Finding peace............

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.

—Emily Dickinson

Michelle Cohen Corasanti's debut novel, The Almond Tree is a story of courage, perseverance and hope. The story is about a Palestinian boy, his brother, his family and their tribunals; the boy being Ahmad Hamid (Ichmad) and his brother Abbas. The story takes us through the different paths taken by the brothers in response to the events that occur in their life. It is a journey of enlightenment.

The story begins in 1950s when Ichmad’s kid-sister, Amal is blown away by a land-mine while trying to catch a butterfly. This is just the beginning of the hardships, pain, humiliation and further deaths in Ichmad’s life. The only good things that Ichmad enjoys, in the midst of chaos, are his Baba’s (father’s) songs, winning backgammon board game and his love for numbers.

Amidst all this stands the almond tree in the backyard of their house / tent. The almond tree more than often becomes Ichmad’s sounding board. When his father is wrongly imprisoned for Ichmad’s deeds, he finds the guilt and pain unbearable. But it is father who insists Ichmad to follow his dreams and espouse peace rather than conflict. It is his father who believes that education alone can bring in prosperity and peace to the region, and thus urges Ichmad to carry on his love for numbers that ultimately lands him in Hebrew University.

From herein, Ichmad is pitted against intolerance at every turn – even from inside his own family, Ichmad’s staunchly traditional mother, his wronged brother Abbas, the construction worker-Avee, his Professor Menachem Sharon and several nameless soldiers. But Ichmad holds on to his beliefs and through his sincerity and genius brings around even his staunchest opposition.

The Almond Tree tells a story of a family, although divided by their personal beliefs, still stands united by love. The novel defies the fact that it is Corasanti’s debut work. Corasanti neither glorifies one side’s struggle nor justifies the other side’s atrocities. There are no traditional heroes or villains in this story. It’s rather the situation that makes the character a hero or a villain. The story rarely depicts itself as a work of fiction; instead it seems like a personal memoir of struggle, hope and the search for peace.

Corasanti depicts a wide range of emotions through her writing. Be it the depiction of the Amal’s death, or “the breeze pushing my back” egging Ichmad to carry on, Corasanti is able to emotionally connect to her readers. But, I feel dejected to some extent because I think the characters were not properly developed. The story is an account of the family members, but as a reader I hope for more depth to the characters. Perhaps the second book from Corasanti will do so.

The Almond Tree personifies the resilience of the human spirit. Corasanti brings out this sentiment beautifully in the lines “their strength lay in their roots, which were so deep that even if the trees were cut down, they survived and sent forth shoots to create new generations.” It also exemplifies the duty to one’s family, one’s sacrifices for his/her family and to honor what one strongly believes in.

The Almond Tree brings forth the utmost necessity of education and thus hopes to bring in prosperity and peace.

Disclosure: In compliance with FTC guidelines, I hereby state that I received this book for free through ‘Goodreads First Reads’.

"Thirteen Steps Down - the irrational fear of the number 13"

The genre of crime-fiction revolves around the crime, the criminal, his/her motives and law enforcement. Majority of the best-sellers are 'whodunnits' from a detective's point-of-view or a thriller which involves an investigating protagonist or a legal courtroom drama. Most of the crime-fiction, that I have read, involved murder mysteries that were solved by the likes of 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Poirot', 'Inspector Reubus' and even 'Jack Reacher'. But "Thirteen Steps Down" by Ruth Rendell is unlike anything that one associates with a crime-fiction bestseller often seen on stands at airports or train stations.

Ruth Rendell exhibits a totally different style of crime fiction writings and almost transforms the general expectations. “Thirteen Steps Down” is, of course, about murders and the murderer involved in occult, superstitions and ghosts. The reader explores the story through the eyes of the murderer himself. Mix Cellini is tenant who lives upstairs of an old Victorian house on Notting Hill, which has been modified to an apartment. Cellini is lonely and mostly treads on being a psychopath. He is strongly opinionated and is obsessed with the serial killer John Christie and a local model, Nerissa Nash.

The story takes you along the lives of various characters involved in the story through the eyes of Cellini. Cellini is so obsessed with John Christie that he almost visualizes Christie, who is long dead. Cellini's entire library contains books on Christie, his murders and his victims. He is also obsessed about Nerissa Nash and eventually stalks her. Gwendoline Chawcer, the old reclusive landlady of Cellini, who spends her time reading and pondering over her lost love - Dr Stephen Reeves, appears as lonely and weird as Cellini. The story takes you along the streets and lifestyles of England and English people. While Mrs Chawcer doesn't really consider Olive, Queenie and Hazel as her 'friends', they are, in reality, the only ones she's ever got! The lives of the characters are intervened in such as Nerrisa Nash is daughter of Hazel, who is the niece of Olive, who is a 'friend' of Mrs Chawcer, of whom Cellini is a tenant. The landlady and the tenant live in the world of their own and often detest the lifestyle of the other. The story progresses at its own sweet little pace, before the characters intrude into Cellini's 'space' and that's when violence explodes. While what happens of Cellini is predictable, the way it does forms the crux of the climax.

The book is depicted as a psychological thriller. Well it wasn't exactly a thriller for me but, did come well across the psychological part in way of its characters. The pace is slow and I felt the descriptions of locations to be much better in the writings of say Ian Ranklin or Kazuo Ishiguro. John Christie appears for most part of the novel and one feels him to be a character rather than an obsession for Cellini. Ruth Rendell does justice to the characters of Mix Cellini and Gwendoline Chawcer. The weirdness and behavioral inconsistencies of Cellini and Chawcer justifies their lifestyles. But their actions and thoughts seem too far-fetched. A twist towards the end / climax often should have fetched 'what on the earth' expression from the reader, but this is missing in case of "Thirteen Steps Down". The twist appeared quite lame, almost apologetically, as if the author wished to justify or provide a rational reasoning for the sequence of events that unfold. Thirteen is just a number; it’s what your mind does with the number, make it unlucky or dreadful! Overall the book does deserve a read once at least for presenting a 'different' outlook to the genre of crime-fiction writing.

With this I now move on to another book - another author - another genre!  :)