BIBLIOFILE
Colors of the Mountain
by Da Chen
(Anchor Books, 310 pages, $13)

Da Chen reads at Twenty-Third Avenue Books,
1015 NW 23rd Ave., 224-5097,
7:30 pm Thursday,
Feb. 8.

Da Chen's memoir of growing up in Maoist China as a member of a former "landlord class" family wants very much to be a Chinese Angela's Ashes. To an extent, it succeeds--Chen describes the abject poverty his family endured, as well as the casual violence and prejudice they suffered at the hands of local community members and communist leaders. Plucky young Da, however--fiercely intelligent, naturally talented--refuses to let his family's poverty and outcast status keep him down.

"I would...jump into the river, swim underwater until I reached the lychee trees, then shoot up like a little fish, grab the red fruit, and fall back into the river," he writes. Young Da can only partly understand why his father is sent to labor camps and his grandfather is beaten in the street. He desperately wants to be accepted, to somehow avoid his apparent fate to spend a backbreaking lifetime laboring on rice farms.

Chen's story is inspiring and a valuable view of the effect Mao's little red book had on country people. It's not, however, perfect. Chen has
a weakness for clichéd, overwrought metaphors ("the knife of regret cut deeply into my soul"), and he lacks the narrative savvy of a McCourt. He mentions nearly every Flying Horse cigarette he smoked (daily), but skips quickly past characters and episodes that call out for further inspection.

With the publication of Chen's story, something has definitely been gained--but the way he tells it leaves one feeling something also has been lost. Dan DeWeese

A Different Kind of Intimacy
by Karen Finley
(Thunder's Mouth Press, 329 pages, $17.95)

Karen Finley reads at Powell's Books,
1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm Tuesday,
Feb. 13.

Quick! Name a performance artist.

Whether or not you know her work, you probably thought of Karen Finley, a.k.a. "the chocolate-smeared woman." As one of the NEA 4 during the cultural war's congressional battle, Finley was thrust to the center of the political arena. But, as with the other artists under attack, relatively few people have experienced her work first hand. Here's your chance.

In her new memoir, A Different Kind of Intimacy, Finley exposes herself both onstage and off through personal history interspersed with performance texts representing two decades of work. From her stomach-turning monologue from a rapist's point of view ("I'm an Ass Man") to the psychosexual terrain of "Shut Up and Love Me," Finley's work is part catharsis, part transgressive act. In performance, she appears possessed, screeching like a Greek fury, roaring like a charismatic preacher, channeling the voice of the abuser, the victim and the witness. In the most powerful and disturbing moments
of her performance and writing, the voices blur.

Here, Finley puts her work in context by revealing details of her dysfunctional family history (including her father's suicide letter); her struggle to work within an increasingly hostile cultural climate; and, of course, a blow-by-blow account of her eight-year battle with the National Endowment for the Arts.

With its ruthless investigation of skeletons most folks would rather keep closeted, Finley's work is not for the faint of heart. But is it obscene, indecent or offensive? Fortunately, you can still exercise your right as an American to decide for yourself...for now. Erin Boberg

Death of Vishnu
by Manil Suri
(Norton, 256 pages, $24.95

Manil Suri will read at Powell's Books,
1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 7.

At the outset, Manil Suri's Death of Vishnu resembles another Indian expat's first novel: Rohinton Mistry's Such a Long Journey. Both are set in a Bombay apartment building, but there the resemblance ends as Suri plunges the reader into the colorful universe of Hindu cosmology. As the novel opens, Vishnu, the resident drunk and tubercular odd-job wallah, lies dying on the landing that serves as his home. As his life is explored through flashbacks, one is confronted with the possibility that this humble being might in fact be a god.

Around Vishnu revolve the lives
of the building's tenants. Suri's characters are beautifully rendered. Their struggles are familiar--love, loss, duty, redemption--but the author makes each story fresh with textural detail. The book is thick with a lyrical, near-Proustian nostalgia, and in many ways, it is a paean to Bombay. Victoria Terminus, Colaba, Nariman Point: Everywhere are the landmarks that root the story to the busy, noisy metropolis. The music and stars of Bollywood are woven into the narrative in similar fashion.

Another fact of life in Bombay
is the tension between Hindus and Muslims, and here it is palpable, exploding in the violent climax that constitutes a searing critique of extremist Hindu nationalism.

Suri, a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, has been published widely in his field, but this is his first book of fiction. He hopes to complete a trilogy with novels bearing the names of Shiva and Brahma, the two remaining gods of the Hindu trinity. Fans of contemporary Indian literature will welcome his unique voice. Tammy Stotik