The difference 'tween diamonds and pearls

When you're an English Major, you have to deal with Jane Austen.  She's one of the writers whose work you have to know before you graduate, like the medical students have to pass A&P.  This can be a problem because readers love or they hate her books with a passion.  There's no middle ground.  Granted, Mark Twain said an ideal library contains none of her stories but his heroes create their own destinies by ignoring the rules of their cultures. Miss Austen's characters don't have that luxury.  They have to carve solutions to their problems out of a narrower field.  Nevertheless, constraints don't defeat Austen heroines, they enhance them. Difficulties turn Jane's women into jewels.

Pressure abounds in Pride and Prejudice.  The Bennet daughters are all old enough to marry but there's an unspoken demand that at least one of the girls marry a man with money.  Mr. Bennet has no savings and his death would leave any dependent family homeless. The two older sisters know this although both would rather marry for love than a fortune. They also live in a world that runs on gossip and rumor and it's hard to find the truth.  Nevertheless, Elizabeth Bennet withstands the stress with good sense and humor, refusing to marry the wrong man or  avoid the right one, once she sees him.  She can be misled into a mistake but no one can push Elizabeth into acting against her own conscience or will.  Instead, she stays true to her convictions and charms us with her sparkling wit.  Pressure makes lesser women crumble; it shapes Miss Bennet into a diamond.

Pressure isn't what bothers Elinore Dashwood as much as heartbreak. Within the first two chapters she's loses her father and the only home she's ever known.   Then the family of the man she cares for treats her badly.   Elinor keeps most of this incredibly painful stuff to herself since her mother and sisters share at least two-thirds of her heartbreak and she doesn't want to add to their burdens.  So Elinor becomes the Dashwood who faces reality and tries to get on with life, no matter how hard that is.  She persuades her mother to live within a budget and maintain good friendships with the neighbors who like to help their family.  She begs her younger sister, Marianne, to  behave respectably in public since good manners and reputation are only assets their family has left.  No matter how unhappy she is, Elinore returns malice with civility and kindness with generosity to make life as pleasant as she can for everyone. Her disappointments become the seeds that start her selfless generosity and compassion for others like a piece of sand becomes the instrument that starts a pearl. If Elizabeth sparkles like a diamond, Elinore's kindness gleams through Sense and Sensibility like a pearl that's caught the light.

Perhaps Miss Austen's books aren't for everyone and it's odd they're classified as tales of romance.  They're not about adventurers but conventional people living conventional lives and they're downright unromantic when it comes to the subject of money.  They honor the tedious virtues of patience, loyalty and truth while making fun of snobs and fools.  But they are intelligent, humorous stories and they're all about the art of the possible.  And their heroines are gems.  You just have to choose your preference, diamonds or pearls. 

Telling Young Adults the Truth

Science fiction is just fiction with science.  That was the argument the guys in my generation made in class when they compared the work of Hardy, Thackery or some other school-board sanctioned novelist to a story they preferred.  Despite the teacher's efforts to introduce us to the literary gems of previous centuries, these fellows found subtly in the characters of Ray Bradberry and ambiguity in the plots of Isaac Asimov.  Remember, these were the guys who ran home from school each day to catch the last half of Star Trek and Twilight Zone reruns because VCRs, DVRs and streaming had not been invented.  Nerds long before Comic-Con and Big Bang Theory gave them a sense of pride.  I didn't mind them (victims themselves, they tended to avoid picking on others) but on this point, I thought they were wrong.  English instructors implied that Science Fiction stories were obsessed with machinery and sex and the writers couldn't see beyond those fixations.  I believed this until I read Podkayne of Mars.   I learned, so help me, I learned.

Podkayne of Mars is a turning point book in the career of Robert Anson Heinlein, one of the three deans of Science Fiction.  Kid-lit was how he got started and one of the few markets then that welcomed SF because these were adventure stories and the hero is usually a boy.  Podkayne Fries is the exception to this rule; she's an irrepressible girl whose life on Mars is marred only by her pain-in-the-neck little brother, Clark and the fact she can't travel and see Earth as expected.  Seems the embryonic siblings her parents had kept in stasis were thawed and brought to birth size by clerical error and her mother refuses to travel with three babies.  (I can't blame Poddy's Mom; traveling with one kid in nappies was hard enough; three would be impossible.)  The chance to see Earth is rescued when Poddy's Uncle Tom offers to escort her and Clark himself but everything on the trip implodes after Clark is kidnapped.  It seems that dear Uncle Tom is a high-powered politician and taking these kids on a cruise was his cover story for an ultra-secret diplomatic mission.  Podkayne searches for her brother and for the truth beneath each batch of lies, undismayed by the duplicity of grownups.  Her brother, Clark ends up with the sadder but clearer grasp on reality.

Mr. Heinlein originally submitted this as a "cadet story" (YA had not been identified as a genre at that time) in the early 1960's.  He had churned out space boy adventure stories for years by then and he wanted Podkayne to be a more complex and sensitive novel for his maturing readers.  The editors hated it.  The characters weren't simple, the ending wasn't happy and they wanted changes.  Heinlein managed to keep much of the complexity but he finally rewrote the ending.  Now the original ending is sad but inevitable, in terms of story, and it gives the story needed impact - it feels true.  It also gives the character of Podkayne gravitas.  If a girl is sweet, funny and optimistic when the world's at peace, that's not unusual, but if she remains that way in the face of overwhelming evil she's Anne Frank.  Like Clark, we end up seeing Podkayne as one of Lincoln's "Angels of our Better Nature" and hoping she's right about humanity.  Still, none of this works with the revised ending.  It only works if you tell the reader the truth: not every good ending is happy. 

We seem to be closer to this these days although I think most adults underestimate the ability of children to deal with the truth.  They don't need the gritty details that give us PTSD but they don't need to be lied to either.  There are few certainties in this world but one of them is that young kids believe what we tell them.  In omitting the truth we disarm them.  And once we lose that trust, it's gone.  That's one of the lessons Heinlein teaches in Podkayne of Mars.  It's science fiction about humanity in real-life .

Spinning a whole new tale

Think about yarn for a moment.  If you look at it under the microscope, you'll see that it's a series of fibrous strands that have been woven together so tightly they seem to fuse into a single cord.  Little ends of the strands edge free from the cord and catch the light that shines on the weave. Story yarns are the same: a woven rope of characters, narrative and plot points pull the entire tale together while, here and there, a strand can catch the light.  Some story yarns are so strong that other writers can spread out their elements, and then reweave them into another pattern that shows what you didn't see before.  Gregory Maguire did this with Wicked and Joan Aiken rewove Jane Austen's Emma into her own Jane Fairfax.  I love this technique but the one I love even more is when a writer pulls one of the glinting  ends at the edge of a story and teases a whole new tale from that thread.  T. K. Thorne did this in 2011 when she pulled the bright thread of a character from the book of Genesis and created a tale named Noah's Wife.  At last, the Lady of the Ark has a voice.

Her name is Na'amah and the locals agree she's unusual.  Not quite right.  Because her recall of  detail, Na'amah can recite the markings and lineage of every sheep in the flock but she can't look most people in the eye.  She's direct to the point of being rude and has difficulty understanding humor or lies.  She's not sure the gods really exist.  She's only sure about what she learns through her senses which is how she meets the boat maker.  "Why do you wrinkle your nose,"  Noah asks.  "Because you smell bad" replies Na'amah.

Genesis mentions Na'amah only in genealogical terms (a descendant of Cain) and Noah's wife in lists relating to the ark but a Jewish text interpreting Genesis says these two were one and the same. T K Thorne takes it a step further by giving  Na'amah a personality, opinions and a soul to match the man of history she married.  The hard life of her biblical tribe is here as well as the problems that confound people today.  Na'amah faces her tragedies and triumphs with the same tears and joy  we know and her retelling of the story of the flood comes with a perspective that accounts for the world-changing event as well as the problems of living in a boat with a bunch of incontinent animals. 

Life and love, death and despair are all part of the human condition.  This is not subject to change.  How we react to these is so variable and important that we've woven a tapestry of stories to guide us through each part of our lives.  Noah's Wife was once an idea, teased from a glinting edge of a character that lived in the first book of the Bible.  Now Na'amah repeats her life's story and it becomes a guide on how to live until you're sure life will continue.   And someday that continuing life may spin another tale that glints on the edges of hers. 

Why haven't they made a movie of this?

Like a lot of folks, I'm nuts about movies.  For decades I've spent lots of leisure time sitting in the dark, staring at a screen and believing that no matter how big a problem is, it can be introduced, muddled over and solved within two hours, two and a half, if a war is involved.  And while I often hate what a film adaption does to a book's story, (don't get me started on The Prince of Tides) some adaptations work well and some stories are downright cinematic and need to be retold.  Last month I was looking for  a book on World War II that my husband hasn't yet read (not an easy task!) when I ran across The Forgotten 500.  Not only did it make a great gift; it would make a brilliant movie and the film industry wouldn't have to stretch the truth.  This story writes itself.

It's 1944 and the USAFF is flying combat missions with other allied crews from Italy into Germany every day.  Part of their flight path took them over what was then Yugoslavia and the planes were often hit by German troups.  The crew of a crashing plane could bail out but their survival depended on who found them because the area was occupied by the Germans and the area was not really united.  Serbian citizens found, cared for and sheltered hundreds of American airman, often risking and losing their own lives in the process, but as long as the Nazis continued to search the area, the Americans were on dangerous ground.  How could they safely get home?

Getting word back to the U. S. was an adventure in itself but Intelligence about the downed fliers finally reached the Yugoslavian embassy in the U. S. An employee there wrote her husband, an OSS officer,  about the Americans.  He organized Operation Halyard, the plan to airlift the fliers back to safety.   For this to work, the cooperating Serbians would have build an airstrip big enough for Cargo planes out in the woods out of sight of the encamped Germans.  Regular communication would have to be established with the missing Americans to let them know of the plans and some night cargo planes would fly in, land safely on the darkened air strip and pick them up, still without alerting the Germans.  Believe it or not, the story gets more dramatic after that but I won't tell you more except to leave you with an image.  Imagine a Cargo plane filling rapidly with allied soldiers that have run from the woods to the fuselage.  Outside are the villagers who have kept them alive.  When the soldiers sit down, they start unlacing their boots. Their boots are  thrown out the door to the villagers, whose feet are covered in felt.   It's the best way the soldiers have to say "Thank You."

Yugoslavia has long since broken up and the Serbian General who helped with Operation Halyard is either (depending on who you listen to) a martyred hero or a slick opportunist whose execution was the result of a lost political fight.   But more than four hundred allied service men (most of them American) lived because of the efforts of that general and the Serbian villagers who risked everything to protect strangers.  It's an incredible tale and one that deserves to be told and retold again and again.  When human history is this good, why bother making stuff up?   The Forgotten 500 is a wonderful book.  It would make a brilliant movie.

The One Western Everyone Loves

I grew up during TV's golden age of westerns and I hated every minute of them.  Those were the days of three networks (four if the cloud ceiling was low enough to bring in PBS) and twenty eight hours of prime time programming every week. On the year I was born there were thirty westerns on television.  If you do the math and remember most westerns were an hour long, (except The Virginian, which was 90 minutes) you'll realize that almost half of the shows aired during family viewing time had rifles, spurs and bonnets in every episode.  The Duke was still alive and the go-to movie actor for many dads and Lois L'Amour sold enough paperbacks to deforest a small continent.  We were flooded with westerns, inundated with the damn things and it's probably why my friends became comic book and sci-fi fans.  We couldn't take one more stone-faced guy blowing the black-hats away and then saying, "Shucks, twarn't nothing, ma'am."  It would take an incredible yarn to make us trade our phasers for a horse and a great story is what we got.  Everyone loves Lonesome Dove, and it is a western, but a western that breaks the rules.

Look at all those standard western heroes and what do you see?  Strong, silent, incorruptible white men who face the lone prairie with a horse and six-shooter that never needs reloading.  Now look at Lonesome Dove's Hat Creek Company, the group that propels the story.  The leaders are two old guys, retired by nineteenth century progress and long past their glory days.   Augustus McCrae can be strong when the need arises but not silent; no one talks more than Gus and he prefers the idle life of whiskey, jokes, women and cards to work and cattle.  His partner Woodrow Call is closer to the stereotype but his successes are the result of endless worry, obsessive planning and avoiding the women he fears.  Call is at heart a shy man, as is his hired hand Pea Eye, and the women they encounter are forthright, a condition that makes many men seek open country.

These strong females are another departure from the standards set by Zane Grey and Owen Wister.  Clara Allen is the equal of any male in her acquaintance, including Augustus McCrae, and a much better horse trader than her husband, the nominal head of her business.  She does create a home and a family but the other female characters, Lorena Wood, Ellie Johnson and  Janey aren't tied to traditional values or ambitions.  Each woman is driven by a defining need, whether it be vengeance, a new beginning or an old lover and any risk will be taken to achieve their ends.  If any character reaches the wordlessness of a traditional cowboy, it is Lorena Wood, driven to silence as her last shelter from the men who would use and abuse her.

Traditional westerns divided humanity into racial groups and assigned character traits accordingly so when children played Cowboys and Indians, no one wanted to be an Indian.  (Hispanics and black people weren't even mentioned).  Lonesome Dove shows a world of good and bad people, some strong, some weak, some wicked and some kind but the characters are not defined by their background.  Dan Suggs is a sociopath and a serial killer and so is Blue Duck.  It doesn't matter that one is the son of a Comanche and the other is Caucasian; what matters is what they do to others.  Jake Spoon 's weak character is his undoing, and Josh Deets holds the respect of others because of his strengths.  Ethnic background doesn't matter nor formal education in this world.  What matters is how someone chooses to live.

Some books leave me satisfied with a story well told and I close the covers and smile. I'm sad when other tales have ended and I return to this world with a sigh.  Lonesome Dove  left me unable to return at all.  My emotions were so high the first time I finished the book, it felt like a part of me had been amputated when I closed the back cover.  I wandered into the living room, blinking at the light and full of thoughts about McCrae, Po Campo and the other members of the Hat Creek Cattle Company.  The world seemed out of balance and harsh with no story left to read and all of the characters gone.  These people were too vivid, too rich and real to die or be put away on pages and I couldn't bear the thought of them gone.  I went back to the bedroom, re-opened the book and began the story again.  After fifteen pages, I could put the novel down, satisfied that the denizens of Lonesome Dove were alive and had a lifetime of adventures before them.  Then my life could go on.

I was raised in the West and grew up hating Westerns which gave my folks reason for pause.  But I love good books, stories so wonderful they burst from the pages and transcend their genres and that's why I love Lonesome Dove.  If you haven't read it, I envy the adventure you can find but take some advice from a fan.  Finish the book when you have time to open and re-start the novel again.  You won't want this story to end.

Sophie's Choice

Google remembered the liberation of Auschwitz today.  For those who grew up in the latter half of the twentieth century, Auschwitz is the edge of a remembered nightmare, a disaster our parents and grandparents witnessed and passed in their memories to us.  My mother saw the newsreels of the liberation as a child and the images haunted her forever but some of my friends were even closer to the tragedy.  One college friend's great-aunt was a survivor of the camps and when I met the lady, I marveled that this happy cookie-jar of a woman had faced such evil and still lived so joyfully, dancing with a tattooed number on her arm.  Another friend was the child of camp survivors who married after the liberation and their tenacity and PTSD were visible in her character.  Auschwitz left a lifetime of suffering and long memories in its wake and those of us not directly affected have been trying to grasp the motives and magnitude of the Holocaust ever since.  This is the role more and more of the world has moved into over the last seventy years and it's a role William Styron talked about in his novel, Sophie's Choice.

Styron understood the place of a third-hand witness to history better than most.  Son of a liberal southerner, he grew up ashamed of the history of race treatment in the South. As a Marine officer who never saw combat, he also understood how the lucky boredom of his own military service had been paid for with the blood of others.  A few years in New York after the war gave him the background to write of a young Southerner and perpetual witness to history and Sophie, the Polish, Catholic woman he meets who was pulled though the war into Auschwitz.

Sophie's Choice is a novel for adults.  The story is incredibly varied with beautifully written passages of great humor as well as sorrow, anger and Eros and the characters are layered and complex, especially Sophie.   These individuals are human beings with strengths and failings, not cardboard cutouts who can be labelled "hero" or "villain" as need be and forgotten.  Sophie is a lovely imperfect woman whose actions aren't noble but they are understandable, given the circumstances and her survivor's guilt is well-earned.  Nathan is the brilliant, broken, American Jew who can't reconcile the horrors of a war he never faced and his Gentile girlfriend survived while millions of others were murdered.  Finally, Stingo is the witness trying to care for himself and his friends in an unbalanced, out-of-control existence. If the outcome of their story is inevitable, it's still a difficult account to read because, thanks to Styron's skill, these are people we care about.

There's no easy explanation some of mankind's history or for Styron's novel but Sophie's Choice wasn't written to give people easy answers.  Styron understood that we are, at best, complex, imperfect beings that need to be forgiven on a regular basis.  Those lucky enough to be "third-person" witnesses have the responsibility to learn from the experiences of others, to forgive the failings of people we love and to embrace the potential in each new day.  It's a lot to do but a less difficult job than surviving a war.   And it's an easier alternative than Sophie's Choice.

The Lessons of Loss and Sid Halley in Odds Against

Most people think you can't learn much from popular fiction. I disagree.  For one thing, so many of the "classics" people revere were popular tales in their day and for stories to sell, they must have an emotional appeal. Either story is sensational, in the titillation sense, or it resounds with the reader.  Since the thriller novels of Dick Francis weren't exceptionally sexy or gory, there was something besides the entertainment of the stories that kept readers coming back.  One of the continuing themes in his stories was coming to terms with loss and because he wrote about this well, readers kept returning.  It was a subject Dick Francis could speak on with authority.

Francis had success as a jockey, although he lost his fair share of races, including the failure of Devon Loch in the home stretch of the Grand National.  To win so many races and ride for the royal family and then lose that race for those owners because your horse falls in the home stretch must be devastating. Not long afterwards, Francis retired from racing, still a young man but unable to pursue the career he loved because of one too many injuries.  These experiences became grist for his writing but Francis gave his hero, Sid Halley, losses that were worse.

In Odds Against, Sid starts at the bottom of trying to return to life.  As a champion jockey, he had learned to tolerate pain, failure and deprivation but devotion to his profession has cost him his marriage.  Then a racing accident crippled his left hand, leaving him without a career or the identity he created with riding.  Sid alternates between the self-pity and lethargy of deep depression until a crook's misfire and his former father-in-law remind him there are still ideals and matters worth fighting for.  Sid has to learn the hard way that while every loss must be mourned, clinging to the remains of a shattered life is a recipe for ruin.  Halley's gradual return to the world is a harrowing journey on every level and he encounters more devastation but after learning the lessons only time and experience can bring: that catastrophe can be survived, that regret serves no one and that even a disaster can be unexpectedly liberating. 

Odds Against was written in the mid 1960's and a few references to the period date it a bit but the message is universal: loss is a part of life and how we face up to it defines a large bit of our character.  We can withdraw and mourn what we cannot regain or we can move forward toward survival.  It won't be an easy trip but ease seldom creates success.  And surviving can be a success in itself, when you ride Odds Against.

When reading leaves you in need of a doctor.

I've said that books are friends that move with you and I've got a few that have  done that for years.  From high school to college, to the Air Force, then marriage and apartment to house, about 100 stories have followed me around the country in boxes and trunks. My husband swears they'll get packed into my coffin.  That's fine with me.  I can spend an eternity with M*A*S*H.

Okay, for anyone whose read this far, if you know the TV series M*A*S*H but not the book, withhold your judgment.   Same deal if you know the movie but never picked up Richard Hooker's novel.  If you haven't read the book, you don't know M*A*S*H and you can't really appreciate how the story morphed from one incarnation to the next.   I know all three and they are different.  I loved the series, I never miss a chance to re-watch the movie but the book....the first time I read it, I nearly ruptured myself laughing.

The time is spring of 1976 and I've just undergone an unexpected appendectomy.   My best friend had left me some post-op paperbacks to while away the recovery time with (those were the days when people recovered in the hospital) and the top one was M*A*S*H.  I picked up the story and fell in love with the schemes of Hawkeye, Trapper and Duke, a/k/a/ the Swampmen. When they noticed patients were more likely to survive when Chaplain Dago Red administered last rites, they incorporated the ritual into their surgical plan, and I managed to snicker.  My surgical incision snickered back.  Not good.  I kept at it until the Swampmen decided to thank Dago for his contribution to Public Health with a human sacrifice and kidnapped his Protestant colleague, Shaking Sammy.   I put the book down for twenty minutes and clutched my side with both hands while I laughed and wept silently, praying my stitches would hold.   Never before (and never since!) have I needed to laugh even though laughter caused incredible pain.  After half an hour I was sore but calm.  Only sixteen-year-olds are this stupid, I picked up the book again.

I got as far as Dago finding the triumphant Swamp Men lying drunk in front of an unlit bonfire and Shaking Sammy suspended behind them from a cross.   Then Trapper intoned his prayer.

"Whether it rains or whether it freezes, Sammy'll be safe in the arms of Jesus"

 I  really don't remember much after that.  I screamed from a combination of laughter and pain, the nurses came running and I got some extra sedation.  I think it widened the scar.

The thing is, the book came in handy a few years later when a bunch of us in college watched a horror film together.  We were all scared afterward and some of us (no names!) were afraid to go back to go to sleep.  Nothing calmed me down until I started reading M*A*S*H and, of all things, I went to the chapter where they were working constantly.  All the blood and gore that had frightened me in the movie were just exposed blood and guts now and it was the doctors' jobs to put them back.  The killer with the knife was replaced in my imagination by doctors with scalpels.   It worked and I was able to get to sleep.  There's nothing like real life trauma, even fictionalized trauma, to put demons to flight.

I can't recommend the rest of franchise (yes, there are many sequels) because none of them achieve the same balance of zany behavior and serious medicine that the first book has.  Sometimes, lightening strikes just once.  Nevertheless I am glad I ran across this one, even if it gave me a wider surgical scar and another day in the hospital.  It's a fitting souvenir for any book too funny to be read following surgery.

For those who love to read aloud.....

There's something wonderful about discovering a new book.  It makes you feel like you have this great, golden, wonderful secret and you want to run up hill and down dale spilling the news.   At least it's that way for me.  Nellie Forbush can sing all she wants about her wonderful guy but I need to start a parade:  I've found a wonderful book.   If you have children, go get this one because you'll want it.   If you don't have children, get it anyway and rent some kids to read it to because this book (besides being wonderful, scary, hilarious and thrilling) begs to be read out loud.   Seriously.   This is a fabulous read-aloud book.

Ready?

The Book is A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz and yes, it's a salute to the Brothers Grimm.   As the narrator points out, fairytales these days have no resemblance to their dark and lovely ancestors once published by the Brothers Grimm.   Somebody else retold the story (and changed a few things) then someone else repeated the procedure, ad nauseum, ad infinitum until Disney got ahold of it and really turned the tale into literary pablum.   A shot of boredom, straight to the solar plexus and our current youngest readers nod off wondering why anyone bothered about Snow White and Rose Red in the first place.  The narrator here promises he's excavated the real story of Hansel and Gretel and he's willing to share it with you but as the story progresses, he keeps saying to get the kids out of the room.

Will you?

My sis (who knows about such things) turned me on to this tale and I'll bet the next  mortgage payment that when she reads this warning aloud to her students they all shout her down and demand she keep on with the story.  I would.   First off, the the story is funny, laugh-out-loud funny in places.  In what other tale would Hansel sniff himself baking in the oven (Yup, in this version the kid spends time in the RadarRange) and think, "Oh no! I’m cooking!  And I smell delicious!"

You shouldn't worry about Hansel.  He's not really baking.  Not yet.

The story is a combination of wide-eyed fairy tale mixed with enough anachronistic humor to keep the adults grinning (my favorite supporting characters are three ravens who comment on the scene and finish each others' sentences like Tweedledum and Tweedledee) and underneath it all a wonderful story about the mistakes everybody makes and how everyone needs love, forgiveness and understanding, parents included.  (Understanding here is so much more than comprehension and empathy.  This version says understanding means, I will literally stand under you and bear your cares and burdens like they were my own.   That's more than empathy, that's love.)  It's an overwhelming book and the only warning I would give prospective parents is read the thing yourself first so you will know what's coming and where you'll want to take a breath when you read this thing out loud.  Because you will want to read it out loud.  The prose begs to be read out loud.  And listeners will love it when you do.

The best news is that A Tale Dark and Grimm is only the first of a series and while I can't recommend those yet (I haven't read them yet and I haven't trusted an author on sequels since  Lemony Snicket) I will be reading them to see if the magic holds up.  In the meantime, does anyone have a batch of kids that need reading aloud to?  There's a book I really want to share.

An Unflinching Look at Evil

Both psychiatry and religion care about the human spirit.  I know they have seemed like enemies at times and I doubt if the extremists in either practice trust the other but trust has never been high on any extremist's list, so that's not a fair comparison.  No, at their best, I believe both practices have overlapping interests but by tradition, they've rarely worked together.  In The Road Less Traveled, Dr. Scott Peck associated the spiritual growth demanded by faith with growing emotional maturity but these were positive associations.  To me, his more exciting, revolutionary work was chronicled in People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil.  In this book Dr. Peck suggested that evil could be cataloged and classified like any emotional illness and, more importantly, it could be treated.

Dr. Peck defined evil as when a person uses his or her political power to let some one else suffer, rather than face their own personal shortcomings.  The classic example is when one person lets another take the blame for his or her misbehavior.  Now, under that definition, everyone has committed an evil act at some point in their lives but committing an evil act doesn't make a person irredeemably evil.   (If it does, I lost any chance at redemption when I let my folks believe my five-year old sister stuck crayons in the pencil sharpener.  I apologize, Sis.)  However, it does show both the callousness and the cowardice of the actor, in this case, me.  Callous, because I let my sister take my punishment and a coward because I wouldn't tell my parents the truth.  Peck points out that fear is a central motivation of an evil person (that is, someone who is committed to a practice of avoidance and scapegoating others) and the evil doer often creates chaos to distract others from recognizing that fear.  Most of their conscious energy is devoted to competitions they've created and (often) only they are aware of, devising schemes to triumph in these competitions and avoiding the underlying conviction that they're not very worthy human beings.  For all of the damage these inflict, that's a sad, paltry existence, a half-life at best.  In a way, it fits.  Those who embrace evil as a way of life, face an existence of the damned.

There are several case histories cited in the book that illustrate the doctor's point and not all of the patients improve.  However, like all patients in therapy, those who are willing to "do the work"  by facing and addressing their own character flaws improve.  Peck also points out that evil and good behavior have a tendency to grow.  Anyone who thinks evil isn't a contagious disease, hasn't studied history.  A single madman like Hitler could not have created the devastation of the Third Reich on his own.  He required the active assistance of his political aides as well as the acceptance or endorsement of much of the German population and other world leaders. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, " Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.  However, if Dr. Peck was right, therapists can learn to recognize someone sliding into an existence of evil, and, (if the patient is willing) the therapist may be able to do something to arrest this condition and keep  it from growing.  That's got to be reason for hope.

Much of the nature of evil is still a mystery and most humans are well-served to avoid it when possible because its effects are lethal.  Like all deadly diseases, it requires careful treatment by a qualified practitioner.  However, I hope Dr. Peck's work will be continued by therapists and clergy alike.  We have been fighting against the better angels of our nature long enough.  It's time to give the good guys a chance.