{"id":23068,"date":"2014-03-31T10:17:10","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T14:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=23068"},"modified":"2014-06-04T17:58:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T21:58:37","slug":"the-blue-notebook-by-james-a-levine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-blue-notebook-by-james-a-levine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blue<\/a>Clearly,\u00a0James A. Levine\u00a0is a 21st-century\u00a0Renaissance man. He’s an endocrinologist and professor at the renowned Mayo Clinic<\/a>, he co-directs Obesity Solutions, a project of Mayo and Arizona State University<\/a>\u00a0(where he also professors), he’s credited with pioneering\u00a0the treadmill desk<\/a>, he NEATly Gruves<\/a>\u00a0… oh, and he also happens to write bestselling novels.<\/p>\n

Perhaps he never sleeps \u2013 at least not well. He confesses to as much, about the “vivid nightmares” he endured for years after meeting a Mumbai child prostitute in his detailed “Afterword”; although narrator Meera Simhan provides a superb reading, you’ll need to turn to the actual pages for Levine’s not-to-be-missed additional insights, memories, afterthoughts, and more.<\/p>\n

As part of investigating child labor\u00a0in India, Levine found himself on the infamous\u00a0“Street of Cages” in Mumbai, “one of the central areas for the estimated half-million child prostitutes in the country.” There he saw a 15-year-old girl in a pink sari, writing in her blue notebook. “I’ve found that the mantra ‘Education is the answer’ is invariably touted as pivotal to any solutions. That being so, I could not reconcile the image of a child prostitute who wrote.” Levine’s nightmares repeatedly ended with the specter of the girl standing over him in the middle of night. And so he “finally set out to write her story\u00a0\u2013 it spilled onto the paper” in 58 days and became this, his debut novel.<\/p>\n

Batuk,\u00a0as Levine named her, was 9 when her father sold her to a brothel. Her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder and after she’s been heinously\u00a0abused, she is eventually sent to “Common Street”\u00a0where she\u00a0lives in a “cell, with its steel bars\u00a0… the size of a toilet.” Her best friend is\u00a0beautiful Puneet, who “occupies the nest two down”: “Puneet is the most valuable of us all because he is a boy.”<\/p>\n

“I have been blessed with beauty and a pencil,” Batuk introduces herself. “My beauty comes from within. The pencil came from the\u00a0ear of Mamaki Briila, who is my boss.” That pencil records\u00a0her shattering life, recalls the stories she was told as a village child, and enables her to create\u00a0her own\u00a0as the only means of escaping her unbearable reality. Summoned to a luxury hotel to be a spoiled heir’s temporary sex slave, Batuk takes what solace she can by writing of the horrors she endures\u00a0on sheets of hotel stationery. Her literacy will preserve her sanity, even when her body can no longer endure.<\/p>\n

As unflinchingly brutal as the novel is, Levine cautions that “[t]he pictures I paint onto Batuk’s canvas … are not fully accurate.” These children’s fates are even\u00a0worse: “Were the\u00a0burdens of sufferance to be detailed in their duration and intensity, the book would be agonizing to read. I can only open the\u00a0door but then leave. I paint these images …\u00a0and apologize that they are only glimpses. More than that I cannot sustain.” Neither, too, could most readers …<\/p>\n

Batuk’s uncompromising testimony haunts with its inhumanity, even as it bears witness to a remarkable young girl’s strength, ingenuity, and somehow, hope. Her stories become her salvation\u00a0\u2013 and will also inspire her audience to enable\u00a0and\u00a0ensure salvation for others like her, as well.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clearly,\u00a0James A. Levine\u00a0is a 21st-century\u00a0Renaissance man. He’s an endocrinologist and professor at the renowned Mayo Clinic, he co-directs Obesity Solutions, a project of Mayo and Arizona State University\u00a0(where he also professors), he’s credited with pioneering\u00a0the treadmill desk, he NEATly Gruves\u00a0… oh, and he also happens…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,6,52,60,17],"tags":[1162,6608,10,11,1163,1164,212,39,598,146],"class_list":["post-23068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-fiction","category-indian","category-nonethnic-specific","category-south-asian","tag-blue-notebook","tag-bookdragon","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-james-a-levine","tag-meera-simhan","tag-murder","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-sexual-violence","tag-slavery"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Blue Notebook by James A. 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