An Unlikely Trio

I first became a Rory MacLean reader two years ago, when I got lost in his most recent book 'The Magic Bus.'  I have since sought out MacLean's other works, including 'Under the Dragon: A Journey Through Burma' and 'Stalin's Nose,' which I just finished.  These books detail divergent places, but the author brings alive the beautiful humanity he finds in each.



As an introduction to 'Stalin's Nose', I will quote the writer's autobiographical quip from the cover: "Rory MacLean trained as a screenwriter.  But, during the premiere of his first feature film, his mother fell asleep and his girlfriend ran off with the financier.  Not surprisingly, he took a holiday."

Despite his modest inclinations, MacLean is a stellar writer.  Stalin's Nose details the author's journey across Eastern Europe in the 1980s with his zany aunt Zita, an elderly aristocrat (with uniformly surprising political pronouncements) looking to revisit places of her glorious past.  Also along for the journey is Winston The Pig, a very accomplished pig, although I will not spoil his tale for you.  MacLean writes with lyric prose; with words that conjure diaphanous meadows and quiet churchyards.  With agile contrast, his portrayal of the Fuhrer's horrors and the concrete solemnity of communism are written with clarity and determination, leaving the reader trapped in the same collision of beauty and misery that Eastern Europe is finally shaking off. Don't worry, Stalin's nose does indeed make a dashing guest appearance in the book.


The Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India by Rory MacLean*

This text practically jumped off the bookshelf and into my basket, sensing my restless wandering feet during an unending, rainy Seattle winter.  I expected a lighthearted travel tale full of modern hippies trying to recreate their fore-bearers' overland quest from the edge of Europe to the Himalaya.  Instead, I found prose so liquid I got lost in its mercurial glimmer and fell into a book trance that was sadly broken when the last page fell away.  MacLean puts a subtle magic into his words which transports the reader to the heat-scathed Turkish shores that tumble into blue oceans, and to opalescent Himalayan peaks where monks' chants fall down around your ears before descending into bottomless valleys.  He hauntingly portrays multiple characters along the way; I can still see the green eyes of Penny, one of the original Magic Bus travelers in the 70s, two years after reading this book.  Maybe the words of this text are written in LSD-imbued ink for the dazzling visions MacLean gives to his readers.

 *This is my favorite Rory Maclean book



Under the Dragon: A Journey through Burma

Maclean, shaken by a brief visit to Burma long ago, returns to the country to travel by rail and collect stories of "ordinary" Burmese. The vignettes portray a government censor for the regime, a humble basket weaver, a woman in the tangles of a complex love affair, a freedom fighter, and others.  I have been yearning to see Burma for years, but it has always been just out of reach, always in the throes of another bloody repressive episode when I've tried to visit from neighboring Thailand.  The country is an enigma of violent government opression in a land of Buddhist monks, who physically radiate the lighthearted holiness of their faith.  Naturally, I fell for this glowing collection of Burmese portraits. 

Guest Blog- 'China Road'

This review is provided by my illustrious, acclaimed physicist cousin Zac, whose hobbies include writing neoclassical rock operas and contemplating the velocity-dependent curve of the impact intergalactic orbits on transcendentalism.  Without further ado, his review of 'China Road':

Rob Gifford, a British-born NPR correspondent working in Beijing, is headed back to England after six years on the job. As a final goodbye to China, Gifford sets off on a two month adventure across China's Route 312; nearly 3,000 miles of asphalt connecting an ever vexing web of people, places, problems and policy. Gifford tempers his Western bias with an overarching sympathy for many of the Chinese citizens he meets on the road. His ability to speak Mandarin allows for sharp insights into some of the sensitive issues of Chinese politics including the One Child Policy, Tibet, the Uyghurs, and attitude towards activist groups like Falun Gong. Gifford also makes sure to include enough historical background to allow the reader to understand China's complex evolution and how its history (and subsequent alteration thereof) shapes the country's future. Giffords' most compelling analysis comes from his conversations with Chinese youth. The increasingly "lost" group of teen and college-age kids are sucked into a confusing capitalist economy with strong Party control, and as a result are lacking connection to Chinese culture, history, and moral groundings. Despite this diverse material, Gifford manages to create an easy and enjoyable read, sprinkled with delightful stories and good humor.

The Lotus Eaters

Most people that have ever met me know that I love Southeast Asia.  It should be no epiphany to anyone that I loved The Lotus Eaters, set in Vietnam.  I first went to Hanoi with a head full of war history and "Fortunate Son" reverberating through my internal monologue, but I walked away from Vietnam shaken by the violent beauty of the landscape.  I will try to tone down my effusiveness about Vietnam and this novel so that you don't think I'm overreacting about what a treasure this book is.

Set during the Vietnam war, this is a tale about a young woman photographer, Helen, who drops out of college to chase the war.  On arrival in Saigon, she realizes that she's wildly out of her league in the old boy's club of wizened war photographers and journalists.  Intending to make a splash on her first night with the war correspondents by wearing a silk dress that gets ruined in the rain, she looks a fool, but she boldly makes friends with the arrogant, acclaimed photographer Darrow. Soon, she, Darrow, and Linh- Darrow's invaluable "assistant"- are an inseparable trio, intoxicated by the drama of war and the irony of it taking place in the verdant landscape.  Amidst glimmering rice paddies and the shell-cratered countryside, Soli creates a beautiful story of love, identity, life and loss.  I was initially engrossed with Helen's character; the fierceness with which she clamors after life, her feeling of instability during calm, and her relentless urge to pursue beguiling Vietnam.

As the story unfolded, Linh's character added a thoughtful richness to the narrative.  A countryside poet prior to the war, he was first a soldier for the Northern Vietnamese Army, and then defected to the the Southern Vietnamese Army and finally, disenchanted with the whole thing, went on something of a sanctioned AWOL to be a photographer with the Americans.  Linh's only true loyalties, like many Vietnamese of the time, were to his country as a whole, his community, and to his unlikely friends.

Ms. Soli has a delicate, elegant writing style with a razor edge that captures the intricacies of post-colonial, war-addled Vietnam and the incredible people who inhabit it.  Beautiful, complex, and a portrait of a country that I love, I can't recommend it enough.

Further Recommended Reading About Vietnam:
The Quiet American, by Graham Greene

Spies, journalism, brothels, intrigue and ill-fated love color this seminal novel written by Graham Greene in 1955.  Although Soli takes an oblique jab at this book in her novel (Helen makes fun of herself for being a Quiet-American-toting idealist), this is probably required reading for voyagers to Vietnam to help understand the role of the French and other colonialists in the region.  If you want to avoid scorn by Lonely-Planet-packing, dreadlock-bedecked backpackers in Vietnam, read it on the long plane ride over.  It's short.

The Lover, by Marguerite Duras

Like a boat trip down the Mekong- languidly enchanting and providing a feeling of space/time disconnect- 'The Lover' is a dreamy vignette of love in French Indochina.  An unlikely union blossoms between a young French schoolgirl and a handsome Chinese millionaire; racial drama follows.  Set in the eroding French Saigon 30 years before Helen's austere roamings through Vietnam, this sliver of a book is a gem.

Halong Bay, Northern Vietnam, 2007

Hue, Vietnam, 2007