THE POTBELLIED VIRGIN by ALICIA COSSIO SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE POTBELLIED VIRGIN, or, LA COFRADIA DEL MULLO DE LA VIRGEN PIPONA by ALICIA YOSSO

SUMMARY
In a small town there is a Spanish family named the Benavideses who oppose the Indian Pandos family in a small town.  All of the Pandos' land was stolen by the first Benavides to arrive in the area,  Both the Pandos and Benavides families are run by men, although the Benavides men run their family from abroad and allow the townspeople to believe that the Benavides women are in charge while maintaining order with a military force.
One member of the Benavides family, Manuel was told he was a bastard by his parents and defected to become a Pandos.  Jose Pando is a longtime servant for the Benavideses.  The two families share little in common besides devotion to a statue of a potbellied virgin.
The town's former priest, de los Angeles, founded the sisterhood of virgins for which the statue of a potbellied virgin stands.   De los Angeles founded the sisterhood to purify young Indian girls the Pandos family was using to keep the Indian race alive.  Since the creation of the statue, the Benavides girls have been charged with cleaning and dressing the virgin and cutting off their own blonde hair in turns to fashion the statue wigs.  One day when the Benavides girls were dressing the statue they were attacked by the townspeople for dressing too provocatively, and Manuel Pandos came to their rescue.
Dona Carmen Benavides gained favor with de los Angeles.  She sent her sons into the Priesthood and lobbied the Vatican for a deaconry.  The sisterhood gained permission from the Vatican to excommunicate people.  De los Angeles dies, and the town has not found a replacement by the time Dona Carmen decides to seize control, declaring herself leader of the town's church and enforcing with an old family hunting rifle in the hands of Jose.  Carmen kidnaps three missionaries and bribes them to allow her to run the town's church.
A drought sweeps the area, and the bishop orders that another wooden virgin be carried to each drought-ridden town.  After the virgin leaves town the drought returns, so villages begin fighting over the statue.  The bishop decides to put the potbellied virgin into circulation, as well, to stop the bickering.  After the sisterhood refuses to comply with the bishop's orders, the ishop sends in the Benavideses' troops who the townspeople band together to fight against with household items.  Although many civilians are injured or killed, the townspeople drive the soldiers away.  People whisper that the virgin lost her potbelly because she gave birth to a God during the battle.
Carmen hires a new organ player for the church named Figueroa.  Magdalena Benavides and Figueroa run away together.  To replace Magdalena as handmaid to the virgin, Carmen hires Manuel's daughter, Marianita.  The virgin's potbelly returns.
Manuel Pando and the church's magistrate promote a communist agenda.  Jorge Pando spraypainted the town's walls with communist graffiti and Carmen gives Jorge a bicycle so that Jorge will not spraypaint the town anymore.  Under pressure from the sisterhood, the magistrate sends his daughters, Socialjustice, Surplusvalue, and Passionaria, to give thanks to the virgin.  Carmen then orders all the books which Manuel Pando enjoys from the library and burns them.  After Carmen catches the magistrate crossing out one of the sisterhood's signs, Carmen fires the magistrate and hires Nicasio Pando.
Townspeople argue about whether or not to resist the Benavideses.  Jorge and his friends build Molotov cocktails and kill one of their opponents.  Some communists murder Nicasio.  Jose Pando defects from the Benavideses and tells Manuel Pando that the men run the Benavides family and that the army is paid by the Benavideses to suppress the Indians.  Manuel spreads the word to the townspeople just as the military throws a parade to announce its good intentions.  Everyone but the Benavideses leaves town.

ANALYSIS
The Benavides family is a symbol for the Spanish conquistadors of South America.  The Pandos family is a symbol for the native inhabitants of South America.  The interactions between the two families in this novel illustrate the injustice many native inhabitants of countries endure at the hands of colonists.  In the end, the Indians leave the Benavideses' ill-gotten town, choosing to self-govern rather than be controlled by illegitimate rulers.  It's not clear if relocating is a suggestion the author is making.
A communist interpretation of the word 'bourgeoisie' is used in this novel to emphasize that the entire production chain is corrupted for natives in a colonized society.  In order to get a job, one must speak the language of their employers.  If the employers are colonists who have stolen all of the nearby land, rendering the natives poor, then one must submit to being colonized in order to survive in the colonial society.  Provided conquering the colonists is not an option, the only recourse for a native who does not wish to bow to an alien ruler is to leave.
The virgin symbolizes white purity to the Spanish settlers.  To the Indians, it symbolizes hope.  The statue gives birth when the Indians mount a resistance to the Spanish army, implying that the spirit which had been coiling within the townspeople had released.  When Marianita, an Indian girl, became the virgin's new handmaid, the virgin became pregnant again.  This second pregnancy resulted in the second rebellion of the town's desertion by its original rulers.
Although the metaphors in this book were entirely too heavy-handed, Cossio has an enjoyable writing style.  There is very little dialogue and nearly all conversations are summarized.  The obvious symbols and direct narrative waste little of the reader's time.  viva la reabhloid

• Two rival families live together in a small town
• One of the families siezes control of the church and oppresses the other family
• The oppressed family decides to leave the town

SOURCE

Cossío, Alicia Yánez. The Potbellied Virgin. Trans. Amalia Gladhart. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Book about the fight for domination of a small town.

THE LAKE by GERHARD ROTH SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE LAKE, or, DER SEE by GERHARD ROTH

SUMMARY
Paul Eck is a representative for a pharmaceutical company who is travelling to various Doctors' offices and offering his drugs to them.  He takes many pills to improve his cognition, aid digestion, relieve allergies, induce drowsiness, and reduce pain, and is dependent on the drugs he takes.  Paul Eck's parents divorced 30 years prior to the start of the novel.  He has not seen his father since the divorce, although his father is wealthy from a hunting and fishing business and continued to pay for Eck's medical studies after they ceased contact.  Eck's father participated in the Hungarian resistance movement and was involved in smuggling guns from Switzerland through Hungary to Serbia.  Eck's mother committed suicide exactly one year before the novel begins, and Eck was forced to mop up his mother's blood after she'd died.
Eck takes a bus to a historic castle and accidentally wanders into a former concentration camp. The next day, he tries to sell drugs to Professor Basaglia at a medical clinic where there are many sick and hopeless people.  Eck meets two women in a cafe who pleasure him sexually and then he is robbed of his money, wallet, and passport by a group of men who were alerted by the women that Eck had money.  After he awakes, he sneaks across the border to return to his home and checks into a hotel to rest.  He decides to not accompany his father for a boating trip which Eck's father invited Eck to, and a storm breaks out on the day of the trip.
The next day, Eck reads in the newspaper that his father went missing in the storm.  Eck visits a friend of his who is a mechanic and takes Eck on a boat trip across a river where Eck sees a trailer park which rents rooms by the night, and Eck checks into the trailer park.  He then goes to see his family doctor who uses acupuncture, and spiritual healing, as well as brutal surgery and recommends his drugs.
A boy named Hermann asks Eck for a ride and Eck obliges, first stopping at a hunting store to buy a gun using a false identity and steps outside where two policemen find Eck and ask him to come to the morgue to look for Eck's father's body.  After identifying the body, Paul Eck is announced as a suspect for the murder of his own father, and told to stay in the trailer park by police.  He is approached by a strange man who knows that Eck was invited to the lake by his father and tells Eck to be careful.
Eck visits his grandfather's home in Hungary and is followed by a blue Toyota for the whole trip.  A police officer emerges from the Toyota the next day and accompanies Paul Eck and his friend named Robert on a boat ride while they look for a clue Eck's friend claimed to have seen.  While they are gone, Eck's trailer is stripped and searched.  A journalist who is interested in the story approaches Eck and offers to help piece together information on the case.  The next doctor Eck visits is named Dr. Goriupp and tells Eck of his father's involvement in the gun trade.
A gypsy who previously worked for Eck's uncle finds the car in which Eck's father was murdered before  the body was chopped up and put in the ocean.  Eck sees his stepbrother there and they plan to go fishing to discuss family matters the next morning.  On their fishing trip, Eck and his stepbrother fight and capsize their boat, resulting in a cut on Eck's forehead.
To get his wound stitched, Eck returns to Dr Goriupp.  While stitching Eck's head, the doctor begins coughing blood, and Eck hallucinates that the doctor is a cannibalistic monster, causing Eck to shoot the doctor in the eye.  A short while later, Eck awakes in the gypsy's home after experiencing drug-induced amnesia.  When Eck returns home he meets the journalist who tells him the police suspect a military man named Laposa of shooting both Dr. Goriupp and Eck's father.  Eck and the journalist go to the military base where they witness Laposa being arrested and confessing to killing Eck's father.
A gun fight breaks out in the trailer next to Eck's trailer which sparks a fire.  Eck takes some LSD he was given by a Swiss colleague.  Paul Eck and Robert fly away in Robert's plane.

ANALYSIS
There are many references to genocide in this novel.  Eck visits both a Jewish and a Serbian cemetery.  He also sees a former concentration camp, a Swastika, and a racist meeting in his journeys.  Paul Eck clearly feels guilty about the crimes of Nazis and the Bosnian Serbs.  Eck mentions that he feels like the stains of the past are haunting him presently when he discusses cleaning up his mother's blood.  I believe the purpose of the thematic inclusion of wartime material is to emphasize that the aftermath of genocide still haunts Europe.
Some silverfish infest Eck's trailer.  Although they appear to fall with gravity after the murder is resolved, Eck sees them the next day when he opens the Bible, which he falsely swore on earlier in the novel.  He leaves the trailer where the silverfish are contained.  The silverfish resemble most closely his conscience, and after the trailer park burns down, it is implied that Eck feels relieved as he hallucinates becoming one with the birds under the influence of LSD.
Throughout the novel, Eck experiences many discomforts within his body.  The reaction of his body to alcohol, and drugs, is well documented.  Every stomach ache Eck endures in The Lake is well documented and it is clear that he likes to tense his abs, and feel warm and full.  Why Roth shared these facts about Eck, I don't know.  To be honest, spending so much time as a reader swimming around inside of Eck's body as well as spotty translation made this book sort of dull for me.  Next week, I promise by book will not have anything to do with genocide, as that seems to be a recurring theme in my selections.

• pharmaceutical representative goes on trip to sell prescription drugs
• the representative's estranged father is secretly involved in the illegal gun trade
• the representative's father is murdered and the representative becomes a suspect
• the police discover that the representative's father was murdered by someone involved in the illegal gun trade

SOURCE

Roth, Gerhard. The Lake. Trans. Michael Winkler. Riverside, CA: Ariadne, 2000. Print. Book about a man suspected of killing his estranged father.

THE PRIVILEGES by JONATHAN DEE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE PRIVILEGES by JONATHAN DEE


SUMMARY
A young couple, Cynthia and Adam Morey, are getting married in Pittsburgh, US.  The bride has chosen an unpopular bridesmaid.  In total, the wedding costs $38,000 American, and everything is being paid for by Cynthia's stepmother and father.  Adam's parents buy the couple a honeymoon in Mexico during which Cynthia becomes pregnant with a girl named April.
One year later Adam and Cynthia are living in New York, US, and have another child named Jonas.  Adam worked at Morgan Stanley, but quit to work at a smaller firm named 'Perrini Capital'.  The Moreys send their children to private schools which cost $60,000 each year, and Cynthia likes to buy her children expensive items.
Cynthia is a stay at home mom.  Adam's boss at Perrini capital takes Adam, Cynthia, and the children to his vacation home for the weekend.  Cynthia is offended by the boss' wife and the family leaves early.  They are jealous of the boss' luxurious home and expensive car, the boss promises Adam that one day he will be just as rich, and Cynthia encourages Adam to pursue the wealth they've seen.  Adam wants to succeed, but not become a clone of his boss.
Cynthia's mother calls her and asks her to pick up her stepsister named Deborah from the hospital.  Deborah was in the hospital because she overdosed on drugs.  Cynthia has to rush to take the children to the dentist, and briefly loses them in the New York train system.  After this event, years pass without the two speaking to eachother; this silence is a result of mutual ambivalence toward eachother.
Adam feels pressured by Cynthia to increase his earnings.  He begins using illegal insider information to profit from stock market put and call options.  The illegal network which develops involves switching prepaid phones each month for Adam and his partner, offshore bank accounts, and stock broker accounts in fake names.  After Adam is fired from his job at Perini because the boss is angry that Adam doesn't want to take over Perini Capital and suspects him of plotting to start his own firm and steal Perini's analysts, Adam confesses his insider trading to Cynthia, who applauds his bravery and diligence.
By this point, April is 15 and Jonas is 14.  One of April's friends, Robin, hides at the Moreys after being beaten by her father.  Cynthia allows April and her friends to go to parties and drink alcohol. Jonas is in a band which he wants to call, 'The Privileges'.  Robin's mother commits suicide.
Jonas goes on to attend the University of Chicago where he feels divided from the rest of the student body because of his family's wealth.  Nikki is the name of Jonas' girlfriend.  April visits Jonas and meets Nikki. Later, April goes clubbing in New York with Russians, taking drugs and drinking alcohol, and the driver of the car April is in crashes into a van.  She is not hurt in the car crash.  Jonas happens to see April by the side of the road while he is shopping the next day, and takes her home.
Adam has opened up his own hedge fund which is preparing to file for its own IPO.  The Moreys begin receiving unwanted media attention and commit to getting April out of the clubbing scene.  Cynthia's father falls ill in Florida, US, and a stranger calls on his behalf asking Cynthia for money, which she denies, but agrees to go to Florida and assist her father emotionally and financially.  April and Adam return from a business trip in China to Florida.  Cynthia's father's cardiac problems progress in unison with dementia.
Jonas is working on a Master's thesis in art and goes to the apartment of an artist he likes.  The artist, named Joseph Novak, beats Jonas with a pipe and drags Jonas into the apartment.  Cynthia is calling Jonas but Novak throws away Jonas' cell phone and Jonas is afraid, so he stays in Novak's apartment.  As Novak finishes an elaborate drawing, Jonas gets up and leaves the apartment.

ANALYSIS
This book offers a unique insight into the lives of the richest people.  Through Jonas' wrestling with stereotypes, Dee depicts rich people as complex human beings, rather than contemptuous, carbon-copy moneybags on two feet.
There is a persistent theme of the Christian religion throughout the novel.  Cynthia repeats to herself, 'God gives you nothing you can't handle'.  Her father prepares for battle in a war flashback in his hospital bed as he is about to die, preparing him for his last fight.  Jonas discovers his strength as he is pushed to the limit by an attacker.  April, who felt as though she was shortening her useless and boring life with drugs and partying, receives a speech about keeping faith from her father.
In the beginning of the book, April asks her father where they come from, and the father says his family is from England, and the mother's from Russia.  April meets up with Russian drug dealers and her father buys an expensive flat in London, GBR.  I doubt Dee was implying that Russians are inferior to Englishmen, but if that's not what he was implying, I'm not sure what his purpose in including those details was.
A suspiciously coincidental sequence of events in the Moreys' lives wrap themselves up in an equally suspicious neat little bow about staying positive.  Unrealistic and corny, but positive.  The book kept me entertained and left me feeling better than when I started reading it.

• Man with family is pressured into making more money
• Through illegal means, he builds a legal Hedge Fund empire
• The man's wife's father becomes ill in the hospital
• While the man's son is kidnapped, the son's grandfather is on the verge of death
• The son escapes his kidnapper

SOURCE

Dee, Jonathan. The Privileges: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.Book about a family keeping their faith amidst struggles in their climb up the social ladder.

1985: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER BIG BROTHER'S DEATH by GYORGY DALOS SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

1985 by GRORGY DALOS 

SUMMARY

This book is told through 3 memoirs and various newspaper articles and official documents.  The authors of the memoirs are Winston Smith, James O'Brien, and Julia Miller.

Big Brother died on December 10th, 1984, after a brief period during which he showed signs of recovery.  He was the commander of a country called Oceania.

O'Brien employs Smith to command the staff of a propaganda newsletter extolling the virtues of Oceania.  This newsletter, called the TLS, forms the beginning of the resistance against the thought police.

2 factions initially fought to replace Big Brother: The Aluminists, led by Big Sister, and the Paper faction.  While the Paper faction wants peace, the Aluminists want to keep fighting.  A public meeting is held to discuss the future where the public demands better leadership.

The TLS begins to publish sentimental pieces which trigger a response in the community.  Big Sister demands the instigators be arrested by the thought police but is killed by the thought police because they fear she will cause rebellion.  When her Aluminist counterparts threaten to release the number of people killed or imprisoned by the thought police, the thought police begin releasing those in their custody.

A Shakesperean play is effected, the first play which was not  propaganda piece to be performed.  Citizens revolted against dissenting thought policemen in the audience.  The TLS staff and their supporters form the Intellectuals Reform Association, or, IRA.

After signing the peace treaty, Oceania lost all of its colonial empire to Eurasia, and the 2 million unemployed colonial soldiers who return home cause crime and food shortage, so that the government delivers food according to level of unrest to suppress revolt.  The IRA demand a 10-point reform including the dissolution of the thought police, an end to propaganda and anti-freedom campaigns, and the reduction of army size.

Working-class Muslims begin rioting in the city and the IRA teams up with them to secure more social liberties.  The remaining thought police government holds a contest for citizen-inspired policy reforms in response. 

Together, the IRA and working-class overthrow the thought police and seize power.  However, they are quickly overthrown by the old thought police.  In order to compromise with the people, the new Oceanian government promotes social liberties.  Winston Smith and the leader of the Muslims are executed.

ANALYSIS

Obviously, the events of this novel follow those of 1984, a book by George Orwell.  Information about 1984 by George Orwell is readily available and can be easily accessed using any search engine.  This book does make sense without its predecessor.

The revolution of the IRA in this novel is compared to the Russian and French Revolutions.  Repression is mocked as people hurriedly release emotions quite different from the feelings they expressed under Big Brother's dictatorship.  Dalos paints O'Brien in a sympathetic light.  While dictatorships and oppressive governments are awful, the people enforcing these laws are human like the people they oppress.  Deep down, everyone seems to want freedom in this novel.

The alliance of an organization named the IRA and the Muslims caught my eye in this novel.  While the IRA and terrorist organizations such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are sometimes compared, they share little in common.  Thankfully, no psychopath such as Osama Bin-Laden has come to power in Ireland, which is why the level of "terrorism" committed by the IRA consists mostly of graffiti currently, while car bombs and other violent attacks are an everyday occurrence in the Middle East, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are based.  The IRA stands for Irish Republican Association in real life, and was formed by Protestants and Catholics who sought to overthrow the British colonial rule in Ireland.  There was a period in Ireland when the Loyalists, who advocated for British rule both in religion and government, fought against the Republicans, each using terrorist tactics against eachother, attacking bars and other meeting areas.  However, Dalos does not compare the IRA to Muslims in a negative light.  I enjoyed his comparison of the struggle for religious freedom in the Muslim community to the struggles of the Catholic community in Britain.  Additionally, Dalos  named the Muslim and Catholic organization an Intellectual association, implying that he respects the intelligence of Muslims and Catholics, Irish or otherwise.  His depictions were well-informed and respectful.

• The leader of a dictatorship dies
• An Intellectual Reform Association forms and promotes social freedom
• The Reform movement is quelled but the government implements more liberal policies

Dalos, Gyorgy. 1985. Trans. Stuart Hood and Estella Schmid. New York: Pantheon, 1983. Print. Book about the aftermath of Big Brother's death.

THE PATIENCE STONE by ATIQ RAHIMI SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE PATIENCE STONE, or, SYNGE SABOUR by ATIQ RAHIMI

SUMMARY
A man and a woman live together in a wartorn village.  The notable background of the story is unfolded through the woman's flashbacks and are as follows:
The man was a hero in a religious war.  The woman was promised to the man at the age of 17 by her father who was infatuated with the idea of his daughter marrying a hero.  Before they got married, the woman was captured by a religious merchant who tied her up in a basement and forced her to have sex with many men.  When the hero returned from war and first met his new wife, he did not acknowledge her, he merely sat down next to her in silence, claiming her as though she was a possession.  Not until 3 years after they were married did they first have sex, and because she was on her period she bled, which the hero took to be proof of virginity.  During a battle, the hero was shot in the neck, yet he miraculously lived in a comatose state.
In the present, the man sits in the living room, attached to an IV and breathing tube, staring absently at the wall.  Although the woman tries to keep her 2 daughters away from the man, one of the daughters sneaks in and complains that she is not allowed to see her father, and takes the tube out of his mouth long enough for a fly to dart in, which the hero does not notice.  The woman increasingly laments the countless prayers she offers to God as she takes care of the hero injured in a holy war.  The people of the village keep time by the cycle of prayers they are instructed to make.  While the woman recounts the story of their first intercourse, she draws menstrual blood onto her finger, and jams it into the man's beard, insisting it is clean.
The woman begins to question her faith.  An old, mysterious woman appears, babbling incoherently.  Religious soldiers embark on a raid of the neighborhood and find the old woman, and break into the main characters' home and steal the man's wedding band and Koran, allowing the hero to live only because they see he is a good Muslim.  The children play in the rubble, but are sent to stay with their aunt for their safety.  The woman laments that her Koran is stolen.
The woman tells the man that she is upset about their history; and tells him he has become her patience stone, listening to her stories.  The woman recounts her mother's story about a King who kills all of his newborn daughters because he wants a son.  The Queen speaks to one of the daughters who is magical and is told she will inherit a grand realm if she saves the daughter.  After the Queen runs away, the King goes on a warmongering quest for her, and eventually the Queen's realm prepares to do battle against the King's invading force.  Instead of a traditional ending, the woman says that this story leaves the listener's bias to its own devices.
Another Religious force sweeps the area and the woman hides the hero.  When the soldiers are gone, she tells the hero the story of her rape.  He rises from his comatose state, and the woman proclaims that it is a miracle, but then her husband murders her.  The book ends with a fly buzzing around the dead woman's body.

ANALYSIS
While the woman believes the tables have been turned on the hero and he now serves her instead of her serving him, it still appeared to me as though she was getting a raw deal by tending to him while he contributed nothing.  The stories told by this woman exposed a difficulty in being forced into a situation and then accused of being unholy because of it.  Unfortunately, the hero, soldiers, and merchant, were strong enough that they could choose to overpower and eventually kill her.
The recounted story about the cat suggests that the woman was seen as a pet, like a cat, with which her father could do whatever he pleased.  Bearing a great similarity to Henry the 8th of England, who killed his wives if they gave birth to a daughter, the King from the woman's mother's story is incredibly cruel and immoral, also treating woman as though they are less than human.  Asserting a strong belief in one's cause is emphasized by the need to imagine your own ending to the mother's story.  In the world of the mother's story, if you do not believe you will win, you may lose.
This story feels less like a didactic message and more like a slice of life.  It is tragic, and what is most unjust about the sexual relations in the story is that the hero cannot even be asked to stay in a coma, the easiest state to exist in, in order to give his wife moral support, and rises from the dead just to kill her because, in his mind, she allowed herself to be raped.

• man who has mistreated his wife becomes her patience stone in a coma
• woman is harassed by men and then blamed for allowing herself to be mistreated
• man rises from his coma to murder his wife for being impure

Rahimi, Atiq. The Patience Stone: Sang-e Saboor. Trans. Polly McLean. New York: Other, 2009. Print. Book about a man who becomes his wife's patience stone.

THE BOX MAN by KOBO ABE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE BOX MAN by KOBO ABE

SUMMARY

It begins with a police introduction report, detailing the treatment of “vagrants” by japanese police. Among the homeless was a “box man”, and the police report begins to detail how the box in question is made.  It takes courage, the narrator says, to put the box on, partly because box men stick out in public, because he is conspicuous for trying to conceal himself.  In one example, a box man was annoying a tenant, and after unsuccessful pleas to friends, neighbors, and police, the tenant ends up shooting the man with an air rifle. Days pass, and the man is plagued by paranoia.   He believes that the ricochet of the bullet is bouncing around in his head, buys a new refrigerator, and gradually begins to hide in the box, abandoning his apartment for the streets.

The man in the box reveals himself to be the narrator, and details an anonymous offer he's received from a nurse to abandon his box for five thousand yen, which translates to 51 dollars today, but the novel is set in 1973. He discovers that another man has accepted the offer, and he watches the other box man talk with the nurse while he develops strong feelings for the young nurse, who is conducting a study on behalf of a doctor. The other box man turns out to be a famous photographer who suddenly quit his profession to become a box man, and, through his story, the narrator realizes that he was the one who shot the photographer. Before the photographer can reveal him to be the killer, he attacks, shooting the worn-out box man, but not fatally, and then attacking the doctor.

Next, the doctor gives an affidavit about this incident, reporting the reasoning behind his study, including the fact that he, the doctor, has been struggling with the temptation of becoming a box man, and was studying box men in order to learn how to fight his psychological issues. The man does not have a name that he can give to police, because he has been practicing under the name of his mentor. His mentor was declining, and the nameless doctor believed he was helping by feeding the old man drugs, and eventually, he began sleeping with the old man's much younger wife, the nurse. The old man convinced himself that his wife was working for him by sleeping with the nameless doctor, even though this was not the case. The doctor describes the process he anticipates the police will take in killing him and in disposing of his body. He recalls the process he and the nurse went through to dispose of the old man.

A story begins about a young boy who is in love with his piano teacher. He goes to her house to spy on her naked but she catches him, and makes him strip in front of her. The boy takes off his clothes and begins ejaculating uncontrollably, and awakens from his daydream, urinating in front of the nurse. They run away together and begin living in the old doctor's abandoned practice. She is naked, and he is naked within his box. Against his wishes, she puts her clothes back on, and he proceeds to block any exit from the practice. The young nurse flings herself off of a balcony that he didn't know existed, as it is hidden by trash.

ANALYSIS

You cannot control every aspect of the world. You, as an adult, need to grow up, learn to accept the things you cannot change, and take it upon yourself to change the things you can. I am lucky in this pursuit, as I have religion to give me strength. Yes, my analysis is based on the stereotypical AA mantra, but I am not an alcoholic.

• a man who has a disease which causes him to hide in a cardboard box in public is introduced 
• the process of the development of the disease is discussed 
• the people with the disease eventually kill themselves 
• paranoia and social inversion are the destruction of man 
• part of the cause behind this public shyness is discomfort with our naked bodies 

SOURCE
Abe, Kōbō. The Box Man. New York: Knopf; [distributed by Random House, 1974. Print.  Book about a rare disease which makes people introverted and ultimately suicidal.

AZTECHS by LUCIUS SHEPARD SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

AZTECHS by Lucius Shepard

SUMMARY
The main character of this book is named Eddie Poe, and he is 24.  His father used to campaign for Mexican labor rights, but was shut down by corporate thugs who vowed to kill him if he spoke out, so Eddie's father continued working at the Sony plant where he was employed until he became too ill to continue, at which point he retired.  Eddie's mother is dead.  At the time of the story, his father sits around the house, speaking to her ghost, and doing drugs.  Eddie gives his father some blue pills to shut him up and goes out to a meeting for the security business Eddie owns himself.
Eddie's favorite place to hang out is at a futuristic bar on the border of Mexico, where the electric fence that bisects the bar is deactivated through a government loophole for a short window at various intervals.  The crime rates and culture are identical on either side of the bar.  While drinking at the bar, Eddie receives a call on his futuristic iPad-like device, and receives a resume from a man addressing him through video chat.  After being assured that the applicant is a cold killer, Eddie hangs up.  His security company has been assigned to deliver a man safely to the 'Aztechs' sculpture deep in the desert, so that he can negotiate with a crime family called the Carbonells.
Later on, Eddie picks up the man he is supposed to protect, Zee, in a bulletproof truck, with his new partner, Childers, and a reporter, Lupe.  They drive out into the desert.  Zee is the spokesman for a company called 'Aztechs' that has a building out in the desert of a face that is identical to Zee, with TV screens for eyes.  When they reach the sculpture, Zee poses by his statue building, and Lupe photographs, and interviews him for the camera.  Then, they go to the Carbonell family's militarized compound.  The group is allowed access, and they enter a banquet hall where the Carbonells are prepared to meet Zee.  Zee proposes the formation of a border state which will give the Carbonells monopoly on the drug trade with America.  Insulted by the offer, the Carbonells become upset and Eddie decides to pack up his group and move out.  Just then, a team of gunmen kick down the door and begin shooting, and Eddie and his group jump back into their armored car, and speed away into the desert with Childers at the wheel.  Childers begins smashing through houses in his way, and detonates a bomb in the Carbonells' courtyard, killing everyone inside of the compound.  Shocked, Eddie tells him to stop, and draws his gun on Childers.  Childers takes his gun away and keeps driving.
Eventually, they stop the car, and Childers gets out.  Zee professes his faith in God, and collapses, and Dennard and Childers carry him on a stretcher across the desert.  They stop again to rest, and Childers informs Eddie that it's his turn to carry the stretcher.  Eddie says he can't make it, and Childers gives him drugs, and Lupe, the reporter, tells Eddie that she loves him.  After a few more stops, they enter a native Mexican village where the Indians wear white robes.  There, Eddie and Lupe are greeted hospitably and have sex in the dirt path at night while being watched.  Childers says that everyone is like an ant and his boss is just stirring up the ant hill, which is needed.  The next day they come to a pyramid and Eddie tries to escape, but is beaten badly by Childers, who is about to kill him when a mysterious machine that has been following them through the desert kills Childers, sending shocks rippling through his body.
The machine takes Eddie and Lupe into the pyramid, where they embrace their newfound relationship.  A strobe light shuts Eddie's mind off, and back on in front of the armored car, where the rest of his crew is waiting.  They drive back into town and have a party.

ANALYSIS
This novel has many dystopian elements.  First off, Eddie says there is no difference between the towns on either side of the border, and that the gate is mainly ceremonial.  He thinks that the hallucinogenic drugs running rampant in the desert have everyone too stoned to rebel against the corrupt authorities responsible for putting up the false divisions, and that they are distracting the people from the destruction of their culture and the replacement of Mexico with another state of America.  This could symbolize the way mass media and corporations use arbitrary lines to oppress Mexican people, by paying illegal immigrants less, and keeping all the good-paying jobs in America.
Ironically, another arbitrary line, which divides white Hispanic from other white people in American culture, clouds the true history of Mexico.  Before the Spanish colonized Mexico, all of the people living there were Native Americans.  Now, many people living in Mexico are mixed-race, and whiter people are associated with the colonists who corrupted Mexican culture.  The main character is one of these whiter people.  This explains his separation from Mexican culture, and the life-changing experience of being switched off, and then switched on again, seeing the world anew.  He realizes that his father's activism, which he once thought stupid, was in attempt to save Mexico from becoming a zombie-like supplier of drugs and cheap goods to the United States.  As the people in Aztechs are highly advanced with regards to technology and business practice, the elements holding back the evolution of Mexican culture are crime and racism imparted through the mass media.

• man who runs a security company gets a new contract
• he and a partner go to a militarized compound with the employers and they are attacked
• his partner goes rogue as they escape
• they take the employer to an indian village with a magical pyramid
• a machine that has been following the party kills the rogue operative, and transports the rest of the people into the pyramid
• the main character awakens at the end of a successful mission

Shepard, Lucius. Aztechs. Burton, MI: Subterranean, 2003. Print.

Book about appreciating one's father and the forces working against Mexico.

NOTE

Understand that this may not be a perfect analysis.  I'm not Mexican, so my lack of personal investment and knowledge in the subject may detract from my ability to give a good analysis.  Quit bitching, I'm doing this for free.  Read it or don't read it, care or don't care.

THE KANGAROO NOTEBOOK by KOBO ABE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE KANGAROO NOTEBOOK by KOBO ABE

SUMMARY
Kangaroo notebook starts out with a man, living in Japan, presumably, who develops an interesting infection of radish sprouts growing on his body.  He's like a slow-developing werewolf, essentially, so he heads over to the clinic, where they tell him to wait in line, and stop exaggerating his condition, because they don't believe it.  In the waiting room are many children who are having their innocence ruined by a crude nurse.
Anyway, once the main character gets in to see the doctor, the doctor flips his shit and orders a bunch of test, but in the meanwhile tells the guy to get in the hospital bed.  He is prescribed treatment in Hell Springs valley.  At this juncture in the novel, the hospital bed begins moving on its own free will, and he wakes up, being questioned by a rude guard.  The guard tells him he's addressed like a package, and that he should be going to Hell Springs valley.  Off the bed flies down the street, as he veers off into the night.  A river passageway blocking his path reveals a kangaroo that rises out of the water.
Eventually, he arrives at the valley, where he sees demon children singing that they want to be helped by the friendly staff.  He, too, wants to be helped, so he joins in.  While he is there, he finds the image of one demon girl particularly haunting.
The bed whisks him about, and he ends up at the house of an adult woman, who rescues him from a hospital where he won't find any good treatment.  She instructs him to sit on a kangaroo fur by the door, so that he doesn't get any of his sickness in her house.  He eats with her and her husband, observing their life, and realizes that she is unhappy.  The mail service is bad, and she doesn't want to be a part of the vampire society any more.  In the society where all of this is occurring, many euthanasia possibilities are available to elderly people, including the karate service run by the nurse's husband that doubles as a euthanasia clinic.
After leaving the nurse, he ends up at an old folk's home.  There is a native Japanese man there, a man in a wheelchair, and a man with a neck brace.  Students come to the old folks' home, smuggling in extra food and drugs while they wait there to die.  While there, the main character witnesses a young boy euthanize an old man with a drugged cloth, and stays with the haunted child as the boy comes to grips with what he has done.  The man does not want to wait around.  He asks the boy to sneak him out of the old folks' home, and they leave through an unheated vent, where the narrator ends up in a whirlwind on the beach.
He goes over the pornographic picture he keeps with him, and realizes that the girl in the photo, the vampire nurse, and the demon child, are all the same person.  Suddenly, the bed transports him to be with the girl in the photo as she puts on makeup, trying to lure a kidnapper into her home to take her away from her misery.  She explains that the kidnappers lost interest in children, so children now pursue kidnappers.  Finally, the old man dies.

ANALYSIS
Kobo Abe asks the question in the book, 'what is the meaning of life?'  Apparently, he doesn't know, which means that he's humble.  Seems like an OK guy.  Too bad he's dead.  I digress, I liked his book because it implied that we are like kangaroos.  We carry children in our pouch as we bound about in lives of sin.  By exposing children to our flaws, we are carrying them with us towards hell by influencing them, awhile none of us truly know where we are going but are absolutely positive that we don't want to wait to get there.  Humans have an internal need for bad things to happen to them, he asserts.  We seek constant pleasure in our lives.  By living in such an impersonal, go-go world, we have lost touch with our true humanity.  In order to reclaim this, we must yearn for some sort of spiritual guidance and question the world around us, instead of letting ourselves be zipped around by a magical hospital bed, by our parents, older brothers, friends, or by lust.  The narrator connected with his roots, pardon the pun, as he became overran by a plant, and came to grips with the errors of his society.  He then died.  Yippee.

• man has strange disease of vegetation growing on his body, goes to hospital his hospital bed takes him to hell his bed takes him to a home for people waiting to be euthanized 
• he sneaks out of the euthanasia home with a child 
• the bed whisks him back to the hospital where he speaks to his nurse one last time before dying 

SOURCE
Abe, Kobo.  The Kangaroo Notebook: A Novel.  New York.  Knopf, 1996.  Print.
About a guy in a magical hospital bed that whisks him off to hell.