In My Spare Time, Part II

Books

“Caravans” (1963)

This is the fourth book I’ve read by James Michener. That is unusual because I’ll admit to being skeptical of many super-selling authors because, like movies, I feel that some things which target a mass audience often water down plots and characters and gun for the happy ending. “Caravans” really doesn’t do that. In fact, I think it’s kind of a bold book for 1963. You can really detect traces of the counter-culture movement in America in one of the main characters. Also, you can sense what a complex place that Afghanistan was even 40 years ago. The plot basically involves a spirited and idealistic middle-class young woman from Pennsylvania who tires of the then rat-race and in an effort to rile her parents marries an up-and-coming Afghan man and moves to the mountainous nation, only to disappear completely. Charged with finding her is an equally young American embassy worker out to prove himself. The period in which this story is set is 1946, post-World War II, and Afghanistan is still a misunderstood, Islamic, and most importantly, tribal underdeveloped country. The main character, Mark Miller, scours the countryside on loose clues trying to find Ellen Jaspar, in the process experiencing everything Afghan, from savage, outdated laws, to a very harsh mountain and desert climate. He also hooks up with a caravan of nomads, hence the name, and encounters a number of interesting people, some of them natives trying to usher their nation into the 20th century. What can I say? This is a very interesting book, and Al Qaeda aside, makes you wonder what life must be like “over there”.


“A Walk Across America” (1978)

I love to travel. And when I can’t travel much, for pleasure, kind of like in my present job, I read travel books. “A Walk Across America” isn’t very timeless, which is part of it’s charm. The story is non-fiction, and involves a hippie-esque young man named Peter Jenkins, the author by the way, who after some emotional trauma (messy divorce) and soul-searching, packs up his stuff, buys a sturdy backpack, whistles for his dog and decides to walk across America. He doesn’t make all the way, New Orleans, but evidently there was a sequel to this book I haven’t read. I can’t compare this to other travel classics, like Paul Theroux’s books, or to William Least Heast Moon’s “Blue Highways”, because both those men are much better writers. But Jenkin’s book is fascinating for its time, because in the early 1970’s, desegregation hadn’t completely caught on, which is important since his journey takes him through the South. And because as a man who looked like a “hippie”, he is often the target of, for lack of a better word, harsh judgment. Nonetheless, Jenkins encounters all sorts of characters, and kind of makes me wish I’d been born maybe 20 years earlier, in order to experience America during a time of major social change.

Films:

“The Last King of Scotland” (2006)

Oscar-winners usually attract me, and I can admit Forrest Whitaker does a fine job as Idi Amin, the infamous African dictator. Really spooky is that a lot of what happens in this movie wasn’t far from the truth. The plot is basically a glimpse of Amin’s regime during the 1970’s in Uganda, seen through the eyes of an advisor, a Scottish physician. Amin had a fascination and admiration for Scotland and its citizens…and kilts. I guess this film addresses a couple of ugly truths, one is that many African countries have a very violent, hideous and altogether depressing history that reminds you no matter how much one detests or disagrees with our present administration, politics in our country aren’t as bad as they are in other parts of the world. At least we don’t have politically motivated dismemberments or mutilations. Second, charisma has a way of making people overlook what are very evil flaws in their leaders. Third, power corrupts. But I’m sure most people already know that.

“Blood Diamond” (2006)

I’ve always tended to dismiss Leonardo DiCaprio in roles that require him to bust out an accent and act like a grown man. Usually, he proves me wrong. He certainly does in this one. DiCaprio plays a borderline corrupt South African diamond smuggler, who falls in with a rebel fishermen that is wanted by numerous people. Why? Because this fisherman, played by Djimon Honson, knows the whereabouts of a rather large diamond he found while enslaved following a military coup in his native Ghana. DiCaprio wants to keep him alive to find the diamond, Jennifer Connelly wants to write about it all for American news interests, and Honson wants to find his family from whom he was separated following the coup. Like the movie above, this is a socially-conscious film, emphasizing what a large number of Africans deal with in order to supply the world’s demand for diamonds, including coups, enslavement, and massacres. Also, what is even more disturbing is the role major companies play, including supporting bloody coups, all to keep the diamond supply stable and relatively cheap. This was a much better film than I thought it would be.