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.