House of Many Gods

Click on photos to enlarge! Wai'anae Valley, O'ahu

"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Home Sweet Hale

“It is a well-known fact that we always recognize our homeland when we are about to lose it.”
Albert Camus

Tutu (Grandma)

“The hero draws inspiration from the virtue of his ancestors.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

After a torrid childhood love affair with fiction, I got too busy and too grown-up to read all that merely "made up stuff." For years I didn't have time for it. I went whoring after information, thirsted after facts. But now, with the world's systems roiling, our parents passing, and age inexplicably encroaching even upon ourselves, I find once again that I am deeply fed by stories. . .Human stories. . . Yours. . . and Mine. . .

Our lives, I believe, are lifted and dignified when we remember the struggles of those who came before with gratitude, and when we awaken to the wonder of our own parading moments. . .

In her well received novel, House of Many Gods, Kiana Davenport (author of Song of the Exile) demonstrates "that living is a sacred act." My Hawaii novel, Aloha Where You Like Go? is the story of one who journeys to the Islands, learning about life & herself, through this uniquely rich setting. But Ms. Davenport (of Native Hawaiian & Anglo-American descent) writes from the Na'au, the bowels of this 'Aina (sacred land) itself, where the deepest truths of the Hawaiian people and their gods reside. . .

Opening these pages, we find ourselves among the very rocks and roots of the most Hawaiian of places, far from Honolulu city lights: Waianae Valley on O'ahu's Leeward Coast. This is a place and a way of life that few outsiders get to know beneath the hot, sunny surface. I had the privilege of conducting an after school group at Waianae High School for a few years and felt deeply touched to be even a small part of the lives of the children and families of "the coast." They taught me a lot. It is indeed a special place!

This story begins with all the commonplace cliches of the district: poverty, drugs, crime, the struggle for dignity, family dysfunction, and the cultural dislocation and dispossession of the Hawaiian people. But this is no political screed. Through dazzlingly arresting phrases & sentences, the author creates characters and scenes that come to life in your heart. Small kid times, extended families, homely joys, and keening rich pain, all coalesce into a whispering spell that draws a reader like an undertow of the mind. . . I really cared about Ana, and her family. Then a plot twist whisked me to a completely different setting; A land of moonlit birches, of unrelenting snow & cold. . . If you choose to read House of Many Gods, you will not be disappointed. Not only will you touch the ineffable (ah! literature!) but you will absorb a deeply soulful nourishment.

Oh! and you will absorb interesting "facts" and "information" in the truest way: through humanity and caring. Thanks for stopping by today.

A L O H A! Cloudia

Fiction & Nonfiction

click on photos to enlarge!

King Kalakaua at a lu`au.

Honolulu ca. 1851
Traditonal Grass Hale (house)1800's

"Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul."

- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"We taste and feel and see the truth. We do not reason ourselves into it."
- William Butler Yeats

The two categories of books are Fiction and Non-Fiction, not False & Non- False. Facts can me twisted to say any damned thing, but a story must have some deep truth at it's core - or why would anybody read it? Fiction is truer than non-fiction because without that internal truth it's not really a literary work at all; it is only a literary attempt. . . Like too many of us I rarely read fiction anymore. Never mind that some of the great life-changing relationships of my life have been with fictions: Winnie the Pooh, Babar, Franny & Zoey, Orlando . . Well, recently a good friend, a fan of my little novel (yes, 'fiction') bought me a copy of Molokai, a Hawaii novel by Alan Brennert. I tried to be gracious - not like I'd been given an assignment, but I didn't feel hopeful when I saw the words: "National Bestseller" on the cover! How good, how HAWAII TRUE could this book (by a mainlander!) be?! Then I started reading:

Chapter 1

1891

Later when memory was all that she had to sustain her, she would come to cherish it: Old Honolulu as it was then, as it would never be again. To a visitor it must have seemed a lush garden of fanciful hybrids: a Florentine-style palace shaded by banyan and monkeypod trees; wooden storefronts flourishing on dusty streets, cuttings from America's Old West; tall New England church steeples blooming above the palm and coconut groves. to a visitor it must have seemed at once exotic and familiar; to five-year-old Rachel it was a playground, and it was home.

Certain things stood out in memory, she couldn't say why: the weight and feel of a five-cent hapa`umi coin in her pocket; the taste of cold Tahiti lemonade on a hot day; palm fronds rustling like locusts high above, as she and her brothers played among the rice paddies and fishponds of Waikiki. . . But most of all, most clearly of all, she remembered Steamer Day - because that was when her father came home."

. . . I was tentatively hooked; the names of local places and local things-past always cast a magic spell on me. When Rachel bought fresh bread from Fanny Love (we still have Loves bread!) I was all-the-way hooked!

The story begins in 1891 when Rachel is 7 years old. A Hawaiian Kingdom is her home. During her lifetime the Islands become a Republic, a Territory, and finally a U.S. State, the fiftieth star on the flag. She (and we!) experience the end of routine sail travel, the birth of island flight, the passing of a culture. I remain touched and impressed that a man from California could express the soul of Hawaii, and of her people, with this level of sensitivity and skill. There were no glaring mistakes (common in books by 'outsiders') and many rich surprises for me, plus wonderfully realized characters, several of whom continue to haunt my imagination . . . . This is one of those books that you lose yourself in! I just got teary typing the opening lines, remembering the incidents, those characters, the Hawaiiana, the history, the humanity, the HEART that I found in this wonderful novel! I cherish it as a great work of fiction, and as a deep work of truth about how Hawaii became what she is today. Well done, Mr. Brennert! I won't hold your bestseller status against you. Sometimes the crowd is right. Read Molokai, then come back here to Comfort Spiral to share YOUR thoughts; And to thank me! Mahalo, George Cattermole!

A L O H A! Cloudia