I have only read two and I hope to read more because both books -- one fiction and one non-fiction were brilliant. I read his first novel "The Circle of Reason" which is rather episodic but also makes a point that we may have international "identities" and unconscious social networks that we don't know until we travel along our natural lines of flight. The book is about a weaver who is falsely accused of being a terrorists and takes flight from India and across the Middle East and to Algeria. I had never known that being a "weaver" had so many cultural significations.
So I read his non-fiction reflections "In an Antique Land." Again it is about flight, subservience, slavery, trade routes and social networks that cross all boundaries of class, culture, religion, "nation" and race. And very lyrical.
I can't say if these two books, are where you should start, but only that I am very happy that I they fell into my hands when they did. (I was on a jag of reading novels about India, or by Indians at the time, and I couldn't read everything by everybody so I just read one or two by many. If I wasn't so lost in Athenian and Roman law right now I would go back and read more of Gosh.... Much more enjoyable than the 12 Tables or even Cicero. Though that fabulous Herodotus can give him a spin or two for strange imaginative turns with his unconscious connections to India.)
I doubt this was much of a help. Maybe encouragement?
Jerry
I'd like to know whether and where to start.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Joanna
>
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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