Port William Novels & Stories (2018) By Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is an activist, short story writer, essayist, and novelist.  He has written on environmental issues, anti-war philosophy, and is a chronicler of rural America.  He is also an author I was unaware of until his works were collected and republished by the Library of America (LOA). The Library is a nonprofit that reprints for perpetuity important writings which otherwise might be dropped by commercial publishers.  He is one of only a handful of still-living authors to be so recognized.  One of my winter reads was the LOA's collection of Berry’s Port William Novels & Stories.

The fictional river town of Port William, Kentucky, where the stories are set is “one of the most fully imagined places in American literature” said the editor of the collection.  And he is right.  Port William as a place, is not unlike Faulkner’s use of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County.  Fittingly, Berry’s novel A Place on Earth is included in the collected works.  Place is important to these stories because it helps shape the lives of each character.

The characters and stories draw heavily on the real-life environment where the author was born into a family that has been living on the land for five generations.  Berry’s literature breathes the air, land, and people of the rural community.  He writes of Port William’s residents collectively with the lost-to-time term of the “Membership” -- the Membership being generations of residents of the small town and surrounding farms who have been neighbors for so long they are considered family, related or not. They know and take care of each other through good and bad. It is a sense of community that has nearly disappeared, lost to industrialization, technology and with increasing numbers of each new generation moving away.

At 985 pages, the collected works include 27 stories, including the 326-page novel A Place on Earth. While not written in sequence, the editor has arranged the stories chronologically according to the time period covered in each.  A Place on Earth recaps and encompasses all of the shorter stories and could be read as a stand-alone book.  I’d advise reading all of it.  Yes, that will take some time.  But, the character development in the shorter stories is well worth the read – and easy to do because you can stop after any of them and return to it later. 

Recommendation: Yes. And let me repeat, I’d advise reading all of it.

Galapagos - A Novel (1985) By Kurt Vonnegut

I thought Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Galapagos would be an interesting read for my vacation in the Galapagos Islands in February.  In a way it was, but not in the naturalist or scientific genre one might think. If there were a Nobel Prize for a Morbid Sense of Humor, Vonnegut would own it.

In his novel, a new luxury cruise ship will be launched from Quayaquil (Ecuador) for an inaugural trip to the Galapagos islands. The marketing for the ship has dubbed it the “Nature Cruise of the Century” and proudly touts its initial passenger list which includes the likes of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Rudolf Nureyev, Henry Kissinger, and Mick Jagger.  The book’s narrator is the ghost of a man who died during the ship’s construction.

In the days before the ship is set to depart, a world economic meltdown begins, with countries collapsing like dominoes. Hundreds of passengers, including all of the celebrities, cancel their trips.  By the day of departure, only a handful of passengers have made their way to Quayaquil. Then, Ecuador joins the ranks of nations with collapsed economies, and Peru takes that as an opportunity to invade. As the passengers (and 3 indigenous Ecuadorian women) successfully fight their way through the city to the ship, their departure becomes an escape, not a vacation cruise. On board, they head to sea on a damaged ship with an engine but limited fuel, and a broken navigation system. Days later they will shipwreck onto a (fictional) uninhabited island in the Galapagos.

Meanwhile, a mysterious disease has broken out across the globe, disrupting human ability to reproduce, and the world’s population dies-off.  [Any similarities between this week’s Wall Street stock market meltdown and the Coronavirus pandemic are purely coincidental … one hopes.]  The narrator blames the “evolution of the human brain” as being responsible for the death of life as we know it, noting the brain had become so large and specialized that it no longer had any survival skills.

Spared from the mysterious disease, the handful of passengers on the remote deserted island -- presumably with smaller brains -- will re-populate the earth over the next millennium.

Recommendation:  Fun with bizarre, comical characters.  Not a classic.

Silent Spring (1962) By Rachel Carson

For my recent vacation I purposely packed Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. The vacation, in the Galapagos Islands, seemed the perfect setting for a re-read; and the timing couldn’t possibly be more urgent.  Carson’s book when published in 1962 ignited a firestorm which elevated environmentalism into a movement.  Within eight years the movement, with bi-partisan political support, led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA came into being because Carson scared the living daylights out of the American public by reporting on the myriad of documentation connecting the dots between chemical pesticides and environmental poisoning. Unlike the plethora of documents she referenced, Carson’s book was readable to the non-scientist public.  Collectively pesticides, such as DDT, designed to target and eliminate specific insect pests, paid no regard to whatever else they might impact. 

What they eliminated was everything they came in direct contact with, pest or not. The impact was far greater, ricocheting through the entire food chain and ecology, including humans.  The chemical industry was advertising the pesticides’ alleged effectiveness with little regard to consequences.  That the U.S. Department of Agriculture also gave little regard to consequences, ignoring the documentation they possessed, remains unforgivable. 

While the emphasis in Carson’s book is on agricultural pesticides, it does not end there. Her book also provides ample examples of environmental poisoning with industrial use chemicals, water contamination through agricultural run-off and industrial dumping, and air pollution (i.e. acid rain).  GMO’s were only theoretical when the book was written.

Although the creation of the EPA began to address these issues, they continue to this day.  Industrial farming cares greatly about this year’s profits, and little about consequences.  Refineries and steel mills on Lake Michigan still dump poisons into its tributaries, and sometimes even directly into the lake.  The Ohio River is basically open to shipping, and ill-advised for fishing.  The idea of fishing the Calumet River is enough to make one retch.  And, then there is the visible evidence of what happens when industry is given a blank check: Butte Montana, in the otherwise beautiful state.

What makes Silent Spring a classic is its continuing relevance.  What makes it an important reminder is the current federal administration’s hell-bent attempts to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency.

 

Recommendation:  Yes, read (or re-read) the book.  Then, register to vote as though your life depends on it, because it does.

The Bingo Palace (1994) By Louise Erdrich

There is much to like in Louise Erdrich’s novel The Bingo Palace.  Much of it is hidden.  What do I mean by that? 

When I read Erdrich’s book The Round House, written in 2012, I raved about it. Her writing is brilliant, and she knows no fear of controversial topics.  The Bingo Palace was written much earlier in her career however, published in 1994.  Her mastery of the prose is already developed, but the structure of the book is a tad confusing.  In her defense, let me acknowledge that I read the book on airplanes and in airports, not ideal settings for complexity.

The complexity is a multi-generational story, coupled with a narration by different characters, often in flashback, and alternating each chapter.  I don’t have any issue with this writing formula but, with so many characters it didn’t work for me, or more accurately, it made me work. 

The main character is named Lipsha, a member of the Chippewa tribe.   His story is compelling, heart-breaking at times, and frequently hilarious.  The primary plot is his competition with his Uncle Lyman (who is also his half-brother and lifelong best friend) for the love of a single mom named Shawnee Ray.  Lyman runs the Bingo Hall where Lipsha works, with plans to expand it into a “Palace” size operation.  Lyman is also the father of Shawnee Ray’s son.   

The time period covered by the book is during the initial legalization of gambling on reservations, beginning with Bingo – hence the title of the book.  Erdrich lets her characters report this issue as both a curse, and as an economic lifeline for reservations.

There are many subplots, not the least of which is Shawnee Ray’s desire to make her own life, sans both Lipsha and Lyman, and leave the reservation.

An underlying aspect of the book is its reflection of the balancing act between traditional Native values, and modern times.  Nowhere is this more apparent than when Lulu (Lipsha’s grandmother) gets the “last laugh” during her arrest near the end of the book – the chapter is priceless.

Recommendation:  Not her best book, but a good read.

The Wayard Bus (1947) By John Steinbeck

Using a “road trip” to help tell a story is vintage John Steinbeck.  The Joad family’s Route 66 trip from dustbowl Oklahoma to California contained in The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is thought by many, including me, to be the classic of American literature.  The road trip allows the author to present in great detail a character study of each traveler and their interactions with each other.  Steinbeck uses that formula again in his 1947 book The Wayward Bus.

The book is largely set in the fictional nowhere town of Rebel’s Corner, somewhere “north” of Los Angeles.  There, a group of people are stuck in a restaurant waiting for a bus to be repaired so that they may continue their respective trips.  The characters in the story include Juan (the mechanic) and his wife Alice (they own the restaurant), their employees and a handful of passengers.  When the bus is finally repaired, they take off during a rainstorm severe enough to cause flooding and wash out a bridge, stranding them overnight.

Significantly, the story takes place in post-war (World War II) America, with the cast somewhat exhausted, somewhat hopefully, but all with still fresh memories of the Great Depression. The interactions between economically well-off passenger Elliott Pritchard who “was needed on the home-front” and the veterans in the group are civil, yet intense.  The desperate for love, for finding a place in life, subplots are genuine and interesting.  The characters are memorable, good and bad, particularly “Pimples,” a teen employee with an inescapable nickname.

However, that nickname has stumped me.  I don’t recall reading this book before, nor have I seen any of the movies made from it.  Yet, I recall the character Pimples, and as each chapter was read, I recalled the story, though not until near the end could I remember what would happen next.  My guess is that I did read this before, many years ago, probably when I was a teen.

1957 Movie Trailer

My frequent traveling companion and I read this aloud while on a recent vacation.  It reads aloud perfectly, particularly with (often snarky) editorial comments about each of the characters by the narrator.

Recommendation:  Yes

The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) By Booth Tarkington

Booth Tarkington was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1919 for his classic The Magnificent Ambersons. While seeming lost to time, Tarkington is experiencing a revival of sorts with the re-publication earlier this year of his major works by the Library of America. In addition to The Magnificent Ambersons, the volume also includes the novel Alice Adams, awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1922.

    

The Magnificent Ambersons is a family history set in “a Midland city,” a fictional version of Tarkington’s hometown of Indianapolis.  The novel also serves as a social & cultural history of the U.S. spanning from post-Civil War, through the Gilded-Age, and the beginning of the country’s industrialization,and urbanization. The conversion of the nation from the days of horse and buggy, to the automobile, plays a major subplot in the book, providing ample opportunity to espouse thought-provoking and sometimes biting social commentary.  Tarkington (1869-1946) was clearly a keen observer, evidenced by his writing.

The Ambersons are the leading family in town, their wealth made through shrewd investments made by Major Amberson, the patriarch of the family.  They stand at the top of the pecking order, economically and socially.  Their story is told through the character of George Amberson Minafer. 

George is the Major’s only grandson.  Raised in the lap of luxury, he figures out at a very young age he will be the heir to the family’s fortune and prestige.  The idea he would ever need an occupation has never occurred to him.  With that upbringing, it is only natural he would become an arrogant, spoiled, holy terror, with an oft validated belief he was above personal responsibility. The town folk, at all economic levels, hate him and can’t wait for him to someday get his comeuppance. How and when that happens is near the book’s conclusion.

Movie Clip

In 1942, Orson Welles directed a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the novel with an all-star cast, and lending his own voice to narration, much as he did in Citizen Kane.  The movie (available on Amazon Prime) is good, but to be a manageable length had to cut out most of the social commentary that ties it all together.  Also, unbelievably edited out the film was any specificity as to George’s final comeuppance – you’ll have to read the book.

Recommendation:  Yes, defnitely. This ranks as one of the best books I’ve ever read. 

The Lost Language of Cranes (1986) By David Leavitt

In 1986 when I first read David Leavitt’s novel The Lost Language of Cranes, gay-themed literature was in transition.  It was still a small publishing niche but was becoming commercially viable and slowly developing an audience beyond the LGBTQ community. The plots dealt almost exclusively with coming-out stories. In the years to come the genre’s focus would shift sharply, to stories about the plague years of AIDS. Leavitt’s novel is set near the beginning of that period, 1980’s New York.

My first read of the book was for all practical purposes in “real time” -- I lived in New York from 1982 through 1984. The plot lines were familiar, and the locations recognizable. Re-reading the book now, at the end of 2019, is like opening a time capsule. This wasn’t so much a case of “I’ve read this book before” as it was I have seen it with my own eyes.

  

The central characters are Philip, a 20-something native New Yorker, and his parents Owen and Rose Benjamin. The book details his coming out to them and the chain of events that kicks off. It includes the subplot of Philip’s first boyfriend, essays the co-dependency of some relationships, and the fear of commitment in others. It also brings in the issue of relationships serving as safe havens, too often merely providing emotional security, and addressing the fear of living one’s life alone – both relevant topics at the advent of an epidemic. Importantly, each of these relationship issues are mirrored in Philip’s parents. Leavitt’s character development of Rose is particularly of note, it is a compelling depiction that seldom gets its due in books written by men.

Beware, a movie was made based on this title. It took multiple liberties with the story, not the least of which was moving it from New York to London.

 

Recommendation:  Yes, a great book.  Skip the movie.