Slade House (2016) By David Mitchell

The first book I wrote about when I started my TEDrake Book Blog several years ago was David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a historical novel about a young Dutch merchant stationed in Nagasaki, Japan in the early 1800’s, the only port open to foreign traders at the time.  Based on that memory, I recently picked up Mitchell’s Slade House, a book that turned out to be as far from what I was expecting as one could imagine, though by no means a disappointment.

While Thousand Autumns is an epic, Slade House is a gothic novel, set in England. It is also a page-turner. The only commonality between the two books is that the writing is superb in both.

Slade House is a place, well more accurately was a place, in the English countryside. Once every nine years, exactly, it can be accessed through a small iron door in a brick wall along an alley.  You visit Slade House by invitation, and then you are never seen again. That’s really about all I can say without giving away the book.

Mitchell’s novel runs the spectrum of the Gothic genre.  It has the House (consider the houses in the book-based black and white horror film classics like The House of Seven Gables, or House of Usher, or even Rose Cottage in Dark Shadows). It has the villagers, who know something is going on, but don’t know what it is (think: Frankenstein or Dracula).  Perhaps most important, it has empathy for the “bad” guys, in this case a brother-sister duo wronged by the world and just trying to make their way.  If you’ve read and felt the angst of Anne Rice’s characters, you will recognize these two.

Recommendation:  Great, short (238 pages), read.

Charles Darwin: The Naturalist Who Started a Scientific Revolution (2002) By Cyril Aydon

Like many biographers, author Cyril Aydon fawns over his subject, Charles Darwin. but It’s easy to understand why.  Darwin’s famous journey on the second Voyage of the HMS Beagle, encapsulates everything a wide-eyed person could ask for: adventure, discovery, nature and science – an early example of “join the Navy, and see the world.” 

From a wealthy family, and well educated, Darwin was not a sailor.  He earned his place on the Beagle because of its need for a trained geologist – the primary purpose of the voyage was to survey the coasts of South America and the South Pacific – areas “discovered” by earlier explorers, including: William Dampier, Captain James Cook, and Sir Francis Drake.  Darwin would keep a journal of the voyage and serve as collector of animal specimens, duties that would earn him a place in history.  

The log ended up covering five years, 1831 to 1836, as the ship circled the globe, though what is remembered most by history is the five weeks spent surveying the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador.  His specimen collections and keen observations on the oddity of the animal wildlife in the Galapagos would linger in his mind.  Later, after returning to Scotland, those memories would form the thesis of what is arguably the most important scientific book of the all-time, On the Origin of Species, first published in late 1859.  The impact of the book was the development of the theory of evolution – still debated, by some, to this day.

Last summer I blogged on The Immense Journey (1957) Part I from the Library of America book Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos.  Like Darwin, Eiseley was multi-faceted, an anthropologist, naturalist, and budding astronomer. Parts II and III of the Collected Essays, The Firmament of Time and The Unexpected Universe contain several of Eiseley’s essays dissecting the evolutionary debate as it continued into the middle of the 20TH Century.  These essays compliment the Darwin biography quite well.

Recommendation:  Yes, definitely. The first half of the Darwin biography covers the voyage and reads like a first-class adventure novel, and the second half, covering the publication of On the Origin of Species and its explosive reception in the scientific community is equally compelling.  And I’ll also give a second favorable recommendation to Loren Eiseley: Collected Essays.

Empire of the Sun (1984) By J. G. Ballard

I guess I’m developing a new favored genre because Empire of the Sun fits comfortably with several other of my reads over the past few years, let’s call it the Pacific Theatre genre.  This story is perhaps better known because of the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name – both the book and movie are excellent. The book, and to a lesser extent the movie, is depressing from its opening chapters.  It is also completely engrossing.

The plot is how a 10-year British boy, living in the International Settlement near the Bund (Huangpu River front) of Shanghai, gets separated from his parents as the Japanese invade the city concurrent with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  He survives the duration of the war in a prisoner of war camp on the outskirts of the city, his parents, if they are still alive, are in a different camp.  While the British and citizens of multiple other colonial powers are prisoners in these camps, they also realize that their Japanese captors are the only thing protecting them from the Chinese peasants – “coolies” who for decades have been virtual slave labor to the Europeans.

Childhood, spent under Japanese occupation and/or imprisonment is also the “big picture” theme of the excellent The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, both by Tan Twan Eng, and set in the author’s native Malaysia.  They, like Empire, have a fascinating psychological subtext involving the personal relationship between captive and captor.  In Jane Gardam’s Old Filth, the British boy, this time from Kotakinakulu (Malaysia) is sent, alone, back to Britain just before the onset of the war.  While all of these books are excellent and important reads, The Gift of Rain stands out as the best – I’d love for Spielberg to make it into a movie.

I’m not normally complimentary of movies as they too often tend to rewrite the story to commercially fit a larger audience, who after all are in the theater for entertainment, not a history lesson.  In Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, rewrites are kept to a minimum, tweaking only to make the film fit, not to change the plot.    

Movie Trailer

Perhaps because the movie was true to the book, Empire of the Sun did not rake in any major Academy Award nominations.  This is a pity because John Malkovich was stellar in the film; and Christian Bale, who as a child himself played the lead role of Shanghai Jim -- who aged from 10 to 14 during the book -- was shamefully overlooked because of the Academy’s historic tendency to devalue the work of child actors.

Recommendation:  Watch the movie, and read the book if you are a history major – and by all means, read The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng.

The Gilded Age (1873) by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The subtitle of The Gilded Age says it all: A Tale of Today.  When Mark Twain and his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner penned their book, that "today" was 1873, and the country was recovering from the Civil War, "reconstructing" the South, and stretching ever westward with its railroads. The book was so successful at portraying the country, that it gave name to an era of American history.

It was a era of endless ambition, often blind; an unprecedented accumulation and flaunting of wealth by an oligarchy; institutionalized poverty, viewed indifferently; and corporate greed on a monumental scale, greased by compliant and highly creative governmental corruption. In other words, it was much like today, 2018.

While the book includes unmistakable political commentary, it’s bigger picture is a social commentary on a nation of people looking at unlimited opportunity, yet frequently forsaking it with a mad quest for immediate gratification, and a single-minded worship of the dollar, and little else.

The key storyline of book involves the ownership by the Hawkins family of a large tract of land in eastern Tennessee.  Unable to immediately make much of the land, they, like others in the post war period, follow the path of westward expansion to Missouri, then the gateway to the frontier. There they attempt one get-rich scheme after another, and fail at them all.  Importantly however, the elder Hawkins maintains ownership of the Tennessee land, and reminds his children that it would one day make them rich.

“Cashing in” on that land is the main plot of the book, and it goes like this (an over-simplification). The U.S. Senator from Missouri, working with the Hawkins family, devises a plan to create an economic development tract on the Tennessee property to help recently emancipated black folk.  This benevolent goal however is never anything more than a public relations cover for a scheme which in its fine print enriches everyone but the poor black folk. 

Looking at this 135 years later, what you have is a how-to manual for the recent so-called reform Tax Cut and Jobs Act – a nice sounding name for a huge tax break for corporations and the already wealthy, with table scraps for the middle class and further service cuts for the poor.  In the book, just like two weeks ago, the bill is even legislatively advanced in the middle of the night, with no one having a chance to even read the bill they were voting on.  And, as much as I’d like to pin this strategy on the current administration (on loan from Goldman Sachs), this legislative blueprint has been used multiple times in U.S. history – because “we the people” haven’t stopped it.

Recommendation:  Yes.  The book is vintage Mark Twain and completely readable.

The Ugly American (1958) By William Lederer and Eugene Burdick; Movie (1963) Starring Marlon Brando

The war in Afghanistan has now entered its third American presidency, a bi-partisan commitment to … to … to what?  U.S. troops – uniformed and not -- are on the ground and/or dropping bombs in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, The Sudan, and now apparently Niger, and who knows where all else.  Did I point out none of these countries have been mentioned in a declaration of war by the Congress, the only body authorized by the constitution to make such a declaration?  Yet … soldiers die in the thousands and civilians die in the tens of thousands.  

At home, people question whether a call to console gets made, yet nobody ever seems to question the call to arms. Isn’t it time for a rethinking of American foreign policy?

One could begin with a history book or two, though one must wonder if the current, temporary occupant of the White House has ever read a history book.  His ignorance of all things involving governing is a problem, but in all fairness American foreign policy was a mess even before he was foolishly entrusted with it.

The books don’t even have to be “history,” they could be fiction, and The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick would make a good starting point.  If a president doesn’t have sufficient attention span for a book, he could perhaps watch the movie.

Published in 1958, The Ugly American is set in Southeast Asia as the French are being driven out of "French" Indo-China, which would soon become the United States’ nightmare in Vietnam.  The country the book is about is Sarkhan, fictional, yet familiar.  In the book, Americans have gone to Vietnam to try and understand how the Communists are so successfully dislodging the French in the hope of preventing that from repeating itself in Sarkhan. In the movie, the action begins in Sarkhan, with the domino theory the overriding policy concern.

The American foreign service (State Department) is savaged in the book as incompetent, practitioners of imperialism at its worst, and arrogance at its most blatant.  The protagonist in the book, Homer, an American farmer, serves as a role model for what the authors believe America’s role in the world should be. Today we would recognize Homer’s strategy as the Peace Corps, created by Executive Order by President Kennedy just a few years after the book was published. The movie adaptation of The Ugly American was released six months before the Kennedy assassination.

The timing of the book is important – the year after its publication, the revolution in Cuba succeeded in deposing the puppet government and founding the first communist government in the western hemisphere (Cuba is not mentioned in the 1958 book but is mentioned as an example of policy failure in the 1963 movie). At the time, and with puppet governments and colonial “protectorates” all over the globe, the West was fearing the loss of “its” possessions, and the rise of Soviet and Chinese dominance. That sphere of influence debate continues today.  

As always, my preference is that people read the book, however I will qualify that this time by advising that the movie, starring Marlon Brando as the U.S. Ambassador to Sarkhan, is also important.

Movie Trailer: The Ugly American

In the final scene, with Sarkhan in revolt, the Ambassador makes a press statement. A few sentences into his statement at the embassy, the movie cuts away to an American living room where his press conference is being viewed on a black and white television set. The viewer listens for a few brief moments then, just as the Ambassador is beginning to acknowledge U.S. foreign policy errors, picks up and glances at a TV Guide, then switches channels. “The End” displays on the television screen.  

Recommendation: Should be required reading for candidates for President.

The Gatekeeper (2016) By Kathryn Smith

I would venture to guess that there have been thousands of books written about Franklin D. Roosevelt, if not tens of thousands.  In each of these books Missy LeHand, FDR’s personal secretary, is recognized with a paragraph, more often with merely a footnote.  With The Gatekeeper by Kathryn Smith, Missy is given her much deserved place in history. 

Prior to Dwight Eisenhower there was no such title as a Chief of Staff at the White House, though there was always someone around to administer the administration, as it was administering the nation.  This person wielded an immense amount of power, none more important than being the gatekeeper who controlled access to the President. To no surprise the person filling this position was always a man; that is until Franklin Roosevelt entrusted Marguerite LeHand with the authority.  She was appointed his personal secretary, and though she kept that title, she quickly absorbed the role we would today call Chief of Staff. 

Her standing in the Roosevelt administrations came about because FDR trusted her personal integrity, her loyalty to him, her analytic intelligence, and her ability to get things done.  He also knew she’d tell him what he needed to hear, whether he wanted to hear it or not. That he did this at a point in history when women’s empowerment was a new concept, but not yet a goal, speaks volumes.   

Much is made of two other women in the Roosevelt era.  One of course was FDR’s wife, the larger than life Eleanor Roosevelt who remade the role of First Lady, and earned herself a place in history quite independent of his.  She shared his political agenda, and had one of her own with no qualms about battling for it, even when that meant battling him. Yet, history will always also remember “the other woman,” Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, with whom FDR had a long-term affair.  Though common knowledge the affair wasn’t publicly discussed in an era when the personal life of a President was considered off limits to the press. This subject, fodder for so many of the books on FDR, is touched upon in The Gatekeeper only in that Missy, who was loved by both Eleanor and Franklin, and treated as though a member of the family, often served as a go between husband and wife, a role far afield from her official role in the administration.

A few months before Pearl Harbor, Missy suffered a stroke that left her unable to return to work.  For one who had been one of FDR’s closest confidants and operatives during his career as Governor of New York, at his side during the Depression when as President he was a-force-of-nature enactng the New Deal, at his side as a personal friend during the challenging and at times painful polio treatments; she now would be unable to serve during his war-time Presidency. The impact of that change in fortune was devastating to her. 

   

While history seems to have lost Missy, FDR knew her place in it.  The statement the White House issued at her death was:

“Memories of more than a score of years of devoted service enhance the sense of personal loss which Miss LeHand’s passing brings.  Faithful and painstaking, with a charm of manner inspired by tact and kindness of heart, she was utterly selfless in her devotion to duty.  Hers was a quiet efficiency which made her a real genius in getting things done.  Her memory will be held in affectionate remembrance and appreciation, not only by all members of our family, but the wide circle of those whose duties brought them into contact with her.”

By the time of Missy’s death, FDR’s health was also rapidly fading.  He would follow her in death a few months later. 

Recommendation:  Not just for history buffs, this is a fascinating book.

Los Alamos (1997) By Joseph Kanon

The literary formula of writing a fictional story on top of a historical event while risky is not uncommon, though seldom does it work as well as it does in Joseph Kanon’s book Los Alamos.

In his book, the plot centers on solving a murder, your standard detective story. Yet, the victim wasn’t just any victim, he was a security operative at Los Alamos, New Mexico -- the top secret location of the Manhattan Project, one of if not the most significant historical events of the 20th Century. The first successful detonation of an atomic bomb takes places at its Trinity test site in the final chapters of the book.

At Los Alamos, many of the biggest names in science worked under Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, often called the “father of the atomic bomb” to develop a weapon that could bring World War II to an end.  Many of the scientists were immigrants and refugees, many of them were also Jewish, working collectively against time to end the holocaust in Europe that many/most Americans were still blind to at the time. Determined as they were, all of the scientists were also aware that they were creating one evil, to address another. In the end, the war in Europe came to an end before the bomb was complete.  It's first and second military deployment would be on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hastening the end of the war in the Pacific theater, not on Germany.

                                                                                                             

To-date, there hasn’t been a third combat drop of an atomic weapon, which makes the moral debate in the nonfiction part of this story still relevant today, with nuclear aspirations in Iran and North Korea, and an anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, anti-science, and bellicose administration temporarily in command in the United States.

Returning to fiction, in Chapter 1 of the book the Project's military command limited the feared concern about the crime being viewed as espionage by internally dismissing it as a “homosexual murder,” an obsession of 1940’s and 1950’s America, when “pinko, commie, fag” was a favorite catchall condemnation, and telling everyone else that it was a botched robbery. They don't dismiss the investigation however, bringing in a non-military investigator from Washington to quietly discover what really happened. The gay stereotypes deployed throughout are infuriating, but an accurate reflection of the times.  Significant to the story is that because the murder is categorized as “homosexual” everyone is more than willing to sweep it under the rug, no one wants to talk about it, no one wants to risk coming forward.  That the initial categorization turns out wrong gets acknowledged towards the end of the book, but never corrected by any of the official record – such is history, infuriating or not.

This is the second novel by Joseph Kanon that I’ve read.  A few years ago, I reviewed his book Istanbul Passage, about the transition taking place in espionage after the Cold War.  While I liked the book, I had a geography problem. I believe Kanon failed to capture the essence of Istanbul (which in my mind has the romanticism personified by Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk), and faulted him for even trying.  Having never been to Los Alamos, I had no concerns about this title; except it ends up that I should have.  I’ve been to many of the surrounding communities in New Mexico where action in the book takes place, including nearby Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and the very remote Chaco Canyon, which is captured perfectly in the book, all-the-way down to the rattle snake’s rattle.

Recommendation:  You bet, completely engrossing.