude was that the collapse of the Soviet Union was more important than the growth of the Taliban. The bottom line here is that bin Laden learned an important lesson in this war - mujahideen warriers fighting for Islam could bring a superpower to it's knees.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, King Fahd allowed U.S. forces into the Kingdom. This was a calamity as far as bin Laden was concerned and set the wheels in motion for revenge. But the Bush regime turned a blind eye for years to come, funding the Taliban as late as May, 2001, under the guise of eliminating the opium trade.

The book ends with the repatriation of the U.S.-based Saudi royals in the days following 9/11. This is amazing, while the whole counry was grounded, a few charter flights rounded up high level Saudis and returned them safely home. This secret evacuation is mind boggling, to say the least.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

This is a very simple book, in fact I'm seeking inspiration here as to just what lies beneath the surface. I don't think very much, which surprises me as this Irish author is receiving much press lately, including a recent 4-page writeup in the NYT Magazine (May 3, 2009). This is a story about Eilis (pronounced eye-lish) Lacey, who was forced to leave her (and the author's) home town of Enniscorthy, Ireland, for the New World in 1950 to seek work. She leaves reluctantly, but falls in love with local Italian plumber after not too long in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill. She must return to home for a reason I will resist revealing and then gets caught between two worlds. So much for the plot. While we're at it, the author's name is pronounced CULL-um toe-BEAN.

It is curious that I read this book weeks after reading Delillo's towering masterpiece Underworld and both books take place in Brooklyn, but this one later by one year. Both reference Bobby Thomson's famous home run, Delillo's masterpiece prologue taking place at the Polo Grounds, home to the New York Giants, while Toibin's Eilis is introduced (p. 168) to the national pastime at Ebbet's Field, home to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ironically Delillo nominated him in 1990 for the E.M. Forster Prize at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which he won.

Toibin has been short-listed twice for the prestigious Booker Prize, but I'm having trouble seeing it with this short novel. He wrote this novel while teaching at Stanford. Toibin is keenly aware in this novel of an Irish presence in New York that has eroded dramatically over the years. Interestingly, Toibin says that to enhance the relation between author and reader, he resists physically describing his protagonists. By not describing them, you make the reader's perception more intimate. The Times article also quotes "The opposite of being English was being Irish. The Irish tradition came from the lead actors' playing the parts of tramps or powerless people and still holding the stage. There was not the English tradition of doing Hamlet the prince....These actors came from nowhere, ther was no nobility about their characters. The only power they had was over the word."