A Literary City

Honolulu Stories: Two Centuries of Writing
Edited by Gavan Daws and Bennett Hymer
Mutual; 1117 pages; $35

Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published 6/22 in the Honolulu Advertiser


Had “Honolulu Stories” editors Gavan Daws and Bennet Hymer included the full text of each story included in this mammoth, 1000 plus-page collection of Honolulu portraits from the nineteenth century to the present, it would be even more intimidating to crack open.

But apart from its girth, this first-of-its-kind anthology is undeniably impressive in its ambitious, democratic range and focus on “imaginative writing, not nonfiction.” And with nearly 250 contributors and 350 entries—by unknown to local favorites to famous voices—nine translated languages, and sweeping categories such as The Plantation, On the Beach at Waikiki, and To Be Hawaiian, the poetry, lyrics, chants, fiction, comedy, and plays within offer a truly comprehensive canvas.

There are expected inclusions, such as Queen Lili`uokalani’s prayer and excerpts from London and Bushnell; local fixtures like Lois Ann Yamanaka, and Ian MacMillan; as well as unexpected mainland voices like Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Curse of Lono” and National Book Award winner Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke.”

But it’s classic icons like Kapono Beamer’s “Mr Sun Cho Lee,” Rap Reiplinger’s “Room Service,” and Jerry Santos’ “Ku`u Home O Kahalu`u” that ground the collection in the meaningful and authentic, elevating it to a treasured household reference that reveals today’s Honolulu as “a literary city of its own making.”

Ownership for All

Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai'i?
By Jon M. Van Dyke
UH Press; 485 pages; $28

Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published 6/22 in the Honolulu Advertiser


The eponymous query of UH Manoa law professor Jon M. Van Dyke’s book “Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai'i?” is answered before it properly begins, when in the introduction Van Dyke echoes the 1993 Apology Resolution and asserts: “Native Hawaiians have been deprived of their lands without compensation or their consent, and…[t]hese Crown Lands should once again be managed by and for the Native Hawaiian People.”

By detailing the intricate history and legal status of the Crown Lands, which centers on the Great Mahele of 1848—when Kamehameha III divided the lands as a protective measure should Hawai`i fall into foreign hands—and the subsequent “ceding” of the government and crown lands to the United States after the 1893 overthrow of Queen Lili`uokalani, Van Dyke succeeds in laying a remarkably clear and completely captivating path of understanding.

As the “history of lands moving from the Native Hawaiian People into the hands of others” is painstakingly and equitably examined, helping readers effortlessly navigate such complex intersections as Hawaiian concepts of land tenure and modern legal systems, Van Dyke smartly navigates past such disputes as the role of ali`i in a new Hawaiian Nation to pointedly elucidate and persuasively affirm the Crown Lands’ unique status so they can be more effectively restored to their intended purpose and beneficiaries.

WIMR: Rachel Ross, Ironman Triathlete

What I’m Reading | Rachel Ross
Ironman Triathlete, Web Designer

Q&A with Christine Thomas
January 2008

-What are you reading?

I just finished reading “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” because I didn’t know anything about Barack Obama, but I knew he was a local boy and wanted to learn more about him. I’m not a political person so I’m trying to get more knowledgeable before the next elections. I also have a book that lives in my car, that’s my Bible. It’s called “Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes” by Monique Ryan. With all my kids’ activities I have little moments, like a half hour, to read while one is at sports. I’ve never read it cover to cover, but it’s a good reminder of what I should be doing for my body with Ironman and other training.

-How do you discover them?

My coach gave me the sports nutrition book because I was training like a full time endurance athlete and racing like one, but not eating like one. Barack’s I took from the library recycling shelf. We spend a lot of time at the library—my kids are at that age so we’re at the library once a week. And I went to Punahou and Barack went to Punahou so I thought I’d read about him.

-What stands out about Dreams from My Father?

It’s interesting to see his background. I’ve never followed his political career so I’ve enjoyed reading about his start and all that he went through. He’s always been so driven--I can’t imagine having that drive. He’s known what he wanted to do since high school—known that he was going to be a leader. I’m driven in different ways—in athletics—but it’s interesting to read about this political driven person. It’s also fun reading about Punahou in the `70s—it's something I can relate to a little more.

-You didn’t start out wanting to be a triathlete, as Obama wanted to be a leader, but does his passion for politics resonate with your own for athletics?

I definitely relate to his drive. People ask me how I do what I do—you decide you love something and you have to see how far you can go with it and that’s a parallel that I see. I didn’t have the drive from a young age, and as far as career goes I’m not there with him, but I’ve found something I enjoy pushing myself at. What I’m doing is personal, but he’s changing lives—so I’m certainly not doing things as big as he does. I’m just enjoying what I do and pushing myself, and hoping to motivate people and women along the way.

On Being Hawaiian

The Heart of Being Hawaiian
By Sally-Jo Bowman
Watermark; 232 pages; $16.95

Reviewed by Christine Thomas
Published 6/22 in the Honolulu Advertiser

In the foreword to “The Heart of Being Hawaiian,” Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson equates Sally-Jo Bowman’s quest to uncover her Hawaiian identity with “a voyage in words.” And indeed Bowman’s heartfelt solo journey undertaken through freelance writing eloquently explores elements of modern Hawaiian culture that had eluded this Oregon resident, despite being a quarter Hawaiian, raised in Kailua, O`ahu, and attending Kamehameha Schools (class of ’58).

Bowman’s lack of a Hawaiian name and her ‘40s and ‘50s upbringing, when as she says “it still was not cool to be Hawaiian,” both influenced her to, from 1990-2004, write essays, profiles (like of Bumpy Kanahele) and magazine articles on such topics as lua (Hawaiian martial arts), language immersion school, Kalaupapa, and the Onipa`a (centennial overthrow protest). Through these events and Bowman’s earnest reflections, readers witnessed her cultural roots grow, and Bowman began to see a whole develop.

This book smartly presents that whole, not in a chronology of articles but an illuminating, thematic arrangement addressing such concepts as coming home, ancestral paths, and central values. Her personal, uplifting and often humorous portraits of people, some now passed on, together speak volumes about what being Hawaiian means today and form Bowman’s poignant new “quilt of words.”

A Slowly Focusing Lens

The last of the Chicago five reviews, a mesmerizing tale of life by Wang Anyi.

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
By Wang Anyi
Translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan
Columbia; 440 pages; $29.95

Without delving into historical and political intricacies, Wang Anyi’s novel “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow” tells a story of post-World War II Shanghai by first laying out the city in laborious detail—painstakingly recording the labyrinthine longtang, or townhouse, residential neighborhoods, the pigeons, the pervasive current of gossip and seemingly every breeze of working-class life—like a camera slowly focusing its lens.

Wang’s Anyi’s exacting narration eventually settles on a central character, Wang Qiyao—an pretty but not gorgeous, unsympathetic but not distasteful woman who nonetheless inspires worship in friends and men, and earns her third place in the Miss Shanghai competition. She is deliberately positioned as a quintessential stand-in for all women: “Behind every doorway in the Shanghai longtang a Wang Qiyao is studying, embroidering, whispering secrets.”

Throughout the novel’s crucial span from 1946-1986, Wang Qiyao’s nostalgia recreates her past in every era and chapter. Friends and paramours exit swiftly and with little mention, quickly replaced by new ones; history lies in the background, evidenced only through wardrobe changes and changing food and currency availability—and thus Wang Anyi subtly yet pointedly reveals life’s repetitive nature.

Like Wang Qiyao, the novel is alternately appealing and tedious. It has a plot but is not plot-driven, and is a life portrait meant to stand for all lives. The hypnotic prose and melancholic story leave readers with the sense of walking slowly on a mesmerizing treadmill, as if the act of reading also makes them, alongside the characters, “part of a cycle that has been renewing itself since time immemorial.”

WIMR: Tom Moffatt, Concert Promoter

What I'm Reading | Tom Moffatt
Concert Promoter

Q&A with Christine Thomas
January 2008

-What are you reading?

I’m just reading “Don Ho: My Music, My Life” by Jerry Hopkins. It’s fascinating. I’m also reading “Latinization of America: How Hispanics Are Changing the Nation's Sights and Sounds” which is a big book, 1100 some pages, written by Eliot Tiegel, an old friend of mine; when I met him he was editor of Billboard Magazine. I just finished up “Red Sky at Night" by Bill Bigelow. It’s a novel. It’s really good.

-How did you discover it?

I was involved in the Don Ho book because Jerry Hopkins, the author, also wrote my book The Showman of the Pacific - 50 Years of Radio and Rock Stars". So I helped Jerry a bit on this because Don died suddenly and he was trying to finish it up. I get most books from people I know or as a columnist people send me a lot of books.

-What do you like about Don Ho: My Music, My Life?

In Don’s book, there are so many memories in there—that’s what I like about it. It reviews all the people that went to see him and his life and a lot of things people didn’t know about him and I didn’t know about him.

-And the others?

I’ve been kind of bouncing around it, especially with reading about Hawai`i and the entertainment I brought in. It goes back to the original Spaniards and then what’s happened in the last couple of decades. It gets into sports and music and business and all of it. It has always fascinated me how all of a sudden everything is bilingual in the U.S. [Red Sky at Night]—it’s fascinating. It’s about something that’s hard to believe could happen but it could.

-Your concert promoting has made your life an adventure—so do you also look for fascinating adventures in your reading?

Yes. I like serious reading too, but I like a good novel that moves. The way I move sometimes it’s hard to stay with a book though, but I love books that I can’t put down.

A Peach Without Its Skin

The fourth of five of my Chicago Tribune reviews (published 6/21), a true story about post-impressionist painter Pan Yuliang brought gloriously to life in Jennifer Cody Epstein's impressive debut novel.

The Painter from Shanghai
By Jennifer Cody Epstein
W.W. Norton; 416 pages; $24.95

What is known about the life of 20th Century Shanghai painter Pan Yuliang seems the stuff of fiction—her opium-addicted uncle sold her to a brothel at age 14; Pan Zanhua, a progressive customs official paid her debt and made her his second wife; she studied art in Paris and Rome, and became a famous Post-Impressionist painter until her controversial nudes forced her to abandon China for good.

It’s therefore unsurprising that the plot of Jennifer Cody Epstein’s debut novel about Yuliang’s life, “The Painter from Shanghai,” is utterly engrossing. But Epstein’s spotless pace, vivid characterization, and often breathtaking descriptions elevate the novel above any initial similarities with Memoirs of a Geisha to become its own distinctive canvas.

Yuliang’s strength and vulnerability, her believable growth throughout the novel into a daring, independent woman and the development of her artist’s eye are wholly absorbing, and Pan Zanhua’s support of Yuliang—even helping her unbind her feet—is charming and seductive. And Epstein’s exploration of their romance hits just the right note, tender but never maudlin, clearly painting their love just as Yuliang describes it: “a little like the need for air…You aren’t aware of it until the air is removed. And suddenly, you realize you are suffocating.”

The book’s intimacy is spellbinding, not because of the romance of the courtesan era when Yuliang “feels like a peach without its skin” but because of Epstein’s true achievement in resurrecting such a passionate woman who pursued a life of her own despite intrinsic barriers. Much like Pan Yuliang’s inspiring defiance of fate, Epstein’s assured, impeccable narrative transcends all expectation.

Simply Literary

A while back I got a note asking me to check out a new educational portal for students and teachers called Simply Charly. I finally had a chance to review this promising site, designed to complement what educators do in teaching students about literature and arts by stimulating their curiosity and creativity (and help them find research material) with a layman's intro to each figure and subject, linking with the latest in multimedia interfaces (podcasts, videos, etc.), fishing up current news articles on the web that mention the subject/figure, short analysis of writing and a list of works, links to more information, and a discussion forum.

As the site explains:

"From the main site, you can click through to sites devoted to the great historical figures of art, architecture, science, music, literature, philosophy, politics, and economics. Everyone from Elvis Presley to Sigmund Freud, from Albert Einstein to Franz Kafka, will be thoroughly covered. ... You don't need to know physics or advanced math to explore SIMPLY EINSTEIN or SIMPLY GODEL, and you don't have to be an English major to click on SIMPLY HEMINGWAY. Important concepts are introduced in terms everyone can understand, and the work of the individual is always placed in context, from Hemingway's involvement in the Lost Generation group of writers to the state of physics when Einstein wrote his famous early papers."

More portals will come online frequently (like Dickinson and Joyce coming soon), founder Charles Carlini assures me. For now there are: Chaplin, Dali, Le Corbusier, Einstein, Freud, Marx, Stravinsky, Yeats, Picasso, Hemingway, Godel, Hitchcock, and of course The Bard.

Check them out, and the vibrant caricatures here. I think many students and educators will find this a fun, helpful resources for themselves and students.

WIMR: Betty White, Sacred Hearts

I interviewed the head of Sacred Hearts Academy, Betty White, upon the recommendation of a woman who works with her. The edited version of our conversation appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser in November 2007, but is no longer available online. I've included our entire conversation here.

What I’m Reading | Betty White
Head of Sacred Hearts Academy

Q&A with Christine Thomas
November 2007

-What are you reading?

I just finished reading a book called “Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time” by Greg Mortenson, and another book called “The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally” by David Elkind. Most of my reading—and I read a lot—but most of it is connected in some way to the school or to girls. I have a stack of books I want to read, but I don’t really get a chance to read for pleasure.

-How did you discover them?

Greg Mortenson presented at a meeting of the National Coalition of Girls Schools this past summer in Baltimore. And then David Elkind comes to Hawai`i quite often, and about eight months ago he was in Hawai`i and gave presentation for especially preschool and early childhood teachers.

-What do you like about them?

Elkind is very adamant that we are scheduling our children too tightly, that they just need time to be spontaneous and do the things they want to do and not to be scheduled in sports and all sorts of after school activities by their families. He thinks that computers can wait, that limiting TV is good. He tells us that if we want to make play dates with our young children, then let them decide what they want to do, rather than us telling them 'today we’re going to do this.'

Many of us grew up in a time when we were told to go outside and play with the neighborhood kids. These days many kids don’t have neighborhood groups, but even if they do they’re getting home late at night because they have ballet and sports and computer classes and there’s no time for them to relax and do the things they want to do. He also says homework is overdone, that instead of giving a child homework 3 to 4 hours a night they need time to listen to music and do the things they need to do. He plays heavily on the idea that most of the anxiety of children is caused by the parents because they want to get the leg up for getting them into the right school.

I agree with this because I think too many of our children are going from early morning until late in the evening with no time of their own. And then on weekends they have sports and other obligations and there’s no time for them to just relax, lay back and do what they want to do. There’s not enough hours in the day.

-What stands out about Three Cups of Tea?

It adds a humanistic perspective to the war and one of the most impoverished areas in the world. And when I was reading it—at the present time Sacred Hearts is building a $10 million building here on campus and sometimes we get discouraged with fundraising and whatever else we have to accomplish. When I read what Greg Mortenson went through to build a $12 thousand school for girls it really inspires us to keep going.

-Are you also moved by Mortenson’s story because you view such powerful examples as one of the most important teaching methods?

Yes, I think that the story that Greg Mortenson tells would be a beautiful example to bring to any classroom, where a fellow is so inspired to help others that he risks his life and goes across the country to raise money, staying away from his family for months at a time, in order for young girls to have a chance at an education in the world.

Our newspapers are filled all the time with the turmoil of the war and lots of times we’re forming opinions and giving opinions without really knowing the culture. I like this book because it gave me a sense of the many challenges that people are faced with.

Keeping the Faith

It turns out only 3 of my 5 Chicago book reviews could be published due to space issues, so I'll have to save those for next week.

Instead, here's what I wrote about Jessica Brody's sensational (in the truest sense of the word) debut novel The Fidelity Files for Lei Chic (Hawai`i's version of Daily Candy, for which I write about three pieces a week). The novel is narrated by a fictional fidelity inspector (Apparently there are real-life fidelity inspectors, which one would think would be in the news more often) and details her work and personal challenges.

I generally agreed with the AP reviewer's (Read the AP review here) assessment that Brody is prone to overwriting, describing at length how a Treo works (who doesn't know about phones that are organizers and emailers?) and her history with pens and pencils. Brody really deserved better editing assistance, but her swift plot and seductive premise overcame these longueurs, and I'm sure the film version will edit these out.

That's why I recommend the book in my article, below.

My Hero
June 10, 2008
Published in Lei Chic

In this episode of Kikaida, (cue soundtrack: Jiro…changeee…Kikaida) the human-like Jiro transforms into his powerful alter ego Kikaida to fight for justice and battle another of evil Professor Gil’s surprisingly similar-looking minions.

Fast-forward from the ‘70s though, and 2008 needs a new idol. Like beautiful but chronically single Jennifer Hunter who secretly becomes Ashlyn, a fidelity inspector battling cheating men who all look alike on the inside—unfaithful. In Jessica Brody’s debut novel “The Fidelity Files” Ashlyn morphs into each man’s fantasy—whether football-mad flight attendant, savvy poker player, or naïve business traveler. Then she tests them for the intention to cheat, ensuring that her client’s mate does all the propositioning until it’s clear he would’ve had sex with her, but escapes before things go all the way.

The plot remains irresistible as a succession of men fail (frighteningly common) or pass (dumbfoundingly rare), and the titillating tension only increases as Jennifer struggles to keep her identity a secret from friends and the world, and somehow finds time to fall in love.

That is, until one last assignment (Jennifer…changeee…Go, go go go!) alters her position on love and relationships for good.

It’s one superpower every girl wants.
And the superhero every modern girl needs.

Available at amazon.com or your local bookseller.