Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 36

On a Wing and a Prayer: The Untold Story of the Pioneering Aviation Heroes of WWI, in Their Own Word

An absolutely superb history of aviation in WWI, in the words of the people who lived it. (Mostly British, with some exceptions.) I love first-person accounts, and this one is exceptionally good: vivid, startling, detailed, exciting, enlightening, often surprisingly funny, and as often unsurprisingly heartbreaking. You don't have to be interested in the subject matter for this to be well worth reading - I'd recommend it to anyone who likes history at all, ever.

It's full of useful details if you write in this period. It confirms that RFC/RAF pilots did get treated at Craiglockhart, along with a lot of other harrowing accounts of PTSD. It's got lots about daily life, like that pilots got pretty good food, put on plays which sometimes involved cross-dressing, and in one case wrote to their parents to ask for fast-growing seeds so they could grow a garden - fast-growing because many of them only survived for a few weeks. It has tons of details about how to fly a Sopwith Camel and other planes of the period, and informs us that the official plural of the German fighter plane, the Albatros, is Albatri.

Levine mostly keeps in the background, though he occasionally indulges in a bit of dubious speculation. For instance, he mentions that W. E. Johns was treated for STDs during his service and dubiously speculates that that was the REAL reason why Biggles stayed single.

I listened to this in audio first, then bought the book in hard copy. The audio version is excellent and includes some music of the period, which was great, but if you want to use it for reference you'll need the physical book.

I was hoping the book would have cites for every source, but unfortunately Levine got the majority of his material from museum and library archives and the originals aren't otherwise available. He only cites six published books in his bibliography, though he definitely uses material from more than that - for instance, he doesn't include Manfred von Richthofen's autobiography in the bibliography, though it's quoted and attributed in the book itself. But he does include the names of everyone he quotes (or says they're anonymous) so it's possible to start from there.

Here's some excerpts, which will give a sense of what the whole book is like. (You all benefit from me FINALLY getting Dragon Dictate to work again on my phone).

These are all accounts by different people. All are British unless marked otherwise.

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A Pocket Full of Rye, by Agatha Christie

This is the first time I ever read this book - a bit of a rarity for me with Christie.

It opens with a very funny scene in which a business executive keels over after drinking a cup of tea, and the office workers are thrown into a tizzy trying to figure out how to summon medical help. No one knows who his doctor is, they think 999 is only for police matters, and doctors are not listed in the phone book under "D." It was both historically interesting, a playful poke at the "summon a doctor!" trope, and deeply relatable.

The businessman dies in the hospital of an unusual poison, and it's discovered that his pocket is full of rye. Yes, the grain. No, not the bread. No, not a breakfast cereal, as the police inspector gets very tired of explaining when he inquires about it. Everyone is either baffled or pretends to be baffled by this.

The police investigate his home, which contains his eccentric elderly mother living in the attic, his thirty-years-younger second wife, his pompous son and the son's unhappy wife, his frustrated daughter, and a number of servants including a maid, Gladys, whom Miss Marple used to know, and the omnicompetent housekeeper, Mary Dove, who provides the dish on everyone to the investigator, confessing at the end, "I'm a malicious creature." Later, the black sheep son Lance and his charming wife Pat show up.

Lance is Pat's third husband, though she's still quite young. Her first was a fighter pilot who was shot down almost immediately after they married, and her second had financial bad dealings and killed himself when he was caught.

Something that comes up here as well as in some other Christie books is the idea that some people are much more suited for war than peace, and a heroic ace may find himself adrift in peacetime. Her autobiography mentions that she knew a number of people like this - including her brother, who wasn't notably heroic but was certainly better suited for war than peace; he wasn't notably heroic, but he performed fine when there was a war, and was a disaster when there wasn't. I remembered that theme of hers when I read Manfred von Richthofen's autobiography - he seemed extraordinarily well-suited for war, but not for peace unless he could do nothing but hunt and play sports.

The murder victim turns out to be a terrible person with plenty of money and a somewhat complex will, so almost everyone has a motive. Family history seems relevant, up until the point when Miss Marple shows up and points out the significance of the pocket full of rye...

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CHRISTIE SCALE: Some mild classism and ableism, I think? Nothing egregious enough for me to remember specifically.

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My Darkest Prayer, by S. A. Cosby

There is no safety. Just downtime between tragedies.

This is Shawn Cosby's first novel, which was reissued once he got famous on the strength of his next two books. It's very enjoyable in its own right, but compared to his later books you can see how he grew as a writer. It largely centers around a funeral home, which Cosby used to work at and which his wife still does. It's a terrific setting but I'd be curious to see how he'd handle it now.

Walt could prepare a body so well you would think the person was going to hop out of the casket and hit the club in his new suit.

The story is classic pulp noir. Nathan Waymaker, a biracial Marine veteran who works at his cousin's funeral home in a small Virginia town and does a little vigilante justice on the side, is approached after a local preacher dies under suspicious circumstances. The cops don't seem interested in finding out what happened; could Nathan look into it?

Her false eyelashes could probably trap a fly.

Needless to say, the case turns out to be much more complicated and dangerous than he imagined when he agreed. Porn stars, hired killers, crooked cops, drug lords, politicians, and hit men share space with church ladies, morticians, and bakers, and an act of revenge Nathan committed years ago is always lurking in the background.

It was a southern thing. A holdover from our more genteel roots. You know, when we weren't whipping runaway slaves.

Cosby's prose is pure joy. It's less polished and consistent here than in his later books, but still a joy. As he says in the very charming intro, My Darkest Prayer is about love, revenge, and the price of violence. It's also about living in the sort of small Southern town where everyone knows everyone, and how race is one of the things that divides people but not the only thing. The characters are vivid, and there's some excellent action sequences.

If this was it, I was going down with somebody's eyeball hanging off my thumb.

But mostly I have got to talk about Nathan Waymaker. He is 6'4" and canonically looks like Dwayne Johnson, has a big dick, can kick the ass of multiple armed men with his bare hands, has had sex with virtually every pretty woman in the entire town, is so witty that other characters repeatedly remark on it, has a tattoo of BAM (for Bad Ass Motherfucker), and is so brave that the most terrifying criminal in the area is impressed and his henchman says he has brass balls. He has sex with a porn star, he has an extremely loyal friend who is a professional killer and will drop everything and come if Nathan calls, and he has a very cool car.

"In a fair fight, I'd break both your arms. Throwing you through that window was an act of mercy," I said quietly.

You can see a lot of the themes and skills that are even better in Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears appearing in this book is a bit rougher form, but you can also see some things that Cosby dropped, much to the benefit of those books: a lot of male gazeyness and Marty Stu. His later protagonists are also skilled and funny and badass, but in a much less OTT way.

I hopped in the shower and washed the smell of liquor and questionable choices off my skin.

I listened to the audio by Adam Lazarre-White, and I highly recommend it. He has a voice like bourbon and honey.

Content notes: violence, depictions of racism, discussion of child sexual abuse.

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British snacks and rationing during and post-WWII

Here's some useful links for snacks and sweets in the WWII through post-war periods.

Sweets available during WW II

More on WWII sweets . Really useful rundown toward the bottom of the page.

A shop selling sweets of the era. I would look up the sweets individually to check on what was and wasn't available when, but a lot of the listed sweets are WWII era. This will show you what they actually look like.

Food rationing in WWII

End of rationing in 1954. Mentions popular cakes at the time.

History of flavored crisps

If you have any knowledge or memory of these matters, please chime in! Particularly interested in what they actually taste like as they are mostly not available in the US.

Also feel free to comment or speculate on what the characters would have eaten, enjoyed, or not enjoyed in this period. We know Frecks loves sweets and chocolate; is there any evidence for Algy being a snack fiend, or is that just my headcanon?

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A Troll in Passing, by Stephen Krensky

A short, sweet children's book about Morgan, a young misfit troll who can't decide on an occupation, and his troll community that has strained relations with the nearby human community - a situation not helped by the recognized troll occupation of "foraging" (stealing from humans).

It's a bit predictable and it lacks the intricate farce plotting of some of Krensky's books for slightly older kids, but it's fun and has a number of pleasing touches, like troll gender equality (Morgan's mom is a forager) and fairytales seen from the point of view of the trolls. (Princesses: the best at untangling the knots in troll hair.)

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Biggles Bingo: Nerves

I have a new Biggles story for my bingo card. In Time, for "Nerves." 5163 words.

Accidental time travel allows Erich von Stalhein to meet Biggles before Biggles Flies East.

Previous squares:

From Ashes. 1914 words. Erich von Stalhein is put before a firing squad. Prompts: Stood up in front of a firing squad; Daring rescue.

Imprisoned in a towerWater landingSearching for lost friend(s)Undercover with the enemyCursed by pirate treasureLost in the desertStood up in front of a firing squadSnakes on a planeDaring rescueGunshot woundMalariaNervesFREE SPACENightmares about war traumaDinner invitationsA mysterious poisonSleeping togetherA quiet holiday for shattered nervesCar crash in a high-speed chaseStaked out for antsLost in a blizzardIslandsGratuitous TowserLooking great on a horseGiant squid

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They Do It With Mirrors, by Agatha Christie

Modesty forbade Miss Marple to reply that she was, by now, quite at home with murder.

An old friend of Miss Marple is worried about her younger sister, who has married a man who runs a home/reform school for juvenile delinquents, and wants Miss Marple to investigate. The friend rather nervously suggests asking her sister to invite Miss Marple for a visit as she's poor, proud, and needs a rest; to her relief, Miss Marple is completely fine with both being thought a charity case and going under false pretenses, if a friend thinks it's necessary.

This book combines an intricate family saga with the juvenile delinquent home setting to pleasing effect. It's not one of my very favorites but it's a great setting and a very fair mystery with a satisfying solution. This one is clearly set post-WW2, when the country was just starting to economically recover. One of the characters is an American pilot who married a young English/Italian woman whose Italian side of the family got in trouble for being fascists.

The mirrors are not literal, but refer to the idea of a stage magician tricking the audience. Amateur and professional theatrics play a minor role, and misdirection by murderer plays a major one.

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Christie scale: MEDIUM-HIGH levels of ableism (mental illness) and attitudes about juvenile delinquents, but surprisingly less endorsed by the author than I'd initially assumed; different characters have different opinions, and the juvenile delinquents we meet are fairly sympathetic and likable.

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Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory, by Sarah Polley

These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven't told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way than they did in childhood, they became lighter and easier to carry.

A memoir in the form of six essays on various aspects of memory, trauma, and the body, very well-written. Polley was a Canadian child actor who grew up to be a director, a mother, and a political activist. You don't need to be at all familiar with Sarah Polley's other work to read this; she explains all the necessary context. It works well as a whole and should be read in order, but I did have specific essays that were my favorites.

I listened to this on audio, read by Polley, and I recommend that. She's an unsurprisingly excellent reader, does voices for characters, and made me laugh out loud at the two essays that have funny scenes - probably not coincidentally, those were two of my three favorites, "High Risk" (about the her high-risk pregnancy with her first child) and "Run Towards the Danger" (about a concussion and her recovery from it.) The third was "Mad Genius," about her hellish experience acting in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen as a child.

"Mad Genius" is harrowing on so many levels. Polley was nine when she acted in the movie. She worked for twelve or thirteen hours a day - why is that unacceptable for a child in a factory, but fine if it's a movie set? She was put in some situations that were genuinely dangerous, and some that maybe weren't but terrified her, and no way to tell the difference. (I kept thinking of the three child actors who were killed on the set of The Twilight Zone - the Movie with no consequences to those who were responsible.) She had to act when she was sick.

And all of this in service to the genius of Terry Gilliam, who not only gets away with exploiting and endangering a child because he's a genius, but who is seen as even more of a genius the more irrational and childish he acts. As Polley points out, this only works for white men. Women and people of color who act like lunatics on the set and are awful to their crew get immediately drummed out of the business. You don't have to be an enormous asshole to make art, so why do we elevate white male assholes above literally everyone else?

But the essay doesn't stop with the expose. It goes on to interrogate Polley's memories, her tendency to placate people who abused her, and the way her understanding of what happened and what it meant changed over time. This is typical of the essays in this intense, fiercely intelligent book. Polley is very willing to dig deep into events and their meanings; I kept thinking an essay was over, only for her to go further or look at the event from another angle.

It convinced me that child labor is illegal for a reason and the entertainment industry shouldn't be an exception. Polley says that the only two former child actors she knows who weren't drastically fucked up by the experience came from such abusive homes that being in an exploitative work environment was actually an improvement, and I believe her. I'm no longer convinced that the artistic benefit of movies, television, and films to have children in them is worth the harm done to the actual children doing the labor.

Her account of being famous as a child had weird resonance for me. I was famous as a child within an extremely small in-group, and had several of the same bizarre experiences, such as adults angrily telling me that they met me as a child fifteen years ago and I was rude to them.

But the book isn't all darkness. Her accounts of becoming a parent and remembering her mother are very beautiful and loving, and some essays have some extremely funny scenes. Unexpectedly, "High Risk" is the funniest. I literally burst out laughing at her account of a roomful of angry, hungry expectant mothers with gestational diabetes going berserk on a hapless nutritionist.

I recommend this memoir if you're interested in trauma and memory, parent-child relationships, mind-body issues, and/or the darker side of the entertainment industry.

Content notes: Exploitative and dangerous child labor as an actor, mother dies of cancer, lots of medical trauma, a miscarriage, a high-risk pregnancy (but her baby is fine!), rape (in "The Woman Who Stayed Silent"), abuse of women by the legal system.

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The Promised Kittens!

Thank you all SO MUCH for your help! The fixing costs are covered plus a little left over for food. Their names are Felipe, Fine, Picazo, Patricia, and Teodora.

Click to enlarge.

Here they are as kittens:

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Here's their mama:

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Here they are all grown up and ready to be fixed:

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Help me get some cats fixed?

The woman who gave me Alex and Erin (pictured) has adopted a mama cat and the five kittens she lugged in. I promised a while back to help her pay to get all six of them fixed. She just now hit me up, in the same month that my laptop, car, washing machine, and shower required expensive repairs.

If anyone would like to help me cover the stray cat expenses, my PayPal is Rphoenix2@hotmail.com. (NOT gmail.) If there's any excess, I'll pass it on to her for cat food. She now has eleven cats.

I will send cute kitten pics to anyone who will help me put with this.

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