Joseph Sciuto's Blog: A Curious View: A Compilation of Short Stories by Joseph Sciuto, page 18

“MAIN STREET,” BY SINCLAIR LEWIS

I figured it was about time, after sixty years on planet earth, that I read a book by Sinclair Lewis. Probably one of the reasons I never did, was because after all the literature classes I took none of his work was ever discussed.

In 1930, Mr. Lewis won the Nobel Prize for literature, and “Main Street,” was mentioned as one of his great accomplishment.

Mr. Lewis is the type of writer I am usually attracted to. His writing is very descriptive like many of my favorite writers like Conrad, Proust, and Fitzgerald, yet the first 100 pages of “Main Street,” were like looking at a one minute sequence of a car passing down the same street 100 times. I was seriously thinking of putting it down when it seriously exploded off the pages and the main character, Carol Kennicott, starts to really come to life…almost having an affair with a young tailor whose ambition is to be some type of artist.

She originally moved to the town of ‘Gopher Prairie,’ when she married her husband Will Kennicott, a wonderful and dedicated doctor and a lifelong resident of the town. He’s smart but in none of the ways that Carol is interested in. He’s interested in medicine, making money, and taking care of cars. Carol loves to read the poetry of Keats and Shelley, and many of the famous authors of her era which is the early 1900’s and before.

What Will sees as wonderful, she sees as dull. She wants to change the character and substance of the town, but all the residence are like Will and see little wrong with their lovely town that Carol finds dull and backwards.

Mr Lewis’ ability to create a small town in Minnesota is almost picture perfect, and after the first one hundred pages when the characters become energized, with conscious feelings about sex, lost of youth, and complacence, and the real evil that can be caused by gossip and false beliefs come to a boiling head I was hoping the book would go on for another one hundred pages.

A Poem (and a Painting) About the Suffering That Hides in Plain Sight

‘TASTE,” BY STANLEY TUCCI.

A wonderfully, entertaining book that for me (a one hundred percent Italian/ American) was a step back in time to the joyous feasts prepared on Christmas Eve by my grandparents, father and mother, aunts and uncles. The hour and a half farewells to visiting relatives, who live only a few blocks away, but just don’t seem to be able make it out the door.

The walks down the west side of Manhattan in the late seventies when I was a student at John Jay college, occasionally dropping in on small, family owned restaurants that served delicious food at very inexpensive prices…and which today no longer exist because of the gentrification of that side of Manhattan.

Delicious food, passed from generation to generation, whose original roots date back centuries to peasant farmers.

“Taste: My Life through Food,” is about 40 percent dedicated to Italian cuisine, 20 percent dedicated to food from many different parts of the world, 20 percent to wonderful recipes, and 20 percent to wonderful stories. All and all a truly delightful book by Mr. Tucci.

“A CRACK IN CREATION,” BY JENNIFER A. DOUDNA AND SAMUEL H. STERNBERG

At an Ethical Conference on Gene Editing an individual approached the brilliant doctor Jennifer A. Doudna and told her that he had three sisters at the moment suffering terribly from a genetic disease that would shortly take their lives. He could not understand how anybody who has ever seen someone suffering from such diseases could find anything wrong with the gene editing process that by simply changing a letter in one’s DNA to match its opposite letter could put an end to so many dastardly genetic diseases.

The answer seems simple, at least to me, who like billions of other people have seen friends and relatives suffer and die from genetic diseases. Imagine a world where we could eliminate so many childhood cancers, cystic fibrosis, blindness, sickle cell anemia, HIV and God knows how many other diseases with a process that has come to be known as “CRISPR.” CRISPR, a revolutionary technology that Dr. Doudna help create, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in chemistry in 2020, that makes heritable changes in one’s DNA that would make a genetic disease like sickle cell anemia never infect a person who was destined to suffer from the agonizing disorder.

Well, that technology has arrived and if you don’t believe it just look up what the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, that have proven so effective against the covid-19 virus, are made up of and which has cured cases of HIV and sickle cell anemia. What is so amazing, is how simple it really is according to Dr. Doudna and thousands of other scientists and researches.

But like the vaccines against Covid-19, there are many critics who say we should not mess around with the evolutionary process or that it’s against God’s will. I don’t agree with them and the only real drawback to this amazing technology is the possibility that humans will use it to make ‘better’ offspring…more intelligent, muscular, and naturally more beautiful children.

Last year, I said the most important book I read was Walter Isaacson’s “The Code Breaker,” which was mostly about Dr. Doudna, the scientists, and researchers who have help create this technology. Mr. Isaacson’s book definitely helped me understand Dr. Doudna and Dr. Sternberg’s book, especially the first half that dealt with terms that would have been difficult to understand if I had not read Mr. Isaacson’s book.

“A Crack in Creation,” and the technology of CRISPR might seem unthinkable to many people, but for me it might very well be the most important scientific and medical discovery in many and many of years…if not the most important medical breakthrough in centuries.

ISABEL ALLENDE’S, “OF LOVE AND SHADOWS.”

I will make this review very short and sweet. If you are a fan of Ms. Allende, and love characters as I do, I have little doubt you will be disappointed with her “Of love And Shadows.”

There might not be as many great characters as in previous novels that I have read by this extremely talented writer, but there are enough to satisfy a ‘character driven fanatic like myself.’

The name of the country in the story is never mentioned, other than it is a South American country that is run by a military dictatorship that has run amok with power, after overthrowing a democratically elected socialist government. The atrocities remind me of the atrocities discovered in
in El Salvador during the 1980’s.

The two main characters, Irene Beltran, a disheveled but beautiful journalist working for a magazine, and Francisco Leal, a psychologist turned photographer, form an investigative partnership that uncover the dark, horrific acts of the police and government, and in turn, become a target of those police and government.

Their partnership slowly turns into a romance, and the story turns into a suspenseful thriller that leaves one guessing to the end.

Unlike all her other novels I have read, the Catholic Church nor the U.S. government are involved in any of the nefarious activities that take place.

KAZUO ISHIGURO’S, “WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS.”

It first started when I read Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment,’ and was so amazed by it that I went on to read just about everyone of his books, expecting at least one to be a disappointment but it never happened.

It then happened with Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,” which I still consider the best 100 pages of literature I have ever read, and like with Dostoevsky I went on to read everyone of his books and was always amazed by their brilliance (excluding the ones’ he co-wrote with Ford).

The same was true with the Bronte sisters, Toni Morrison, Ann Patchett, and James Baldwin. Sadly, Hemingway and Don DeLillo’s later books were a disappointment.

And now the Dostoevsky/Conrad effect has also happened with Kazuo Ishiguro’s books. After reading Mr. Ishiguro’s ‘Never let me Go,’ I have gone on to read all his other books and have never been disappointed and always amazed at the level of brilliance throughout his works.

I was greatly enhanced in the reading of Mr. Ishiguro’s, “When We Were Orphans,” by recently reading a book on the opium wars recommended to me by a friend on Goodreads. “When We were Orphans,” has many levels to it, not only are the characters great but the character of Sarah Hemmings is mystifying and reminded me of one of my favorite female characters of all time, Brett, in “The Sun Also Rises.” The settings in London and Shanghai in the early to mid 1930’s are so realistic that I felt like I had been transported there, and the British colonization of China and the flood of opium into China from British companies is both devastating and deeply unsettling. Mr. Ishiguro’s writing is sublime, and like Hemingway one needs to look beyond his words to truly understand the impact and meaning of what he is trying to get across.

Mr. Ishiguro is an amazing talent.

NATHALIA HOLT’S, THE QUEENS OF ANIMATION.”

It was a moment in the history of Presidential debates that should have left no doubt that of the ten Republican men and one woman hoping to become the party’s candidate for president, and eventually president, that none were qualified…and yet the least qualified actually became president.

It was undeniably a difficult question that might have gave a five year a difficult time. The Question: “Quick, name a woman — any American woman — who you think deserves to be memorialized on a on a ten dollar bill?” Never did you see so many men dumbfounded by a question that had at least fifty possibly correct answers. One answered, Margaret Thatcher, one his daughter Ivanka, a couple their mothers (which was kind of sweet), and then the consensus answer was ‘Rosa Parks,’ not because they knew who she was but it sounded right. The year was 2016.

Since that moment, the few Republicans who have showed any ‘balls’ during the insane reign of Donald Trump, are three women…. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Liz Cheney. The rest have become mute or subservient to a man who can’t name the first 5 presidents of the U.S.

I bring up this sad moment in our country’s history up not because I hate republicans, John McCain, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jack Kemp, are political heroes of mine, but because it highlights the shadows that so many, past and present, brilliant, inventive, and artistic American women still live in.

Nathalia Holt’s fascinating biography, “The Queens of Animation: The untold story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and made Cinematic History,” traces the history of mostly five women from the mid-1930′ to early 1970. The women, Mary Blair, Retta Scott, Grace Huntington, Bianca Majolie and Sylvia Holland. The five women’s contributions to Disney Classics, such as ‘Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Pinocchio, Fantasia, etc, and the famous Disney ride, ‘It’s a Wonderful World,’ can not be overstated, and many of their paintings and designs are still being used in the Disney Animated blockbusters of the last twenty five years, such as ‘Frozen, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast.’ Sadly, only a few of these women ever got a film credit and it is only in the last twenty years that the brilliance of Mary Blair has become legend.

Despite their major contributions, the women made half the money the men made, were abused at story meetings to a point that some ran out crying and some refused to show up for the meetings. They were true trailblazers and many never had the luxury of using computers, which I doubt any would have wanted to use because they were more comfortable with a pencil and pad and thankfully their artistry still lives on.

This is a wonderful book on so many levels: It not only explores the massive impact of women on animation, but the evolution of this painstaking art form, and how it almost died out but made a historic recovery.

ISABEL ALLENDE’S, “EVA LUNA.”

The first half of Ms. Allende’s novel is somewhat erratic, a bunch of stories that seem unconnected…except for narrator, Eva Luna, who does not even take part in some of the stories.

So you ask, What keeps me reading this book that at times seems disconnected? The answer: a group of characters that are so unbelievable, interesting, and original that I never considered putting the book down and couldn’t stop reading.

I believe, that characters are what drive a story and in the end, as some time has passed, you remember the characters more than the story. I call it the “Michael Corleone Syndrome.” When I have asked Godfather 1 and 2 enthusiasts what they remember about the stories they always say Michael Corleone or Vito Corleone and seem to skip over my question about the story and plot.

In the first half of “Eva Luna,” and throughout the book the characters might not be up to the “Michael Corleone standard” but they are not far behind. The Professor, for example, is a man who wants to cure cancer but since almost all his patients die he decides to embalm them and put them in a seperate room in the house that is like a museum.

The plump but pretty sisters, who have thrown tradition to the wind, decide to fulfill their passions by a having threesomes with their cute cousin. It’s simply the pleasure of the whole thing and they follow the Freudian theory of the pleasure principle to the extreme without any qualms.

Eva mother’s was impregnated by a dying man who at the time when she was cleaning his soiled body she noticed he had an erection, and not one to deny a dying man his wish she has sex with the man and that all it takes to get her pregnant with the wonderful Eva. The man died right after the ejuculation.

These are just a few on the characters, and when we come across them in the second half of the novel, at times a hundred and fifty pages later, you have no problem remembering any of them. It is in the second half of this beautiful, character driven novel that it all comes together. This is a wonderful novel, true to my ‘Michael Corleone Syndrome.’

“THE BURIED GIANT,” BY KAZUO ISHIGURO

In my humble opinion, “The Buried Giant,” By Kazuo Ishiguro is a great novel. It’s characters are unforgettable, down to Horace the horse or the goat that eats poisonous grass, that does not harm the goat, but when attacked by a dragon or two who takes a bite out of him will kill them.

The story takes place in post King Arthur and Merlin’s time, and at first I thought Mr. Ishiguro was going to do a Mark Twain on the reader with something similar to Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ but that was a foolish idea on my part.

Mr. Ishiguro is too great a novelist. He does not have take instructions from even the great Mark Twain. “The Buried Giant,” is a three hundred and sixty degree turn from all the other books I have read by this master storyteller.

Not only is the setting completely different from his other works, but the plot involves a strange mist that causes mass amnesia across the land. Two elderly Britons set off to visit their son who they have not seen since he was a little boy. They remember little of him. They like all the villagers remember little that went on a week ago, nevertheless over 20 years ago.

The couple encounters A Saxon warrior, a knight related to King Arthur, and an orphan boy. During this time of forgetfulness Saxons and Britons have lived in peace. Neither side desires revenge or war because neither side can remember those day even though they lived through them. Slowly as the mist evaporates and the cause is eliminated by the warrior, memories start to come back and that is when a spectacular and humane evolution takes place that left this author mystified and in awe.

“PLAYING WITH FIRE,” BY LAWRENCE O’DONNELL

“Playing with Fire,” by Lawrence O’Donnell is an insightful, horrifying look at Presidential politics during the 1968 election. It actually starts off with the election of President Kennedy in 1960 where Mr. Kennedy was put over the top, most probably, by Chicago Mayor Daley by making sure Kennedy won by enough votes to carry Illinois and hand him the presidency.

Nixon didn’t dispute the election, possibly the only decent thing the man ever did. After the assassination of President Kennedy and the re-election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964 by a landslide, Johnson decided to seriously increase our presence in Vietnam and at one time there were over five hundred thousand U.S. troops in Vietnam and a President who didn’t want to hear any bad news about the war and so his advisers fed the man made up facts that made us look like we were on the verge of victory.

But the body bags kept accumulating and suddenly the ruse was over. The first politician to come out against the war was Senator Eugene McCarthy and with only the radicals on the left with him he decided to run for president against the current president who was of the same party which was unheard of.

He came in second in The New Hampshire primary but performed 30 points higher than anyone imagined and he was actually looked upon as the winner. His momentum continued and his message was simple, “Stop the War,” (LBJ, how many Americans have you killed today).

After much hesitancy, Robert Kennedy decided to run for president, and Johnson decided to drop out, not wanting to lose to another Kennedy. Kennedy immediately became the favorite and won a number of primaries as his message became closer and closer to Senator McCarthy’s message of stopping the blood shed. After winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and until this very day the question remains that if he had not been killed and became president how different the landscape of American politics would have looked?

At the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Vice President Humphrey was nominated for the Presidency; even though McCarthy had more primary votes which didn’t mean all that much back then when only fourteen states held primaries. The Democratic machine controlled who won and they were not electing Senator McCarthy. In the streets of Chicago there was demonstrations and riots and police brutality that made as much news as the convention itself.

Nixon was the Republican candidate and as the polls got closer and they had both candidates within one percentage point, Richard Nixon secretly interfered with the Paris Peace conference going on to stop the war. After all the parties had agreed to a plan to stop the war, Nixon convinced the South Vietnamese President to pull out of the negotiations because if he, Nixon, was elected he would give them a much better deal. That act of treason resulted in an additional five more years of war and an additional twenty-one thousand US deaths and God only knows how many civilian deaths.

The consequences of Nixon’s actions while in office forced the low-life to resign, and the primaries for both parties, taking place in all fifty states, became the new norm for choosing a presidential candidate. The candidate who achieved the magic number of votes would become the presidential nominee for each party.

This book is a million times more detailed than this review, but if one thing came across clear and simple and that was how corrupt democracy can be with the right players at the table.