Taking Refuge in L.A.: Life in a...

Taking Refuge in L.A.: Life in a Vietnamese Buddhist Temple, Don Farber (photographs), Rick Fields (text) (Aperture Books: $14.95). Both capitalists and communists in the late 20th Century have claimed to support the “indigenous” protest movements of the Vietnamese people. As this book eloquently shows, superpower ideologies actually are foreign to the Vietnamese, 80% of whom are guided by Buddhism, a philosophy thousands of years older than superpower capitalism or communism. Many Buddhists had high hopes for the Communist government after the U.S. withdrawal in 1975 . The classic 1963 photograph of a Buddhist monk setting himself on fire (which first motivated Don Farber’s interest in Vietnam) symbolizes an anti-American sentiment that persists even among some of the immigrants interviewed in these pages. But, since taking power, the Communists merely have stepped up the oppression, jailing top Buddhist leaders to undermine their base of popular support. The 170,000 Vietnamese people in Los Angeles and Orange counties, who maintain their ties to Vietnam through the temple studied here, are largely refugees from this regime. Not surprisingly, they are worried about relatives still overseas and anxious about living in a strange land. Ingeniously, however, Farber has chosen to portray them in a setting where tension is nearly invisible.

This environment, serene despite its location at Berendo and 9th streets in Koreatown, encourages the Vietnamese to open up to us. We see warm tradition (as an expression of compassion for all living beings, a Zen patriarch at the temple releases pigeons during a traditional ceremony), closeness between young and old, and a deep appreciation of the necessary link between being aware and being alive. “Taking Refuge in L.A.” would have benefited had some conflict crept into these pages. Farber is particularly adept at capturing the spontaneity of child’s play, for instance, but he only profiles kids who regularly attend the temple. He does not turn his lens toward Vietnamese children striving to become American, a serious, growing concern in the community. This tension is hinted at, however, in a photograph of monks playing Co Tuong, a game similar to chess. In the background lurk a TV and stereo headphones.

For Richer, For Poorer: The New U.S.-Japan Relationship, Ellen L. Frost (Council on Foreign Relations: $9.95). Japan and the United States are intimately connected technologically (sharing advances in research and development), culturally (emphasizing success and the work ethic), economically (a mere 7% of the world’s people, they produce more than 70% of the world’s economic output) and militarily (securing stability in Southeast Asia, encouraging moderation in China and opposing the Soviet Union). A visitor listening to today’s Japan-bashing in Congress, however, might think we were still at war. Ellen L. Frost, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Defense and now a U.S.-Japan expert for Westinghouse, wrote this book to underscore the need for a spirit of partnership to prevail over the suspiciousness and defensiveness in Washington.

Frost’s arguments are clear and convincing: “(If) the United States retreats behind the wall of Fortress America, Japan (will) lurch back into pessimism, insularity, and defensive nationalism . . . . Aided by Mikhail Gorbachev’s new and more positive diplomacy in Asia, the Soviet Union would surely try to exploit this new climate.” “For Richer, For Poorer” is not likely to win over the pro-tariff forces in Congress, however, for the statistics that Frost cites actually might scare more Americans into taking a defensive posture rather than encouraging them to take up Frost’s suggestions, such as “thinking in terms of a single global market, investing more and studying harder.” Since 1980, for example, U.S. imports from Japan have grown more than six times faster than U.S. exports to Japan.

Bloom, Margaret Mitchell Dukore (Laurel: $4.95). The author, an actress and novelist living in Hawaii, captures that hesitant feeling that many baby boomers have before taking mainstream yuppie values as their own. Lola Bloom lives life on an edge between emotional extremes with her new husband Grant. When she’s not suicidal (a “tiny woman on this tiny planet in this huge universe (convinced that her death) wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference”), she’s joyful, playful and needy. Lola’s eccentricities seem a way of rebelling against “the others” who take pride in waxing their Datsun hatchbacks and live by Gail Sheehy’s “Passages.” Unfortunately, Dukore never clarifies the reasons for the fear that seems to be at the root of Lola’s condescension toward upper middle class comfort. Lola does rise above her insecurities in a moving scene toward the end of this novel in which she embraces Grant and such old-fashioned values as family. But too much of “Bloom” unreflectively chronicles Lola’s roller-coaster life. While often witty, the writing in these Hunter Thompson-like middle pages is unrevealing and sloppy in its characterizations, both of people (it’s unlikely that puerile Grant has had the force of will to get “a Ph.D. in mathematics and astronomy”) and of places (UC Santa Cruz was anything but “laid back and mellow” when Lola graduated in 1967).

Mrs. Reynolds, Gertrude Stein (Sun and Moon Classics: $11.95). This book, Gertrude Stein tells us in a rare, brief epilogue, is “an effort to show the way anybody could feel during (the World War II) years.” Few readers will find her characters’ feelings (they “are really not suffering personally from everything that is happening”) sufficiently surprising to warrant the long haul through her repetitive, discursive prose. And what we learn about Angel Harper, a central character very loosely modeled after Adolf Hitler, won’t strike most as revelatory. According to Mrs. Reynolds, Harper likes “potatoes better than soap” and “never observes whose cow is outside when it is a cow, now.” Once again, we can see why Stein has been “widely ridiculed and seldom enjoyed,” as Edmund Wilson put it.

The paradox of Stein’s writing, however, is that her style doesn’t becloud story and character as much as we might think. On the contrary, Stein is trying to banish the authorial point of view by following a character’s stream of consciousness. Her prose may be difficult, but her goal is simple: to be accurate. By letting Mrs. Reynolds’ mind govern the direction of this novel, Stein doesn’t impose a narrative. By describing the images in the mind’s eye of Mrs. Reynolds, Stein avoids using nouns that fail to convey precise meanings. (Stein is often quoted as saying, “If you feel what is inside a thing you do not call it by the name by which it is known.”) Sound justifications for literary experimentation do not always make for enjoyable reading, of course, but the historical backdrop of World War II, however blurry, and the book’s whimsical and revealing style make this novel one of Stein’s more accessible works. Mrs. Reynolds, forever obsessed with ordering her world, has a special appeal. If today “were a Sunday and Tuesday,” she muses, “well it would be a day too much.”

Betraying the National Interest, Frances Moore Lappe, Rachel Schurman, Kevin Danaher (Grove Press: $8.95). Rather than forwarding a familiar liberal diatribe about America’s obligation to the Third World, this installment in Grove’s “Food First” series promises to do more than preach to the converted. The authors, who are associated with the Institute for Food and Development Policy, contend that military aid alone won’t prevent instability and undemocratic institutions in the Third World. By not meeting such real needs as food, shelter and health care,” they write, “we merely sabotage our own interests.” This book is weakened a bit by its lack of focus on a specific readership. The authors begin on a flattering populist note: “Despite the generosity and good will of most Americans, U.S. foreign aid isn’t working.” The book’s conclusion also is geared toward a general readership. It features a helpful and unusual guide to citizen action that includes tips on Peace Corps projects, international tours and activism against the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act. The authors’ polemical tone, however, will have more appeal to lobbyists already fighting in Washington trenches than to readers looking for a journalistic or historical overview of foreign-aid policy. In any case, the clarity, logic and brio in this report are a welcome addition to the rhetoric-filled political arena.