The Road Through the Wall (1948) By Shirley Jackson

 

Shirley Jackson’s first novel, The Road Through the Wall, is semi-biographical. It is about a young girl named Harriet growing up in post-WWII suburban America, a unifying theme in Jackson’s early novels and short stories. Later in her career Jackson would turn to horror topics including her best-known work The Haunting of Hill House, which has been adapted numerous times for movies and television shows.

While Harriet is the main character in The Road Through the Wall, there is a large contingent of “others” in the book, her neighborhood friends, classmates, siblings galore, and their nemeses the parents. I think the word “generic” applies to the kids, and to the personal goals set for them by their parents. Just pages into the book I already had the folk song Little Boxes playing in the back of my head, written & composed by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 and made famous by Pete Seeger, and used more recently as the theme song of Showtime’s serial Weeds.

Little Boxes sung by Pete Seeger

The novel includes several interesting little side stories amongst the ordinary days, mixed in with the never-ending dynamics of who is part of the “in crowd” and who is not, and why, told at the level of the children, and also at the level of the parents. At the top end of this us and them scale, and uncontested, was the distinction between homeowners and renters.

One of the side stories is of Harriet being persuaded into visiting a Chinese man her friend Virginia met while shopping in town. Harriet knew her parents would not approve of visiting an adult man, rather on a Chinese one. Yet, they went anyway, though they nearly canceled at the last moment out of fear of the unknown. The meeting, with tea and cookies, turned out to be eye opening, multi-cultural, interesting, and without incident. Among other things, the girls discover the man lives in the house as a servant, not as the proprietor – a class distinction handed down to them from their parents.  The girls do not visit a second time.

Another interesting side story is the decision by the adults in the neighborhood to start a Shakespeare reading program for the kids. Without objection (or even the notion of an objection), the program organizer announced his decision to not invite Harriet’s friend Marilyn to participate in the program. Marilyn is Jewish and lives in a rental. He explains this exclusion by stating he did not want to offend Marilyn by subjecting her to a reading of The Merchant of Venice.

Throughout the storylines, everyone is in high dudgeon because a subdivision is being built next to theirs, and they will have no say in what “class” of people will be moving in, possibly harming the desirability of the neighborhood. Currently, a wall exists between the new and the established, though the developer had indicated the wall is coming down, streets and sidewalks will be connected with theirs, new kids will be in the school system.

The novel concludes when a 3-year-old girl dies near a hole in that wall. No one knows if it was an accident, a murder, or what.

Recommendation:  Yes, though I have read this theme before.

Dear Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky (1979) By James K. Libbey

 

This summer I picked up several books – a $5 bag to be precise – at the McCracken County Library’s book fair. McCracken County includes Paducah, Kentucky, across the Ohio River and down a few miles from where I live. One of the books I selected while browsing was a biography of Alben Barkley, a name I recognized but actually knew little about. Lake Barkley in the Land-Between-the Lakes is named after Barkley, as is the regional airport in Paducah. I knew he was a longtime Congressman, and I was vaguely aware he was Vice-President under President Harry Truman.

The book is an interesting read.  Barkley grew up in western Kentucky, near Fancy Farm – home of a legendary annual political fair and picnic. He made his early career in Paducah – as County Judge Executive (in Kentucky this is the title given to the county administrator). Barkley won his first term in Congress during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Politically speaking it was a different era, Kentucky was reliably Democratic and patronage, not policy, was the name of the game. Barkley was a master of the patronage and spoils system. He also successfully secured federal funding for a bridge across the Ohio River from Paducah, KY to Brookport, IL -- a big boost for the local economy.

Eventually, Barkley moved up to become a U.S. Senator – and this is the part of his history that I knew nothing about. In due time he was selected as the Senate Majority Leader – as such, he served as the point man on legislation proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to lift the country out of the Great Depression – putting him at the heart of the New Deal -- and making him perhaps the most popular Democrat after FDR – and one of the few who could bridge the schism between northern progressives and southern conservatives in the party.  Many of his colleagues were ready to support Barkley as a presidential candidate in the 1948 election. However, FDR’s death had elevated Vice-President Harry Truman to the White House, and Barkley was unwilling to challenge an incumbent Democrat.

An aside:  Barkley’s maternal grandmother was a cousin to the first Adlai Stevenson, making Barkley a distant relative and contemporary of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II, who managed to win the 1952 Democrat Presidential nomination that many say was meant for Barkley.  Stevenson then went on to predictable defeat running against war hero General Dwight Eisenhower.  The first Stevenson by-the-way was Vice President under Grover Cleveland's second presidential term.

Recommendation:  Like many biographers, Libbey’s treatment of Barkley borders on idolatry – that said, it is a great read for political junkies, and those familiar with west Kentucky geography.

Fly Already (2013-2018 Hebrew, 2019 Yiddish Translation, 2019 English Translation) By Etgar Keret

 

“Daddy Look!”  It is amazing how two people can look at the same situation and produce entirely different interpretations. For example: a father is taking his son to the park when the kid spots a man standing on the edge of a roof top. “Is he a superhero?” asks the kid, as his father yells “don’t do it!”  Ah, the trials and tribulations of being a dad, talking down a potential suicide, without alarming his son. “Fly already” shouts the kid!

Fly Already is the title story in a 2019 English translation of short stories by Etgar Keret, a phenomenal and fun writer. I have read several of his books and attended a lecture he gave in Chicago some years ago. He has a virtual trademark irreverent sense of humor, fun despite his seeming obsession with suicides, a frequent subject in his writing.

Many of his works have a semi-autobiographical touch to them, particularly those with a father and young son storyline. Keret explained once that as a writer he does not work regular hours, so he is similar to a “stay at home Dad,” while his wife works a 9 to 5-plus. He spends a lot of time at the playground in the park.

In addition to Fly Already, other stories in the collection are:

A sad, but hysterically funny story about a man who seems to have failed at everything in life, titled The Next-to-Last Time I Was Shot Out of a Cannon.

The book’s cover art, a fish smoking on a balcony, relates to At Night, a short story about a boy who cannot sleep and gets out of bed. Every night he sees a Goldfish who has exited its fishbowl and is watching television with the volume turned off. The fish will go back into the bowl before dawn.

One of the less funny stories in the collection is Windows, about a man who has been hit by a car and loses his memory. He is placed in an “apartment” to recuperate and is monitored via video cam. He is only able to phone and speak with the people at the support center. He no longer knows how long he has been in rehab.

In divorce cases involving child custody Judges routinely pre-judge the mother to be the better parent and award her custody without any consideration as to whether or not that is actually true. In To The Moon and Back a father never gets to see his kid on his birthday, always the next day. Equally routine, fathers will then overdo it on a birthday present.

Dad With Mashed Potatoes is a thought-provoking story about how children whose fathers have “gone away” find a rabbit and pretend that Dad has not really gone away, he has merely shape shifted. Drives the mother nuts.

In all there are twenty-two short stories in this collection.

Recommendation:  Light reading, fun.

I’ve previously blogged Keret’s: Suddenly a Knock at the Door and The Seven GoodYears, a Memoir.

Biophilia, The Diversity of Life, Naturalist (2021) By Edward O. Wilson

 

The Library of America’s partial collection of works by E.O. Wilson is fascinating, and at the risk of sounding silly, his memoir, titled simply Naturalist, is enchanting. His peers consider him “the natural heir to Charles Darwin.”

E. (Edward) O. Wilson is an entomologist, a branch of biology that studies insects, and a Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is the world’s leading authority on myrmecology – the study of ants. He is also an exceptionally good writer, having won two Pulitzer Prizes for Literature (general nonfiction), first in 1978 for On Human Nature, the second in 1991 for The Ants. Significant to readers of his works, he created the popular course on biology for non-science majors at Harvard – he knows how to communicate to/with non-scientists.

His list of science awards is lengthy and includes: Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Newcombe Cleveland Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Kistler Prize; the King Faisal Prize; Global Environmental Citizen Award; and the International Cosmos Prize.

Wilson was (is, he is now 92), born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up bouncing around the Alabama gulf coast and Florida panhandle, between custody sharing parents who both moved a lot. For entertainment, he would wander around the woods and wetlands where he developed his love of all-things nature. By the time he finished high school he was an Eagle Scout and had been “born again” in the Southern Baptist Church. He was not old enough to see military service in World War II. He received both his BS and MS from the University of Alabama. Eventually he became a research assistant at Harvard, while working on a PhD, and became a tenured professor thereafter.

Reading his memoir also amounts to reading a history of advances in the science disciplines of biology – starting with field biology, through evolutionary biology, geobiology, microbiology, environmental biology, and eventually into sociobiology (human) – a field of theoretical biology that remains as controversial today as evolution was in Darwin’s time. His involvement in studies such as island biological diversity is particularly interesting – even conducting an experiment in the Florida Keys where researchers destroyed all life on several small islands so as to witness and record the “return to life” on the empty islands.

Recommendation:  Absolutely. While at times the “science” in Wilson’s writings can become a bit complex for non-scientists like me, what comes through clearly is his passion for natural biology. The Naturalist is a not necessarily easy read, but one definitely worthwhile.

My other blog posts on environmental biology include:

The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Charles Darwin: The Naturalist Who Started a Revolution by Cyril Aydon

Fallout (2017) By Sara Paretsky

 

Count me in as one of the legions of fans of Chicago author Sara Paretsky and her fictional private detective V.I. Warshawski, protagonist of a series of nearly 2 dozen really good mystery books, and one so-so movie starring Kathleen Turner. Turner was okay, but Hollywood screenwriters mistakenly (and arrogantly) believed they could improve the storyline … they were wrong.   

I’m sure I’ve read at least a dozen of the mysteries, though not lately.  So, when I picked up Fallout at a bookfair recently, it was like a reunion … there was Lotty Herschel and Max Loewenthal, Sal the bartender, Bobby Mallory from the CPD, and of course Mr. Contreras and the dogs: Mitch and Peppy.  I hadn’t realized how much I missed them.

Almost all of Paretsky’s books are set in Chicago, not so with Fallout.  It starts in Chicago, but the mystery quickly moves on to Lawrence, Kansas and its surrounding farmland.  The case is a missing persons search – but like all of Vic’s cases, gets complicated fast.  Fallout expands into a complex plot of intertwined murders, family dynamics, anti-nuclear demonstrations, police cover-ups, espionage and chemical warfare. (At times I thought I was reading Vince Flynn). The climatic end of the book takes place in a missile silo in the middle of a sorghum field!

An aside: There is quite a bit about Cold War era missile bases in this book, which reminded me of the Nike base in Portage, Indiana where I grew up.  It was operational from 1956 to 1976.

One of the joys of reading a V.I. Warshawski mystery is that Paretsky knows her geography, she has Chicago down perfectly.  She surprisingly knows Lawrence pretty well too.  But then Paretsky was born in Iowa and grew up in Kansas, staying just long enough to get a B.A. from the University of Kansas).   

Recommendation:  You bet, and if you’ve ever read a V.I. Warshawky mystery, then I don’t have to explain why.

Peony (1948) By Pearl Buck

 

I purchased the novel Peony by Pearl Buck at a book fair this summer. Great book, at a phenomenal price -- $5 for a bag of books! I put it in my bag without even reading the dust jacket because I’ve read Buck before (The Good Earth and The Mother) and knew whatever it was about, it would be set in China, and it would be a good read.

What I was not expecting was an opening chapter describing in some detail a Passover Seder.  Peony, the title character, is a bondsmaid for a Jewish family living in K’aifeng in China circa 1850.  Chinese, she was brought into the household (bought) to be a playmate for the family’s young son, David. She has been a part of the family since childhood, though as a bondsmaid, she is not part of the family – a problematic distinction.

Until reading this book, and subsequent research, I was not aware a small Jewish community existed in China as far back as the 1600s. The underlying story is about how it peacefully co-existed with and eventually assimilates into the larger Chinese population. 

Buck tells this story on two levels, one with the character storyline of the book, the other with a fascinating ongoing discussion of comparative Confucian philosophy and Jewish theology between David’s father, Ezra ben Israel; and a Chinese merchant who is his father’s closest friend.

In the storyline, David is the key character. He is infatuated with the daughter of a major Chinese merchant.  Yet, his very orthodox mother wants him to marry the daughter of the Rabbi.  And Peony is secretly in love with David but cannot act on it because of her status as a bondsmaid.

A reoccurring theme in the novel concerns the personal debate within each of the Jewish characters concerning eventual return to the Promised Land vs. staying in China where they have safely lived all their lives. Significantly (or co-incidentally), Buck had the book published in 1948, the date of the re-establishment of the nation of Israel.

Recommendation:  Excellent.

Luce and His Empire (1975) By W. A. Swanberg

 

Luce … and His Empire.  That would be Henry Robinson Luce, born in China in 1898, the son of Presbyterian missionaries.  His achievements include being the Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated magazines.  No less than Winston Churchill publicly named him one of the most influential people in America. His name is synonymous with the period of history that came to be known as the American Century.

Author W. A. Swanberg’s extensive biography of Luce covers three major topics:  1) his invention of the weekly “news” magazine format used by Time, building it into a world-wide publishing giant; 2) his use of his publishing empire to try and make post-dynasty China both a Christian nation, and a democracy; and 3) his flagrant use of political propaganda, thinly disguised as objective news.  If one is concerned about the state of “news” in the world today, but especially in the United States, then note this: Luce’s legacy has been a “how-to” blueprint for Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News/News Corp. media empire.

Luce was Yale, Class of 1920, which comes with elitist baggage and perhaps one of if not the best alumni networking pedigrees in the world.  Out of Yale, Luce and friend/academic rival Briton Hadden, jointly founded Time magazine with initial investments coming from fellow alumni.  Their initial strategic plan was to not have correspondents, but to gather stories from daily newspapers and condense them, unattributed, in a weekly newsmagazine.  Their premise was that busy people did not have enough time available to read everything, yet they wanted to be informed on current events. 

This business plan quickly morphed into not only choosing what stories were important enough to be printed, but also telling readers why.  As the Time’s editors, they would pick what news they wished to highlight, and re-write it to fit their political beliefs.  The “cover of Time” quickly became the most important place in American politics. The “thankful” public subscribed in the millions – and the advertising dollars came rolling in.  Hadden lived long enough to see their joint business become a financial success but died long before it peaked under Luce’s sole control.

Luce took the company’s financial success, and built it into a publishing Empire, making him one of the richest and most influential men in the world.  He would marshal that power in support of his causes, ranging from supporting the corrupt Chiang Kai Shek in the Chinese civil war (because he was nominally a Christian and definitely an oligarch), to bashing Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, yet have a cordial relationship with John F. Kennedy (or more accurately, JFK’s father Joseph Kennedy).  Militantly anti-communist, Luce was the country’s chief advocate of a Cold War strategy.  Historically, the book spans everything from the Great Depression to the Vietnam “Conflict.”  Luce died in 1967.

Recommendation:  Yes. I found Luce and His Empire to be critical to any examination of Twentieth Century world history; not to mention the birth of today’s biased “journalism” format.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) By Betty Smith

 

Several weeks ago, my niece, an English teacher, said she had just read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at the recommendation of one of her students. She was moved to tears when I told her my late mother had once told me it was her favorite book. I decided to read it and found a musty dusty copy in my local library.

Written by Betty Smith, and published in 1943, it is one of those young adult classics everyone has heard of, but today next to no one reads. It needs to be dusted off and added back to the curriculum.

The story is about an Irish immigrant family living in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn in the run-up to World War I.  It is told through the eyes of Francie Nolan, the daughter in the family, from her childhood years through leaving for college.  Brooklyn in those years was an ethnic melting pot, quite similar to the then boom town of Gary, Indiana where my mother was born and raised – which I’m sure is one of the reasons she loved the novel. Open up my mother’s high school yearbook and you’ll discover a textbook of “foreign” names.

The Nolan family was immigrant poor, as was mostly everyone in the neighborhood. Her father Johnny worked when he could as a server for a local banquet caterer, making extra tips by being the fun-loving singer waiter – and often drinking those tips away on his way home. Her mother Katie cleaned other people’s houses for income.

Francie’s younger brother Neeley was the “favored” child – true to the time period, all efforts went into the son because he would one day be the breadwinner in a family, whereas the daughter needed to be prepared to be a homemaker. The challenge, one of many, was that Francie was the ambitious bookworm, and Neeley was, well, average at best.  When the family was short on income, it was decided that Francie would have to drop out of school “for a while.”

Despite these hardships, Francie works her way up through the “great American melting pot,” finally getting the opportunity to go to college by the end of the book.  Not every immigrant kid from the neighborhood was able to do so, and their stories are also an important part of the novel.

Recommendation:  Absolutely, excellent.

The High Crusade (1960) By Poul Anderson

  

The year was 1345 and the English were preparing for yet another attack on the French as part of the Hundred Years War … and then on to the Holy Land! All of a sudden, a flying ship appeared in the sky landing at their feet. They’d never seen anything fly before other than birds and the arrows from their modern crossbows. The English were terrified, and curious.

 

As their leader, Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, realized the ship had made no aggressive motions. He slowly made his way toward it. The door to the craft opened and out came several blue-skinned aliens. A communications problem occurred almost immediately, resulting in an alien shooting a “magical” weapon killing a soldier, and then the English archers responded. They rapidly discovered that these blue-skinned “devils” could be killed, and a melee ensued with the English capturing the ship, and killing all but one of the aliens, an engineer. 

While celebrating their victory, Sir Roger realizes this flying machine could be decisive in their battle against the French. But how to operate? They coerced the alien engineer to train them by threatening him.  Then Sir Roger assigned an educated Abbott of the church to work with the prisoner to learn his language. (The friar will be the narrator of the book). 

Cutting to the chase, the engineer agrees to fly them to France and all of the soldiers and their wives, children and supplies are loaded unto the ship.  Once all are aboard, the engineer betrays them by hitting what amounts to an “automatic pilot” control button which will return the ship to Tharison its home planet in another solar system. When they arrive on the alien planet they are informed they will be slaves.  The English rank and file riot, rapidly discovering this alien race with its advanced weapons has forgotten how to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Sir Roger and his forces capture the new planet – considered a victory until they realize they have no way to return.

The story continues through several twists and turns, with allusions to the Fall of Rome, the feudal system, the Holy Roman Empire, and Christian theology.

The year this novel is written, 1960 is important.  It is 15 years after the first use of atomic bombs, three years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and nine years before Americans will land a spacecraft on the relatively nearby Moon. The question of the weaponization of space is demonstrably at hand. And one must ask, using this story as a guide, will long range rockets, and now drones, ever completely replace tanks and ground troops?  Will any of us live long enough to know the answer?

Poul Anderson is a writer whose works often appeared first in serialization in the legendary Astounding Science Fiction Magazine (now a subscription website). The High Crusade is the first of four novels collected into the Library of America’s volume titled American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels, 1960-1966 published in 2019. 

Recommendation:  Good summer read.

A Study in Scarlet (1887) By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

Screen writing, a mystery indeed…

A week ago, I opened up Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first (1887) Sherlock Holmes full length novel, titled: A Study in Scarlet. The first half of the novel was what we have come to expect from Sherlock Holmes detective stories. The plot is simple, Scotland Yard’s crack detectives can’t seem to figure out a murder. They turn to Holmes for help. By mid-book Holmes has figured out that it is a revenge murder, and who the killer is, but “revenging what” remains unclear.

It is then that Doyle’s book moves into flashback, and a dramatic shift it is. Gone is London, Scotland Yard and in fact England itself. The set has moved a few decades back, and to the western U.S., where a pioneer man named John Ferrier and his daughter Lucy, have been rescued from death in the desert by Brigham Young who is leading the mass migration of Mormons to what will become Salt Lake City. 

The author then begins what can best be described as a unthrottled attack on the Mormon Church, particularly on the subject of polygamy.

When Lucy grows up, she falls in love with a young man named Jefferson Hope. Problem is, Hope is not a Mormon. Church leaders have decided Lucy will go into an arranged marriage with one of their own.  Hope, Ferrier and Lucy will flee in the middle of the night, and when church leaders discover them missing, they send a party to capture them. Two days later, while Hope is away from camp hunting, the Mormon posse will find the camp, kill Ferrier and return the girl to Salt Lake City where she is forced into marriage. She will die a month later, broken hearted. Hope will vow revenge, which brings us back to London many years later.

The book displays an amazing versatility in writing by Doyle, who seamlessly switches from London-speak, to American pioneer western-speak.  Impressive.

As I often do, I decided to watch a couple of the several movies based on this book. The first was actually an animation (1983) with Peter O’Toole providing the voice of Sherlock Holmes. It was fun, however it made one big change in the script – while it kept the love-revenge theme, it totally eliminated all mention of the Mormon Church. 

    

1983 Animated Version

1933 Black/White Movie Version

  

Script writers of the second movie (1933) I watched, starring Reginald Owen and Anna May Wong, took even more liberties. In fact, aside from the title, the “based on” credit to the author, and a couple of the clues, nothing, absolutely nothing, about the movie plot has anything at all to do with the book plot. In the movie, the “revenge” is based on greed relating to a smuggled Chinese imperial jewel. LOL

Recommendation:  Book, definitely. Animated Version, maybe - it is sort of fun, 1933 Movie Version, No.

The African Trilogy: Arrow of God (1964) By Chinua Achebe

 

The Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe is considered the second book of what has become known as The African Trilogy, independently written books which collectively create a timeline of colonialism in Nigeria.

I read and blogged the first book Things Fall Apart about a year ago.  In it, the arrival of Christian missionaries in Nigeria, is revealed as “the advance team” of colonialism.  Arrow of God represents the second act; English colonizers have arrived and established their military superiority over the country.  The conquerors then begin the groundwork of establishing “indirect rule” by anointing local villagers with government titles, largely bypassing the traditional Igbo village leadership structure. Of course, their selections are based on a loyalty test, not to the villages but to British magistrates.

In the book, Ezeulu, the Chief Priest of the six villages of the (fictional) Umuaro people, is the key protagonist.  He recognizes what is happening and resists the destruction of their way-of-life.  Yet, he also realizes his resistance is futile, the country having been militarily conquered will be completely colonized whether he likes it or not.  This is the source of the book’s title: Arrow of God, roughly and fatalistically translated from “God’s way.” So being, he sends one of his sons to missionary school to learn the way of the white man.   

This gets complicated. Ezeulu at first declines an invitation to come meet with the British Administrator, saying that he should come visit him in the village. He changes his mind the next day.  By then however, the Administrator has become seriously ill and hospitalized. In a comedy of errors, and as further proof of British arrogance, the Administrator’s subordinates, not knowing why he wanted to see Ezeulu, hold him as a prisoner for over two months. By the time the Administrator becomes well and offers to make Ezeulu a government appointed leader, the damage has been done.  Ezeulu declines.

The story ends with the Christian missionaries sabotaging Ezeulu’s power as Chief Priest with power over the planting/harvesting cycle of the village, by creating a Christian Harvest Festival to compete with/replace the traditional New Yam Festival.

The third book in The African Trilogy, No Longer at Ease, is on my reading list for later this year.

Recommendation:  Yes, an interesting primer on colonization.

Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit (2017) By Chris Matthews

 

Despite my interest in politics, I did not rush to read Chris Matthews’ biography of Bobby Kennedy when it was published on the 50-year anniversary of the Senator’s assassination. I felt at the time Matthews was too close to the Kennedy family to be objective.  On reflection, I realized John Kennedy, with brother Bobby as his campaign manager, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1952, the year before I was born. The Kennedy clan has been in the headlines my entire life, as any American my age can attest, it can be said we are all “too close” to be objective.

Without meaning, my first political act (at age 7) involved John Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign. One of my classmate’s Aunt was a precinct captain working the polling place at Crisman Elementary School where I was in second grade. When my classmates and I went out for recess Aunt Honey taught us to serenade voters with: "Kennedy, Kennedy, he’s our man. Nixon belongs in the garbage can."  A few years later, JFK’s assassination, when I was in fifth grade, was the first significant world event in my life I can recall, and like most people at the time, I can recall it in great detail.

By the time I hit high school I was a confirmed current events junkie, and what a tumultuous time it was: Freedom Marches & police dogs across the South. White flight to the suburbs across the North. The USS Pueblo. The crushing of Prague Spring when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. The Vietnam War with its patently racist draft policy. The TET offensive. The massive anti-war demonstrations which divided the country at the family level. The New Hampshire primary where Gene McCarthy garnered nearly half the vote against an incumbent President, prompting LBJ's famous “I will not seek, nor will I accept” statement. The delayed entry of Bobby Kennedy into the Presidential race. The emergence of segregationist Governor George Wallace as a political force. The assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, followed by riots across the country. The assassination of Bobby Kennedy after his decisive win in the California Primary, and the ensuing collective grief of a nation in shock. And then the Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago. All of this mind you in one horrendous year, 1968, which climaxed the exhaustive backstory of Chris Matthew’s book. 

My concern about the author being too close to the Kennedy family proved to be overstated.  That closeness allowed for many insights on the family. The Kennedys were not angels, far from, neither on the policy front, nor the political front -- they definitely weren't classic liberals. Clearly, Bobby excelled at the “toughness” that is a requirement of American politics.  He held a grudge and had a vindictive streak in him.  There is a reason he was known as JFK’s enforcer.  Yet, Bobby also had a philosopher's vision of America and the World, the way it could be.

A Tiny Ripple of Hope

The book ends with Bobby’s burial. It includes excerpts from Bobby’s most famous speech, A Tiny Ripple of Hope,  given to the National Union of South African Students at the University of Cape Town exactly two years prior to his assassination. The speech provided hope and a historical perspective to problems that then plagued the world, and still do. 

Recommendation: Yes, enough time has passed. It is also a good choice for younger readers who may not quite understand America's enduring fascination with the Kennedys.

To hell with Cronje (2002 Afrikaans, 2007 English) By Ingrid Winterbach

 

To understand the novel To hell with Cronje by Ingrid Winterbach, it helps to know a little something about the Boer War(s).  When I began reading the book I knew next to nothing, so I watched this documentary on YouTube to bring me up to speed: Boer War documentary.  

In a simplification, the Boer Wars were between the descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa who were primarily farmers, and the next set of colonizers, the British. Before the war, the coastal settlements of the English had expressed little interest in the interior farmlands. That changed with the discovery of large deposits of gold in the Transvaal region.  With their superior numbers the British won using a slash and burn strategy directed not only at military targets, but also civilian. The Boers (the Dutch) however proved to be not easy to defeat, maddeningly using a guerilla fighting strategy, inflicting a high casualty cost on the invaders.

The book tells the story of two men, a botanist and a geologist, who joined the civilian Boer fighters. Their descriptions of the countryside throughout the book are fascinating and at times beautiful. When the war began turning against the Boers, they like many of the other volunteers, while adamantly anti-British, began to become disillusioned. After one particularly horrific battle, they are assigned to escort a young teen boy back to his mother’s house after he has witnessed the battle death of his older brother. On the way they get encamped with another Boer contingent who suspect they were not on assignment but are possibly deserters.

The topics covered in the book are many, including post-traumatic shock, suffered not only by the boy, but by others.  The impact of long separation from one’s family and not be able to get word to them, or from them, also plays an important subplot, as does the death of comrades who died protecting gold mines they did not own, while losing their farms to the cause.  Foremost is the internal debate between those ready to give up the war, and those who want to fight until the last death.

One of the more interesting subplots was when the botanist and geologist are caused to give descriptions of their respective fields of education (it was a mere 40 years since the publication of Charles Darwin’s explosively controversial On The Origin of Species). They were being called upon to explain evolution to men who were turning to religion to get them through the chaos of war and had known only the creation story from the Bible, which for many of them was the only book they had ever read.   

To hell with Cronje is decidedly a futility of war book. Through my read of it I had a desire to contrast it with All Quiet on the Western Front, perhaps the most anti-war book ever written.  It compares well, yet I found the extensive personal subplots in To hell with Cronje more complete, and even more frightening.

Recommendation: Yes.  Be forewarned, you will utilize the glossary in the English translation version.

A Piece of the World (2018) By Christina Baker Kline

 

When A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline was published in January of 2018, it went straight to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List, and for two good reason: the author’s proven fan base from her #1 Bestselling book Orphan Train, and legions of art museumgoers wanting to know more about one of America’s best-known artists, Andrew Wyeth. 

Kline’s book is a fictional narrative built around the young woman pictured in Wyeth’s famous painting Christina’s World.  

Christina is the daughter of a Swedish sailor named Olson who leaves the sea to settle down with a farm girl.  Her family’s linage dates back to the Salem Witch Trials, one of her ancestors was the sentencing judge. To escape the shame of that fundamentalism, her predecessors changed the spelling of their surname and moved to rural Maine.  Christina will grow up on a farm along with two brothers. As they age, Christina will begin to feel the impact of a steadily worsening unknown congenital disease that will leave her unable to walk.  She will not get better, she knows it, and she knows the farm will forever be the extent of her world.

She will develop only one real friendship, that with a young woman named Betsy, whose family spend their summers in Maine.  When Betsy meets and marries Andrew Wyeth, he too will begin spending his summers in Maine.  Already a successful artist, Andy will need a studio to work in.  Betsy will introduce him to Christina, suggesting that he can use the third floor of the old farmhouse as his workspace.

That arrangements goes on each summer for the rest of their lives.  Wyeth, observing respectfully but not judging Christina medical condition and her farm family’s apparent poverty (they have no electricity or in-door plumbing). Some of Wyeth’s most famous paintings will be of the farm, her family and of her – including Christina’s World, which now is part of the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection.

When I finished this book, I wanted more.  There is not a movie of the book, at least not yet.  What I did find (on Amazon Prime Video) was a very good PBS documentary American Masters: Andrew Wyeth. 

Recommendation:  Definitely, book and the Wyeth documentary.

Pickwick Papers (1836) By Charles Dickens

 

Like everyone educated in an English-speaking country, I have read or been exposed to multiple works by Charles Dickens, one of if not the most prolific writers of all time.  His body of work contains several literary classics, including Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Tale of Two Cities, and A Christmas Carol.

In 1970 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of his death, Heron Books published his complete works in green and gold faux leather bindings.  I subscribed to that centennial publication while still in high school, and still have all 36 volumes -- of course, they are a little worse for wear, I have been moving them around with me all these years. 

Many I have read at least once, but not all.  Yesterday I finished reading the first of the two volumes of Pickwick Papers, Dicken’s first novel.  It was printed in serialization before being collected in book form in 1836.  It was an immediate commercial success. It is also completely funny – even some 185 years later.

The Pickwick Papers are the records of The Pickwick Club, named after its founder and President, Mr. Samuel Pickwick.  The club is a fictional cross between garden variety literary clubs, and a spoof of the Royal Geographic Society.  Its members travel the English countryside and make their observations of the culture and livelihood of its residents, to further the knowledge of club members and for posterity. 

If you begin Pickwick Papers taking it seriously you will soon discover that is not the point. It is entertainment and it is very funny, with a touch of knife-between-the-ribs thrown in for social commentary. 

If I may be so bold, one could call Pickwick Papers a precursor of Laurel & Hardy, and Monty Python making its movie adaptation a natural.  The 1952 version is priceless.  

1952 Movie

Recommendation:  Yes, book and movie.

The Soong Sisters (1941) By Emily Hahn

 

It would be difficult to overstate the influence the Soong sisters had on Twentieth Century China. To their parents and family friends they were Ailing, Chingling, and Meiling. To the rest of the world they were: Madame Kung, wife of the Chinese banking tycoon H.H. Kung; Madame Sun, wife of Dr. Sun Yat-sen the “father” of the post-dynastic Chinese Republic; and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of Generalisimo then President of Nationalist China.  All three stood at the side of their illustrious husbands, sometimes in front of them, not behind them.  While the book is definitely political reporting, it is also a fascinating personal family history.

Born in Shanghai during the final decades of the Manchu dynasty, China’s final imperial dynasty, the sisters were the daughters of Charlie Soong, a successful businessman and his wife.  There were also two brothers, one would eventually run the family business, the other would grow-up to be the first Finance Minister of the Republic.

While his wife confined her role to mother and homemaker in the traditional style of Chinese culture, Charlie who was educated in America, was adamant all of the children, including his daughters, would also be educated in America. He would send his daughters to Wesleyan University in Macon, Georgia.  It was founded by the Methodist Church in 1836 and was the first American university to convey degrees to women.  All of the Soong children would return to China after completing their educations.

At the time of their return China was going through massive rapidly changing political upheaval.  After overthrowing the dynasty, many factions were competing for power while Dr. Sun served for a period as a transitional figurehead.  The main factions were the Communist Party eventually headed by Mao Tse Tung; and what would become the Nationalist Party, headed by Chiang Kai-Shek, with a factional split between the north based in Beijing and the south based in Nanking. 

The Soong Sisters separately supported different factions, at times significantly stressing family relations.  Madame Sun, who was the keeper of Dr. Sun’s political legacy was an advocate of working with the Communists because they addressed the needs of the peasantry.  Madame Chiang Kai-Shek was ruthless in her support of the Nationalists, defined by her as her husband.  And Madame Kung, as oligarchs always do, supported whoever was in power. The sisters and their differing politics were well known to the Chinese public.

Detractors of the Soong sisters normally describe them this way: “one loved money, one loved power; and one loved her country.”  Clearly, Emily Hahn, the author of this book found that to be an unfair description.  All three loved China, in their own way, and it would be accurate to say they also loved each other. 

The concluding chapter of the book documents the importance of the three of them coming together to advocate for a national unity effort to counter Japan’s invasion of China, and to warn foreign interests (including the U.S.) they could help China rebuff Japan now, which they did not, or they could pay for it later, which they did on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

EmilyHahn was an American journalist, author, and regular contributor to the New Yorker Magazine.  She lived in Shanghai during much of the time period of the book and had social access to China’s merchant class, including the Soongs.  Her journalism claim-to-fame was her interviews with Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Hahn is also one of the key characters in Taras Grescoe’s novel Shanghai Grand.

The Soong Sisters -- complete movie

As always, a movie was made of The Soong Sisters.  It is on YouTube with English subtitles and it is excellent.

Recommendation:  Yes, both book and movie.  Real history buffs should read The Soong Sisters and Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China (biography of Mao Tse Tung).

Breakfast of Champions (1973) By Kurt Vonnegut

 

Once you have read a few of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, you have learned to expect the bizarre.  Classify them as science fiction, or comedy, or biting social commentary, but expect dry humor, with no sacred cows. 

Expect too the reappearance of some familiar characters.  And in Breakfast of Champions, expect Vonnegut, as the book’s author (using the pseudonym Philboy Sludge) to have first person conversations with the characters he has created, including threatening to uncreate them.

Breakfast of Champions, published in 1973, and comically illustrated with juvenile line art, is a riot.

The lead character in the book is Dwayne Hoover, owner of the Pontiac dealership in Midland City, Ohio.  He is the town’s most prominent citizen.  As such he has been asked to spearhead the opening the new Arts Center.  In that role he will accept the recommendation of Eliot Rosewater of the Rosewater Foundation (and main character in Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater) on who should be the honorary guest at the ceremony.  His recommendation is Kilgore Trout, Rosewater’s favorite author. Midland City is excited to have an oft published writer for its opening even though no one in town knows anything about him.

Trout, who appears in several Vonnegut novels, writes science fiction articles.  While they are widely published, they are almost never read. Trout sells his articles to porn magazines. His stories are used as filler between photo spreads. And we aren’t talking Playboy Magazine, the magazines that buy Trout’s stories are more along the lines of Hustler, hardcore pornography lawsuits waiting to happen.  Rosewater reads them “for the articles.” 

Trout will hitchhike from New York City to Midland City to accept the honor.  His travel escapades along the way are … well, memorable.

Once in Midland, Sludge (Vonnegut) will stop by the bar at the hotel where guests are staying.  There he will observe them, and then have a conversation with his characters, wrapping the story up.

There is an additional character in the book named Wayne Hoobler.  He is a Black man who has recently been released from a correctional facility.  He idolizes and works for Dwayne Hoover.  With intentionally similar names, Wayne is economically and socially the polar opposite of Dwayne.  This works perfectly as a social commentary, though distracting from its message is Vonnegut’s frequent use of the “N” work to reflect the "reality" of the times.

Recommendation:  Not for everyone, but if you like Vonnegut’s other works, you’ll love this.

The Secret Garden (1911) By Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

The Secret Garden is one of those novels that I should have read as a kid, but never did. Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett, it is technically children's literature, but works for adults too (sort of like Narnia). The Library of America has collected The Secret Garden along with two other children’s classics written by Burnett, Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess into a single volume.

In Secret Garden, Mary Lennox, the 10-year-old daughter of English socialites in British Colonial India is neglected by them and primarily raised by the couple's servants. The servants must do whatever the girl commands, a sure formula for a spoiled rotten brat.  When both parents die in a cholera outbreak, Mary is sent back to England to live with her widower Uncle, Lord Archibald Craven, who it turns out is equally uninterested in children. 

Craven’s home is Misselthwaite Manor, a 100-room country house and estate located in the moors of Yorkshire. While there is a staff at the Manor – cooks, gardeners, etc – they are decidedly not “servants,” a point Mary has difficulty adjusting to.  She’s cared for adequately, and is warned that certain part of the estate are off limits to her.  Soon she begins exploring.  Following cries she hears in the middle of the night, she will discover there is a bedridden young boy living in the Manor, the existence of whom no one wants to acknowledge.  She befriends him and discovers his name is Colin, Lord Craven’s son.  He is bedridden because he has been told that he will have a hunchback and die young.

She will also discover a secret garden on the estate, which has been locked for 10 years by order of Lord Craven. She will also meet a young boy named Dickon, the brother of the young girl who brings her breakfast every morning.  Dickon, literally speaks to the animals, and knows everything about plants. Together they will discover a way to get into the long abandoned garden, and begin to bring it back to life. 

Mary in her conversations with Colin tells him about the garden.  He has no interest until Mary calls it a “secret" garden. Eventually, while Lord Craven is out of the country, Mary will convince Colin he must see the garden, and then with Dickon’s assistance will put Colin in his wheelchair and take him to the garden. To shorten the synopsis, the “secret garden” gives Colin the will to live and he will grow to health, and even begin walking, before his father returns to the Estate.

How his father finds all of this out, and reacts to it, are the concluding chapters of the book. 

In addition to reading The Secret Garden, I also watched or re-watched five of the many movie adaptations of it. (Yes, between Covid-19 shelter-in-place guidelines and horrible winter weather, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands).

The review of the movies has been interesting, all of them vary a little from the book narrative. I think my favorite would be the 1949 version (it has the best Mary and the best Dickon, in my opinion). It is primarily filmed in black and white; but gets the Wizard of Oz treatment when the kids restore the garden -- as they walk through the garden’s gate the filming changes from black and white to technicolor.

Movie Trailers

 2020 version

2017 industrial version

1993 version

1987Hallmark television version

1949 black & white version

Actor Colin Firth appears in two of the films, in the 2020 version he plays Lord Craven, in the 1987 Hallmark television version, he does a cameo as Colin Craven as a young adult (this is not in the book, nor is his marriage proposal). The script writers while mostly faithful to the details of the book, all take nuanced liberties with the set-up of the story’s concluding scenes – none of them match the narrative of the book.

The 2017 movie version is interestingly unique.  It is as if Charles Dickens wrote the script, keeping the storyline but changing the setting from an English country estate to Craven Industries in a factory district of London. The secret garden becomes a secret workshop, and the Dickon character is as if played by Oliver Twist.

Recommendation: Read the book.