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The Jewel Trader of Pegu
Jeffery Hantover
227 pages
First sentence: In 1614 Father Jorge de Silva, a young priest fresh from the seminary in Lisbon, traveled upriver to the ruined city of Pegu.
Reflections: This advance reader's edition came to me through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Scheduled for publication in early 2008, The Jewel Trader of Pegu is the story of Abraham, a Jewish gem merchant from Venice who travels to the Burmese kingdom of Pegu and becomes immersed in a culture quite different from his own. He is schocked to find that local custom requires him to "perform" with all brides to be, just prior to their marriage.
This is an interesting premise, and Hantover writes beautiful descriptive prose that helps the reader immerse themselves in the Peguan landscape: "The last two days I have taken walks at sunset, when the palms come alive with the sound of birds, high and shrill like the chatter of Peguan women in the market. Without plan I ended by the river sparkling in starlight. I had no destination. The simple act of walking drew me through the quiet streets in the growing darkness. ... I felt for the fist time freedom as a presence, as something real that exists in the world."
Unfortunately, setting the scene is only one part of a successful novel. In The Jewel Trader of Pegu , the plot and character development are weak. The novel is written primarily in the form of letters from Abraham to his cousin. He writes about one letter a week, with astonishingly little to report. The story moves along very slowly. Every so often, a small chapter is written from the point of view of a young woman. Again, the pace is glacial. And the characters felt superficial to me.
By page 95, Abraham and the woman still had not met, I was finding it increasingly difficult to care about Abraham's "fish out of water" circumstances, and I had had my fill of the Peguan scenery. It is extremely rare for me to abandon a book, but I just couldn't get through this one. (
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Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
Elyse Schein & Paula Bernstein
266 pages
LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program
First sentence: Imagine that a slightly different version of you walks across a room, looks you in the eye, and says hello in your voice.
Reflections: Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein are identical twins, who were adopted by different families as infants in 1969. The New York City adoption agency which handled their cases had a "policy" of separating twins, based on the recommendation of Viola Bernard, the agency's psychiatric consultant, who believed twins would be better off if raised apart. The women meet in their mid-30s when Elyse begins a search for information about her birth parents, learns she has a twin, and is put in touch with Paula through the adoption agency. The book describes their reunion, their developing relationship, and the subsequent search for information about their origins.
Paula and Elyse learn that not only were they separated at birth, they were also part of a child development study of several separated, adopted "multiples." This was one of the more interesting aspects of the book, as the women's research led them to other participants, and to a better understanding of the study's purpose. Much of their history was influenced by the values and beliefs of the time, and is quite appalling when viewed through a modern lens.
Unfortunately, this book appears to be trying to do too many things at once: report on a psychological study, educate the reader on twins and the concept of "nature vs. nurture," and serve as a memoir of a personal journey. The memoir alternates sections written individually by each woman, presumably to convey their different points of view. However, this approach also magnified each woman's individual insecurities and vulnerabilities. Elyse appears overly concerned with her appearance, especially as compared to Paula. Paula at times regrets being contacted by Elyse. There are also far too many words devoted to comparing the each woman's formative experiences: they are allergic to the same drug, they both struggled to control their weight, they pursued similar studies at university. Page after page is filled with, "I did that!" ... "Me, too!" and often about minutiae that would only be interesting to the two people directly involved. Then, at one point, Elyse gets carried away. She is surprised that Paula broke her arm as a teenager, whereas Elyse did not. She compares this to two separated twins who had both stopped menstruating for a few months at age 18. These two situations -- one accidental, one biological -- really can't be compared at all. At this point the book reminded me of the Lincoln - Kennedy Coincidences I remember being fascinated with as a child.
This book's premise was fascinating, but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. ( )
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42 / 50 (84.0%) |
