two totally different tales, connected by nothing more than sand and camels

It's 6 a.m. I can't sleep. Stupid jet lag.

Anyway, books! Lovely beach friends.... I can't say enough nice things about Jennifer Weiner's latest novel. But I can say one nasty thing.

The title really sucks, no?

Yes, in fairness, Best Friends Forever conjures memories of a good Judy Blume book, and in mimicking Blume's story-telling style -- title aside -- Weiner's struck gold again. But more gold than usual.

Her key characters, Val and Addie -- best friends who didn't grow apart so much as fell into a void -- are so well drawn. But so is every character in this story, a novel I would describe as Weiner's best so far.

We have the girls' parents -- the mousy mom, the PTSD dad, the house-wrecking party mom, the absentee dad -- shaded in through Addie's memories. We have Addie's brother, whose life undergoes massive change with tragedy, but whose love for Addie merely morphs. We have a villain forced to repent, changing the very idea of what a villain might be and whether a person who is bad at 17 is still bad at 32. We have loneliness as a character, an ever-changing enemy and friend.

And we have Jordan Novick.

Throughout the book, Weiner departs periodically from the first-person narrative style in order to set foot inside the love interest's thoughts and feelings. And, unlike most men in chick lit -- barring Nick Hornby's, of course -- Jordan has thoughts! And weaknesses! A heart-breaking history of his own!

Sorry. I don't mean to sound so gleeful about heartbreak. In fact, I read this book in one day and found tears literally welling in my eyes at points. But let's be honest. In most romantic-murder mystery-coming of age novels, only one character -- and maybe a sidekick -- get to have dark pasts or deep neuroses. Unless, of course, the love interest has some sort of mentioned-in-passing issue the hero/heroine can sort out quickly by merely existing and probably making out.

In all her characters, Weiner digs a little deeper. What might drive one to drink too much? To eat too much? To flirt too much? To stop working?

And how far should one go to change his or her life?

It's on this note that I am going to -- quite bizarrely -- start talking about Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.

I know. These books have no real connection, other than that I read both on a beach in Tunisia.

Where changing one's life is merely one of the themes Weiner grapples with, I might argue it is the sole stomping ground of Adiga's morally-stretched, "half-baked" Balram (Munna) Halwai.

Early in this tale, we are keenly aware of all that Balram's father wants for him -- escape from the "Darkness" of a small Indian village, a better life than service to the rich. "My whole life, I have been treated like a donkey," he tells his son. "All I want is that one son of mine -- at least one -- should live like a man." (p. 30)

What, perhaps, is supposed to set Balram apart from those around him is his cunning, his calculation. This is not, after all, the tale of some nice little Victorian servant who somehow gets his due.

Rather, this is a tale of violence, revenge, and greed in an angry world. If Balram disobeys the laws of the land, he does so no more than any and all around him....

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of this one. It's on the agenda for our next book club, and really, I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the opportunity to be surprised by Adiga's narrative twists and turns.

On a side note, this was Adiga's first published book. A brilliant work set loose upon the world when he was 34 (yes, I am jealous), that won the Booker and is told in a long and unwieldy letter format. Except, of course, that even at its most unwieldy and off-topic, the story is being told for a reason, driving at a point or detail the reader needs to know to understand the whole picture.

And, of course, one can't help but wonder whether Balram's story is supposed to be India's story. And whether there is such a thing as a happy ending.

"I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles.... but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years." (p. 254)

ranty rant rant

I accidentally spent a couple hours at the British Museum today.

(By the way, if you happen to be concerned I'm not actually working while here, I finished my essay, for the most part, Friday, and am now just revising it. If you happen to work with me, I'll even show you the paper after I hand it in.)

If you've heard me rant about this before, I apologize, but I struggle with the British Museum. I think it's gorgeous, and fascinating, and I'm trying to work out some ideas, which is why I spent so much time there today, a second visit in a week and a half. I feel like not everyone in the world will have access to mummies' tombs and ancient Roman ruins, not everyone will travel to all the places where they were found. And so the British Museum stands as a central place for everyone to learn -- especially as curators move to put virtually everything online.

But the museum is not just an homage to the Enlightenment, it's an homage to imperialism. And there's no pretending around that. They have pieces of the Parthenon because Brits two hundred years ago didn't think locals could handle it. And that's just scraping the surface of all the stuff taken from lands far and wide from people deemed unworthy to maintain their own history. In little explanatory notes all over the place, there's hints that "issues" have come up, but no real responsibility taken for what amounts, in some cases, to simply looting. Similarly, in the North American room, there are hints and references to the deaths of thousands of aboriginal people after European conquest, but only a passing note that disease seemed to overtake them. It's shockingly understated compared to the monuments found all over this city to the victories of imperialism, not least of which includes the Albert Memorial. Queen Victoria's love is surrounded by statues of men from all over the world, Africa, North America, Asia and Europe. But these men's faces are European, no matter what manner of loincloth or other local attire they've been assigned.

Ok. Rant over. Pretty pictures from the library (top right is a Roman statue of Zeus -- pretty hot god, eh?):

(A totally unrelated note: I realize few of you are super interested in my chick lit leanings -- and by chick lit, by the way, I mean literature most often written by and for women. Not a demeaning value judgement. Anyway, Jennifer Weiner has a new book out -- I'm excited -- and you can hear her hilariously inappropriate commentary via podcast here.)