Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar

I closed the book--or rather swiped to the last page on my iPad--and my first thought was, I want to read this again. Now.

Because  Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar took me on a crazy ride across genres and space and time and I want to do it all over again.

I read Tidhar's Central Station last year after my son raved about it. So I was expecting Science Fiction. But Unholy Land transcends genre, encompassing alternative history, noir mystery, and time-travel sci-fi, with social and political commentary (not so unusual in sci-fi, of course), so in the end, it transports the reader into an imagined alternative reality AND reflects on contemporary world politics. Add the "wink wink" self-referential nods and existential discussions on the nature of reality, we also get humor and philosophy.

In one work of fiction. And I think I missed some things.

So, yes, I want to read it AGAIN.

Tidhar was inspired by a true story of forgotten history. In 1904, the Zionist movement leader Theodor Herzl was offered land in Uganda as a Jewish homeland. Three men went on an expedition to survey the territory. One became separated and at journey's end, reported fertile land and while the other a saw desert. The idea was abandoned. Tidhar's novel considers the implications of establishing a Jewish homeland predating the Nazi regime.

The main character Lior Tirosh (note the character's name, so like Lavie Tidhar) slips through to an alternative reality. He doesn't realize what has happened, but he is tracked by two people who have been through the portal and lived in other worlds. He becomes embroiled in a battle to control the portal and prevent overlaps in realities.

Tirosh questions, what is history if not an attempt to impose order on a series of meaningless events, just as a detective must piece together a story from conflicting tales.

Don't expect escapist genre fiction, readers, for in Unholy Land we learn in all the worlds possible walls will be built and some will be cast into the outer darkness.

"Lavie Tidhar is a clever bastard, and this book is a box of little miracles." Warren Ellis, Afterword Unholy Land

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Here is what the publisher offers on the plot:

When pulp-fiction writer Lior Tirosh* returns to his homeland in East Africa, much has changed. Palestina—a Jewish state established in the early 20th century—is constructing a massive border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in the capital, Ararat, is at fever pitch.

While searching for his missing niece, Tirosh begins to believe he is a detective from one of his own novels. He is pursued by ruthless members of the state’s security apparatus while unearthing deadly conspiracies and impossible realities.

For if it is possible for more than one Palestina to exist, the barriers between worlds are beginning to break.

Unholy Land
by Lavie Tidhar
Tachyon Publications
Pub Date 06 Nov 2018
ISBN 9781616963040
PRICE $15.95 (USD)

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

"It was a time after first discoveries but not last ones. It was wanting to know everything and wanting to know nothing. It was the new sweetness of men starting to talk as they must talk. It was the possible bitterness of revelation."--Something Wicked This Way Comes

For October I decided to read Something Wicked This Way Comes, my interest in revisiting Ray Bradbury piqued by my book club's reading Dandelion Wine in September.

When I was a teenager I read most of Bradbury, and passed my paperback books to my younger brother when he was in a reading slump.

But Bradbury is wasted on the young! The young may get the mystery and the fantasy, but some things require a view that only age can bring. An October view, as it were, from the perspective of a fifty-four-year-old father.

One October night a carnival comes to town and Will and Jim have snuck out of their houses to see the carnival being set up. They observe it's secrets and understand the evil going on, endangering their lives. The circus master Mr Dark, the Illustrated Man, searches for the boys. The boys have only Will's father, the library janitor, and their own ingenuity to protect them.

Wil and his father are unable to sleep, and their 3 am talk it is a most beautiful scene. Will asks his father about goodness and happiness. Although he only understands a small portion of his father's meaning, he has never heard his father talk so much and is transfixed. His father shares all he has learned about life.

"Too late, I found you can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else."  

"We are the creatures that know and know too much. That leaves us with such a burden again we have a choice, to laugh or cry. No other animal does either. We do both..."

"Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. you can't act if you don't know...we got to know all there is to know about those freaks and that man heading them up. We can't be good unless we know what bad is..."

The carnival, like life, has its enticements, the pink cotton candy stickiness; and it has frightening deformities and sinister side shows, the house of mirrors that confuses those who enter and reflects back what we do not want to see.

"...here comes the carnival, Death like a rattle in one hand, Life like candy in the other; shake on to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water."

In his search for the boys, Mr. Dark finds Will's dad in the library. He offers the gift of reversing time, and then he threatens Will's dad with death.  Looking death in the face, Will's father laughs and robs evil of its power.

"Evil has only the power that we give it. I give you nothing. I take back. Starve. Starve. Starve."

Death isn't important, it is what happened before death that counts, Will's father knows.

After vanquishing Mr. Dark and his cohorts, Will's dad knows it is just the beginning. "God knows what shape they'll come in next...We got to watch out the rest of our lives. The fights just begun."

The circus sideshow freaks, the witches and the living dead, are vanquished but other 'autumn people' will arise and we must always be on our guard, ready to stand up to them. Our weapon is laughter and joy.

*****

I wrote a poem long ago, but many years after reading Somethng Wicked This Way Comes, and yet I wonder what part of Bradbury's novel remained in my subconscious when I wrote it.

Circus Life
by Nancy A Bekofske

The thing about life is
it’s like a three ring circus.
I can almost smell the greasy odor of popcorn,
feel the sticky web of cotton candy
attaching itself to the skin,
see the wild beasts on stools and
the dangerous, captivating dares of the trainer--
hyperbolic symbol of the little daily risks we take
just going to work or school or to mail a letter.
The bareback riders in pink tights and tutus
recall the various temptations
flashing their thighs at us.
The sad clowns fall down over and over,
suffer the trials of water and fire, spurring laughter.
That's what life is all about:
trial, temptation, danger,
and the deep haw-haw of laughter.

Spaceman of Bohemia: Truths Must Not Be Feared

Jakub Prochazka has never forgotten the Shoe Man who turned his grandparents out of their home. He appeared with an iron shoe that Jakub's father once used to torture him. Jakub's father had been an informer when Czechoslovakia was under Soviet rule, a ranking member of the Party, an expert torturer. Then came the collapse of the USSR and the trial, and orphan Jakub living with his grandparents.

When my father the hero was lost, my father the nation's villain came to light.

Jakub's dream of becoming a scientist is partly inspired by the desire to reestablish Prague as a center of scientific research.

But mostly Jakub desires to restore his family name, remove the curse as it were. When he is offered the chance to go into space and investigate Chopra, a strange purple dust cloud, he eagerly accepts. He will be a hero, bringing scientific glory back to the homeland.

Even if it means leaving his beloved wife behind, an unwilling Penelope left in limbo as her husband explores new worlds.

During his isolated journey through the solar system Jakub has a lot of time to miss his wife, think about the past, and discuss his life with a new friend--the giant black arachnid, the last of his kind, with an interest in earthlings. He teaches Jakub his people's tenants: The body must not be violated. Truths must not be feared.

When the Chopra cloud is reached, Jakub faces challenges that change his life. In the end, Jakub must decide on what kind of life awaits him.

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar is an unusual book, at once funny and probing, emotionally wise, improbable, a blend of philosophy and fantasy. Exactly the kind of genre-bending read I enjoy dipping into a few times a year!

Kalfar is a Czech-American who came to the US at age 15, and says he learned English from The Cartoon Network. This is his first novel. He holds an MFA from New York University. I look forward to reading more from this young author.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Spaceman in Bohemia
Jaroslav Kalfar
Little, Brown and Company
Publication March 7, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN:9780316273435