Enduring

Welcome to Stay More, Arkansas and the magical world of Latha Bourne, one of the most singularly interesting characters in all of American fiction. Donald Harington's Enduring (Toby Press, 2009) is a beautiful, expansive novel and perhaps one of the most engrossing and fascinating works I have ever read. It follows the life of Latha Bourne, her entire life so far, from cradle to the age of something past 100.

Like all of Harington's books, there is no need to read them in any kind of order or sequence as Mr. Harington writes as a storyteller first, and he does it so artfully that every novel exists as its own creation--I myself have read his novels in different orders and have been rewarded in my own experience. There is no earthly way a reader will get lost in this book, other than in its enchantment and delicious plot. In fact this book itself may be a good place to start if it's your first Harington novel. If you read it you'll see why.

Latha Bourne is one of the most beautiful heroines in all of literature, and she is also one of the most independent and enduring. I loved learning about her family, her troubles, her "exile" and sojourn, and triumphant return to Stay More. Along the way, we meet and admire, perhaps fall in love with, a large cast of major and minor players (Every Dill, Doc Swain, the Duckworths, the Whitters, Dawny, Dan, Sharon, Larry, the Ingledews and Chisms and a few other surprises), all of whom--almost by magic--leave an indelible mark on the mind of the reader, the only place where in fact they exist. The settings vary from Stay More, Jasper, Little Rock, and Tennessee. I can't give away much more because I risk spoiling so many beautiful surprises that are best encountered in your reading.

The book is told as a wonderful story, as if around a campfire or an old fashioned gathering, and I couldn't help myself but want to visit this place sometime, to see if I could sit with Latha on her front porch, or near the dogtrot, and have a glass of lemonade and learn about the history of her mythical, inviting, beckoning hamlet.

Mr. Harington is well-known for his playful wordplay and musical language, and his impeccable comedic timing--all of which are present here. But he is not usually given his due as the master of suspense and plot he is... ENDURING is a testament to those talents. I turned the final page with a great deal of satisfaction and also without a clue where the hours went, the hours I spent happily traveling through Latha Bourne's remarkable life.

Over the Bridge

Muhammad al-Bisatie's creative vision is on full display in this compact narrative, Over the Bridge (American University in Cairo Press, 2006) that blurs the line between reality and dream worlds. It begins with an Egyptian bureaucrat who, in a scheme to fatten his meager take-home pay, exploits his position in the notoriously chaotic government and "invents" on paper a complete small city in Upper Egypt. And as a proper "city," al-Khalidya has govermnet officials who need to be paid. When the checks for al-Khalidya are issued, he cashes them himself.

Yet what begins as a quiet fraud evolves into the protagonist's continuing descent into quasi-madness. He becomes obssessed with his new creation, the village, and builds a model of it. He begins to imagine the lives of its inhabitants, and the structural violence of city life comes into sharper relief the more he imagines. He becomes a kind of godplayer.

He turned out the light in the room and lay down on the bed,the model twinkling atop the desk. Feeling pleased, he rested his head on his bent arm.

El-Bisatie's technique also becomes somewhat blurry as the narrative proceeds, and as a reader we are sometimes confused about the setting or happenings: is it in the bureaucrat's real world or his make-believe, or is it both at the same time? Are his waking actions more viable or real than his dream world actions, and how can we tell them apart? Echoes of Borges and Garcia Marquez give this novel its sense of magic realism and wonder.

While the plot becomes a little less interesting as it goes on, we come to understand the very existence of a village in Upper Egypt doesn't matter very much to those beyond its inhabitants, least of all to the Egyptian bureaucracy. And thus the novel can be read as a kind of disturbing allegory.