The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir

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Adventure novel, book reviews, Brooklyn Authors, City Lights Books, colonial literature, Eldad Hadani, escapist reading, historical fiction, Indie Presses, Lost Tribes of Israel, Mystery, Novels, Susan Daitch, The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir

The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir is an adventure novel about the search for a fabled city thought to be in Iran. The city is fictional and the author Susan Daitch may be playing with the reader because Suolucidir spelled backwards is “Ridiculous”.

I had high expectations after reading the first couple of chapters, partly due to the quotations from Karl Marx and Ambrose Bierce that introduced each. The first can be summarized that the present is the past disguised in support of revolution. The plot begins with an archaeologist Ariel Bokser’s search in the Black Mountains of Iran for this lost city as the Shah is being deposed. It begins the novel’s sweep from the Victorian period to the modern era, across the Middle East, Europe and North America. The premise is that there are lost maps and notes that may attest to the reality and site of this city. The second quote describes the characters and motivations.

“Ethnology, n: The science of different human races, such as knaves, swindlers, imbeciles, clots and ethnologists.”

The author is a native of Brooklyn, New York. She introduces one of its famous, if largely unknown past residents, Augustus Le Plongeon, who despite his photographic gifts, was ridiculed for espousing that a dethroned Mayan queen fled to Egypt. In the spirit of Le Plongeon, Bokser leaves his failing marriage and begins his quixotic archaeological journey under the financial sponsorship of a wealthy Brit with ulterior motives.

Part of the mystery is whether Suolucidir is a residence of the Lost Tribes of Israel, who either before, or because of the 722 B.C. invasion of the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes by the Assyrians became part of the Jewish diaspora. The Kingdom of the Ten Tribes were composed of Dan, Naftali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Reuben,and Simeon. Otherwise referred to as the Northern Kingdom of Israel, having Samaria as its capital, it was separate from the Kingdom of Judah in the south, with Jerusalem as its capital. The latter fell to the Assyrians a few hundred years later. It has been debated whether the Lost Tribes existed and if they existed where each or all found a home.

‘They were supposed to dwell in unmapped and unmappable parts of the world. In the Babylonian Talmud the lost tribes of northern Israel were located in Kurdistan. According to the Jerusalem Talmud they were ‘across the Sambatyon River [the “Shabbat River”], enshrouded in cloud beyond the mountains of Darkness’ and ‘under Daphne of Antioch.'”

The novel briefly describes Mar Eldad Ha-Dani’s (Eldad Hadani) Lost Tribes story. A 9th  Century Jewish merchant who in his mind or in reality traversed Africa, the Middle East and Asia he believed that the Lost Tribes were not lost and that their descendants, who he claimed to meet, lived in different continents. The tribes of Dan, Asher, Naftali and Gad were in Africa, in what today would be Ethiopia. Ephraim and Manasseh were in the Arabian peninsula near what is Mecca. Issachar, Zebulun and Reuben were in Persia near Mount Paran, the locale for this novel. He does not relate where the tribe of Simeon’s descendants are.

Some consider this novel to be like the Indiana Jones novels, but this would be an exaggeration. It has some espionage and international intrigue: Russia’s, Germany’s and England’s interest in oil in Persia in advance of World War I. Its is a colonial novel and a Victorian novel of manners both in England’s exercise over Egypt and in its description of wealthy residents in a sanitorium in Germany on the eve of WWII. The latter, from a character development standpoint, was one of the better aspects of the novel. It also pulls together some of the storyline.

On the whole the writing is uneven. The author, who teaches at a local university in New York City, has had praise from Salman Rushdie and David Foster Wallace. There are glimpses of this in the beginning and the end of the novel, and in historical and religious references intermittently. On the whole, it is more of a commercial novel that may have been written either in fun, or with an eye toward Hollywood. It is published by City Lights Books, which is a small independent publisher. It does not list the author among its more notable authors on its website so I presume the novel was not a commercial success.

There is a serious writer here, but it is not showcased by this novel. If you are merely looking for an escape, it may serve that purpose.

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The Night Circus

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book reviews, Erin Morgenstern, Fantasy, Fiction, Illusion, Literature, Magic, Mystery, Reading Suggestions, The Night Circus, The Tempest

Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus” is magical. Reading it was like seeing Cirque du Soleil for the first time. This circus is an illusion. It is the Le Cirque des Rêves, the circus of dreams. It starts at midnight and ends at dawn. The tents people visit are black and white, but you see colors, and sparkles, and fire, and ice. There is an undertone, a rip tide, because it is a venue for a deadly game between surrogates of two masters of illusion with competing methodologies. The Colosseum is a comparable amphitheater.

You know there is a game afoot but you are caught up in the wonderous smells, tastes and sights. The author is a multimedia artist and is a master of hiding what lurks up her sleeve.

One of the competitors, Celia, is the daughter of one of the controlling masters, who was known as Prospero the Enchanter. There is irony in this. The competitors believe it is a game to prove the superiority of their skill. This is an illusion.

“This is the game, isn’t it?” Celia asks. “It’s about how we deal with the repercussions of magic when placed in a public venue, in a world that does not believe in such things. It is a test of stamina and control, not skill.”

The other master knows that Prospero is seeking immortality, an endless dream. This other master, always dressed in grey, like the light that feeds the circus, casts no shadow. Those involved with the circus are suspended in time.  He is different from Prospero.

“I certainly hope not. I am content to accept inevitabilities, even if I have ways of putting them off. He was seeking immortality, which is a terrible thing to seek. It is not seeking anything, but rather avoiding the unavoidable. He will grow to despise that state if he does not already. I hope my student and your teacher are more fortunate.”

This novel is an homage to Shakespeare’s “We are such stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

This novel was the perfect antidote to “The Road” despite its darker elements. It is equally a masterful.  I found it hard to believe that this was Ms. Morgenstern’s first novel. It is a beautiful page-turner, part fantasy, part mystery. Definitely a must read.

Shadow Without A Name

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Adolf Eichman, Amphitryon, Book review, Fernando Pessoa, Fiction, Heinrich Von Kleist, Identity, Ignacio Padilla, John Banville, Literature, Mexican Literature, Mystery, Operation Valkerie, Shadow Without A Name, war literature

Reading Ignacio Padilla’s “Shadow Without A Name” is like walking through a labyrinth or a carnival’s hall of mirrors. The pathways and reflections seem real, but the images and identities are contrived and falsified. This is the Mexican author’s first novel translated into English. The core of the mystery is the Amphitryon Project of Nazi General Thadeus Dreyer, the purpose of which was to train doubles to pose as Nazi leaders for security reasons. Chess links all the impersonators and ultimately raises the question whether the Adolf Eichmann hung by the Israeli’s was the master chess player and author of the Final Solution or a double.

The author is not seriously questioning the identity of Eichmann, but is playing a literary game of chess imaginatively swapping pieces and trading pawns for queens. At times a scorecard is needed to keep track of who each character is because they assume different names throughout the novel. How Mr. Padilla decided on this plot is to me the great mystery. I have taken the story at face value- a game with gambits-and have not tried to ascribe to it a psychological theme about self and identity. It is more fun and suspenseful if left as an intriguing puzzle.

This is not to say that the author did not envision deeper meaning to the tale. It begins with a quote from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa who wrote under heteronyms:

“I feel I am no one, only a shadow
Of a terrifying face I cannot see
And like the icy dark I exist nowhere.”

Whether this work is an homage to Pessoa is unclear, although there are four narrators, not all of whose names and characters reflect who they are. Identity is at the heart of the Greek myth Amphitryon, who accidentally kills his father and who plays the cuckhold husband to his wife Alcmene, who gave birth to two sons, one of which, Heracles, was the son of Zeus. The latter has been cast in comedic plays from Plautus to Heinrich von Kleist. John Banville who translated the latter’s work, also used it as the base for his novel “The Infinities”. Von Kleist’s works were ironically popular with the Nazi’s as they were with nationalistic Germans during World War I. The interesting twist on this is that his descendents, Ewald von Kleist and his son Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist, were anti-Nazi. The latter was the last survivor of Operation Valkerie, the failed assination plot to kill Hitler. Whether the author knew this I don’t know, but it would not surprise me.

The novel is worth reading as it is refreshingly inventive.