"I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name is David Copperfield." That's what Charles Dickens said in the preface of his famous novel and I believe he meant it. History didn't record how his wife or his ten human children reacted to the statement (that would have been a Jerry Springer show in the making!) but, as sad as the remark probably made them, I doubt if they were surprised. A large amount of fiction comes from the writer's re-imagination of his or her own past and much of the novel David Copperfield can be traced to the life of Charles Dickens. The transfiguration of those experiences in David Copperfield redeemed a lot of the author's own childhood. It also made a much-loved book.
Every fan of fiction knows Charles Dickens had an unsettled childhood. His father was always in debt and the family moved continually, trying to avoid Dad's creditors. That ended when his father was thrown into debtor's prison and all of the family (except 12 year old Charles and his slightly older sister) were incarcerated there for a time. His sister managed to stay in her school but his parents forced Charles to leave his studies and go to work in a shoe polish factory to support himself. Charles Dickens never got over the humiliation of those experiences or the anger at his mother for trying to keep him in the factory after the family got financial relief and freedom. After his father tried to capitalize on the adult son's fame (borrowing from his son's friends and publishers) Charles banished his parents to the country.
Those experiences found their way into David Copperfield. Dickens's father becomes two characters, the terrible Mr. Murdstone who forces his orphaned step-son, David into child labor and the likeable, irresponsible spend-thrift, Micawber with his financial advice and unfounded optimism that "something will turn up." By splitting the sin from the sinner, Dickens managed to write of his father with some remaining affection. (Since the Micawber ends up becoming one of the unlikely heroes of the story, a suspicious reader might infer a lot of fatherly affection remained with the author, despite his father's profligate ways.)
Reality seeps through the fiction in other ways. Dickens examines his own experience as an impoverished child laborer in the book and the unrelenting shame he felt about that episode. Like his creator, David is embarrassed about his familiarity with pawnbrokers, rats and extreme poverty and once firmly past it, he keeps it a secret from his new friends but fear of poverty fuels the ambition in both hero and author. Reality also makes David Copperfield a more identifiable protagonist than some of the author's earlier heroes like Nicholas Nickelby or Martin Chuzzlewit. David makes mistakes the earlier protagonists avoid, like drinking too much in the chapter, "My First Dissipation (The line, "'Agnes!' I said. "'I'mafraidyou'renorwell.'" is terribly funny) and falling for all the wrong people but that's because David Copperfield, like Charles Dickens is human. The novel's weakest spot is that the David's "right people" are still too impossibly good to be believable but Mr. Dickens was still developing as a writer at this point. If you want a Dickens heroine that isn't a saint, you'll have to pick up Great Expectations. That's further down the line.
Yes, David Copperfield's an old-fashioned novel. It has a million characters with silly names and everything works out for the best. But that's part of the art of story, creating redemption through imagination and giving everyone a "good enough" ending. It's a way to resolve some old issues and keep alive those that we miss. There's the life that we had and the life we wish we had and fiction connects the two. Blessed be the fiction that binds.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
A little-known tale of Disaster: Under a Flaming Sky
My husband collects disaster stories. I think it goes back to his childhood when he read A Night to Remember. The account of Titanic's sole voyage was so researched, so well-written and evocative, he's been chasing disaster accounts ever since. Me, I like these books for the slice-of-life history that comes with each account, the context of how people lived in some different time and era and who they were. For whatever reason, we both love disaster accounts and this summer I found a good one. Under a Flaming Sky (by Daniel James Brown) is one of those books that flies under the radar until the author gets a hit later on. Here's hoping the author's good luck with his current release will give this story a deserved second look.
UAFS is the story of Hinkley, Minnesota, a town on the edge of the prairie near the end of the Guilded Age. Hinkley had done well as a town, booming along with the twin streams of business and labor. Lumber was the town's biggest business and a steady stream of immigrants kept it moving from forests through the sawmills to the trains. Everyone was in a hurry to get up, get moving and make the product that brought a paycheck and that was fine, except there was rarely time to clean up. As the trunks of the trees went to the mills to be planed and sectioned, the extra got left behind. Leaves, branches, pine needles and the wood shavings that come from lumbering were left in the fields with the stumps to dry in the air and sun. A lot of debris had dried by September of 1894; less than two inches of rain had fallen since May. A fire was probably inevitable but Hinckley got an inferno.
Two wild fires started, one south, one southwest of town, each generating high convection winds and low-hanging smoke. These winds (and the ground debris) fed the fires until they met and the combined flames beat up through the smoke into the cool air above. It was like adding gasoline. The wildfires became a gigantic firestorm, a moving wall of flame between four and five miles high. The thermal winds produced blazing whirlwinds that broke away from the firewall and caught new things alight. The heat on the ground melted barrels of nails and train rails and people. In less than four hours, 480 square miles of Minnesota - almost a quarter of a million acres - were consumed.
No one knows how many died in the fire; officials weren't counting the Native Americans back then and many folks just disappeared. But hundreds of people survived because a couple of trains drove through the conflagration, picking up fleeing settlers along the way. Every bridge they crossed had to be checked for safety because the rails were softening under the hideous heat and that meant letting the fire catch up behind you while the brakeman tested the tracks. A few other people survived by jumping into water, either the river or the standing water in the town's gravel pit. But hundreds had no chance at all.
One nine year old boy survived the conflagration and moved to California, eventually becoming a family man and executive but he never really escaped from the fire. Night after night, while his daughter was studying, the man dreamed of his Minnesota boyhood and woke up screaming. His daughter couldn't forget his screams. Her son created this book.
Under a Flaming Sky, is, in the end, not the story of a disaster but the people who faced it, both those that survived and died. And that's why these stories are important. The survivors inspire us to overcome our own low points and the lost are not forgotten. We take all of them with us when we close the book and they continue because we remember. And remember's a fine thing to do.
UAFS is the story of Hinkley, Minnesota, a town on the edge of the prairie near the end of the Guilded Age. Hinkley had done well as a town, booming along with the twin streams of business and labor. Lumber was the town's biggest business and a steady stream of immigrants kept it moving from forests through the sawmills to the trains. Everyone was in a hurry to get up, get moving and make the product that brought a paycheck and that was fine, except there was rarely time to clean up. As the trunks of the trees went to the mills to be planed and sectioned, the extra got left behind. Leaves, branches, pine needles and the wood shavings that come from lumbering were left in the fields with the stumps to dry in the air and sun. A lot of debris had dried by September of 1894; less than two inches of rain had fallen since May. A fire was probably inevitable but Hinckley got an inferno.
Two wild fires started, one south, one southwest of town, each generating high convection winds and low-hanging smoke. These winds (and the ground debris) fed the fires until they met and the combined flames beat up through the smoke into the cool air above. It was like adding gasoline. The wildfires became a gigantic firestorm, a moving wall of flame between four and five miles high. The thermal winds produced blazing whirlwinds that broke away from the firewall and caught new things alight. The heat on the ground melted barrels of nails and train rails and people. In less than four hours, 480 square miles of Minnesota - almost a quarter of a million acres - were consumed.
No one knows how many died in the fire; officials weren't counting the Native Americans back then and many folks just disappeared. But hundreds of people survived because a couple of trains drove through the conflagration, picking up fleeing settlers along the way. Every bridge they crossed had to be checked for safety because the rails were softening under the hideous heat and that meant letting the fire catch up behind you while the brakeman tested the tracks. A few other people survived by jumping into water, either the river or the standing water in the town's gravel pit. But hundreds had no chance at all.
One nine year old boy survived the conflagration and moved to California, eventually becoming a family man and executive but he never really escaped from the fire. Night after night, while his daughter was studying, the man dreamed of his Minnesota boyhood and woke up screaming. His daughter couldn't forget his screams. Her son created this book.
Under a Flaming Sky, is, in the end, not the story of a disaster but the people who faced it, both those that survived and died. And that's why these stories are important. The survivors inspire us to overcome our own low points and the lost are not forgotten. We take all of them with us when we close the book and they continue because we remember. And remember's a fine thing to do.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
My sister, the Boss and The Willoughbys
I have a very bossy younger sister. She is the greatest sibling alive and her "take charge" attitude is fairly reasonable, considering she got it from both sides of the family and her teaching requires an air of command. I just didn't know she'd want to boss me. It all started out with a phone call.
"There's a children's book that's really good," she said, "You should read it."
"Sure" I replied, thinking of the score of books I had praised and sent to her, still lying unread, on her shelves. "Tell me the name and I'll look for it."
"No, you should read it now." she replied. "I'll bring the book when I see you tomorrow. You can read while we visit."
Then she hung up and I was out maneuvered. I read The Willoughbys, per instruction. Then I read it again, for fun. Perhaps, I should mention it's good.
No one with a background in kid's lit will be surprised that The Willoughbys is good. After all, it was written by Lois Lowry, that two-time winner of the Newbery Medal for The Giver and Number the Stars. What might surprise you is how funny the book is. The Willoughby children (eldest, Tim; youngest Jane and the twins, Barnaby A & B) have read so many 19th century children's books that they expect their lives will copy those tales of resourceful children who succeed, despite tyrannical authority figures. Once they realize orphans have the lion's share of success in these stories, they decide to become orphans by sending their foolish, ill-natured parents on a succession of dangerous vacations. Before you sympathize with the parents, understand two things: 1) the idiots go and 2) they leave the kids behind, putting their home up for sale.
The narration shares much of the dry, tongue-in-cheek voice of Lemony Snicket. How else could you explain a mother who will knit a sweater for the family cat but insists her twin sons share a garment (and a name) , saying, "“A, you wear it [the sweater] on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. B, you have Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. On Sunday you can fight over it.” The sheer silliness of the idea will keep younger readers giggling.
Another treat is the glossary Ms. Lowry added to The Willoughbys. It defines some of the "bigger" words for younger readers but in ways that will amuse any overseeing adults. Consider these:
Yes, the book is a parody but like many parodies, it's clever. The sub-plots come together as the reader fits disjointed pieces of information in the story, not unlike Louis Sachar's Holes. But if you think you are going to guess the name of the famous candy tied to the story, forget it. No one can anticipate that.
So, if you are forced to read to children this holiday season, listen to what they have to say. Look over what they want to read. Then adopt my sister's most autocratic tone and say, "Here's the book for us," and bring out your copy of The Willoughbys. Settle down and put a back finger on the glossary page, for easy flipping. Then start to read aloud. The children will listen and have a good time. They'll admire your taste in literature. But they'll never forget that you're bossy.
"There's a children's book that's really good," she said, "You should read it."
"Sure" I replied, thinking of the score of books I had praised and sent to her, still lying unread, on her shelves. "Tell me the name and I'll look for it."
"No, you should read it now." she replied. "I'll bring the book when I see you tomorrow. You can read while we visit."
Then she hung up and I was out maneuvered. I read The Willoughbys, per instruction. Then I read it again, for fun. Perhaps, I should mention it's good.
No one with a background in kid's lit will be surprised that The Willoughbys is good. After all, it was written by Lois Lowry, that two-time winner of the Newbery Medal for The Giver and Number the Stars. What might surprise you is how funny the book is. The Willoughby children (eldest, Tim; youngest Jane and the twins, Barnaby A & B) have read so many 19th century children's books that they expect their lives will copy those tales of resourceful children who succeed, despite tyrannical authority figures. Once they realize orphans have the lion's share of success in these stories, they decide to become orphans by sending their foolish, ill-natured parents on a succession of dangerous vacations. Before you sympathize with the parents, understand two things: 1) the idiots go and 2) they leave the kids behind, putting their home up for sale.
The narration shares much of the dry, tongue-in-cheek voice of Lemony Snicket. How else could you explain a mother who will knit a sweater for the family cat but insists her twin sons share a garment (and a name) , saying, "“A, you wear it [the sweater] on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. B, you have Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. On Sunday you can fight over it.” The sheer silliness of the idea will keep younger readers giggling.
Another treat is the glossary Ms. Lowry added to The Willoughbys. It defines some of the "bigger" words for younger readers but in ways that will amuse any overseeing adults. Consider these:
NEFARIOUS means utterly, completely wicked. The character in The Wizard of Oz could have been called the Nefarious Witch of the West but authors like to use the same beginning consonant, often. Perhaps L. Frank Baum crossed out nefarious after wicked came to his mind. Thank goodness, because Nefarious would be a terrible name for a musical.See what I mean? Funny! There's a bibliography of books the Willoughbys mention with the same type of descriptions. I can't read Huck Finn's without snickering.
CRYPTIC means seeming to have a hidden meaning. If your mother says, “Consider yourself grounded, mister!” it is not at all cryptic . But if she says in a certain voice, “We need to talk,” she is being cryptic. And you are about to be grounded.
Yes, the book is a parody but like many parodies, it's clever. The sub-plots come together as the reader fits disjointed pieces of information in the story, not unlike Louis Sachar's Holes. But if you think you are going to guess the name of the famous candy tied to the story, forget it. No one can anticipate that.
So, if you are forced to read to children this holiday season, listen to what they have to say. Look over what they want to read. Then adopt my sister's most autocratic tone and say, "Here's the book for us," and bring out your copy of The Willoughbys. Settle down and put a back finger on the glossary page, for easy flipping. Then start to read aloud. The children will listen and have a good time. They'll admire your taste in literature. But they'll never forget that you're bossy.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Maus
I'll admit it, I'm a snob when it comes to comic books. Early in my reading career it became apparent that an inverse relationship existed between the number of illustrations in the book and the expected IQ of the reader. (i.e., more pictures meant lower IQ). As soon as I figured that out, I headed for chapter books at high speed. Oh, I still enjoyed a great illustration once in a while but I knew better than to focus on them. And I couldn't grasp why so many males in my generation continued to buy, read and discuss comic books after they reached legal maturity. It was like being trapped in a life-long, joke-less episode of "Big Bang Theory". People could call the publications graphic novels or comics, I didn't care. They were still just "funny books" for dorks.
So I didn't see Maus coming. Maus, if you haven't seen it, is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust. And it's animated, because Mr. Spiegelman is an illustrator. And, to put the icing on the cake, Mr. Spiegelman drew the characters in his work as animals. It sounds crazy but, believe me, it's a work of genius.
The story works this way: the adult mouse, Art, is trying to rebuild a relationship with his father, Vladek, also a mouse. This is not easy because Vladek is a difficult old stinker with nightmares for memories and Artie is is no poster child for mental health either. Art finally gets the old mouse to start talking about his life. After some prodding, we hear about (and see through Art's imagination) Vladek's early life in Poland when he married Art's mother and settled down in a job in manufacturing. Then Hitler knocked at the door.
Since the Jews are mice, it only follows that the Germans are cats (not nice kitties, either - all cat lovers here, beware) because cats hunt and exterminate mice. Art's father, Vladek and his wife, Anja, try to avoid the Nazi juggernaut overrunning Europe but are unable to escape, are split up for a time and eventually taken to Auschwitz. They survive, but their first born son does not. And the story makes it clear that while the active Holocaust ended with Germany's surrender, the damage from that experience flows on for years. Art's mother made it through the camps but mental illness and PTSD probably induced her suicide in 1968. Art's father can never transcend his terrible experiences and Art himself needs therapy to adjust to life. Maus's existence is proof that art is created in spite of trauma, not because of it. It's also a brilliant fusion of ideas.
The animal metaphor doesn't end with cats and mice. The non-Jewish Poles are swine, particularly those that end up fellow prisoners but still dangerous to the captured Jews. And the American soldiers, black and white, are the species most likely to scare cats: dogs. But the anthropomorphized illustrations allow Art to recount his parents' story so the readers understand the horrors of the Holocaust without facing the terrible(forgive the pun) graphic images that remain. It's a brilliant way to teach children about tragic events without creating more trauma. Come to think of it, that's what illustrations have been doing for a very long time. I believe I've been wrong about comics.
Maus won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, the first graphic novel to attain this high honor and since then, the field has exploded. Some great graphic novels include Barefoot Gen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and the brilliant Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. But these artists, great as they are, stand on the shoulders of Art Spiegelman and his terrifying, brilliant book, Maus. Once there was a wall between graphic novels and literature. Spiegelman kicked the damn thing down.
So I didn't see Maus coming. Maus, if you haven't seen it, is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust. And it's animated, because Mr. Spiegelman is an illustrator. And, to put the icing on the cake, Mr. Spiegelman drew the characters in his work as animals. It sounds crazy but, believe me, it's a work of genius.
The story works this way: the adult mouse, Art, is trying to rebuild a relationship with his father, Vladek, also a mouse. This is not easy because Vladek is a difficult old stinker with nightmares for memories and Artie is is no poster child for mental health either. Art finally gets the old mouse to start talking about his life. After some prodding, we hear about (and see through Art's imagination) Vladek's early life in Poland when he married Art's mother and settled down in a job in manufacturing. Then Hitler knocked at the door.
Since the Jews are mice, it only follows that the Germans are cats (not nice kitties, either - all cat lovers here, beware) because cats hunt and exterminate mice. Art's father, Vladek and his wife, Anja, try to avoid the Nazi juggernaut overrunning Europe but are unable to escape, are split up for a time and eventually taken to Auschwitz. They survive, but their first born son does not. And the story makes it clear that while the active Holocaust ended with Germany's surrender, the damage from that experience flows on for years. Art's mother made it through the camps but mental illness and PTSD probably induced her suicide in 1968. Art's father can never transcend his terrible experiences and Art himself needs therapy to adjust to life. Maus's existence is proof that art is created in spite of trauma, not because of it. It's also a brilliant fusion of ideas.
The animal metaphor doesn't end with cats and mice. The non-Jewish Poles are swine, particularly those that end up fellow prisoners but still dangerous to the captured Jews. And the American soldiers, black and white, are the species most likely to scare cats: dogs. But the anthropomorphized illustrations allow Art to recount his parents' story so the readers understand the horrors of the Holocaust without facing the terrible(forgive the pun) graphic images that remain. It's a brilliant way to teach children about tragic events without creating more trauma. Come to think of it, that's what illustrations have been doing for a very long time. I believe I've been wrong about comics.
Maus won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, the first graphic novel to attain this high honor and since then, the field has exploded. Some great graphic novels include Barefoot Gen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series and the brilliant Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. But these artists, great as they are, stand on the shoulders of Art Spiegelman and his terrifying, brilliant book, Maus. Once there was a wall between graphic novels and literature. Spiegelman kicked the damn thing down.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
The Book in the Corner of my Soul: John Chancellor Makes Me Cry
I am not Southern by birth. I was born in north Texas and raised in the west, in spaces known for harsh winds, wide horizons, and voices loud enough to get through the first and reach the second. Because of this I was a stranger in a strange land when I moved to the South and I worried I would always be an outsider. Over several years, I read a barrel load of books on how nuanced, complex and wonderful life here can be here, but no book taught me more or made me feel more at home than Anne Rivers Siddons's collection of essays, John Chancellor Makes Me Cry.
Mrs. Siddons was raised in a small Georgia town and graduated from Auburn before beginning a career in Atlanta, first in advertising and then as a novelist. Between those two jobs came the essay collection in this book. It is a heartfelt account of adjusting to adult life after the raw newness (and gleam) of one's twenties has disappeared but before the confidence that comes with seniority has set in. In Passages, Gail Sheehy wrote of this as the age when 30-somethings double down on the mortgage/kids/picket fence paradigm and Ms. Siddons had her home off Peachtree Street and a collection of cats but she she also had the perspective of an outsider in a well-settled neighborhood. As the educated observer, she became a guide I needed to understand modern Southern protocol. From her, I learned to recognize the blue-haired doyennes and their good old boy husbands that still wield power in my city. (The South is the only place I know where cut-throat businessmen and landed millionaires are known as Junior and Bubba). I learned someone's accent could not always predict their education, net worth or opinions. I also learned that feeling unsure, frightened and unprepared is par for the course but it's not enough reason to quit.
Anne's essays detail facing troubles most of us confront sooner or later: fearsome weather, bad fights with the spouse, a lost job, the death of a family member. She also writes of the stresses that come of being a step-mother and second wife, a role I was learning to fill back then. Each of these are explored with respect, sensitivity and gentle humor. There are also the odes to the good and everyday things in life such as the seasons, vacations, traffic, the joys of work (her essay on advertising is hilarious) and the comfort of long friendships. Her voice is intelligent, comfortable, and well-inflected with humor. It's impossible not to imagine her as a friend.
In the years since the publication of JCMMC, Mrs. Siddons has written many novels and they have sold well, as they should, although calling her the "the thinking-woman's novelist" is still kind of left-handed compliment. Better is another reviewer's observation, "One doesn't read Anne Rivers Siddons's books, one dwells in them." I've been dwelling in her fiction for a few decades now but JCMMC is different. That's the book that dwells in me.
Mrs. Siddons was raised in a small Georgia town and graduated from Auburn before beginning a career in Atlanta, first in advertising and then as a novelist. Between those two jobs came the essay collection in this book. It is a heartfelt account of adjusting to adult life after the raw newness (and gleam) of one's twenties has disappeared but before the confidence that comes with seniority has set in. In Passages, Gail Sheehy wrote of this as the age when 30-somethings double down on the mortgage/kids/picket fence paradigm and Ms. Siddons had her home off Peachtree Street and a collection of cats but she she also had the perspective of an outsider in a well-settled neighborhood. As the educated observer, she became a guide I needed to understand modern Southern protocol. From her, I learned to recognize the blue-haired doyennes and their good old boy husbands that still wield power in my city. (The South is the only place I know where cut-throat businessmen and landed millionaires are known as Junior and Bubba). I learned someone's accent could not always predict their education, net worth or opinions. I also learned that feeling unsure, frightened and unprepared is par for the course but it's not enough reason to quit.
Anne's essays detail facing troubles most of us confront sooner or later: fearsome weather, bad fights with the spouse, a lost job, the death of a family member. She also writes of the stresses that come of being a step-mother and second wife, a role I was learning to fill back then. Each of these are explored with respect, sensitivity and gentle humor. There are also the odes to the good and everyday things in life such as the seasons, vacations, traffic, the joys of work (her essay on advertising is hilarious) and the comfort of long friendships. Her voice is intelligent, comfortable, and well-inflected with humor. It's impossible not to imagine her as a friend.
In the years since the publication of JCMMC, Mrs. Siddons has written many novels and they have sold well, as they should, although calling her the "the thinking-woman's novelist" is still kind of left-handed compliment. Better is another reviewer's observation, "One doesn't read Anne Rivers Siddons's books, one dwells in them." I've been dwelling in her fiction for a few decades now but JCMMC is different. That's the book that dwells in me.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The Wizard of Weirdness: Hunter S. Thompson and the The Great Shark Hunt
I'm proud to say that a writer once cost me a job. At one time, the U. S. Air Force thought of making me a journalist so I could write for base newspapers. I had passed all the tests easily and was interviewing with an editor of one of the largest papers in the command, a young Sargent in love with uniform creases and rules. We were talking about veterans of various branches who became successful writers and I mentioned liking the work of an Air Force veteran named Hunter S. Thompson. Steam poured out of the editor's ears. "Thompson?" he squeaked, "Thompson! My college invited him to our Controversial Speakers forum and he showed up stoned!!" Internally I had two thoughts: 1) Well, yeah, everyone knows Hunter hates doing those speaker gigs, he's going to show up wrecked and 2) I believe I just blew this interview. The next day, the Air Force decided I would be a better Supply Clerk than Reporter and ended my adventures in Journalism. I didn't care. To be rejected because of liking Hunter Thompson's writing is a badge of honor for me, and I've missed his wild, unpredictable forays since his death in 2005.
Hunter is best remembered today as the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but if you want a collection of his work that stands on its own, read The Great Shark Hunt. It includes excerpts from some of HST's longer works (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, The Hell's Angels, etc.) and reprints of some of his incredible essays. Each piece shows Thompson's patented Gonzo journalism (where the author gets involved with the story and reports on the story, his involvement and the crazy things that happen) and his view of the world: a combination of moral outrage, amazement, eloquence,sardonic humor and integrity made each essay a treasure.
It seems strange to associate the word integrity with Hunter S. Thompson, considering his well-earned reputation for chaos, but Thompson always wrote about life exactly as he saw it, from seeking and revealing the worst of humanity in "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" and "Strange Rumblings in Azatlan" to a hilarious account of following Jimmy Carter and his Secret Service agents through a Law Day function in Athens, Georgia. The title essay captures the paranoia, fear, hilarity and exhaustion of drug-addled writer trying to cover a fishing tournament. and the genuinely mournful "The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat." recounts the chaotic life and strange disappearance of his friend, Oscar Acosta. Hunter never shies away from his friend's faults because Hunter made it a policy never to shy away from anything when he wrote. He went for the extremes, grabbed for high, bright edges of reality in every experience and ignored all the margins. It was his way of articulating the truth, as he saw it. No word was off-limits, no person beyond reproach, if that was part of the story. Consequently, his writing offended almost all of the right people; the rest were offended by his existence.
If the world holds less potential since Thompson's passing, it is only because his writing enriched it so much during his life. The Great Shark Hunt is a mother-lode of words from one of the most outraged and original voices of the last century. That Air Force editor can choke on his uniform creases. You enjoy the book.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
A whole new way of seeing: My Name is Asher Lev
Picking up a new book is like setting off on an unknown road: you never know where it will take you. In the late 1970's, I was reading every non-fiction book I could find about Judaism. The religion fascinated me, a lot of my college friends were Jewish and I was deciding if I should convert. Of course, I would not leave the delights of fiction, no matter what faith I followed, so I added several novels by Jewish authors thinking this would add dimension to my non-fiction studies. One novel proved I have literary ADD; after I read My Name is Asher Lev, I put books on Judaism aside and became obsessed with art.
Even now I envy the reader who has not yet picked up Asher Lev because they haven't heard his mesmerizing voice spilling through that opening sentence:
What follows is a Catch-22 of duty, responsibility and need. First, Asher is a member of a Hasidic Jewish community, that branch of Orthodox Judaism where the men keep the locks of hair in front of their ears very long and wear very conservative, dark clothing. These are very modest, pious people and because so much of art leans toward graven images, nudity and non-Jewish images , Asher's community avoids the field altogether. This is a problem because Asher is compelled to create art. I mean driven. If this kid were locked in a room without any other way to make pictures, he'd open a vein and paint blood on the walls. Asher can't deny his artistic impulses any more than he can deny his parents or the Rabbi. Now Asher's creative drive causes great dissension and pain, first within his family and later, his community. He knows the only way he can justify this pain is to create greater art. Unfortunately, the greater the art is, the greater the pain. Out of this conflict comes a great story.
This book has so many revolutionary ideas. In one paragraph a fellow artist comments, "In all the history of art, there are only two ways of painting the world. One is the way of Greece and Africa that sees the world as a geometric design. The other is the way of Persia and India and China, which sees the world as a flower." Do me a favor will you? Next time you look at a painting, really look at it and you'll see the speaker is right. The brush strokes and design will remind you either of geometrical shapes or flowers.
Ideas like that can blow the mind of a young reader, even one whose art appreciation began and ended with the board game, Masterpiece. I ate up this book, picking up information about Hopper's sunlight and Picasso's Guernica instead of Hebraic culture and beliefs and started looking at the world in terms of line, light, color and tension. When I told a Jewish friend I had fallen in love with My Name is Asher Lev, she cleared her throat and said that probably wasn't the ideal novel to study for Judaism. I didn't have the heart to tell her my focus had shifted from Kabbalah to Kandinsky.
I still go back to Asher Lev every few years and I read the sequel but nothing beats that first breathless realization of getting lost in a compelling story. Nevertheless, I owe Asher Lev and his author (Chaim Potok) a debt of thanks. Other books gave me new ideas to believe; Asher Lev taught me to see.
Even now I envy the reader who has not yet picked up Asher Lev because they haven't heard his mesmerizing voice spilling through that opening sentence:
My name is Asher Lev, the Asher Lev, about whom you have read in newspapers and magazines, about whom you talk so much at your dinner affairs and cocktail parties, the notorious and legendary Lev of the Brooklyn Crucifixion.That beginning has all of the power and immediacy of the opening paragraphs in All the Kings Men or Rebecca. You hear the man's insistent voice pouring out what will be a long confession of confusion, frustration, realization and art. Because Asher is, first and foremost, an artist.
What follows is a Catch-22 of duty, responsibility and need. First, Asher is a member of a Hasidic Jewish community, that branch of Orthodox Judaism where the men keep the locks of hair in front of their ears very long and wear very conservative, dark clothing. These are very modest, pious people and because so much of art leans toward graven images, nudity and non-Jewish images , Asher's community avoids the field altogether. This is a problem because Asher is compelled to create art. I mean driven. If this kid were locked in a room without any other way to make pictures, he'd open a vein and paint blood on the walls. Asher can't deny his artistic impulses any more than he can deny his parents or the Rabbi. Now Asher's creative drive causes great dissension and pain, first within his family and later, his community. He knows the only way he can justify this pain is to create greater art. Unfortunately, the greater the art is, the greater the pain. Out of this conflict comes a great story.
This book has so many revolutionary ideas. In one paragraph a fellow artist comments, "In all the history of art, there are only two ways of painting the world. One is the way of Greece and Africa that sees the world as a geometric design. The other is the way of Persia and India and China, which sees the world as a flower." Do me a favor will you? Next time you look at a painting, really look at it and you'll see the speaker is right. The brush strokes and design will remind you either of geometrical shapes or flowers.
Ideas like that can blow the mind of a young reader, even one whose art appreciation began and ended with the board game, Masterpiece. I ate up this book, picking up information about Hopper's sunlight and Picasso's Guernica instead of Hebraic culture and beliefs and started looking at the world in terms of line, light, color and tension. When I told a Jewish friend I had fallen in love with My Name is Asher Lev, she cleared her throat and said that probably wasn't the ideal novel to study for Judaism. I didn't have the heart to tell her my focus had shifted from Kabbalah to Kandinsky.
I still go back to Asher Lev every few years and I read the sequel but nothing beats that first breathless realization of getting lost in a compelling story. Nevertheless, I owe Asher Lev and his author (Chaim Potok) a debt of thanks. Other books gave me new ideas to believe; Asher Lev taught me to see.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Inferno and I finally admit I like some SF/Fantasy
Science Fiction and Fantasy weren't respected literary genres when I was little. That's hard to believe in the age of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games but the fiction welcomed on the best-seller lists and the book award nominations tended to fall in the "could-be-true-but-isn't" category. These were heavy tomes with heavy ideas by heavy hitters in the writing game: Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Bill Styron. (In those days, it was good to be a Southern Writer). Liking SF and Fantasy were almost considered the hallmark of an immature intellect. By the mid 1970's the stigma was starting to lift but it was still heavy enough to obscure a brilliant novel. If you are looking for an intelligent, fascinating, often humorous trip through hell, I suggest you find a copy of Inferno by Niven and Pournelle.
Inferno is dedicated to Dante Alighieri and is an homage to the first part of his Divine Comedy but the authors updated the structure. Instead of Dante himself, the hero of Inferno is Alan Carpentier, a minor SF writer who managed to fall from an eight story window while showing off at a Science Fiction convention. He returns to consciousness trapped in a bottle, lying beyond the Vestibule of Hell. Once he screams out the only open-sesame that will work in this paradigm (Why does it take so long for some characters to say, "Help me, God!"? Don't they notice that's the only way some movie characters survive?) he meets a guide named Benny who says the only way out is to walk down through the center of Hell. Carpentier has to go to the bottom to get to the top.
Carpentier and his guide traverse the levels of Underworld laid out by Dante. However, there are some modern updates to exact punishments on contemporary professions. (When Minos, Judge of the Underworld gets an argument from Carpentier's guide, he replies, "Lawyers. I have problems with lawyers. There are so many places appropriate to the breed.") For example, Real estate developers and tree huggers wage never-ending war against each other and the punishment for advertising men is so bad, the cast of Mad Men will start wearing sackcloth and ashes to avoid being mistaken for their characters in the next life. (Trust me, you don't want to know!)
In each case, the condemned face a punishment that is appropriate to their actions but ludicrously out of proportion. My favorite is Himuralibima, the first bureaucrat (a candidate for suffering, surely!) who will be allowed to retire once he submits the proper application forms in his accustomed format, cuneiform. That means he's writing out his application on mud tablets which dry out in Perdition's heat long before he can finish them. Some four thousand years after his death, he's carved out a bay-sized (as in San Francisco Bay) amount of mud from one side of the Wall of Dis and his discarded, baked-too-soon efforts have become a ford over another river but his application's not done yet. Another soul, who bought irreplaceable books but refused to spend the necessary bucks to take care of his library, is caught in the DMZ between the Hoarders and Wasters as they roll Cadillac-sized diamonds at each other in another eternal battle for moral superiority.
Without letting go of the humor, Inferno asks the reasonable question, "What is the purpose of Hell?" Because the suffering is eternal, the punishment of the condemned always ends up being far worse than the crimes they committed to enter this place. The authors, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, get the credit for coming up with a reasonable answer. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. Read the book and find out for yourself. It's the only way someone should voluntarily go to hell.
Inferno is dedicated to Dante Alighieri and is an homage to the first part of his Divine Comedy but the authors updated the structure. Instead of Dante himself, the hero of Inferno is Alan Carpentier, a minor SF writer who managed to fall from an eight story window while showing off at a Science Fiction convention. He returns to consciousness trapped in a bottle, lying beyond the Vestibule of Hell. Once he screams out the only open-sesame that will work in this paradigm (Why does it take so long for some characters to say, "Help me, God!"? Don't they notice that's the only way some movie characters survive?) he meets a guide named Benny who says the only way out is to walk down through the center of Hell. Carpentier has to go to the bottom to get to the top.
Carpentier and his guide traverse the levels of Underworld laid out by Dante. However, there are some modern updates to exact punishments on contemporary professions. (When Minos, Judge of the Underworld gets an argument from Carpentier's guide, he replies, "Lawyers. I have problems with lawyers. There are so many places appropriate to the breed.") For example, Real estate developers and tree huggers wage never-ending war against each other and the punishment for advertising men is so bad, the cast of Mad Men will start wearing sackcloth and ashes to avoid being mistaken for their characters in the next life. (Trust me, you don't want to know!)
In each case, the condemned face a punishment that is appropriate to their actions but ludicrously out of proportion. My favorite is Himuralibima, the first bureaucrat (a candidate for suffering, surely!) who will be allowed to retire once he submits the proper application forms in his accustomed format, cuneiform. That means he's writing out his application on mud tablets which dry out in Perdition's heat long before he can finish them. Some four thousand years after his death, he's carved out a bay-sized (as in San Francisco Bay) amount of mud from one side of the Wall of Dis and his discarded, baked-too-soon efforts have become a ford over another river but his application's not done yet. Another soul, who bought irreplaceable books but refused to spend the necessary bucks to take care of his library, is caught in the DMZ between the Hoarders and Wasters as they roll Cadillac-sized diamonds at each other in another eternal battle for moral superiority.
Without letting go of the humor, Inferno asks the reasonable question, "What is the purpose of Hell?" Because the suffering is eternal, the punishment of the condemned always ends up being far worse than the crimes they committed to enter this place. The authors, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, get the credit for coming up with a reasonable answer. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. Read the book and find out for yourself. It's the only way someone should voluntarily go to hell.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
The Mystery that Breaks all the Rules: The Daughter of Time
My mom could not be predicted. When I was in my early 20's, she called up long distance (an expensive activity) and ordered me to read a certain book. Now. She heard about it from Gladys who got the recommendation from Jill and now that Mom had read it, I had to. This made no sense. Mom knew one or two women named Jill but neither of them usually recommended books and there was no Gladys I could think of. Mom explained to me she had received a letter from one of her favorite writers, Gladys Taber, where Ms. Taber had verified her friend, Jill, revered a book called The Daughter of Time. Based on that letter, mom borrowed the novel from the library and read it. Now, she ordered me to do the same.
This story might have ended there because I had developed the habit of ignoring Mom by then but my roommate, Stephanie was working at the college library so I asked her to pick up a copy of the book while she was on shift. When Stephanie got back that night, the book was in her hand. She looked up at me and said, "I'm on page 47. You can have it when I'm finished."
Jill, Gladys, my mom and Stephanie were all right. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey is a wonderful book, partly because it's a story that breaks all the rules. It's a detective story without any of the usual detective methods. And as for the mystery, well it is one and it isn't. It's hard to explain.
The detective is Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard and the poor man is caught in hospital. (This is England, so there's no "the" in front of hospital). He's stuck in a bed with a broken bone and is slowly going nuts because there's nothing new to think about. He knows how many cracks there are in his ceiling, he knows how his nurses will react to everything he says and worse yet, he knows the plots of all the unread books on his table because their authors aren't coming up with new ideas. I love this observation on pop literature so much, I'm going to have to quote it:
For a small novel that came out sixty odd years ago, it has caused some big ripples. There are societies in England and America about Richard inspired in part by this book and other writers such as Sharon Kay Penman and Elizabeth George have expanded on the ideas in Ms. Tey's novel in building their own works. These societies were instrumental in locating the late king's body last year and they've been part of the force ensuring his remains are now treated with respect. (Treatment his body didn't get after the Battle of Bosworth)
The book has some humorous bits in it and the characters are wonderful but its longevity is based on an important point. If history is written by the winners, as Churchill said, how often can we believe history's assessment of a fallen leader? Can an opponent ruin a lifetime of work and fair dealing with propaganda? Perhaps but Ms. Tey thought otherwise, given the title. You see, truth is The Daughter of Time.
This story might have ended there because I had developed the habit of ignoring Mom by then but my roommate, Stephanie was working at the college library so I asked her to pick up a copy of the book while she was on shift. When Stephanie got back that night, the book was in her hand. She looked up at me and said, "I'm on page 47. You can have it when I'm finished."
Jill, Gladys, my mom and Stephanie were all right. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey is a wonderful book, partly because it's a story that breaks all the rules. It's a detective story without any of the usual detective methods. And as for the mystery, well it is one and it isn't. It's hard to explain.
The detective is Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard and the poor man is caught in hospital. (This is England, so there's no "the" in front of hospital). He's stuck in a bed with a broken bone and is slowly going nuts because there's nothing new to think about. He knows how many cracks there are in his ceiling, he knows how his nurses will react to everything he says and worse yet, he knows the plots of all the unread books on his table because their authors aren't coming up with new ideas. I love this observation on pop literature so much, I'm going to have to quote it:
If you are like me and tend to follow certain authors, you'll agree there's truth in that statement, but that's all the more reason to try The Daughter of Time. There's really no other book like it. Instead of going after a recent murderer, Inspector Grant studies the last years of the Plantagenet reign and the War of the Roses by looking at Richard III. Thanks to Thomas More's history of Richard and the Shakespearean play based on the history, King Richard's reputation is only slightly nicer than Hitler's or Stalin's. The mystery is not when Richard murdered his nephews but if he is guilty at all. And while this novel doesn't cover every point in the debate, it certainly brings up evidence to suggest a miscarriage of justice has been ongoing for more than 500 years."Did no one, any more, no one in all this wide world, change their record now and then? Was everyone nowadays thrilled to a formula? Authors today wrote so much to a pattern that their public expected it. The public talked about 'a new Silas Weekley' or 'a new Lavinia Fitch' exactly as they talked about 'a new brick' or 'a new hairbrush'. They never said 'a new book by' whoever it might be. Their interest was not in the book but in its newness. They knew quite well what the book would be like."
For a small novel that came out sixty odd years ago, it has caused some big ripples. There are societies in England and America about Richard inspired in part by this book and other writers such as Sharon Kay Penman and Elizabeth George have expanded on the ideas in Ms. Tey's novel in building their own works. These societies were instrumental in locating the late king's body last year and they've been part of the force ensuring his remains are now treated with respect. (Treatment his body didn't get after the Battle of Bosworth)
The book has some humorous bits in it and the characters are wonderful but its longevity is based on an important point. If history is written by the winners, as Churchill said, how often can we believe history's assessment of a fallen leader? Can an opponent ruin a lifetime of work and fair dealing with propaganda? Perhaps but Ms. Tey thought otherwise, given the title. You see, truth is The Daughter of Time.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
All My Patients are Under the Bed & After All They're Only Cats
I love some books for their wonderful writing. I love some books for their wonderful characters. I even love a few for their couldn't-guess-that plots. But All My Patients are Under the Bed and After All They're Only Cats keep their place on my bookshelf because of their subject. They're about the pets we make part of their lives. In this case they're both about cats.
Dr. Louis Camuti was a veterinarian that practiced in New York during the 20th century and specialized in treating cats. This is unexpected because a) he wasn't really a "cat person. having no cats of his own and b) he was allergic to felines. Consequently, he really had under no illusions about the species. He saw they could be good companions and he liked their assertive personalities but he knew they could be sneaky, naughty creatures as well. So All My Patients are Under the Bed is a collection of professional anecdotes Dr. Camuti collected during his years of practice. Some are well worth remembering.
There were the times when he treated the cats in Tallulah Bankhead's house (to make him completely unique, Dr. Camuti made housecalls!) and learned that however badly the actress treated herself and other human beings, she was a very kind person to cats. Camuti had to pick his way around fallen guests who didn't survive the previous night's party and various bric-a-brac to find his client and the owner but the cat was well attended to. And if the cat needed an injection, Camuti used the contents of the liquor cabinet as handy andiseptic!
He tells of other celebrity (and non-celebrity) related cats always emphasizing how a fair number of the cat injuries result from pairing the cat's nature with a lifetime of indoor living with humans. My favorite is when he's summoned by an owner, convinced the cat has a prolapsed colon (a nasty condition where the inside body part gets pushed to the outside). Camuti examines the animal and learns the extending piece is a curtain tie-back the poor animal managed to consume. Camuti stands the cat on the grand piano, firmly grasps the exposed part of the tie-back and swats the animal so it jumps off the piano. The cat went flying, the tie-back came out and the maid (who thought this was some barberic type of surgery) fainted. Someday that scene needs to go into a motion picture.
If Louis Camuti was a non-cat person who treated people, then the late Patricia Moyes wrote from the perspective of someone who became a cat person. She was a mystery writer, married to a non-cat person when he begrudgingly agreed they might manage to share their home with one kitten provided the cat kept away from him. Of course the Siamese kitten they interviewed chose her husband (Jim) to be her person and Moyes pointed out one of the cat-truths I've watched ever since: cats automatically gravitate toward the one person who doesn't fawn over them. Stick a cat in a room full of people and the feline will ignore every crooning voice to jump into the lap of the sole cat hater. The Siamese, Belinda, did it in the book, my Kansas cats did this when my late grandfather came to visit and when I was going through my anti-cat phase, Charlie-Belle did this to me. Cats like a challenge; it's part of their nature.
Another part of their nature, Patricia Moyes pointed out was their abhorrence of printed material. If anyone lives with cats and books, you can bear me out on this. Put the book down and the cat will ignore you. Pick the book up and the cat has to get between you and the pages, laying on the open book if possible. Cats are all members of the anti-book league and it only gets worse when you are trying to write. Belinda developed the Papoose Effect, which involved jumping onto her writer's back, digging her front claws into the human's shoulders and dangling suspended like so much dead weight down' the human's. Instinctively, Ms. Moyes would fling her own arms under the cat's hind quarters to ease the weight digging into her body. The cat now had her pinned. The writer's hands were off the typewriter and kitty curled up against the small her back, purring with joy. It's a wonder Ms. Moyes managed to write at all after that.
But, write she did for another twenty years as have others who live with felines have done. The writer is a self-centered sort of person (has to be, really) and a cat can be an ideal companion, independent, a bit aloof and unimpressed with their human's accomplishments. To the cat, best-seller status, and literary admiration mean nothing. Win the Caldecott award one morning, the Pulitzer that afternoon and scoop the Nobel prize that night but the feline won't be impressed. The cat still demands to be scratched, petted and fed a tasty dinner because in the end, it's not about the human, it's all about the cat. And that is as it should be.
Dr. Louis Camuti was a veterinarian that practiced in New York during the 20th century and specialized in treating cats. This is unexpected because a) he wasn't really a "cat person. having no cats of his own and b) he was allergic to felines. Consequently, he really had under no illusions about the species. He saw they could be good companions and he liked their assertive personalities but he knew they could be sneaky, naughty creatures as well. So All My Patients are Under the Bed is a collection of professional anecdotes Dr. Camuti collected during his years of practice. Some are well worth remembering.
There were the times when he treated the cats in Tallulah Bankhead's house (to make him completely unique, Dr. Camuti made housecalls!) and learned that however badly the actress treated herself and other human beings, she was a very kind person to cats. Camuti had to pick his way around fallen guests who didn't survive the previous night's party and various bric-a-brac to find his client and the owner but the cat was well attended to. And if the cat needed an injection, Camuti used the contents of the liquor cabinet as handy andiseptic!
He tells of other celebrity (and non-celebrity) related cats always emphasizing how a fair number of the cat injuries result from pairing the cat's nature with a lifetime of indoor living with humans. My favorite is when he's summoned by an owner, convinced the cat has a prolapsed colon (a nasty condition where the inside body part gets pushed to the outside). Camuti examines the animal and learns the extending piece is a curtain tie-back the poor animal managed to consume. Camuti stands the cat on the grand piano, firmly grasps the exposed part of the tie-back and swats the animal so it jumps off the piano. The cat went flying, the tie-back came out and the maid (who thought this was some barberic type of surgery) fainted. Someday that scene needs to go into a motion picture.
If Louis Camuti was a non-cat person who treated people, then the late Patricia Moyes wrote from the perspective of someone who became a cat person. She was a mystery writer, married to a non-cat person when he begrudgingly agreed they might manage to share their home with one kitten provided the cat kept away from him. Of course the Siamese kitten they interviewed chose her husband (Jim) to be her person and Moyes pointed out one of the cat-truths I've watched ever since: cats automatically gravitate toward the one person who doesn't fawn over them. Stick a cat in a room full of people and the feline will ignore every crooning voice to jump into the lap of the sole cat hater. The Siamese, Belinda, did it in the book, my Kansas cats did this when my late grandfather came to visit and when I was going through my anti-cat phase, Charlie-Belle did this to me. Cats like a challenge; it's part of their nature.
Another part of their nature, Patricia Moyes pointed out was their abhorrence of printed material. If anyone lives with cats and books, you can bear me out on this. Put the book down and the cat will ignore you. Pick the book up and the cat has to get between you and the pages, laying on the open book if possible. Cats are all members of the anti-book league and it only gets worse when you are trying to write. Belinda developed the Papoose Effect, which involved jumping onto her writer's back, digging her front claws into the human's shoulders and dangling suspended like so much dead weight down' the human's. Instinctively, Ms. Moyes would fling her own arms under the cat's hind quarters to ease the weight digging into her body. The cat now had her pinned. The writer's hands were off the typewriter and kitty curled up against the small her back, purring with joy. It's a wonder Ms. Moyes managed to write at all after that.
But, write she did for another twenty years as have others who live with felines have done. The writer is a self-centered sort of person (has to be, really) and a cat can be an ideal companion, independent, a bit aloof and unimpressed with their human's accomplishments. To the cat, best-seller status, and literary admiration mean nothing. Win the Caldecott award one morning, the Pulitzer that afternoon and scoop the Nobel prize that night but the feline won't be impressed. The cat still demands to be scratched, petted and fed a tasty dinner because in the end, it's not about the human, it's all about the cat. And that is as it should be.
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