Thursday, May 17, 2018

Readalikes: If you enjoyed May's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova, then you might also like these books and films suggested by our discussion group members:

Nonfiction

  • Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
  • Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan
  • Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson
  • The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon
  • House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid
  • The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History by Thomas Harding


Fiction

  • The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
  • Fortunes of War: The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning and the film with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson
  • The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
  • A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra

Fiction by Janette Turner Hospital
Nonfiction and fiction by V. S. Naipaul

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

May Not Fiction Book Discussions

With Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova  we take a journey to the liminal land between Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. Kassabova and her family emigrated from Bulgaria in 1973 after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. She  returned in 2013, making three trips altogether, and Border is the tale of travels.

The narrative alternates between brief chapters of definition, folktale, myth, and history, almost like border markers, and longer chapters telling the stories of the people she meets and the places she visits. Kassabova says,
. . . the initial emotional impulse behind my journey was simple: I wanted to see the forbidden places of my childhood, the once-militarised  border villages and towns, rivers and forests that had been out of bounds for two generations. I went with my revolt, that we had been chained like unloved dogs for so long behind the Iron Curtain. And with my curiosity, to meet the people of a terra incognita. . . . As I set out, I shared the collective ignorance about the regions not only with other fellow Europeans further away, but also with the urban elites of the three countries of this border.
What she discovers is a land of blurred boundaries between East and West, North and South; between ethnos, religion, and culture; between myth and history; and between loyalty to a political entity and the shared experience of living in world riven for centuries by deep political unease--most recently, the exodus of refugees from Syria and Iraq. What she discovers is that "There are beautiful places on earth where no one is spared." And yet, when asked by Jeffery Gleaves of  The Paris Review, "What was the most surprising thing you learned about the people of these borders?" Kassabova replied, "They seem to define themselves by what they love rather than by any political identity, or by any labels."

What do you think? Have you ever made a pilgrimage to a place from your childhood that you hadn't visited in a long time? Why did you go? What were your thoughts and feelings? What did you find? What do you think Kassabova was looking for on her travels through the borderland between Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey? Did she find it? Which of the people and places, myths and histories that Kassabova describes was most interesting to you? What is the role of myth and folktale in the communities Kassabova visits? What do you understand about the current migration crisis in this area after reading Border? What purpose do her short chapters of definition and explication serve in the narrative? Are they successfully integrated into the longer narrative of conversations with people living in the borderland today? What does a border represent? What do you think accounts for the humor and perseverance with which the people of the borderland live their lives?

We hope you'll join the discussion: Tuesday, May 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, May 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.