![]() Just because the story is a TRAGEDY, doesn't make it any less of a wonderful literary effort. I believe the relatively low customer rating of this book is misleading. I enjoy Ben Kingsley's acting and I am sure he handles the Colonel's character very well but I will have to reserve seeing the film until some day when I am so overwhelmingly sunny and happy that I need to be brought down a few notches. Over-all, a book which seems highly over-rated to me. Those guys are not in business in my area. I want to hire those builders who built that roof deck so incredibly quickly. Is anyone in this book ever capable of making just one reasonably sensible judgement, one which does not inevitably lead to disaster? One positive. Has something like this every happened? I suppose so, but. To keep this very brief, my problems with this book revolve around several concerns: The complete ineptness of everyone in resolving the property tax problem early on and the string of negative coincidences creating the situation made for a less than believable basic premise for the book. I found that to be a bit disconcerting, but I do have to admit that the real world is not densely populated by all wonderful people. As the one other (so far) reviewer has said, no one in the book is likeable. I suspect I am going to be in the minority, but I did not like this book. We will always live in the house of sand and fog.I suspect I am going to be in the minority. Until we all see each other as part of our common community of humanity, with the same goals and hopes, with the same good intentions to live a happy and meaningful life, we will never solve the problem of racism. As one of the villagers summed it up beautifully about the people in his village “We dance together, we eat together. The villagers in this story, however, understand wisely how peace can be achieved by respecting each other’s beliefs and ways of life. ![]() ![]() Ethiopia is considered less “civilized” than the United States. They stood in a circle, facing each other, praying in their different ways. They slaughtered two lambs to prepare a feast for Bourdain. Last night, on CNN”s Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, I watched Bourdain’s journey to a village in Ethiopia, where the communities of Christians and Muslims coexist peacefully. Stereotypes become a normal thought process leading to predictable actions. Many of us believe we are superior, our lives are impeccable, just to find how some people we thought we knew, due to our cultural bias and assumptions, turn out to be more educated and successful than us. We stay away from certain neighborhoods, fearing again for our safety. ![]() We put them in categories, often using condescendent or critical terms such as “Yuppies,” “White trash,” “Free loaders,” or “Rednecks.” We often cross the street when we are alone to avoid certain people, fearing we will be robbed or assaulted. We also judge others based on external factors such as their life circumstances or their physical appearance. We label people “weird” or “strange,” as their habits and customs are not the same as ours. As in “House of Sand and Fog,” we tend to judge others using our own standards, which are formed by our cultures. They do not realize that beneath the superficial social or cultural differences and barriers, they are indeed very similar at heart.Īfter reading this novel, as I completely immersed myself in the two main characters who were telling their stories from their point of view, I learned how we have to experience someone’s life to understand how they feel about different issues, how they conduct their lives, or simply how they view the world around them. The ending of the book is tragic, as it shows how two good people can destroy each other as they misunderstand each other’s way of life. The story is told in the first person from each side of the conflict, with the reformed drug addict and the Iranian head of household being the main characters. The two families fight over the same house which the American woman inherited from her father but lost through a back tax problem. “House of Sand and Fog” is about the conflict between two families, one being a lower middle class American woman, a reformed drug addict the other being a peaceful Iranian family trying to build a good life in America. Now and then, there is a novel which makes me think about the human condition for days after I finish reading it, and this novel was among the most haunting ones. Several years ago, I read an excellent novel called “ House of Sand and Fog,” by Andre Dubus III, which later was made into a movie.
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