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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Silence is how we preserve that which is most sacred.", January 27, 2006
This review is from: House of Many Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)
With her lush descriptions of the topography and the almost operatic rhythm of her language, Kiana Davenport establishes the setting of her newest novel--a "wild place, the untutored place, where the Grand Tutu of the coast, the rugged Wai'anae Mountains, watched over the generations," the last holdout of pure-blood Hawaiians on Oahu. Opening in 1964, the novel focuses on Ana Kapakahi, a young girl from the poor coastal village Nanakuli, who is being raised by her extended family, her mother having departed for the mainland and a better life. Many of the elders in her family and neighborhood adhere to the old spiritual and cultural traditions, and they resent the fact that much of the land in these mountains has been seized by the US military, ending the Hawaiians' traditional use of the land and despoiling their sacred burial places and shrines.
Davenport traces the life of the resilient Ana, from 1964 to the present, as she progresses through school, college, and medical school, a journey of immense hardship and stress, contrasting Ana's life with that of her mother, Anahola (also called Ana), who is living comfortably on the mainland. She also introduces a surprising new plot element by comparing and contrasting Ana's life with that of Nikolai Volenko, a young Russian in Moscow. The two come together as adults when Hurricane Iniki destroys the Hawaiian island of Kauai and Ana, as a physician, offers medical aid. Niki, a videographer on a one-year fellowship to the US, arrives to record the events for a documentary.
Though the author might have used her plot to set up simple love stories in which the cultural differences among various lovers complicate their lives, Davenport goes much further than this, thematically, providing several points of focus. The three love stories are all complicated by the effects of the polluted environments in which the characters have lived, and the author minces no words in assigning blame for this pollution. At the same time, she emphasizes the spiritual values which can sustain believers, adding color and depth to her story by including unique Hawaiian rituals, legends, and descriptions of sacred places.
Using the personal story of Ana and her mother to provide the emotional base of the novel, Davenport is largely successful combining these seemingly disparate ideas, ultimately producing a moving family saga, a series of love stories, a number of domestic tragedies, an environmental novel, a political commentary, and a spiritual coming-of-age. As the action moves back and forth among the themes and plot lines, the novel draws in the reader, as mesmerizing as a hula. n Mary Whipple
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story of love and family and the unsafe world created by the march of progress, April 22, 2006
This review is from: House of Many Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)
I've becoming quite a fan of Kiana Davenport. Her themes are always about her native Hawaii. Her characters are symbolic as well as real. And her stories never fail to keep me up well past my bedtime. I read her latest book in a couple of days and just couldn't put it down. This was in spite of the fact that I generally knew what was coming. In fact, I welcomed it. Because, in the end, I knew there would be a happy resolution. And there was.
This is the story of a Ana, young native Hawaiian girl born in the 1960s. She's being raised by her extended family because her mother has deserted her. It's a house full of aunties and uncles and cousins who eke out a sparse living in rural Oahu, about a two-hour bus ride from the busy and bustling Honolulu. This is Ana's story, but it is also the story an unpleasant chapter in Hawaii's history, that of nuclear testing on its beaches, with the resultant illnesses of the people and devastation of the environment.
Against all odds, Ana grows up to be a doctor. She is not a happy person though. She has been shaped by the loss of her mother and is always angry. Even when she becomes ill, and her mother returns, she continues living behind emotional defenses.
But there is another character in this story. And, unlike Ms. Davenport's previous books, this character is not a native Hawaiian. He comes from far-away Russia and has experienced anguishes that make Ana's story pale by comparison. When Stalin came to power, this man's father was sent to a labor camp in the frozen north. His mother followed him, living in a house of ice with other women whose husbands were in the camp. During a secret visit to his father, Nicolai was conceived and the hardships he endured as a baby made me wince in horror. Later, he becomes a street urchin, starving and abused. However, he somehow manages to become a documentary film maker. And he specializes in filming the awful results of his country's nuclear testing.
Yes, he comes to Hawaii. He meets Ana. But this is not a simple love story. There are twists and turns and the reader is forced to view the unsafe world created by the Cold War and the march of progress.
I loved this book and couldn't put it down. I am fascinated by books about the Hawaiian people. And I am equally fascinated by books about the frozen north. Put these both together in a fast-paced story which also has a message, and I'm hooked.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lush is the word, April 19, 2006
This review is from: House of Many Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)
If a book can be described in a single word, lush would be the one for Davenport's novel, House of Many Gods. Her stunning gift for description of place is evident not only in the passion she infuses into writing about her green Hawaii, where the part-Hawaiian author lives, but also to the passages putting us into the faded glory of St. Petersburg and the madness of modern Moscow. She takes us from "ancient serrated valleys, green velvet cliffs, then, tiny hidden beaches like opals" to "a room that could be crossed in eleven steps, life lived on an intimate scale" while outside are "the spires of St. Basil's cathedral, like giant swirling Dairy Queens." With Davenport, you are there.
For those not familiar with Hawaiian history, Davenport weaves in just enough background without slowing down the complex plot-and it is a big one, spanning generations, military presence, and several love stories in language that reaches poetry at times.
Although there are several stories interwoven here, the complicated relationship between Ana, the main character, and her mother, Anahola, a single mother who left her child by choice with family and moved to San Francisco, is particularly compelling-and authentic. Davenport is a marvelous storyteller. --Lorraine Dusky
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