I'm a big fan of HOLES as well as a bridge player, so I figured to enjoy Louis Sachar's new book for teens, THE CARDTURNER [never mind that my teenage years are long past]. But I LOVED THIS BOOK! You can learn about the story from the Amazon reviews. I'm going to rave about the writing, characters, philosophy, and plotting. Sachar puts you in hero Alton's head so perfectly that everything Alton does/says/thinks is fully integrated into a sympathetic personality. The other characters run the gamut of humanity without being stereotypes: spunky kid sister, odious parents, manipulative best friend, cranky elderly uncle, and crazy cousin who turns out to be not so crazy after all.
But THE CARDTURNER is more than your average "how I spent my summer" teen novel. The mystery that Alton's family has tried so hard to conceal is carefully revealed, mental illness and domestic violence rear their ugly heads, the mutual distain between Alton and his elderly uncle slowly becomes respect and admiration, and young love blooms. Add in some ghosts and philosophical discussions for good measure, plus last, but not least, the game of Bridge. If anything can get kids to start playing bridge, this book will do it. Not that this book is merely for kids.
Unfortunately for me, this is one of the crummy things about being a novelist myself. I used to read fantastic novels that left me feeling, well, fantastic. Reading Sachar's latest work certainly does that, but it also makes me sad knowing that I'll never be able to write so well. Sigh. But I am determined to analyze and learn from his excellent techniques, in hopes that I can make RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER into a better novel than it would be otherwise.
Again over a week without a blog post, but I have lots of excuses. Sick grandson to care for, family visiting for Father's Day, and after Monday at HUC library, a whole bunch of new research articles to read. But I must confess that I was also totally seduced by two recently published detective novels, which, despite their great differences, had some interesting similarities. They are GIRL WITH A DRAGON TATOO by Stieg Larsson , and a recent addition in NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY series by Alexander McCall Smith.
The two authors' styles couldn't be more disparate. Larsson's writing is gritty, containing disturbing and graphic violence and sex, while McCall Smith's is sweet and charming, with no sex scenes at all, despite his heroine getting married midway in the series. Larsson's story is a gripping page-turner thriller, while McCall Smith's novels wander leisurely to their conclusion, during which we learn much about his character's philosophy of life.
Yet there are similarities, the most obvious being that each novelist has a best-selling series featuring a woman detective. Larsson intended ten stories featuring heroine Lisbeth Salander, but died unexpectedly after the third. McCall Smith has just published his twelfth about Precious Ramotswe, and shows no sign of ending the series. Both authors write about an incorruptible female who solves mysteries in a foreign country. A most striking similarity is that both women, at least to begin with, distrust men after having suffered physically abuse.
Needless to say, I found it difficult to put down either book, and both whetted my appetite for the next in the series.
Speaking of "Prince of Persia" [which sort of takes place around the time and location of my next novel], it looks like RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER may turn out to be a combination fantasy and historical novel. I've finished reading about Roman Palestine and moved on to Sasanian Babylonia, only to realize that while I was fairly knowledgeable about Christianity and Roman mythology, I knew next to nothing about Persia's state religion, Zoroastrianism. So that's the subject I tackled next.
I was surprised to discover that early Zoroastrianism had a lot in common with ancient Judaism. Both are monotheistic, with a benevolent God who created the world, along with everything in it. Both believe that humanity's reason for existence is to promote good and fight evil, and both describe an afterlife where good deeds are rewarded and evildoers punished. But what ancient Judaism and Zoroastrianism had in common, and where they completely differed from Christianity, were their elaborate systems of purity and impurity.
Jews and Zoroastrians believed that death/corpses were the most heinous source of pollution, with menstrual blood only slightly less so, and both had complex rituals to purify an individual who had contact with these. While Jewish purity laws lapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Zoroastrianism laws went further and held that all bodily excreta caused impurity, including blood, semen, saliva, urine, feces, hair and nail cuttings, mucus, and even a person's breath. This was because as soon as a human died, the Corpse Demoness Druz Nasu immediately polluted the corpse, as she did with any excreta once it left the body.
In addition to Druz Nasu, Zoroastrians had a pantheon of demons who seduced people to evil, along with causing illness and various other calamities. Babylonian Jews shared their Persian neighbors' fear of demons, hence the need for experts [holy men, enchantresses, magi] to fight demons and protect people from them. Since most of my readers will know little about Sasanian Babylonia and Zoroastrians, RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER may appear to them like a fantasy novel, taking place in an alien society populated with bizarre supernatural creatures and humans with magical powers who battle them. My challenge is to guide my readers through this unknown world while keeping it both historical and fantastic [and entertaining].
Last Sunday I attended the ISIS, International Society for Iranian Studies, conference. Luckily they were meeting in Santa Monica, about 6 miles from my home. I sat in on a very informative panel about Sasanian times and met several scholars who are experts on my field of interest, 3rd-4th Century Babylonia. I found it amusingly appropriate that, after the conference was over, these erudite scholars on Iranian history headed off to see "Prince of Persia."
The most useful talk for me was by Charles Haberl, who spoke about a common formula, containing six parts, in the texts of Babylonian Magic Bowls. I've blogged about this subject several times recently, and the more I learn about them, the more determined I am to have them play a significant role in my RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER. For this is a rare example of Jewish folk religion, often the province of women, as opposed to the "official" religion of male Talmudic rabbis.
Thousands of the magic bowls have been unearthed in and around Babylonia, far more than the number whose texts have been translated and published. Commonly found upside-down under a house's entrance and four corners, the bowls' purpose is to prevent demons from entering the home and harming the inhabitants, or to exorcise those already in residence. Interestingly, the text and alphabet may be Aramaic or Mandeic, but not necessarily both the same. Sometimes the text is in no known alphabet, so one wonders if it truly was gibberish, the work of a charlatan, or if its very mysteriousness made it more powerful.
Haberl explained the bowl itself is merely a normal piece of pottery. After acquiring a suitable bowl, the enchanter or enchantress [evidence shows both men and women in this role] wrote the appropriate spell, specifically naming those who needed protection or healing, on the bowl's inner surface. Then, at the most efficacious day and hour, the enchantress chanted various incantations and buried the bowls at her patron's house. Enchantresses who wrote these spells had to be literate, and it is intriguing to imagine how they learned their craft. Haberl suggests that this esoterica was taught one-to-one, by master to disciple.
It should be obvious where my creative mind is going with this, especially since Hisdadukh is shown in the Talmud to know how to protect her husband Rava from demons who dwell in the privy. Rest assured that my readers, who loved all the Jewish magic and demonology in RASHI'S DAUGHTERS, are going to find plenty to like in my next novel. For I will surely be an expert on the subject by the time it's written.