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Ruins by Achy Obejas

2009; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 83; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2009.0334

1945-8134

Alan Cheuse,

Latin American Literature Studies

Ruins byAchyObejas (AkashicBooks, 2009) First aired on NPRApril 17, 2009 Achy Obejas was born inHavana, and has lived a long while in the United States. In her new book, a novel called Ruins, she takes readers to her native city, as she creates a bittersweet portrait ofCuban life in the mid-1990s. Obejas's main char acter is a middle-aged man named Usnavy. (His mother, with all the best hopes for her son, took his name from the side of an American ship she saw berthed at Guant? namo?U.S. N.A.V.Y.?pronounced according to the rules of Spanish grammar as Uss-nah-vee.) This becomes quite ironic, since many of Usnavy's best friends from his Havana neighborhood have either already departed by sea forFlorida or are, as the novel opens, mak ing plans to sail away fromwhat they take to be their island prison. Now "thin and gaunt, his previ ously reddish hair turnedwhite as sea foam and topped his now sun blotched face," he seems to be the only supporter of the Revolution in his crowd, inwhich everyone is hovering at the edge of malnutri tionwith the big item on the din ner menu at this time being Rus sian woolen blankets soaked in a popular sauce and cut up forsand wiches. Usnavy's a dreamer, with a wife and daughter and one prized possession, a majestic multicolored glass Tiffany lamp, an inheritance fromhismother.Most of thenovel's action, such as it is, centers on his attempt to conserve the lampwhile piecing itout forsale inorder tobuy food and a bike to replace the one thieveshave takenoff with. I should say the action such as it is because thebook ismore a character study of aman and hismilieu than a fast action anything. As Obejas points out,most "Cubans loved to stroll, to saunter about as ifan actual destina tionwere a second thought/' and the novel moves along at a similar pace. A stroll through Achy Obe jas'sHavana in 1994 is a bittersweet excursion. Between theAssassinations byAravind Adiga (Simon& Schuster,2009) First aired on NPR June30, 2009 The dozen or so stories of Ara vind Adiga's new story collection, Between the Assassinations, take place between the political killings of IndiraGandhi and her son Rajiv. That's not a broad swath of time, from 1984 to 1991, and the setting isn't all thatbroad a swath of India either. Adiga focuses on a rather small plot of earth: Kittur, a for ested townwith Hindu temples and Catholic churches near theArabian Sea. Justsix years in a small town, a lengthof time thatAdiga reduces even further by using the metaphor of touring the entire town in six days. It's in the hearts of his char acters where Adiga reveals great depth and breadth, spanning the ages from youth to late maturity and giving us a range of people whose caste affiliations and imme diate aspirations for their lives rank from the highest to the low est.Ziauddin, small and black with baby fat inhis cheeks, is aMuslim boy who finds work in a num ber of Kittur shops, only to steal wherever he goes. Xerox, who sells pirated books, including a copy of The Satanic Verses, is the son of the lowest of the lowwaste collec tors.Half-Brahmin, his father,half low-caste, his mother, the rich but confused Shankara sets off a bomb at his school and suffers the con sequences. George D'Souza, who spraysmosquito repellant fora liv ing,comes under thesway of a rich, young, foreign Christian woman and hopes, rightup to themoment when he oversteps certain boundar ies, to change his life.Like Mura li, the aging fictionwriter turned political agitator in the last story, we are reminded of that strange mixture of the strikingly beautiful and the filthy, which is the nature of every Indian village, and maybe also of some places we've lived in righthere at home. Washington, D.C. Alan Cheuse is the author of four novels, three collections of short fiction, and a memoir, Fall Out of Heaven. His most recent publication isa book of travel essays, Trance after Breakfast. Cheuse serves as book commentator for...