Book Reviews
Book Review # 1: Zeitoun
This book by Dave Eggers is a spellbinding and enthralling description of Hurricane Katrina. Zeitoun, a true story, tells the story of an unjust arrest of and racial discrimination against a Syrian-American named Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Eggers tells the shocking tale of Zeitoun family and has once again proves that he is one of the most impressive literary writers in the United States of America.
When New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina, the prosperous Abdulrahman Zeitoun opted to stay at his place through the storm for protecting his house and business. After the passage of the storm, he rowed in a hand-me-down canoe to pass on necessary supplies and help people on the flooded streets. However, he suddenly disappears after a week of the storm. The author goes on to tell how things started turning out wrong with the entrance of the National Guard in the city. The officers took Abdulrahman into custody and put him behind bars temporarily. Eggers also narrates how Abdulrahman was made to allow strip searching and witnessed striking and further abuse of other detainees. In addition, he was not even allowed to make a phone call to his wife to tell her about his status.
Eggers nonfiction mesmerizes readers by demonstrating how Zeitoun experienced racial prejudice in the name of terrorism. The book is a great read as the author has explored Syrian roots reflected in Zeitoun’s character. It can be said that Dave Eggers has proved his efficiency as a smart writer by finding a small story of Zeitoun family in the larger story of Hurricane Katrina. It would not be incorrect to state that this book could not be written by anyone else. It is because Eggers has brilliantly used his extraordinary writing skill in weaving a story of audacity, devotion, and love. Zeitoun is a direct reflection of Egger’s innate compassion and mischievous wittiness.
Zeitoun is a worth-reading account of the Syrian-born Abdulrahman as it moves the reader and opens his eyes to many facts. The best thing about this book is that the author has closely worked with the real-life people whose lives are depicted in the book, particularly, Zeitoun and his wife, Kathy. It can be said that the book is a loyal representation of Zeitoun's experiences after he made the decision of remaining in New Orleans for supervising his housing properties and contracting business. However, it cuts through the reader’s heart as Zeitoun is shown to be accused of being an Al-Qaeda agent.
One of the best features of this book is how the author has created and sustained nervousness while giving an account of the grave rescue missions. He has also narrated the ineffectual and atrocious protection maneuvers aimed to maintain order. It is important to mention here that Zeitoun is not written with the intention of including everything about Hurricane Katrina, but it still tells the reader a lot about the storm and the following mismanagement and failures of the Bush government in an indirect manner.
In short, Eggers has been successful in distilling the rambling turmoil that pursued after Hurricane Katrina, and he has done it so beautifully by portraying the chaos into a particular family’s account. This book is a must-read for everyone who has a sympathetic heart as this simple story contains much power. Zeitoun is indeed an excellent book that enlightens its readers in an exciting way.
Book Review # 2: The Challenge of Human Diversity: Mirrors, Bridges, & Chasms
DeWight R. Middleton’s The Challenge of Human Diversity: Mirrors, Bridges, & Chasms is a reasonable and organized fusion of an all-inclusive subject matter that is persistently believed to inspire a thought process about difference and similarities among people of different cultures or to be more precise, Others. Middleton has beautifully interwoven short, but short and snappy ethnographic to show the influence of culture on human beings. The worth-reading book is filled with exciting personal experiences that demonstrate the tough and at times hilarious situations while making attempts to have an understanding of others and vice versa. It is exceedingly important to mention that Middleton has used his excellent research and writing skills to find common ground that unites every human being, no matter of which culture he/she is a member of. This book, if the truth is told, is an endeavor of the writer to make all cultural anthropology skills think on the same line.
This work of Middleton is brimmed with priceless insights that make possibilities wider for achieving satisfying human interaction in every aspect of life, locally and/or globally. The Challenge of Human Diversity: Mirrors, Bridges, & Chasms is, without a doubt, one of the best modern-day books related to cultural diversity. The book includes an exceptional enlightenment about the similarities and differences among different cultural groups and how they can make progress in finding common ground.
Middleton entails the challenging, expansive, and persistent problems of human diversity but at the same time also provides a great elucidation of recovering common ground for cultural bonding. Although his work is concise, it meets the challenges of dealing with human diversity as it offers readers with the basic structure for grasping the human interaction dynamics, both individual and collective. The best feature of this book is that Middleton has highlighted the diverse groups including their cultural and sub-cultural margins.
It is important to note here that The Challenge of Human Diversity: Mirrors, Bridges, & Chasms exposes readers to the anthropological approach and the well-merited lessons concerning exchange of ideas and cultural miscellany through the valuable extracts of private accounts and courageous field experiences. In short, this unique book depicts the resolute efforts of anthropologists for understanding different cultures. After reading Middleton’s reviewed work, readers will find themselves thinking about dissimilarities and resemblance among human groups in a critical manner. This work is a must-read as it makes readers understand and be grateful for the rewards and challenges in communicating with other people.
Book Review # 3: A Framework for Understanding Poverty
A Framework for Understanding Poverty is the first book written by Dr. Ruby Payne. This book is a great endeavor by the author to explain the educational consequences of poverty, situational poverty, generational poverty, and the differences between the two kinds. Payne has also highlighted the clash between the assumptions of the middle-class under which the operations of most schools are run, and the veiled rules brought by the children of poverty to school. It can be said that this book is a succinct and useful introduction to the disparity in monetary, psychological, physical, and emotional resources, deep-rooted values, and concealed system of generational poverty, middle-class, and affluent.
In fact, this book is a self- published work by Payne in which the hidden rules of poverty, the middle class, and the aristocratic are examined critically. Moreover, the author has been successful in explaining the lack of cognitive skills in poor students. After providing a thorough description of the missing important links, she also recommends how those missing links might be addressed by the schools.
It is important to note that this work of Dr. Payne’s is criticized by many for offering insufficient thought. The book is also controversial as Payne has heavily relied on stereo-typing to describe the poor’s plight. Many academics have also shown their disapproval regarding Payne’s work as there is an absence of inflexibility and thoroughness in this book. A Framework for Understanding Poverty also lacks incorporation of the latest research about neuroscience.
Although it is an eye-opening book for many, the book still needs some updated content to be included in it. The book, however, is highly recommended for educators and all those who work with kids and families. The book may help understand the teachers how their poor students think about certain issues in life. With the acquirement of this understanding of the differences in views, the teachers may help children of poverty to a great extent.
A Framework for Understanding Poverty is one of those perfect books which are crystal clear elucidations of the blunders and false perceptions in the educational sector with regards to the prevalent conservative approach.
Book Review # 4: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. It is the tragic story of a émigré child, Lia Lee, with her roots in Laos. Lia Lee was diagnosed with an epileptic seizure when she was only three months old. Thus, this story is about cultural clash, fright and misery in the face of alteration, parental devotion and love, a sense of duty demonstrated by doctors, and amalgamation of daily misperceptions. There are no heroes, heroines, and villains. However, the author has encompassed a profusion of innocent torment.
Fadiman describes how Lia Lee was brought to the emergency room thrice due to severe seizures. The child suffered from epilepsy whose cause was unknown to the doctors. In the initial stages, Lee’s parents had a cooperative and supporting attitude like other typical parents. The doctors were also shown as competent, humane, and compassionate who did proper tests and prescribed standard drugs. Nevertheless, this attitude of parents and doctors changed with the passage of time as Lia suffered more seizures. Her condition clearly reflected the fact that the doctor’s orders were not followed by her parents appropriately and she was not getting enough medication.
However, their love for their child was unending, and they felt tormented about her ill health. They made it clear that the treatment plan was not acknowledgeable for them. In the course of time, they stopped giving Lia Lee a drug named phenobarbital stating that the medication was not doing any good to their beloved daughter. As a consequence, she was taken away from them by one of the child’s doctor pursuing a court order. The author has brilliantly scribbled how the separation from parents emotionally stressed the child.
When she was given back into her parents’ custody, they started to follow the orders of the doctors regarding medications. However, Lia’s condition continued to get worse with each passing day. Finally, the miserable girl went into the unstoppable seizure state known as epileptics. When she arrived at the hospital, the doctors found out that she was infected by a certain bacteria that made her go into a life-threatening septic shock. Although the doctors succeeded in controlling both the seizure and septic shock but, unfortunately, after she lost her brain functioning. This condition was “death” according to her doctors, but Lia did not die. She was allowed to leave with her parents but remained in a constant vegetative state.
This story is a simple account of the collision between two cultural perceptions. Lia’s parents belonged Hmong community that is renowned for being a cohesive and ferocious group of people. Their non-assimilation in the American society was a natural thing as they believed in keeping close to their roots in a steadfast manner. Thus, when Lia’s doctors prescribed certain medications, her parents’ adhere steadfastness became an obstacle in her recovery as they believed in their rituals more than Western medicines. It can be said that Lia Lee’s story is a tragic one as she became a pendulum in the hands of her doctors and parents whose cultural miscommunication turned out a tragedy for a little girl.
The moral given by Fadiman in this book is a definite one. It indirectly tells the readers to keep aside their beliefs and rituals when the matter is of life and death. If Lia’s parents would have followed the doctor’s directions, the condition of Lia might be a lot better. However, the attachment to Hmong’s beliefs made her parents stubborn. Ultimately, the child suffered alone.
This book is recommended to everyone who wants to understand how collision between cultures worsens peoples’ lives. It is not only a story but the message.
References
Eggers, D. (2009). Zeitoun. San Francisco: McSweeney's Books.
Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall down: A Hmong child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Middleton, D. R. (1998). The Challenge of Human Diversity: Mirrors, Bridges, and Chasms. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press.
Payne, R. K. (2005). A Framework for Understanding Poverty (4th rev. ed.). Highlands, Tex.: aha! Process.
