John Walters's Blog, page 16

Book Review: The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding by Robert Hughes – Part Two

“The horror… The horror…” we hear Marlon Brando as Kurtz say at the end of the film Apocalypse Now. Such a somber chant would suit the mood of much of The Fatal Shore. It is almost unbelievable that humans could purposefully inflict so much suffering upon their fellows, but of course the founding of Australia is by no means an isolated instance of man’s inhumanity to man; history is full of examples.

As I read on, I came across exciting stories of convicts attempting to escape. Some hijacked ships and sailed away, and others fled into the bush and tried to live off the land. These sometimes became legends to those left behind, but most of them were captured and either killed or horrifically punished.

The inherent problem with the system was the motivations of the authorities in England who had instituted the program of transportation of criminals to Australia. First of all, their ideas of who constituted felons worthy of transportation were seriously flawed. Up to half of those sentenced to remote exile were guilty of nothing worse than petty theft. Many were teens, women, or old people. But worse than the choice of convicts was the motivation for sending them in the first place. They had no desire to reform the prisoners. They wanted the people of Great Britain to fear being transported to Australia, so they gave orders to make the penal colonies as terrifying as possible. To accomplish this, they sent harsh sadistic governors and other officers who were only too eager to humiliate and torture the prisoners in their care.

In some parts of the book, the author Hughes seems to be trying to find excuses for the authorities behaving as badly as they did, but really there are no excuses for such violent, murderous, inhuman behavior. As I read, I kept thinking that the politicians and judges in England and the overseers in Australia should have been forced to live for a few days as a convict so they could see for themselves what they were perpetrating. But really, no one should ever have to go through what the convicts went through. And as if their standard treatment was not bad enough, the authorities set up special detention centers in places such as Norfolk Island and Macquarie Harbor that were designed as places of torment and punishment. These powerful men were like mad scientists intent on inventing methods of inflicting greater pain. If any governors or commandants, such as Alexander Maconochie, sincerely wanted to help and reform prisoners, they were ridiculed by free settlers and relieved from their posts by the British authorities.

Hughes points out that as a deterrent to crime in England, the program of the transportation of convicts to Australia was a flat failure. Despite the efforts of authorities to create an image of Australia as a place of dread, too many people living in poverty in England saw it as a place where they could escape their hardships and make a new start. The final straw to the transportation system was the discovery of vast quantities of gold in the early 1850s, which further established Australia in the public mind as a land of opportunity.

The author explains that for a long time convict ancestry was a cause for shame in Australia. I found this saddening, as it was the convicts who pioneered the land, albeit unwillingly, and whose hard labor laid the foundation for what it became.

In conclusion, I would say that this book is probably not for everyone. It is long and complex and full of examples of humankind at its worst. Still, I was unaware of much of this history. It is fascinating, if frightening, to read of the origins of this vast island nation. I recommend it if you can handle the harshness and you enjoy well-told histories.

Book Review: The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding by Robert Hughes – Part One

This is a massive, complex history about how the transportation of convicts from England to Australia gave birth to a new nation. It is also a devastatingly horrific story, so much so that I almost gave up reading it after about a hundred pages. The overwhelming human misery is hard to take. I persisted probably for reasons similar to why people continue to watch well-made horror movies even after the bad stuff starts. On one hand your sensibilities can’t take it, but on the other hand it’s hard to look away. I found that after a couple of hundred pages the mood became nuanced, but still, it’s a tough read.

One reason it’s slow going at first is that Hughes is so thorough. For instance, before he gets into describing the first voyage that brought convicts to New South Wales, he provides background information such as the state of the penal system in England in the late eighteenth century, the plight of the poor, the overcrowded and horrendous conditions of the jails, the early exploration of the Pacific leading to the discovery of Australia, and the history and situation of the indigenous population.

He then offers a comprehensive look at the early transportation voyages. That’s when the horror stories truly begin. On the first ship out, all of the prisoners had been convicted as felons, but none had committed violent crimes. In fact, many of the misdeeds for which they were condemned to transportation were petty thefts: the taking of a few articles of clothing, or a packet of snuff, or a handful of potatoes. The condemned convicts ranged in age from a ten-year-old child to a woman eighty-two years old. They wore heavy chains and rags for clothes; they remained in dark, vermin-infested ship’s holds for most of the journeys, which lasted for many months; they were fed starvation rations and were flogged for miniscule offenses. At sea the ship captains were often cruel and sadistic, and on shore in Australia and on notorious Norfolk Island, their overseers were often no less sadistic, meting out harsh physical punishments for any hint of insubordination and sometimes for no reason at all. Convicts would often be flogged until blood and flesh flew and bones were laid bare.

The stories of the early transports to Australia reminded me of some of Solzhenitsyn’s descriptions of the Soviet Gulag. I became convinced as I read that the real criminals were the British authorities who set up this gruesome system. Before Australia, the British used North America for the transportation of their convicts. If the Americans were treated anywhere near as badly as those sent to Australia, no wonder the colonists rebelled! In fact, the American Revolution is one of the main reasons the British had to turn their attention to Australia as a dumping ground for convicts. American authorities afterwards committed their own atrocities with the slave trade and the treatment of the indigenous population, but that’s another tale.

In attempting to explain why England continued the dread transportation system for so long, Hughes only succeeds in emphasizing the perversity of the society that allowed it in the first place. The real fault lies in that society, which labeled the poor a “criminal class” and treated them with contempt. The author writes that “transportation did not stop crime in England or even slow it down. The ‘criminal class’ was not eliminated by transportation, and could not be, because transportation did not deal with the causes of crime.” He emphasizes this point: “The worst offense against property was to have none.” In other words, the poor, merely by being poor, were despised, ostracized, and targeted.

It was not only poverty-stricken petty thieves that were relegated to the Australian dumping ground, though. The authorities also banished British political dissidents and rebellious Irish. The usual periods of exile were seven years, fourteen years, or life. Occasionally families were allowed to travel with the convicts, but much more often they were ripped apart. Sometimes when those the convicts had stolen from realized the heavy punishment the thieves received, they pleaded for mercy for the perpetrators, but their pleas did no more good than did the pleas of the convicts’ families. Regardless of the severity of their crimes, the government wanted to make examples of these people. Mercy was seldom, if ever, shown.

(To be continued.)

Used Bookstores Then and Now

I take long walks in my neighborhood in northeast Seattle every day. Recently, however, I had the urge to attempt an excursion beyond the borders of the familiar, so I took a bus to a used bookstore in the University District near the University of Washington campus. I have to admit that it was not without trepidation that I assayed to enter the area, because the last time I had been there the main avenue was filthy and full of drug-addled, panhandling homeless people. I have nothing against homeless people, having been one myself when I was younger, but these groups on the Ave seemed particularly aggressive and menacing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Ave had been cleaned up; a few quiet individuals sat with their belongings here and there, but the rowdy miscreants had moved elsewhere.

Some people enjoy shopping for clothes, and some for accessories, but the only things I go out of my way to look for are books. I have to purchase shoes from time to time when the soles wear out from those extended walks, but most of the clothes I wear are gifts or hand-me-downs. Books, though: those are the true treasures. My searches for books in Seattle go back to decades ago, when my ex-wife and I were raising our family in Thessaloniki, Greece. When I’d journey to the States for some reason or another, exploring used bookstores would invariably be part of my plan. I would accumulate a long list of books I desired to read and would search for them, and I would also of course peruse the displays for random titles.

On one occasion I was staying at the home of one of my brothers, and it was walking distance from the University District. This was the golden age of used bookstores; I found half a dozen of them in the University District alone. I worked out a route so that I could most efficiently cover them all with the least amount of effort. I brought back an impressive haul of books on that trip.

Later, when I moved to the States with my sons and eventually ended up back in Seattle, one of our favorite activities was to head to Half Price Books in the University District and browse for an hour or so. On our limited budgets, Half Price Books was also our go-to place when we were looking for birthday or Christmas presents for each other. Alas, all the Half Price Book outlets have moved out of the city, and the majority of used bookstores in town have closed.

A few months ago, one of my sons and I drove to Anacortes on our way to Whidbey Island. In Anacortes we found a beautiful used bookstore, spacious and well-stocked. We’d come mainly to explore the state parks on Whidbey Island so we didn’t have much time, but we spent about twenty minutes browsing the shelves and purchasing a few titles. The experience reawakened in me the joy of searching for treasures in used bookstores.

When I got back to Seattle, I decided to seek out more used bookstores within public transportation range (I don’t own a car) and that’s when I discovered the paucity of possibilities. I suppose it has something to do with the ease of finding books online at the ubiquitous retail giant that we shall not name. Still, it left me with a profound sense of loss.

I did find two bookstores within my range, one in Fremont and one in the University District. The Fremont one I visited a few weeks ago. It was a cute cubbyhole with three floors: the top level was devoted to books for children and young people, the middle to classic literature, and the basement, which was reached via a narrow spiral staircase, contained science fiction, fantasies, and mysteries. The bookstore in the University District had only one floor, but it was more spacious and not as cramped. Its selection of titles was excellent. I had brought a short list of items I was looking for, and I found and purchased every one of them.

And so I have already exhausted the used bookstores within my immediate range. I can go back to them, of course, with new lists, and search corners I neglected during my previous visits. I can also look for books at estate sales and thrift stores. It’s not that I want to compile an enormous collection; I don’t have space for it. When I last changed apartments I purged my book stash and gave away many volumes through nearby little free libraries. The joy is in the search and in the occasional discovery of priceless literary gems.

Book Review: Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

I’ve been reading a number of weighty nonfiction tomes lately, and I thought I’d take a break and read one of the older science fiction books that have been accumulating on my shelves due to visits to used bookstores and little free libraries. Damnation Alley was first published in 1969. It is not one of Zelazny’s better novels. My favorites of his works remain This Immortal, Lord of Light, and the novelettes “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” and “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth.” However, it must be understood that Zelazny was one of the master stylists of science fiction’s New Wave of the sixties and seventies, and even so-so Zelazny is better than the best work of many lesser writers.

Damnation Alley is a dystopian adventure with an antihero protagonist. Hell Tanner, the last living member of a biker gang, is offered a pardon from prison if he will “volunteer” to drive a shipment of plague vaccine from the nation of California to the nation of Boston. After warfare wreaked havoc and radiation on most of the world, leaving it a wasteland, atmospheric storms are so ferocious that flying is impossible and there is no long range communication. A driver somehow made it from Boston to California to plead for the vaccine, and now Tanner has to return with it driving an armored car through Damnation Alley, the bomb-decimated middle of the country, which is rife with volcanoes and craters full of radiation, and populated with vicious gangs and gigantic snakes, spiders, and Gila monsters. Some of the action reminds me of the Mad Max film series, but Damnation Alley is the original, predating the first of those movies by a decade.

I think one of the main reasons that this novel doesn’t rise to Zelazny’s best work is that it is straight adventure; there are no metaphysical undertones, none of the references to mythology and religion that suffuse his masterpieces. This Immortal, for instance, is based on Greek mythology, and Lord of Light leans heavily into Buddhism and Hinduism. “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” uses its namesake book of the Bible to underscore its meaning, and “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” is based on the description of the leviathan in the Bible’s Book of Job. On the other hand, Damnation Alley offers nothing but its straight adventure without undertones. Additionally, although it is short, it is somewhat padded in parts. It seems that originally it was a novella, and in order for it to qualify as a stand-alone novel it needed more words, which Zelazny obliged the publisher in supplying. It is easy to see where the extra verbiage is placed, mainly in occasional snippets of life in Boston while Tanner is on his way with the medicine, and the book would have been stronger without these additions. Even Zelazny himself said that he liked the novella more than the novel. Keep in mind what I said above, though: Zelazny at his worst is far better than most writers at their best. Damnation Alley is a fun short read to help you while away a long plane flight or an afternoon relaxing at the beach.

Book Review: Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan

This fascinating biography tells the story of Edward Curtis, a photographer who devoted his life to traveling around North America to capture images, stories, music, and languages of the indigenous population before traditional ways of life had completely disappeared. He began his quest in the late nineteenth century and persevered until the economic crash of 1929. His magnum opus became an elaborate twenty volume set of books called The North American Indian. Although he died in obscurity, for a time he was the most famous photographer in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a glowing introduction to his works, and H.P. Morgan, at that time one of the world’s richest men, partially financed Curtis’s field trips.

Curtis was originally based out of Seattle, and his first subject was Princess Angeline, the only surviving child of Chief Seattle, the Native American leader from whom the city got its name. Curtis’s vision grew until he resolved to photograph and document all the Indian tribes whose people still clung to their traditional lifestyles. It was a race against time, not only because so many Native Americans had already been killed off through warfare and decimating diseases, but also because those that remained were being forcibly assimilated into mainstream American culture by missionaries and government agents. To accomplish his task, Curtis lived for long periods of time with Indian peoples throughout the western and central United States and as far north as the Arctic Circle in the then-territory of Alaska. His initial estimate to Morgan was that the twenty volumes would take him five years to complete, but it actually took thirty. In the early years his work was lauded, but as time passed he became more and more forgotten after his benefactors Morgan and Roosevelt died. Still, he persevered until his task was accomplished, despite living under the roughest of conditions and going deep into debt.

There is a profound lesson to be learned here about the life of an artist. A true artist relishes the work and accomplishes it for its own sake, fame or no fame and wealth or no wealth. I can relate to that as the author of numerous books, none of which have been read by many people. I keep writing because I can’t not write. As for Curtis, he gave everything he had until there was nothing left and then collapsed across the finish line, broken in body and spirit.

As I read Curtis’s story, I wondered what my friend and Clarion West classmate Russell Bates, a Kiowa Indian, would have made of it. I think he would have approved. Russ died several years ago, but when he was still alive he was my go-to person for all queries related to Native Americans. One issue was the name. He was so-so on the word “Indian” and he didn’t mind “Native American”; however, he had come up with his own nomenclature for how the indigenous peoples of the North American continent should be called. It wasn’t “Amer-Indian,” which he had considered; it was something else. I’ve been trying to remember it but so far it doesn’t come to mind. Anyway, once when I was living in Greece I wrote Russ and asked him for some recommendations of books on Native Americans, and he sent me a fairly extensive list of both fiction and nonfiction. I think that Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, had it existed at the time, might have made that list. It is well-written and sympathetic to the people who were first on the land we now call home but were ruthlessly trodden under foot by the American government and land-hungry settlers.

The book contains numerous examples of Curtis’s photos, and they are stunning. Curtis was a true artist with a camera, a genius at capturing the essence of his subjects and their stories. I recognized some of the photos, and I’m sure I’ve heard Curtis’s name in the past, but not until I read this excellent book did I realize the value of his work.

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As an addendum to my appreciation of Edward Curtis’s life and works, I found a large and heavy coffee table book at the library called One Hundred Masterworks by Edward Curtis edited by Christopher Cardozo. Some of Curtis’s photos appear in Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, but it is worthwhile viewing them in this larger, sharper format. As I perused the volume, I was in awe of the abiding excellence in all of his pictures, especially the ones that focus on individual likenesses. As Native American author Louise Erdrich points out in One Hundred Masterworks about his photos of women: “Curtis mastered the art of making his subject so dimensional, so present, so complete, that it is to me as though I am looking at the women through a window, as though they are really there in the print and in the paper, looking back at me.” I feel the same about Curtis’s portraitures of men, women, and children. He captures a lifelike intensity that makes you feel like at any moment they might come alive and speak to you.

The Library Blues

Don’t let the title of this essay mislead you: I am profoundly thankful for the local public library system. Its online search capabilities are excellent; I can reserve a book and it will be transported free of charge from any of the numerous branches around the city. Because I continually need books, however, I don’t always have time to reserve them and wait for them to arrive. Rather than browse the physical shelves, to save time I often search the digital catalog for what is available at the closest branch the night before, and then I go soon after the library is open to pick up what I’ve found. And so I had arranged to do today. I had done my search and listed some titles, and shortly before ten I took a long walk so I would arrive just at the right time. It was not until I was inside that I realized to my dismay that I had left the list of books at home. I tried to remember the titles, or at least the authors, but I had chosen books that were previously unfamiliar to me and I had recorded their particulars in haste. I had no time to walk almost a mile back home, a mile to the library again, and then return home. The situation was made worse by the realization that I would finish the book I had been reading that afternoon and I might not have something with which to immediately replace it. Frustration! The best laid plans, and so on…

This was a minor inconvenience, though, compared to the library withdrawal I experienced when COVID-19 restrictions hit full force at the beginning of the pandemic. The library completely shut down for several months. I reread books off my shelves, and I bought some books online – but I couldn’t afford to keep that up for long. When the library reopened, at first patrons were not allowed inside. We had to reserve books online and then form lines outside, isolated from one another by distancing protocols, and enter the vestibule of the library in small groups to claim the books we had ordered. Those months of limited access to the library affect me even now. If I find discount books I’m interested in at used bookstores and bring them home, I won’t read them. Instead, I will set them aside – for the next pandemic – and continue to rely on the library for current needs. It reminds me of a story a sibling once told me about a relative who would hoard excessive amounts of household items; she’d lived through lean economic times and never wanted to be without the necessities. That’s how I feel about the books.

Thank God for the Seattle Public Library system! It is well-organized and works effectively. Most of the troubles I have with it are of my own making. To make sure I always have something with which to satiate my literary hunger, when I need one book I usually check out at least two or three – so that if the book I was planning on reading disappoints, I have backups. So it goes in the life of a confirmed book addict.

Book Review: The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey

The Underworld has many positive attributes: it is fascinating, it is well researched, and it is very well-written. However, what shines through and illuminates it more than any of these is this: the author is clearly in love with her subject. Susan Casey loves the ocean, and when she writes about it her love is manifest. The thrills she feels as she roams the seas, explores the deep, views sea creatures she has never seen before, and shares stories of the lives of others who are as enthralled with the sea as she is are palpable. There is much joy and an overwhelming sense of wonder in this book.

Thus as I read on I was overcome with a sense of grief at an opportunity lost. You see, a few weeks before I began reading this book I found out that Casey was going to appear at a bookstore here in Seattle for an author’s event. The book was already on my radar, and reading the book soon was in my plans, so I marked the day on my calendar. However, when the day of the event came I was especially tired; it was scheduled for fairly late in the evening, and because I don’t own a car I would have had to spend considerable time taking a bus and the light rail. My exhaustion caused me to back out. But then soon afterwards I started reading the book, encountered Casey’s enthusiasm and fervor for the sea and its mysteries, and I realized – alas, too late – that I had missed a profound experience. I would have liked to have heard her expound on her adventures and maybe I would have even asked her a few questions.

At least, though, we all have the book, and ultimately the book is enough. Many of us are enraptured by the thought of space travel, and yet, as Casey points out, we have here with us on Earth the vast environment of the ocean that is for the most part still unexplored. It is full of marvelous landscapes, hidden treasures, and bizarre alien creatures, and the discoveries to be made in its depths are virtually limitless.

Casey takes us on a literary journey back in time to the first attempts to explore under the sea, and then tells of contemporary efforts, some of which she witnesses firsthand, to descend to the lowest depths. She writes of teams who locate and study shipwrecks and of commercial companies that seek to despoil the seafloor and lay waste to its ecology for profit. She also has a few opportunities to personally accompany submersible pilots to the deep parts of the ocean, and when she writes of these experiences she refers to them as some of the highlights of her life. Her ecstasy during these deep-sea voyages is infectious. Once, when I was a child, I too had that sense of wonder, and I briefly considered oceanography as a career. Reading Casey’s book brought back that enthusiasm to discover the ocean’s secrets. If I had multiple lifetimes, I’d want to explore the ocean in at least one of them. Since I have chosen another path in this one, though, I am profoundly appreciative to Casey for allowing me, at least for a time, to share her world.

A Glimpse of the Cosmic Dance and Other Stories Is Now Available!

My 35th book and 12th short story collection, A Glimpse of the Cosmic Dance and Other Stories, is now available as a paperback and as an ebook at various online outlets. Links to these are below.

In a world whose inhabitants routinely visit famous historical events, two jaded road-weary tourists take a holiday in an isolated retrograde enclave where time travel is forbidden.

Humankind is plunged into chaos as the recently deceased reappear and take up residency in their former homes.

As the result of an expensive technique that restores their youthful vigor, wealthy old people gallivant from place to place adventure-seeking and partying. However, their newfound energy comes at a terrible cost.

In these and other tales you’ll find heart-pounding excitement, deadly perils, baffling perplexities, complex conundrums, dread mysteries, deceptive hallucinations, fantasy landscapes, far planets, distant futures, evil menaces, and unlikely heroes.

Trade Paperback

Amazon Kindle

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

Smashwords

Book Review: Babel; or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R. F. Kuang

I had never heard of this book until it won this year’s Nebula Award for best novel from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. Since then it has won several other awards, and since awards season is not over, there will probably be more. It is a terrific book; it well deserves the accolades. Seldom have I read a fantasy so intelligent, complex, absorbing, character-driven, nuanced, surprising, and yet despite its fantastical elements so grounded in the world in which we actually live.

Babel is an alternate history novel set in the 1800s at the height of the British Empire. In it, the crown jewel of Oxford University is a literal tower of Babel, a linguistics center that creates the magic that runs the empire. The magic is based on the use of the element of silver combined with codes matching words from two or more different languages. To create the effect that powers the magic, silver workers must be able to know the languages they use so well that they can think in them. Since they require this level of expertise in diverse languages, magical silver workers are scarce; professors from Babel search the world for suitable candidates.

The main protagonist, Robin Swift, is a half-Chinese and half-British young man born in Canton, China. His mentor, who turns out to be also his father, Professor Lovell, transports Robin from Canton to England and arranges for tutors for him so that he can qualify for the language school at Babel. Once he begins, he becomes close to the other first-year students: Ramy, from Calcutta, India; Letitia, or Letty, from an aristocratic English family; and Victoire, from Haiti. Reading about these four teens learning to interact and trust one another in the midst of their studies and discoveries at Babel, I was reminded of the group of kids who get together in the Harry Potter series (which, I must admit, I have watched in films but never read). However, in Harry Potter the magic is presented simply and straightforwardly, while in Babel the approach is much more complex, being dependent on principles of linguistics. It turns out that when they arrive, European languages are becoming less effective in bonding with English to create magic; this is the reason for recruiting Robin and Ramy and Victoire from the more distant reaches of the empire.

Speaking of the empire, though, the students eventually find out that there are more sinister reasons for their recruitment than the mere making of magic. Babel’s true purpose, besides self-enrichment, involves strengthening Britain’s oppressive hold on its colonies so that aristocrats and capitalists can get rich at the expense of everyone else. When Robin’s cohort accompanies Lovell on an excursion to China, they discover that Babel is intent on assisting the empire in making war on China to ensure that the lucrative Chinese market for the debilitating drug opium remains open. This, of course, causes Robin and his friends to question their roles as Babel linguists.

I am only skimming over a few highlights. The story is meticulously researched both in history and in linguistics. Kuang obviously knows her languages. When she references a Chinese word, for instance, she not only gives the phonetic pronunciation but also the character in Chinese. These details are often included in footnotes, which give the story additional verisimilitude. While reading the novel I was often amazed at the depth of research and scholarship the writer must have gone through to get it all right.

Concerning the evil of empire and the negative effect that conquering nations have on their colonies, I was reminded of another book I have read recently: Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. The authors point out that over the last thousand years of history technology has invariably been used not to benefit all of humankind, but rather to enrich very few at the expense of the multitudes. Kuang uses the highly profitable silver-working magic in her novel as a devastatingly effective metaphor of this principle.

All in all, it has been years, perhaps decades, since I have so thoroughly enjoyed a fantasy novel. Don’t miss this one. It’s a sure classic.

Book Review: Chasing the Light: Writing, Directing, and Surviving Platoon, Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, and the Movie Game by Oliver Stone

With its subtitle in place, this book has a long, long title. I’ve found that most nonfiction books have subtitles; publishers probably figure that buyers browsing in bookstores won’t pick up a book unless a bombastic title spells out the details for them. Personally, I would have preferred something simple like Chasing the Light: A Memoir; I would have assumed, of course, that everyone would already know who Oliver Stone is and be familiar with at least some of his work. Then again, maybe not – who knows?

For those unfamiliar with his work, Oliver Stone has been writing, directing, and/or producing movies since the 1970s. Besides those the subtitle mentions, they include such iconic works as JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Wall Street, The Doors, and many, many more. This memoir begins in his childhood and takes us up to the evening when he wins the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for Platoon. His reminiscences of his early years are not extraneous, though; the background is crucial in understanding his intensity and what motivated him to focus on the subject matter that he did. His dad was an American GI who was stationed in France at the end of World War II, and his mother was a young French woman. When Stone was away at a boarding school during his high school years, they got divorced, and the trauma and confusion following their neglect of him during this time caused Stone to volunteer for the army and get promptly sent off to Vietnam. More severe trauma followed, of course, and this became inspiration for the screenplay of Platoon.

Stone is an excellent writer, although sometimes given to hyperbole. At the heart of the book are the accounts of how he managed to create Midnight Express, Scarface, Salvador, Platoon, and other works, usually when faced with great opposition. He tells of his struggles with drugs, obstinate actors and film crews, foreign locations, producers, and financers. This is all fascinating, of course, but even more important to me are his insights into the creative experience. For instance, one of his teachers at NYU film school, a young Martin Scorsese, praised one of Stone’s early short efforts by exclaiming: “This is a filmmaker. Why? Because it’s personal. You feel like the person who’s making it is living it.” Whether Stone, in his creative efforts, flew or fell flat on his face, he always remained emotionally intense and personal. He also persevered against seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Of the arduous filming of Platoon in the Philippines despite multitudes of difficulties, he writes: “I had to keep going now… Self-pity is not possible. You must be stronger than your captors – or your critics.” In referring to captors, he meant the POWs and their efforts to stay sane when they had to endure horrific confinement during the Vietnam War; he mentioned critics because at the same time he was off in the jungle filming Platoon on an excruciatingly tight schedule and budget, the film he had just completed, Salvador, was premiering in the States to mixed reviews.

The answer, according to Stone, is to persist in spite of everything. His early career was like a roller coaster: extreme highs followed by extreme lows. One moment he’d be winning an Oscar for the screenplay of Midnight Express, and soon afterwards he would be involved in several flops in a row. As Stone makes clear, the point is to remain resolute, or in the words of Kipling in the immortal poem “If”: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same…”

As I mentioned, the book ends on a high note, with the triumph of Platoon at the Oscars in 1987. For Oliver Stone, there would be many more triumphs and disasters yet to come. This book is so absorbing and well-written that I hope he carries on the story in another volume.