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PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Review-a-Day

ToB: Burnt Shadows vs. That Old Cape Magic

by Review-a-Day, March 14, 2010 12:00 AM
Burnt ShadowsBurnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

Reviewed by Tournament of Books

The Morning News

Powell's Books and The Morning News present the 2010 Tournament of Books

The annual NCAA-style battle between literary titans has begun! And, this year, Review-a-Day will feature a recap of the previous week's battles, judges' comments, and, of course, the winners of each match-up -- every Sunday through March.

With Friday upon us and an exhausting week of battles under our belts, we are now halfway through the opening round. It's been a lot of fun and we've got some exciting results to share! Before we get started, you might want to peek into the judges booth for some pre-game chatter.

*********

This Week's Featured Battle

Battle Date: March 12, 2010

__________

Burnt Shadows, by Kamila Shamsie

VS.

That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo

__________

Judged by

Nic Brown

Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows is insanely ambitious. It starts with a love scene between a German man and a Japanese woman in Nagasaki on the day of the dropping of the atomic bomb, then somehow ends in Guantanamo Bay, but not until Shamsie first takes on the Partition between India and Pakistan, the end of British colonialism, American C.I.A. agents working in Afghanistan, several iterations of cross-cultural love, and some serious homoerotic tension between British lawyers and their Indian clerks. Much of it is too convenient and unbelievable to work, especially as the book progresses, and as for the end, I can't really say for certain if it's set in Guantanamo Bay or not, because I haven't finished it yet (I have a 17-month-old with a cold, a day job, and a new book to edit -- cut me some slack). But it doesn't really matter. By the end of the first chapter I knew it was going to win.

Let me explain. Shamsie's prose is often beautiful, and she's dealing with Big Ideas here. Of course, therein lie many of the problems in this novel, especially as the dialogue becomes increasing didactic ("Because of you, I understand for the first time how nations can applaud when their governments drop a second nuclear bomb," for example), but I admire what she's trying to accomplish. And I read this book second, so I knew as soon as I encountered her beautiful descriptions ("An old man walks past with skin so brittle Hiroko thinks of a paper lantern with the figure of a man drawn onto it") that it was my favorite.  (Read the entire ToB review)

*********

Winner: Burnt Shadows

*********

Additional match-ups from this past week:

  • March 9

    Let the Great World Spin v. Miles From Nowhere

    Judged by Rosecrans Baldwin

    click here for comments and outcome

  • March 10

    Lowboy v. The Help

    Judged by Andrew Womack

    click here for comments and outcome

  • March 11

    The Lacuna v. Fever Chart

    Judged by Alexander Chee

    click here for comments and outcome

Coming up next week:

March 15, David Gutowski

__________

Wolf Hall

VS.

An Epic Search For Truth

__________

March 16, Molly Young

__________

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

VS.

The Anthologist

__________

March 17, C. Max Magee

__________

A Gate At the Stairs

VS.

The Book of Night Women

__________

March 18, Kate Ortega

__________

Big Machine

VS.

The Year of the Flood

__________




Books mentioned in this post

Year Of The Flood

Margaret Atwood

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

Wells Tower

Burnt Shadows

Kamila Shamsie

Gate at the Stairs

Lorrie Moore

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

Book of Night Women

Marlon James

Logicomix An Epic Search for Truth

Apostolos Doxiadis, Bertrand Russel

Big Machine

Victor Lavalle

Anthologist

Nicholson Baker

That Old Cape Magic

Richard Russo
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3 Responses to "ToB: Burnt Shadows vs. That Old Cape Magic"

Suchitra March 20, 2010 at 08:08 PM
Hi, I read Burnt Shadows and by the start of the book I knew I would love it. I liked your review of the book. It was indeed very objective. I have recently started a book blog and I have also written my review of Burnt Shadows out there. Please do check it out and let me know what you think. Cheers, Suchitra http://suchisbookshelf.blogspot.com

macque March 14, 2010 at 09:14 AM
This is a nice compare and contrast exercise. If you want to generate even more interest how about doing the same with two poems. Not books of poetry, just two poems. It might be a US poet and a Russian poet, Keats v. contemporary, Oregonian v. New Yorker, etc.

s h a r o n March 14, 2010 at 06:25 AM
"I have a 17-month-old with a cold, a day job, and a new book to edit" My goodness, Nic. I'm not sure whether you should be proud, intimidated, or just plain scared of this child of yours!

Result(s) 3

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