Behind Eliot Pattison's Mandarin Gate

For my first review of 2013 I will be blogging about Tibetan mystery  Mandarin Gate by Eliot Pattison.  It is the most recent in a favorite series.  It is not among Pattison's best, but I have learned a bit more about Buddhism as a result of reading it.  My votes for best in Pattison's Inspector Shan series would go to Water Touching Stone and Prayer of the Dragon.  I have also very much enjoyed the first in his Colonial American series, Bone Rattler, which like the novels by Sara Donati , established alliances between Scottish arrivals in America and Native Americans on the model of The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper.

Inspector Shan, once a crime investigator in Beijing, is now to quote him "an official damned inspector of dams" in Tibet. From a plot perspective, I could have wished for more believability.  Readers are asked to swallow some incredible stupidity on the part of the Chinese regime in Mandarin Gate.  I am willing to believe that Chinese government functionaries can be corrupt, but not idiotic.  Chinese government decisions described in this book contradict what I know about their established policies.  If policy had been followed, a number of the characters could not have played the roles they did.  It boggled my mind that it didn't occur to the bureaucrats in Beijing that these particular decisions could cause them a great deal of trouble.  I know that we are supposed to suspend disbelief for fiction, but there are limits.  Pattison owes me new suspenders.  My current set of disbelief suspenders got stretched too far and are completely ruined.

On the other hand, I very much liked the extremely conflicted and mysterious character, Jamyang.  I was fascinated by his practice of  painting Buddhist symbols on household objects.  It reminded me of similar practices among native peoples in the Americas.  One object that is mentioned in this novel is a tea churn with the Eight Auspicious Signs painted on it.  Since I had never heard of this set of symbols before,  I took a look at the  article about them at The Buddhist Studies website.  This page explains their spiritual significance and shows images of each one.  Jamyang also painted spiritual signs on a gun.  This seems to contradict the non-violent stance of Tibetan Buddhism.  In fact, one of the  mysteries that Shan faces early in the plotline is to discover Jamyang's motive for decorating a gun in that manner.  Over the course of the novel he learns a great deal more about Jamyang, who is definitely one of the most complex Tibetan characters that I've seen in this series.

                                                          

The Masked Persona Unmasks

 Dear Readers,

I decided to start 2013 by integrating my online presence.  I admit that I enjoy playing with masks, but a Mardi Gras mask is eventually removed.  The Masked Persona was never really about concealing my identity.  I have a fondness for masked heroes and wanted to imagine myself as one if only in fantasy.

Now you can see my real name in my profile just as you see it in my WordPress blog Information Metamorphosis where I am currently adding new posts for a library school course after nearly a year of inactivity. I will be doing a presentation comparing WordPress and Blogger, and wanted to be able to show students this Blogger blog.  I'm actually rather proud of all the review content that I've generated here.

 Being a library student explains why so much of my emphasis on this blog has been on doing further research about the topics explored in the books I review.  Research is as natural to me as breathing.  Since this is a personal blog, my research here doesn't meet academic standards, but I do link to the best sources that I can find in each review.  I have always felt that good scholarship is honest scholarship.  If I cite Wikipedia and think that particular article is not completely reliable, I discuss why it's problematic so that my readers get the entire context.  I feel that I conduct myself with integrity on this blog even if Wikipedia is not a source my instructors would recommend. 

                                                        Sincerely yours,
                                   The Unmasked Persona
                                            Linda Frankel

The Golden Mask Award

I decided to give some of the books I reviewed awards for various reasons.  Look for the golden mask icon underneath the cover of the book with the reason why it won.

The golden mask looks like this:

                           

It has a Meso-American look.  I consider it in keeping with my blog's multicultural outlook.

There are also some books that I want to give awards that I did not review on this blog.  So I will list them on this page with links to my Goodreads reviews.

2012 Golden Mask Award for
the best novel I read this year

  was won by
            
 Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

The 2012 Golden Mask Award
for the best historical fiction I read
this year

was won by

 The Rock Child by Win Blevins



                                  
                                                                         
                                                  

   The 2012 Golden Mask Award
 for best mystery I read this year 

was won by

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell 



                                                                        
                                             
                                                                                                                                        

                                             

                                          

The 2012 Golden Mask Award
for the best science fiction novel 
 I read this year 
  
was won by 
                                                
 Lucy by Laurence Gonzales

                                                 
 


The 2012 Golden Mask Award
for the best fantasy novel 
I read this year 

was won by 

The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe
  

                                                  

                                                                                  

The 2012 Masked Persona Infographic

An infographic makes statistics more interesting.  I've seen other blogs illustrate their end of the year statistics.  I'm not using any software.  I'm just finding images to illustrate each statistic.

In 2012 

           
            The Masked Persona was 
                    created


        
                62 Posts were written



 59 of them were book reviews


 


 

          2  of them were author
     interviews

     1 was a guest post



      

     There were almost

         3000  views  



                 

  Happy New Year!

 

                              

Angels and Outcasts: Portrayals of the Deaf in Literature

Angels and Outcasts is an anthology of stories and excerpts focused on the deaf published by Gallaudet University.  It came to my attention because Gallaudet has recently published a second anthology dealing with newer writing called Outcasts and Angels.  My review of the first of these anthologies is below.

                                                    

For the first two sections of the anthology dealing with fiction by non-deaf writers, I mainly valued the introductions rather than the stories themselves.  The introductions to each story explain how it reflected attitudes toward the deaf during the period when it was written.  Although a number of the authors are well-known, their literary status didn't guarantee that they understood the deaf  well enough to portray them in fiction.

A recent example is a critically praised novel called Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding. The link will lead you to my review of the book on Goodreads. I didn't see any other review that discussed whether this was a realistic portrayal of a deaf character. Yes, the style of the author is beautiful and it does portray that period in Romania very well, but it's supposed to be about a deaf artist.  It seemed to me that the author wasn't qualified to write such a book.

 For some authors represented in this anthology deaf characters were symbolic.  While it is the prerogative of  writers to include symbolic characters, I was looking for stories about real people.  I was putting myself in the place of  deaf readers who might pick up a book focusing on a deaf character hoping to find someone who is like themselves or maybe even a role model who will inspire them.  I have always looked for female protagonists who inspire me.  I would have felt very depressed if I never found any.

This brings me to the best story in the anthology which takes place in a school for the deaf and blind. The introduction calls this a favorite story for deaf students.  It's "Why It Was W On The Eyes" by Margaret Montague. The introduction characterizes this as an oralist story that promotes the idea that deaf education should be exclusively concerned with lip reading and learning to speak.  I disagree with this interpretation.  It seemed to me that the signing perspective was also well represented in this story, and that it advocated for the availability of all means of communication in schools for the deaf.  The central character was extremely sympathetic.  It was a double handkerchief story.  Yet I don't think that it implies that this character's situation calls for a universal prescription of oralism.  If anything it shows that deaf students are unique individuals whose backgrounds can determine their communication preferences.

The section devoted to the writings of deaf authors contained the piece that I found most insightful.  It was the excerpt from The Deaf Mute Howls by Albert Ballin. I was shocked to learn that people who are characterized by Ballin as "semi-mute" were used to promote oralism.   This means to me that they weren't really learning to speak because they already could to a certain extent. It seems likely to me that they weren't born deaf.  Not having been born deaf gives a deaf person a different perspective on the hearing world.  They may not identify with the deaf community and may not choose to learn signing.  Oral communication and lip reading would seem most suitable for these individuals.  Yet it's wrong to deny signing to the born deaf as Ballin illustrates so well. Ballin actually met Alexander Graham Bell.  I was very interested in how he portrayed this extremely influential figure in the oralist movement. I was astonished to learn that Bell had learned signing to communicate with his deaf wife.   This doesn't seem consistent with his advocacy of oralism.  Ballin also experimented with combining ASL with pantomime, and he tried to convince Hollywood directors of silent films to learn ASL as their means of communication with actors during filming.  Yet this would mean that the actors would need to learn ASL, and Lon Chaney was the only actor in Hollywood at the time who knew how to sign.  I hadn't known that the silent actor Lon Chaney Sr. was a CODA, a child of deaf adults.  Find out more about him from The Wikipedia Article on Lon Chaney Sr.  Ballin sounds like he was a brilliant and creative individual.  I am now much more motivated to obtain a copy of The Deaf Mute Howls so I can discover more about his life.

The Ballin excerpt alone made this anthology worth reading, but I am looking forward to reading Gallaudet's second anthology Outcasts and Angels.

                                                            

The Tent of Miracles: Jorge Amado on Afro-Brazilian History

I've been wanting a good excuse and the time to read The Tent of Miracles by Jorge Amado.  My good excuse was the Around the World in 52 Books challenge which is only 90% complete at this point.  Since December 31st is coming up fast, I fear this 2012 challenge will remain incomplete.  At least the holiday season gave me the opportunity to read a book that was recommended to me as a Candomble novel. Candomble is an Afro-Brazilian religion.  I'd like to know more about it.  After doing a search, I discovered that The Tent of Miracles isn't the only book by Amado with a great deal of Candomble content.  Jubiaba is another one of his works that deals prominently with Candomble, but Jubiaba is not as easy to obtain in English.

The Tent of Miracles is the second book I've read by Jorge Amado.  The first was The War of the Saints which was recommended to me as a book with a primary focus on the Yoruban spirit Oya who is widely known as Yansan in Brazil.   I read The War of the Saints some time ago.  It had tons of magical realism, but I remembered thinking at the time that I wanted more spirituality, ritual and folklore.  That's when I was told to read The Tent of Miracles.

The fictional central character Pedro Archanjo fought against racism and religious discrimination in early 20th century Bahia.  When I researched this book, I discovered that Amado had based Archanjo on  Manuel Raimundo Querino, an Afro-Brazilian writer who did all the things which Amado credits to Archanjo.  See Querino Paper. This actually looks like a section of a paper  that is part of Columbia University's files. There is no indication of who authored this paper. Pages 14-16 of the pdf  deal with the connection of Querino to Archanjo in The Tent of Miracles.

Archanjo is also known in the novel by the Yoruban title Ojuoba.  This means "the Eyes of the King".  Xango is the Yoruban spirit of kingship. (His name is variously spelled Chango, Shango and Xango in different cultural contexts.  Xango is the Brazilian version.) Xango had ordered Archanjo to "see all, learn all and write it down on paper".  

The title of the book comes from the shop of the character Lidio Corro who is a miracle painter.  His shop became a gathering place for those interested in Carnival, Candomble and the Afro-Brazilian martial art, Capoeira.   Pedro Archanjo was a close friend and supporter of Lidio's, and gave the shop its name.

One of the delights of this book for me were all the names from Brazilian history that are mentioned in this book.  Any of them could open a door to an amazing story.  There is a statue of Maria Quiteria mentioned in this book.  She turned out to be the first woman in Brazil to wear a military uniform.

The Candomble priestess Olga de Alaketu is mentioned in this novel, but oddly enough it's in the context of practicing Voodoo.  I figured that Jorge Amado must have known that Candomble and Voodoo are different traditions with different origins and practices. The spirits of Candomble are the Orixa from Yorubaland in Nigeria.  The spirits of Voodoo are called the Loa and are usually Fon spirits from Dahomey, but Voodoo also includes spirits from the Congo.   I have read about Voodoo in Haiti and New Orleans, but had not expected to find it in a Brazilian novel with a focus on Candomble.  The Wikipedia article on Olga de Alaketu  that I linked mentions that Jorge Amado knew her and attended her ceremonies.  So when he says in The Tent of Miracles that she was a daughter of the Loa known as Papa Loko as well as the Orixa Yansan, I assume that Amado knew what he was talking about. Papa Loko is a very important Loa as you can see from the article about him that I've linked.  This implies that Olga de Alaketu combined Candomble and Voodoo in her practice.  Academics call this syncretism which always interests me.

Although I had heard about the discrimination against Afro-Brazilian religions in the first half of the 20th century, I had not read about it before in either fiction or non-fiction.  There are a number of scenes in The Tent of Miracles that depict instances of prejudice.

 One manifestation of this discrimination shown in this book was the attempt to remove Candomble from Carnival.  The white upper class feared the influence of Afro-Brazilian religions on Carnival, and banned the Afoxes and Blocos Afros from appearing in Carnival.  As the Bahia cultural article that I've linked states, Afoxes use Candomble music and songs in secular contexts.  The Samba which is now inextricably associated with Carnival in Brazil comes from the Afoxes and Blocos Afros in Bahia which first appeared in the 19th century.

The Tent of Miracles also portrays police invasions of Candomble ceremonies in Bahia.  As a result, some Candomble ceremonies were moved to the surrounding countryside while other Candomble practitioners left Bahia entirely and relocated to Rio de Jainero.

Yet religious discrimination is also shown in this book as being brought to an ignominious end. The character Pedro Archanjo played a role in ending it.  Archanjo says in this book that "One day the orixas will be dancing on the stage."  This is a prediction that has come true in modern day Brazil. 

I was very glad to learn so much about the history of Candomble and other significant aspects of Brazilian culture through reading The Tent of Miracles.  I hope to read Amado's novel Jubiaba in the not so distant future.

                                                              

                                              



                                        


                                                

                                               

Tarzan's Jane For 21st Century Readers

When I read Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a pre-teen, I remember detesting Jane. For me, Jane was the lure that brought Tarzan back to "civilization".  I was fascinated by Tarzan's relationship with the apes and I wanted him to stay in Africa.  Yet what if Jane wanted to establish a relationship with apes? There is a Jane who did this in real life. Primatologist Jane Goodall is one of my heroines.  For more information about Jane Goodall, go to the Jane Goodall Institute Website . I was delighted to see that Goodall graciously provided a blurb for Robin Maxwell's  new novel, Jane.  I realized then that Maxwell's version of Jane must be radically different.   Jane was authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate.  It was timed to coincide with Tarzan's 100th anniversary.  For more information about Tarzan's centennial, see The Tarzan Portal and The Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Website.  Here's my take on Robin Maxwell's re-visioning of Edgar Rice Burroughs' character, Jane Porter.

As an adult , the first time I engaged with the Tarzan mythos was when I saw the movie Greystoke in the theatre.  I enjoyed Christopher Lambert's performance as Tarzan in England upsetting Victorian values.  The Jane of that movie may have tried to be supportive, but she was ill-equipped to understand him.  Later I saw a syndicated Tarzan series on television starring Wolf Larson  as a modern environmental activist and protector of the wild.  Jane was an ecologist. (See the Wikipedia article on that series at Modern Tarzan series.) That Jane represented me.  I could imagine that I was on the frontline against the poachers and corporate destroyers of Africa along with Tarzan.

I knew that Tarzan had been a heroic fantasy figure for Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I felt that women deserved their own heroic fantasy figure in Jane.  Yet the Wolf Larson  television series displaced Tarzan in time.  He obviously wasn't the character that Burroughs had written about.  He couldn't  be the 19th century child of English nobility who was brought up by apes that had so fascinated me when I was young.  Yet could there be a Victorian era Jane Porter that could stand by his side in Africa?

I had high hopes for Robin Maxwell's  Jane.  I had loved her Signora Da Vinci in which she imagined Leonardo Da Vinci's  mother as a very extraordinary woman.  Her Jane Porter is also very far from ordinary. She is a medical student in an era where women weren't accepted in the medical profession, and she dared to support Charles Darwin's controversial ideas about evolution.

I felt that this novel's Jane is a bridge between Victorian England and Tarzan's jungle.  She understands both perspectives and can mediate between them.  She and Tarzan are equals.  They switch teacher and student roles.  Jane wants to be as much at home with apes as Tarzan.  So this isn't just a romance.  Jane wants to become like Tarzan, and is eager to be taught by him.   She is also a woman who is strong enough to follow his example.

I am sure that there are readers who will consider Maxwell's Jane Porter unrealistic or historically inaccurate.  Let me assure these readers that there were tough women in the Victorian period who became explorers in areas of the world that European men considered daunting. See in particular the article about African explorer  Mary Kingsley on Wikipedia . So there is a historical basis for Maxwell's version of Jane.  I admit that I also prefer this Jane.  I feel that she speaks to women in the 21st century like me who want to be Jane and walk in her footsteps.