Dancing With the Tiger by Lili Wright: A review

I learned about this book when I saw it on one of those lists of "books you should read this summer." I found the premise, involving looting of Aztec artifacts from Mexico and the dangerous and obsessive competition among collectors of those artifacts, to be intriguing, and I added it to my reading queue. Well, I didn't get around to reading it in the summer, but it turns out it is just as interesting in the autumn.

The book was a bit difficult to get into at first because the writer uses the device of multiple points of view to tell the story, and, as the short chapters toggle back and forth between those various points of view of characters who are a mystery to the reader, the reader suffers mild whiplash in trying to keep up. But perhaps one-quarter of the way into it, the story started coming together. I'd gotten a handle on those disparate characters and could begin to follow each of them into their parts of the narrative.

The story briefly is this: Anna Ramsey is the daughter of a disgraced expert on Mexican antiquities, a collector of Mexican masks. His collection was set to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York but then much of it was revealed to be fake, contemporary reproductions of ancient masks. When New Englander Anna learns of the possible discovery of Montezuma's death mask, she determines to go to Mexico to obtain it for her beloved but ineffectual and drunken father.

Incidentally, she also determines to take her mother's ashes - her mother had been killed in an accident in Mexico some twenty years before - to the country that she loved so much and to scatter them there.

The magnificent mask in question had been discovered by another American, a meth-head digger. The digger - or "looter" as his chapters in the book are titled - is engaged in a high-stakes game of keepaway as he tries to market his important find. A shady expat American collector is one of those trying to obtain the mask, but he is opposed by a ruthless narco lord collector with whom he has a running competition. Into this mix steps the somewhat unwary Anna.

Soon, Anna meets a handsome artist named Salvador who is passionate about keeping Mexican antiquities in Mexico where they can be seen in context. She also takes a job with the expat collector, thinking that he has the mask and hoping to steal it from him.

Throughout the novel, the mask changes hands several times, sometimes violently, and the body count rises. Although Americans are, in some sense, at the center of the story, the Mexican characters, at least for this reader, gave it its moral and emotional ballast. Salvador is the righteous protector of his country's heritage who forces Anna to question her beliefs and motives. The most beautiful prose in the book is contained in the gardener's odes to his lover, and the gardener's wife, the humble housekeeper of the expat collector and his wife, is arguably the heroine of the piece.

This was Wright's debut novel and, to her credit, she handled the theme of pirated antiquities and the morality (or sometimes lack thereof) underlying archaeology and managed to deliver a sprawling literary thriller with a lot of energy and occasional flashes of humor that helped to leaven the mood. It was a refreshing page-turner of a book that also gave the reader much to contemplate about how we handle archaeological finds and how museums acquire their treasures.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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