Read Harder Challenge 2017: Part 4

This month, I finished a few more challenges, including:

• Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.
• Read a book published between 1900 and 1950.
• Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love.

Balzer + Bray

First up, I read American Street by Ibi Zoboi, which follows Fabiola as she adjusts to life in America with her rowdy cousins and her reclusive aunt.  When she arrives in Detroit, she is confronted by a terrible crossroads that will change her life and haunt her as she goes in pursuit of the American Dream.  A fascinating inspection into the immigrant experience, American Street  was made all the more compelling by the fact that the author, like Fabiola, was emigrated from Haiti when she was only a child.

Overall, I liked American Street.  It's a good, solid book with interesting characters, a wonderful narrator, and a heart-wrenching story.  However, I often found myself divided, because I both loved and hated this book.  It inspired a lot of emotions, not all of them good, but it also made me think and it made me feel and it compelled me to read on through Fabiola's story even when I felt my interest waning.

But, most of all, I loved the hints of magical realism seeded throughout the story.  Fabiola has very strong beliefs and she particularly believes in the ilwas of Vodou, which adds a layer of mystery, a thin veil of magic that enriches her story.  You don't really discover if Bad Leg is really Papa Legba, or if he really is just some junkie off the street, like Fabiola's cousins say, but it's that uncertainty that imbues a certain strength in Fabiola's belief and offers uncommon insight into the landscape of Vodou.

Barnes and Noble

Next, I conquered A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who also happens to be author of Tarzan of the Apes.  I picked up A Princess of Mars because I had it on my shelf and, more to the point, it seemed like an acceptable escape from reality; however, I wasn't always enchanted with the story.  I mean, it was really just mindless fun.

Originally serialized in 1912, A Princess of Mars is the first of many novels of the Barsoom Chronicles penned by Burroughs.  It follows John Carter, a former military man from Virginia, who finds himself ambushed in Arizona--and transported to a different world.  Mars (known as Barsoom to the native peoples) is a seemingly desolate land populated with dangerous creatures and war-like citizens, and Carter must find a way to survive if he eventually hopes to return to his home world.

For much of the story, it's really just Carter being really impressive with his super-strength and incredible agility and uncanny ability to learn languages--that is, unless he's rescuing the damsel in distress or endearing himself to the local wildlife.  Something interesting or incredible usually happens at the end of every chapter, so it's a bit of a page turner when Carter isn't boring you with facts that are obviously wrong or making you laugh with physics that could obviously never happen.

New Directions

Last, I checked out Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire.  Paris Spleen is a short collection of poetry originally written in French in 1896 by Charles Baudelaire--and none of his poems are about love.  I found it exceedingly difficult to find a collection of poetry that didn't talk about love, because everyone likes to talk about love and relationships and affection.  They're warm, fuzzy feelings to which everyone can relate.

But Baudelaire doesn't base his poetry on warm, fuzzy feelings; instead, he examines a darker side of human life.  He looks at the every day pleasures of intoxicating drink, sensuous women, and fine art; however, he also shines a lot on oppression, city squalor, mistreatment, malice.  His work couldn't be farther from warm, fuzzy feelings, like love.

It worked for my Read Harder Challenge, but, I will admit, it's definitely an acquired taste.  Baudelaire is really something else.