Mario Puzo -OMERTA

My brother paid tribute to my Dad for introducing him to the Mafia Genre.  I remember my Dad's library in his surgery with the very many books he had collected over the years.  One of the first books I read from that Library when I as old enough was "The Godfather".  Over the years, I have read and reread the Godfather and watched the movie as well. It is by far one of my best books and a hard copied version occupies an important space on my very own bookshelf.

So, I was of course drawn to OMERTA when I paid some old friends a visit.  It was among the many books on their bookshelf .  I was sure to be intrigued by it and finished reading it during the short space of time I had - in between catching up on old times, babysitting their kids and bonding with my daughter.  My son has suggested that I read the Sicilian and my brother has proposed the Valachi papers. So I may just be reading Mafia books which continue to grip my imagination and marvel at the Cosa Nostra - Our Thing. Were they really worse than others or was it bad press they received?

OMERTA is the Sicilian Code of Silence which was the cornerstone of the Mafia's anti-snitching (in modern parlance) sense of honour for centuries.  Who likes snitches anyway?  During the Mafia days you snitch at your own risk and that of your loved ones.  From the book, it appears that another code of honour was the family..."Eshienyu ne Shienyu"  as my people, the Luhyas would say.

OMERTA is interesting...Not as gripping as the GODFATHER but exciting nonetheless. It rotates around the Raymonde Aprile family.  However it really is the story of Astorre Zeno who was brought up in the Aprile family as a cousin. He himself was a child of a Mafia Don who died when Astorre was an infant.

What did I learn?  

(a) Each time I pass via a Bank I will definitely ask myself whether it had Mafia links. After all many of the Mafia families - when the going went tough - laundered their activities and joined the mainstream. It is said in the book that humans would forget the bad things of 30 years and provide accolades for the 'rehabilitated' businesses.  

(b) Politics & Church have also been strange bedfellows. The Mafia were deeply religious and many of them ensured there was a place in heaven for them, their kith and kin...all their evil acts notwithstanding. After all money can buy anything even the favour of the church.  Don Zeno said "I commend myself to God. He will forgive my sins, for I have tried every day to be just". Who are we to judge God...He is beyond understanding as narrated in the book of Job...Did He not forgive the thief on the cross?

(c) Human beings are treacherous by nature. Any good acts done for people in the past will quickly be forgotten. Do not count on the gratitude of people for actions done in the past as most people conveniently forget. This is a broad and very cynical generalization of the human race.  I have friends from decades past who I am certain have continued to be like Astorre Zeno and stand for me through thick and thin. Of course we have all experienced others who sell there souls to the highest bidder. 

As for America...The books ends by describing it as the land of vengeance, mercy and magnificent possibility.   

Barbara Mutch - The Housemaid's Daughter

I had never heard of Barbara Mutch before and I picked the book off a bookshelf to kill boredom that comes with travelling.  The book took me longer than normal to read because the subject matter was complex and I had just discovered facebook. I nonetheless eventually completed reading the book which gave an account of times just before and during apartheid.

It is interesting that I finished reading this book at a time when Trevor Manual was  quoted as infamously telling reporters at the government leadership summit in Pretoria that "We [government] should no longer say it's apartheid's fault." Whereas Trevor undoubtedly had a valid point that people needed to "move on", he nonetheless cause a storm  by presupposing that the legacy of apartheid could just be wished away.  I digress, but opine that Trevor would still have articulated his views without distracting from the fact that the evils of apartheid - like those of slavery and the holocaust - cannot just be wished away.

Barbara Mutch's story is the story of a family that fell apart. It is principally the story of Cathleen who leaves Ireland to marry her sweetheart in the Karoo. Cathleen - though white -  is a very lovable character married with two children. She is the matriarch of the home. She loses her son to a war (and its demons), her daughter to the worries of this world, and her husband who, though present, is absent.  In the big scheme of things her marriage and family life is one of convenience but she is stuck in it for better or for worse. She befriends her house girl and the house girl's daughter even though they are from a different race. The house girl's daughter is named after Cathleen's sister in Ireland. Although facebook has not been invented yet, Cathleen finds solace in her diary where she rants and the letters that she sends to her family in Ireland.

As fate would have it, Ada (her housemaid' daughter) gives birth to a mixed race child whose father is Cathleen's husband. This happens at the time when the laws against mixing of races have reached the Karoo. The child - a daughter - belongs  neither to the whites nor to the blacks Not only is Cathleen a 'laughing stock' amongst her white friends but it also puts her husband  the risk of arrest  because this copulation across the races is against the law. 

What is also "fascinating" is that Ada is ostracised by her own people for betraying them. The problem is not that she had a child out of wedlock but that she had a child with a white man.  The tragedy is that she cannot explain that her master took advantage of her. The betrayal her people feel, runs deep.  If Ada must have a child, she could go ahead and do so but not with a white man. That was unforgivable.

The book does not seek out to justify anything (it isn't even an anti - apartheid system book) but simply to tell a story of a time and place. Surprisingly, my best character is Cathleen. One cannot help but admire her strength and fortitude in the midst of a life that is so tough. She finds solace in the cards that God - in his wisdom - has dealt her.

Jodi Picoult - The Storyteller

So much has been written about the holocaust and a faithful rendering of the events from the perspective of the sufferers (and their descendants) or the perpetrators (and their descendants) will always be subject to controversy. Many people ask why folks cannot just move on.  There are those who say - as the student in the book - that the 'Holocaust did not happen and is just a figment of people's imagination'. There are those who have justified slavery by saying that it happened because Africans themselves perpetuated the trade. I was amazed in reading "The Storyteller" that certain Jews as the chairman were as much to blame as the German perpetrators. In my view, the involvement of Jews as cogs in the system do not make the events of the holocaust any less shocking.

 

I picked this book from Centurion Mall in Pretoria as I searched for something to help me kill the boredom.  Having read Jodi before, I was certain that she would not disappoint even in such a difficult subject. Having completed the book, I am non the wiser about the reasons that led the Germans to 'invent' the holocaust and its concentration camps.  I have never been able to explain other crimes against humanity such as slavery, genocide, apartheid, segregation or post election violence.  The politics behind those events are too great for my mind to grasp.  I have highlighted very many passages in this book...In practically every chapter there was something that spoke loudly and clearly to me. My first highlighted phrase was "...Be a good listener. Do not judge, and don't put boundaries on someone else's grief." This is the "motto" in the grief therapy group in which everybody has lost something different.

 

Midway through the book, I checked twitter and the story of Roman Blumm who survived the holocaust popped up. It is said that he died intestate at the age of 97 with a fortune of over $40 million. Someone wondered why if he did not have an heir, he did not donate his wealth to a Jewish temple. I would have wanted to talk to Roman Blumm to understand his relationship with the creator. It is said that most folks who have survived the difficult situations have a complicated relationship with God. In the crises of our lives, there are those who are drawn towards the creator and there are those who stagger backwards never quite understanding why it happened to them. The misfortune could be anything...a genocide, death, sickness or any other misfortune...but the question is often "why me?".

 

I read an article in the FT Weekend for May4/5 2013 about Horst von Hachter who attempts to sanitise the role played by his father Otto von Wachter (a war criminal implicated in the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews). What hit me was a bolded passage that said "I know that the system was criminal and that my father was part of it but I do not think he was criminal". It is in thinking about this that I tried to assemble Sage's feelings towards Franz Hartmann in the novel.  Was Franz Hartmann simply a cog in a killing machine that he had no option against or was he just as culpable as his brother Reiner Hartmann?
 

What makes Jodi's book interesting is that it ultimately is more a book about family.  Intertwined in the book are stories of families from both sides of the divide and how they fared during this difficult period. There are also stories of families in this day and age with the sibling rivalry, betrayal, love, concern, loss and all that goes with being a family.

 

Most of the book is set in the current period when Sage, a grandchild of holocaust survivors, meets and befriends 'Josef Weber' at a grief group.  Josef Weber, among other things feels that his punishment is that 'he must live forever' and is looking for a way to end his existence. Sage's grandmother who survived the holocaust does not want to talk about it because she feels her descendants must not be bogged down with issues of a time past.   'Josef' is not his real name because many folks changed their names as part of the sanitisation process. (What I have never really understood is why others continued to work for the post war German governments and were never punished. What high level deals made this possible?).

 

So we now have Kenya's post election violence. Did it really happen or is it too, a figment of someone's imagination? A colleague asked me...around the time I was reading this novel, what it felt for Kenyans to have elected someone who has been indicted for crimes against humanity as our country's president. My answer - having read the book - is that there are so many crimes perpetuated against mankind in one form or other that are not dealt with.

However, I am encouraged Franz Weiner a.k.a Josef Weber's analysis of  his situation.  If there is an all knowing God then everyone faces their own demons and their own punishments...In this life. Very interestingly, today (6th May) there was an article on BBC News about A 93-year-old alleged former guard at the Auschwitz extermination camp has been arrested in southern Germany. In his defence, Mr Lipschis acknowledges he served with the Waffen SS at the camp in occupied Poland, but claims he was only a cook. He is accused of participating in the mass murder and persecution of innocent civilians, primarily Jews, at Auschwitz between October 1941 and 1945.  The comments from readers were "interesting" with some wondering whether this was justice too late. (I will be impossible for me to see a 90+ year old German and not wonder what their role was during this period.)