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What Are You Reading / Reviews - January thru June 2023
The Kennedy Rifle by J.K Brandon
3 ★
Firearms and ballistics expert, Michael Cole, has spent years researching the assassination of JFK. His father was also shot on the Grassy Knoll that day and Michael believes there was a second assassin. When Kate Marlowe shows up claiming that she know where the rifle that killed Kennedy is, Michael jumps at the chance to prove his story.
This was a very interesting story with a lot of information. The author did some good research and I like how he used and twisted the Kennedy conspiracy theories. There was also quite a bit of firearms information throughout. Not much of it made a lick of sense to me, but it was interesting. The only issue I had with the story was the abrupt ending. The reader gets many questions answered, but it just ends with Michael walking away from the idea. I guess I just felt like something was missing.
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The Heart Goes Last – Margaret Atwood – 4****
In a country facing economic and social collapse, Stan and Charmaine struggle to hold onto their love and their marriage. Damn but Atwood is a fine writer! I love how she shows us this young couple , their dreams and ambitions revealed through their actions. What IS love? Is it passion and excitement? Is it devotion and sacrifice without thought to self? Can we choose whom and how to love, or is it an emotion so powerful that we are helpless in its grasp, destined to follow the path laid out before us?
LINK to my full review
Claude Lévi-Strauss,
The Naked Man
[1971, tr. 1981] 746 pagesThe fourth and last volume of Mythologiques, The Naked Man concentrates primarily on the mythology of the Native American populations in the area of Oregon and Washington, with some analogies to the Plains Indians and other parts of North America, and of course compares them with the South American myths from the first two volumes. Among the sets of myths he discusses are the "Loon Woman" group, the "Lewd Grandmother" group, and the group concerning the war between the earth and sky people. He considers all the groups of North and South American myths to be a set of transformations of "One Myth" (the title of the penultimate chapter.) The final chapter answers criticisms by (unfortunately unnamed) "philosophers" and then becomes a long digression giving a somewhat odd theory of music. There is an index of all the myths referred to in all four volumes, by the tribes they belong to (about 750 myths and well over a thousand variants.) These four volumes are rather difficult and make a huge demand on the memory, but are vital for understanding the structuralist project (and remember that the "postmodernists" are also called the "post-structualists".)
Lethal (Lee Coburn #1) by Sandra Brown
4 ★
Lee Coburn is on the run after a mass shooting at his place of employment. He should get as far away as possible, but has a stop to make first. Honor Gillette’s deceased cop husband has information Coburn needs, so he must stop there and try to retrieve it. Coburn and Honor are now on the run together to find the truth while being pursued by corrupt people who have sworn to protect people.
This is the first book I’ve read by Sandra Brown and I was very pleased. The story flows nicely and has so many twists and turns that I was unable to put it down at times. The ending was a true shocker and I loved it.
A story about corrupt cops in a small town isn’t new, but this story has great characters and a very interesting plot. Lee Coburn is a dangerous man, but he has a soft spot and I loved how Honor’s daughter helped the reader see that. The FBI agent, Tom VanAllen, is probably the character I felt the most sympathy for. He was not very good at his job, but he tried. He also had a lot going on at home with his disabled son that hurt my heart for him.
Overall, a good book that keeps the reader intrigued. I would a preferred a slightly different ending in the epilogue, but it really didn’t hurt the story.
Naguib Mahfouz,
Morning and Evening Talk
[1987, tr. 2007] 195 pagesOne of Mahfouz' later novels and probably his most experimental (although in a sense also the most traditional, since it is modeled after the mediaeval Arab genre of the biographical dictionary), the book consists of sixty-seven short sketches of characters, in alphabetical order by their first names; of course he did something very similar in his 1971 book Mirrors, but in that book the characters were unconnected and taken seemingly randomly from all walks of life, illustrating the various religious, political and social divisions of the country, while in this book they are all related and interconnected making it a novel of a very unusual kind. The order taken from the Arabic alphabet makes the novel completely non-chronological and it seems random, although of course Mahfouz named the characters to put them in the order he intended. The translator's afterword compares it very aptly to a jigsaw puzzle which the reader has to try to assemble. At first, when I came across some two dozen names in the first two or three pages, I thought I would never be able to remember who was who or follow what was happening, but the repetition of the genealogical data at the beginning of each sketch, together with the Egyptian naming convention which is forename, father's name, grandfather's name, made all the characters ultimately fall into place.
One problem was that there is an almost total lack of explicit dates, and it was hard for me to fit the various events into any coherent chronology.
The actual chronological beginning of the novel is given in the sketch of Yazid al-Misri, which is found on the very last page. Yazid, a pharmacist from Alexandria, moves to Cairo two days before Napoleon's invasion, thus in 1798. He becomes friends with two other men, Ata al-Murakibi who works for a merchant and eventually marries his boss's daughter, and Shaykh al-Qalyubi, a teacher at the religious al-Azhar University. Yazid has two sons, Aziz and Dawud. Aziz marries Ata's daughter Ni'ma and has two sons, Amr and Surur, and a daughter Rashwana. Dawud is educated in France and becomes a doctor, and a Pasha (a title of nobility). After Ata's first wife (Ni'ma's mother) dies, he marries an extremly rich widow and has two sons, Ahmad and Mahmud. Thus there are three families, the Dawud family which is "noble" and highly educated, the al-Murakibi family which is nouveau-rich, and the Aziz family which is "neither rich nor poor". Amr marries the granddaughter of Shaykh al-Qalyubi, Radia, a mystic who is one of the central figures in the novel, and they have many children, including two sons who marry into the Dawud family; Surur, on the other hand, has an abrasive personality and his family become the "poor relations" of the others. The book also has sketches of their children and grandchildren and their husbands and wives, whom I will not try to list. Of course we learn all this completely out of order and in bits and pieces.
While the family history, the marriages, deaths, divorces and so forth, are the foreground of the novel, the background is of course the history of modern Egypt from 1798 to the 1980's, as the various characters participate in, ignore, or are affected by the British occupation, the Urabi revolution, the 1919 revolution and the protectorate, the July 5 revolution and Nasser, the Tripartite Agression (a.k.a. the Suez Crisis), the wars with Israel, and the rise and fall of Sadat. A very complex tapestry which I ultimately enjoyed but perhaps not Mahfouz' most successful experiment.
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The Coyotes of Carthage – Steven Wright – 4****
Andre Ross has one more shot to salvage his career as a hotshot political consultant. Sent to a backwater community in South Carolina, he’s tasked with passing an initiative that no one has even considered. I found this riveting and informative. I could not help but think of our current political climate and the way the populace is manipulated by the message.
LINK to my full review
A. Zee,
On Gravity: A Brief Tour of a Weighty Subject
[2018] 181 pagesZee states in the Preface that he intended this book as a bridge between popularizations (such as his own An Old Man's Toy) and textbooks (such as his own Einstein Gravity in a Nutshell), neither of which I have read, so I expected something similar to Leonard Susskind's Theoretical Minimum series, but it was not at that level. The first half was a fairly low-level, virtually math-free popularization of waves, electromagnetism, the idea of a field, and special relativity; the book then jumps to the concept of action and becomes filled with integrals and other equations which I probably wouldn't have understood without having read the Susskind books earlier (although despite the equations, it remains basically a qualitative though high-level popularization.) What links the two halves is the discovery and explanation of gravity waves. Some of the discussion was useful, such as the explanation of how the differential, laws-of-force approach to physics we all learned in high school or early undergraduate physics courses and the least action approach used here (and in more depth in the Susskind books) are related, and why the latter is preferred by people doing advanced physics. The book is very up-to-date, if somewhat conservative. On the negative side, like many popularizers he tries too hard to be funny.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson and James Trefil, Cosmic Queries: StarTalk
's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going
[2021] 309 pagesIn the tradition of the Sagan and Druyon Cosmos books (Tyson hosted the related TV show for a time) and the last book I read by Brian Greene, this is a simple, non-mathematical summary of what we know or reasonably suspect about the origin and history of the universe. It is very clear and well-organized and is the book I will now recommend to high-school students and others who have no scientific or mathematical background and want to get a quick overview of the current state of physics and astronomy. As with most scientists, the authors are not particularly good at the history of science, but that is not a major part of the book.
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Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt – 4****
Van Pelt weaves disparate characters into a tapestry of love, forgiveness and second chances. The story is tender and heart-warming and charming, if a little unbelievable. I was completely captured by it and loved every minute I spent with them. The ending is pretty perfect. This is a strong debut and I eagerly await the author’s next effort!
LINK to my full review
Free Fall (Sisterhood #7) by Fern Michaels
5 ★
It is Yoko Akia’s turn for revenge and payback. Her mom was only 15 years old when she met a wealthy man who promised her a good life, but who ended up taking advantage of her and then turning her over to a terrifying life where she ends up dying after Yoko is born. This will not be an easy mission though. They wealthy man is a much loved movie star.
The activities that Mr. Perfect Movie Star is involved with are horrible. The author doesn’t go into a whole lot of detail, but she girls reactions to what Charles gives them is enough to figure it out. I would say that he deserved what he got, but I feel like the Sisterhood went a little overboard with it (superglue? really?). The annoying reporters are back and the Sisterhood knows they are watching them. They really should have listened to Charles. I actually feel like they may have been able to bring the reporters in to help out the movie star. The two of them want to write an article worthy of winning the Pulitzer Prize and this would have been a good one for them.
Charles has prepared for a possible downfall and it’s a good thing he did. I like how it ended and I look forward to seeing how they function out of their new accommodations.
Laura Mersini-Houghton,
Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond
[2022] 216 pagesBefore the Big Bang is a memoir of the Albanian-born theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton's life and the research which led to her particular theory of the multiverse. Unfortunately, the title suggests it is an account of the science rather than a memoir, but leaving that aside, thIs is the kind of book we wish we had by many important scientists such as Newton or Einstein, explaining the personal experiences and thought processes that led to their theories. The question is, is Mersini-Houghton or her theory sufficiently important to make the personal origins of her thought interesting? The description on the back flap (don't authors write these themselves?) says she "is one of the world's leading experts on the multiverse and the origins of the universe." One of the blurbs on the back cover (by one of her own close collaborators) calls her "one of the world's most renowned cosmologists". She arrived at her theory of the multiverse (derived by considering the wave-equation of a particle over the string-theory "landscape") while drinking coffee in 2004, and she claims that it was empirically confirmed by the measurements of the variations of the Cosmic Microwave Background in 2014-2016. While she may somewhat exaggerate the importance of her "discovery", if her theory is correct and has been or could be verified it would indeed be of extreme importance in the history of science. On the other hand, I have read many scientific popularizations on cosmology (including several which concentrate heavily on multiverse theories) written after 2004 and even after 2016 and I do not recall ever seeing her name mentioned before I ran across this book on the new book rack at the library; if it was, it was not sufficiently emphasized that I remember it.
She attributes the supposed "resistance" of scientists to accept the multiverse to a psychological preference for traditional ideas, if not an actual fear of losing their positions for backing a new paradigm, and she frequently refers to the career shift of Hugh Everett III as an example of "persecution" for prescient ideas. Now I can understand her paranoia given her experience growing up in Stalinist Albania (she refers to the "one universe" tradition as a "party line") but for me this is a major red flag. In any case, cosmology from everything I have read seems to be a field which is very open to speculation if mathematically expressed (perhaps too much so) and the idea of a multiverse appears to have been considered legitimate as a speculation even before she "discovered" it. So I decided to look into her. A google search on her name came up with reviews of this book in newspapers, a few hits from the University of North Carolina website (she is a professor at UNC Chapel-Hill) and a Wikipedia article. So at least she is important enough to have a Wikipedia article? When I clicked on that I found a very short page with a very long "talk page", mainly arguing about whether she was important enough to have an article. I also learned from following up the references there that she made another major "discovery" (not mentioned in her memoir) in 2010: Black holes cannot exist, because Hawking radiation would prevent them from forming in the first place. I also found a reply by a well-known scientist explaining that she totally misunderstood the idea of Hawking radiation and negative energy, that Hawking radiation cannot exist until after the event horizon has come into existence, and that in any case we know that Black holes do exist because we have found them. With regard to her multiverse theory, there appears to be disagreement about whether her predictions were confirmed, refuted, or just so vague it doesn't really matter.
So what is her theory? It is based on combining string-theory and the idea of the string-theory "landscape" (both speculative) with a version of Everett's Multiple World Interpretation of quantum theory (very speculative). It assumes that there was an original inflaton particle and considers the wave equation of that particle over the "landscape" of possible energy levels (within string theory) to attempt to decide which levels would (and therefore did, if Everett was right) give rise to inflation into real universes. After some mathematical calculations (not included in this memoir, which has no math) she decides that contrary to what was previously believed the decoherence of quantum theory would make the most energetic rather than the least energetic the most probable to result in real universes, and thus our universe which had a high-energy beginning is not highly improbable or specially fine-tuned but a fairly usual one. She also claims that the original coherence (entanglement) between the infant universes would leave traces in our universe, which would be detected in the variations of the CMB (the basis of her claim that her theory has been confirmed). In order to convince us that this is the only explanation of our universe, she argues against an alternative view that our universe is indeed improbable or special, but since there are bound to be a few special cases in an infinite or very large number of possible universes (the same "landscape") it is not surprising that we live in a universe in which life could form (the "anthropic principle"). Since the anthropic principle is a simple, philosophical idea which doesn't depend on any complex physics, I have no hesitation in saying that she completely misunderstands it. It is an explanation of why we would live in an unusual universe, not as she seems to think a teleological argument for which universes should exist. For instance, she says that since our universe will eventually end and all life will become extinct, the anthropic principle would not result in our universe; obviously the anthropic principle only depends on our existing now, not forever, and it doesn't result in any particular universe.
The bottom line is that I will add her theory to the collection of interesting speculative possibilities which I am not knowledgeable enough in physics to judge between. If it turns out that her theory is in fact somehow confirmed or accepted by most cosmologists, this book will become must reading, but for now it is probably not worth the effort except for total physics geeks.
Mod
Angel With Two Faces – Nicola Upson – 3***
Book two in the mystery series featuring Josephine Tey and Detective Inspector Archie Penrose. Tey was a real person, and Upson uses elements of her life as well as historical events of the mid 1930s as jumping off points for these mysteries. As mysteries go, this was somewhat slow to get started. The action picks up once the murder happens (on page 200). It is more of a psychological drama than anything else. I’m willing to continue the series, but I hope the action picks up.
LINK to my full review
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A Single Thread – Tracy Chevalier – 3***
I have read and greatly enjoyed other works by Chevalier, so was looking forward to it. But I come away a little disappointed. I really wanted to know more about the cathedral, its history, and the work of the broderers. I really liked Violet, and several of the women she came to know and befriend. Her landlady was a peach, and Miss Pesel was a treasure. I thought Chevalier treated Violet’s relationship with Arthur fairly, and realistically. But I could have done without the romance.
LINK to my full review
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Rich People Problems – Kevin Kwan – 3***
Book three (and I hope the final installment) in the story of the uber wealthy Singaporean Young family. There’s plenty of drama, what with divorces, engagements, sex video scandals, stepchildren misbehaving, mega efforts to one-up each other, extravagant parties, and even plastic surgery for a pet fish. Kwan writes these people so over-the-top that it’s hard to relate to any of them. They are shallower that the damp spot on the sidewalk where I splashed a few drops of water. Still, I found it mildly entertaining and it was a fast read.
LINK to my full review
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Murder In Grub Street – Bruce Alexander – 3***
Book two in the Sir John Fielding mystery series. This was much more complicated than the first book, and I admit my attention wandered a bit. There is religious fervor, multiple personalities, professional jealousy, anti-semitism, dreadful conditions of tenement buildings, and a light-fingered imp of a thief to complicate the case. Still, I love the way that Alexander has taken bits and pieces of history and woven them into these mysteries.
LINK to my full review
Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) by Cassandra Clare
5 ★
Cordelia Carstairs and her family have moved to London while her father faces charges for a mission gone wrong. She is excited because she’ll be able to spend more time with her best friend Lucie Herondale and hopefully meet some new friends. Cordelia has been in love with Lucie’s brother, James, since the first day she meet him, but finds that he is promised to another and must keep her feelings secret. When demons, who have been absent from London for many years, show up and start attacking Shadowhunters, Cordelia and her new friends band together to find a cure for the poison they are spreading and stop the master demon.
I do so love this magical world that Cassandra Clare has created. This trilogy comes after The Infernal Devices trilogy and before The Dark Artifices trilogy. The family trees are starting to come together more clearly now and the reader will definitely see resemblances in many of the characters. The Infernal Devices was my favorite trilogy by far and I was excited to get back to the lives of Tessa, Will and Jem. And big surprise…Magnus Bane is back!
What I like about Cassandra Clare’s writing is that the story usually revolves around one central character, but every character ends up playing a pretty big part in the story. Cordelia is the central character, but there is also so much going on with James Herondale that eventually includes Cordelia. There are also a number of characters that make your blood boil. Grace Cartwright Blackthorn is one. I see what she is doing and I wish James and the others did to. I know they will eventually, but it is so irritating (LOL).
Needless to say, I have been hooked into another trilogy by Cassandra Clare and immediately started reading book 2, Chain of Iron. I know I will be very sad when I finished this trilogy, but I have one of her standalone books to read after.
Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer,
Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer
[1983] 227 pagesInanna is a collaboration between the folklorist and storyteller Diane Wolkstein and the noted Sumerologist Samuel North Kramer. Kramer newly translated or re-translated most of the known Sumerian texts relating to Inanna, and Wolkstein then put them into a chronological sequence and somewhat modified them to form a single story, essentially a "re-telling" of the myths. Of course, apart from new discoveries, we have no way of knowing whether the Sumerians thought of these myths in that particular order, or in any order, but the story is compelling enough. Following the texts, there is a general account of Sumerian culture by Kramer (after forty years, somewhat out of date) and a very interesting account of the discovery and reconstruction of the Descent of Inanna from fragments in museums in Istanbul and Philadelphia (from the excavations at Nineveh) and at Yale (from the excavations of Ur), in which Kramer played the major part; a commentary on the myths by Wolkstein; and annotations of the illustrations (mainly cylinder seals) by Elizabeth Williams-Forte. (I could not make out all the details of the illustrations as she describes them, possibly because of the small size and quality of the grayscale images.)
Since I had already read most of these texts in other anthologies, the real interest for me was in the commentary. Reading this book a week and a half after finishing the four volumes of Claude Lévi-Strauss' Mythologiques, I was naturally interested in whether the myths concerning Inanna could be analyzed in a similar way. While Wolkstein's analyses are not explicitly structuralist, she does suggest many oppositions, such as male/female, nature/culture, animal/vegetation, descent/ascent and so forth, which are found in Lévi-Strauss, and discusses "reversals" between them. As well, I couldn't help seeing the Greek myth of Persephone (not mentioned in this book) as an inverse transformation of the myth of Dumuzi, with the exchange of sexes (female Ereshkigal to male Hades, male Dumuzi to female Persephone), of animal and vegetation (Dumuzi the shepherd-king to Persephone the vegetation goddess) and of the seasons (the growing season in Mesopotamia is from autumn to winter with the harvest in spring, while in Greece it goes from spring to summer with the harvest in autumn — although Wolkstein sometimes reverses this, perhaps inadvertently). Wolkstein also identifies various "codes" (she doesn't use the term) such as the agricultural, the sexual, and the astronomical.
In addition to this "structuralist" reading she also emphasizes what I might call a "Jungian" reading in which the descent is a psychological descent into the unconscious mind, with Ereshkigal as the unconscious, dark aspect of Inanna. This was similar to the explanation in Sylvia Peralt's Descent to the Goddess which she mentions in a footnote (and which I read some three decades ago for a college course.) I am not at all sure that this aspect was intended by the Sumerians, although the cross-dressing which was part of Inanna's rituals does seem somewhat "Jungian".
In short, an interesting and worthwhile but not absolutely essential reading for those interested in ancient Sumer.
Bird Box (Bird Box #1) by Josh Malerman
4★
So, I watched this movie a while back with my daughter and really enjoyed it. Who doesn’t like a good Sandra Bullock movie? Anyway, I finally bought the book and read it. I was not disappointed. Although there are differences between the two, like always, they intertwine well. For me, the book was creepier though. I guess because the reader has to envision everything themselves and there were times that I felt like there was someone, or something, behind me. The writing is so good that you get sucked in and start imaging the world that Malorie and the others are living in. It’s a very scary thought. I’m not sure I would be able to keep my eyes closed so much.
The story alternates between the now, Malorie on the river with the kids, and the then, living in the house with Tom and the others. There was never any confusion about what time we were reading about. Malorie does a lot of reminiscing during the trip, but it’s a smooth transition. She is very harsh with the children, but it’s understandable. The story describes how she trained the kids during those first 4 years and I’m just amazed. That took so much patience.
Overall this was an intense story about how a group of strangers come together during a crisis. There is a second book that takes place 12 years later that I look forward to reading soon.
Mod
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J K Rowling – 4****
The seventh, and final, episode in the uber popular Harry Potter series, provides a few surprises and a satisfying ending to the story of the Boy Who Lived vs You Know Who. The series has always been aimed at this confrontation, and some of the scenes were truly frightening. I appreciated the several bits of humor that provided some relief from the seemingly relentless danger. And can I just say that I want one of those evening bags!
LINK to my full review
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Death On the River of Doubt – Samantha Seiple – 3***
Subtitle: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure. This is a children’s middle-grade book detailing the expedition to chart a previously uncharted tributary of the Amazon. To say that this journey was treacherous is an understatement. It’s a great introduction to Roosevelt for the younger set, and it piqued my interest sufficiently that I’m moving Candice Millard’s book on the same episode farther up on my tbr list.
LINK to my full review
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Plantation Shudders – Ellen Byron – 3***
Book one in the Cajun Country cozy mystery series introduces the reader to Maggie Crozat and her family, who run an historic Louisiana plantation as a B&B. This has all the hallmarks of a cozy mystery. A likeable amateur sleuth, romantic tension between the leading lady and the hunky cop, a gaggle of potential suspects, secrets galore, some delicious food and a loveable Basset hound named Gopher. And a few great recipes to whet the appetite.
LINK to my full review
Tippy Toe Murder (Lucy Stone #2) by Leslie Meier
3 ★
Lucy Stone is pregnant with child number 4 and looking forward to her daughters’ dance recital when there is other murder in Tinker’s Cove and also the disappearance of a beloved retired dance instructor. Lucy knows she shouldn’t get involved, but she can’t stop herself when a friend is accused of the murder.
For a cozy mystery, this had a pretty troublesome situation. Just a heads up, trigger warning, this story does contain physical spousal abuse and sexual abuse of a child. There is one part where the perpetrator quickly describes what he has done and it’s disturbing. It is the only scene like that and I am grateful. The physical abuse is multiple times toward a few different women. This is the main reason I gave this a 3 star rating. The story is very heartwarming in many areas and the ballet performance at the end is delightful. I like the small bits of humor throughout the book and how all the ladies stick together. I look forward to reading book 3, Trick or Treat Murder.
Voltaire,
Candide, ou L'optimisme
[1758] 71 pages [in French] Robert Adams, ed., Candide [Norton critical ed. 1966, 2nd ed. 1991] about 165 pages
Having recently finished my French literature projects on Balzac and Merimée, I decided (as a dedicated procrastinator) that before going on to the huge project of reading Victor Hugo I would go back and pick up a few earlier French writers that I had totally or partially skipped. Of course I never skipped Candide, in fact I have read it many times (as well as all of Voltaire's other fiction), but last year I found the Norton critical editions (first and second editions) for a dime each at a used book store, so I put it back on my list. I re-read the text in French, the critical readings from the first edition of the Norton, and the new readings from the second edition. Because of the duplication, the page number is only approximate.
I do not generally get much out of literary criticisms, to be honest, but these books had the advantage that all the readings were from before the vogue of postmodernism and thus deal with the actual text rather than using it as an illustration of some fad critical theory or other; and Candide is probably the most misinterpreted of all the "classics". The usual story which I remember from school is that Pangloss, and initially Candide, were "optimists" in about the sense that the word is used today, seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, until a series of horrible disasters (inspired by the Lisbon earthquake) convinces Candide that the world is actually a terrible place, after which he "drops out" and cultivates his own garden apart from the world. Every part of this (in my opinion) is wrong, and most, though not all, the critical articles here show why it is wrong, although they read the story in somewhat different ways, as is always the case with real literature.
The "optimism" that Voltaire is combatting in this satire is a particular philosophico-theological doctrine about the "problem of evil". He uses the terminology of Leibniz' Theodicy, although he may have been aiming equally at Alexander Pope ("What is, is right") and other authors of his own time. The optimists did not at all deny that there is much evil in the world, from a human perspective; if anything they exaggerate it, so their achievement in justifying it, which is their actual intent, will be all the greater. Their arguments are that there is a chain of cause and effect such that everything that happens is essentially predetermined and cannot be otherwise, and that God created the best of all worlds which were possible, so that any world or chain of events that was different would be worse. They also tried to suggest that what seem to be evils in a human perspective actually have good outcomes if we could see the whole from the perspective of God, and this claim is part of what Voltaire satirizes in Pangloss. Neither Pangloss nor Candide are blind to the evils around them; if they were, they would be figures of farce rather than satire. The problem is that they insist on justifying the evils as necessary and part of the best possible world. As Voltaire says explicitly in many of his letters around this time, the optimist view is really a counsel of despair: nothing could be other than it is, all is for the best ultimately, and the evils will continue happening in the future as they have in the past and the present. "What is, is right." To Voltaire the social activist this kind of fatalism was something that needed to be combatted.
If this is a correct interpretation, it would be absurd for him to end the story with Candide "dropping out" to cultivate his own garden, and that is not what Voltaire says. He says "cultivate your garden", not "your own garden". Rather than giving up and accepting the evils of the world, Candide and the others are trying in their own small way to improve the world. Voltaire uses cultivation as a metaphor for improvement (note that Candide's first impression of El Dorado is that it is cultivated). It is also worth noting that at the time he was finishing Candide, Voltaire had just purchased the estate at Ferny which he intended to turn from an impoverished, backwards area into a prosperous modern farm, not only for its own sake and to improve the lives of the peasantry but also as a model to other landowners in France. This is the meaning of cultivating your garden: as Peter Gay says in one of the selections here, "He [Voltaire] always said demurely that he was only cultivating his garden, but privately he defined his garden as Europe."
It is also true that Voltaire both before and after Candide used arguments which resemble optimism, although without the quietistic implications (I'm following this up with a few of his shorter verse works which were mentioned in the articles and which I have never read); it would be difficult to avoid for someone who, despite his anti-clerical and anti-Christian opinions, believed in God and Providence while denying original sin. He could never bring himself to accept the views of atheists like his occasional correspondent the Baron d'Holbach, which cuts the Gordian knot of the problem of evil by making it natural rather than the fault of an omnipotent and presumably perfectly good Creator (cf. his later story "Jenni"). In a sense, I think Voltaire stands between Rousseau and the Encyclopedie. In any case, Candide is an enjoyable book and the style is superb.
Mod
The Turtle Warrior – Mary Relindes Ellis – 5*****
When James enlists at age seventeen and goes to Vietnam, his nine-year-old brother, Billy, has only the protection of a turtle-shell shield and a wooden sword to keep him from harm. It will be a long and fraught journey to manhood for the sensitive Billy. This is a marvelous debut. There are some horrific scenes in this book, and it is an emotionally difficult read. But the reader who can get through the horror will be rewarded with a hopeful ending.
LINK to my full review
Some short verse works by Voltaire:"Le Mondain" [1736] 11 pages [in French] including also:
Lettre de M. de Melon à Mme. la comtesse de Verrue sur
l’Apologie du luxe [in French]
Défense du Mondain ou l’Apologie du luxe [1737]
[in French]
Sur l’usage de la vie pour répondre aux critiques qu’on
avait faites du Mondain [1770] [in French]
"Sept Discours en vers sur l'homme" [1737] 47 pages [in
French]
"Poème sur la loi naturelle" [1752] 23 pages [in French]
"Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne" [1756] 16 pages [in
French]
"Le Mondain" is a short poem praising luxury as a stimulus to commerce and industry; it got Voltaire into a bit of trouble, the "Défense" got him into more and he briefly went into exile; the much later poem "Sur l'usage de la vie" seems almost like a partial retraction.
The "Sept Discours" are largely versified platitudes, only rarely relieved by flashes of Voltaire's wit. The sixth discourse is the most interesting, because it is Voltaire defending the theory of Leibniz and Pope that this is the best of all possible worlds, which he later satirized in Candide,
The "Poème sur la loi naturelle" is a good statement of Natural Religion, or what we now call Deism. The fourth part on religious tolerance is probably the best. The notes, which make exceptions for Catholicism, are probably tongue-in-cheek for the benefit of the censorship.
The "Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne" is one of Voltaire's most famous writings, although only a few pages. It was written shortly after the 1755 earthquake which almost totally destroyed the city of Lisbon and several cities in North Africa. Anticipating the arguments of Candide more directly, it takes issue with the followers of Leibniz, Shaftsbury, Bolingbroke and Pope, and discusses the issue of the problem of evil, concluding that the solution is beyond human understanding. The later preface denies that he meant Leibniz and Pope themselves, but only those who abused their arguments; as usual in his prefaces and footnotes he backpeddles his real positions.
Aelfric, "Colloquy on the Occupations" [ca. 1000] 26 pages [in Old English]I seldom read, much less review, children's books, but given that this one was written over a thousand years ago, I guess I can make an exception. The target audience would have been young boys, somewhere between seven and eleven, in a monastic school. The text was originally written in Latin at the end of the tenth century as a kind of dialogue for learning to speak that language (think of the A-L-M French or Spanish texts we tried to learn from in Junior High school). Sometime later (early eleventh century) one manuscript was supplied with a loose interlinear translation in Old English. The whole thing was published with a glossary of the Old English in an edition by George Norman Garmonsway in 1939; the Old English translation and the glossary from Garmonsway's book (but not the original Latin text) are available on various websites, and that is what I read. Today the Old English is far more interesting than the Latin anyway, since we have much less available in Old English than in Latin.
The content is in a way very similar to many children's books today. Any public library could probably fill a shelf with books about "people in your neighborhood" with a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, a firefighter, a letter carrier, a policeman, and perhaps some more exotic occupations. Aelfric's selection is a bit different. He begins, naturally, with a monk, since his students will mostly become monks; that's why they are learning Latin. Next is the ploughman, the yrthling, who provides us with food and drink. A modern book might have the farmer; but there were no farmers in Aelfric's England, just farmworkers who cultivated the land for the feudal nobility. Then we get the shepherd, the oxherd, the hunter (still a real occupation then, unlike today), the fisherman, the fowler (someone who hunts birds), the merchant trader, the shoemaker (and general leatherworker), the salter, the baker, and the cook, all treated with a bit of humor but giving us a glimpse of the daily functioning of the Anglo-Saxon economy a half-century before the Norman Conquest. We then get the "wise counselor" who starts a discussion about the importance of the crafts which becomes an argument introducing new characters such as the smith until the counselor gives us a short sermon on each person following their own craft. The children complain that the dialogue is becoming too deep for them, and it ends with the daily life of the students, mostly consisting in singing the liturgical offices.
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Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna – Alda P Dobbs – 4****
Set during the Mexican Revolution of 1913, this novel is based on the author’s family history. Thirteen-year-old Petra is the de facto head of her household once her father is conscripted into the Mexican Army. Force to flee when their village is burned, Petra leads her grandmother, younger sister and baby brother across the desert towards freedom. A marvelous story of courage in the face of adversity.
LINK to my full review
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Inheritance: A Visual Poem – Elizabeth Acevedo – 4****
“Some people tell me to ‘fix’ my hair And by fix, they mean straighten”
A wonderful essay told in verse of the Afro-Latinidad experience, when even other Dominicans have “swallowed amnesia” because “it is easier” than living ”in this reality.” In this short work she addresses skin tone, slavery, relationships, immigration, prejudice, power and self-worth.
“all I can reply is you can’t fix what was never broken.”
LINK to my full review
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The House on Mango Street – Sandra Cisneros – 5*****
This is the story of Esperanza Cordero who lives in a poor section of Chicago and struggles to stay in school. At the time it was published there were few coming-of-age stories that portrayed people of color and the challenges of living in an inner city. Cisneros began her writing career as a poet and those roots clearly show in the book. The short chapters are vignettes of Esperanza’s life. She is like any ‘tween’ - eager and curious and sad and confused and sassy and happy and hopeful.
LINK to my full review
Gregory Bateson,
Steps to an Ecology of Mind
[1972] 517 pagesGregory Bateson was at various times in his life a researcher into anthropology, psychiatry, biology, and cybernetics. Steps to an Ecology of Mind is an anthology of his writings in all of those fields, arranged in more or less chronological order. It begins with a series of what he calls "Metalogues", short (pehaps imaginary) dialogues with his then young daughter on questions of method and epistemology, which are probably the best part of the book. It then presents a selection of scholarly articles in each of the four fields mentioned above, and concludes with some articles on environmental politics.
Bateson's reputation is somewhat of a paradox. On the one hand, he is obviously brilliant, and made real contributions to all of the fields mentioned, including the ideas of schismogenesis, the "double bind", "deutero-learning" and more generally the idea of a hierarchy of types of learning, and applications of communications theory to animal behavior. On the other hand, he is often considered to be on the fringes of real science, a somewhat dubious character. Partly, this can be explained by the fact that in his later years he was influenced by and involved with the "counterculture" of the sixties, criticizing the traditional epistemology of the sciences and mixing his theories of cybernetics with God and mind, not to mention his talking about his experiences with psychedelic drugs. Roughly the last 15% of this book borders on nonsense, although always with some compensating insight. This is especially noticeable in the articles on environmental politics (although this may be a bit unfair to Bateson, since most academics who write on politics have a good percentage of nonsense.)
I think the problem goes a bit deeper. It is obvious following the articles in chronological order that he begins with an idea like schismogenesis or the double bind, described in concrete terms and with a restricted area of application. Then from one article to the next, the idea becomes more abstract and is applied, often metaphorically, to more and more disparate contexts, until it ends up as a general explanatory principal which purports to explain a wide swath of phenomena — and of course it really doesn't.
This is a book which is full of stimulating and suggestive ideas, but one which needs to be read very, very critically.
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The Last Midwife – Sandra Dallas – 3.5***
Good historical fiction set in 1880s Colorado mining town. I was interested in the birthing stories, and in the ways in which Gracy worked among both the men and women of the community. She’s a marvelously strong woman, and over the course of the novel we learn a few of her own heartaches and how she’s overcome and persevered. There were times when I thought the whole murder mystery was a bit too contrived, but it certainly held my attention.
LINK to my full review
Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2) by Cassandra Clare
5 ★
Nothing is going right for Cordelia Carstairs. She should be the happiest person alive being married to James Herondale, but their marriage is one of convenience and she knows he loves another. Her father is home, but now that she knows the real reason behind his “illness” the homecoming isn’t very happy. To top it all off, Cortana is burning her hand every time she uses it and there is serial hunter on the loose killing Shadowhunters.
There is so much going on in this book that one would think it would be hard to keep track of everything, but the author separates everything very well and keeps the book flowing through all the scene changes and different character narratives. We don’t really learn anything new about anyone in this book except for Grace and her back story. Well, we also learned why Matthew drinks so much. Hopefully that issue will get resolved in book 3. Matthew is a very haunted character, but he has a good heart and loves his friends tremendously. His loyalty to them is unwavering.
Sometimes is infuriating when the characters in a book do not see the whole picture like the reader does. I had to remind myself of this many times throughout the book. I know what Grace is up to and I was getting frustrated that James, Cordelia and Matthew could not put two and two together with Grace and the bracelet. They knew James acted different the first time the bracelet was removed.
James’ grandfather, Belial, makes another appearance and brings one of his brothers with him. There is also a surprise appearance by one of his enemies. She has tricked Cordelia and her friends many times throughout the book and when it all comes to light they all wonder how they missed it.
The ending was intense and the events that occurred after were slightly unexpected, but also needed. My favorite trilogy by this author is The Infernal Devices, so I absolutely love every scene in this series that involves Will, Tessa and Jem.
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The Paris Hours – Alex George – 3.5***
Paris 1927. Home to Josephine Baker, Maurice Ravel, Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust. But in addition to the many famous “lost generation” members, the City of Light was also home to many who led much quieter lives. George tells the story of four such souls, whose stories converge over the course of one day and night in Paris. George deftly handled these different storylines to produce a cohesive tale. Despite the constant change in point of view, I never lost interest in where it was going. The connections between the characters really didn’t gel until the last couple of chapters, and the ending was a nice surprise.
LINK to my full review
Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, edd.,
The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
[1986] 298 pagesThis book in the Cambridge Companion series consists of fifteen chapters by different scholars covering various aspects of Old English literature. By Old English literature, it understands literature written in Old English rather than literature written by Anglo-Saxon authors; with the partial exception of the last two chapters, writings in Latin are not covered except incidentally as sources or comparisons with the writings in the vernacular. The first two chapters are preliminary, on "Anglo-Saxon society and its literature" and "The Old English language"; the third and fourth are general, "The nature of Old English verse" and "The nature of Old English prose". Following chapters deal with various themes in the literature: Germanic legend, heroic values and Christian ethics, pagan survivals and popular beliefs, fatalism and the millenium, perspectives of transience and perspectives of eternity, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the saintly life and the world of learning. Beowulf gets its own chapter. While the book covers both prose and poetry, most of the chapters emphasize the verse works.
Having read most of the extant Old English poetry and at least some of the prose (including the translations of Alfred the Great and his court, and most recently the Blickling Homilies) I found the book very interesting and informative.
The Witness by Sandra Brown
4 ★
When Kendall Deaton discovers the horrifying town secret in the small town of Prosper, South Carolina, and that her husband is involved, she flees to protect herself and her unborn child. He attempts to get the FBI involves fails, so you goes into hiding. One year later the FBI is knocking on her door. They have now discovered the secret as well and they need her to testify. An unfortunate series of events has Kendall running for her life again, but now she and her child have an injured tag-a-long.
This was a very interesting story with just the right amount of suspense, mystery and romance. The author keeps many details hidden so that the reader can attempt to figure things out. There aren’t too many surprises, but the one at the end regarding Kendall had me awe struck. It was an excellent twist.
The secret in Prosper is quite despicable and hateful. I was actually disgusted by it. Thankfully the violence does not last long and it is not mentioned in detail again.
My absolute favorite character in this book is Kendall’s best friend, Ricki Sue Robb. She is boisterous, funny, loving, and not afraid to speak her mind. She added the perfect amount of humor to the story.
Overall, it was an interesting read with a “no questions left unanswered” ending.
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The Cat Who Played Post Office – Lilian Jackson Braun – 3***
Another charming episode in the life of journalist James Qwilleran (known simply as Qwill) and his precocious Siamese, Koko. I like the series because I like Qwill. His work as a journalist gives him a reason to poke his nose in where it doesn’t belong. If he doesn’t pick up on the significance of a clue, well trust that Koko will point him in the right direction with a yip, yowl or repeated scratching at a seemingly ordinary box.
LINK to my full review
New World: Rising (New World #1) by Jennifer Wilson
4 ★
In Tartarus, the city outside of the wall that guards The Sanctuary, all is in chaos. The city is home to a number of different tribes that have no problem with violence and murder to get what they want and keep what they have. Phoenix has been surviving in this world since the death of her parents 11 years ago. When she is injured trying to save a young girl she finds out that there is another part of Tartarus she knew nothing about.
This story is very fast paced and a quick read. Phoenix is a strong female character that, at times, is a bit too hard on herself. She has not known true friendship or love in quite some time, so when she finds herself in that situation she does not know how to respond. She is extremely resourceful and intelligent. When the reader first meets her you know that she survives by looking out for herself only. It was a bit of a surprise when she saved the little girl she saw was in trouble.
Some of the story is pretty predictable, like the gentleman who catches her eye and his role in her rescue, but the characters are good and the world building was vivid. I’m hoping book 2 will give some more insight into her past.
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The Cold Millions – Jess Walters – 4****
This novel focuses on the two Dolan brothers: sixteen-year-old Rye and his older brother Gig. The story is told from multiple characters’ points of view, and some scenes are related more than once, giving the reader additional insight as the point of view changes in the same scenario. Based on actual events in 1909 Spokane, Washington, at the novel’s core is a class struggle that is reminiscent of what America is undergoing now just over a hundred years later. Walter is a masterful storyteller and I was engaged and interested from beginning to end.
LINK to my full review
Pablo Neruda,
Cien sonetos de amor
[1959] 126 pages [in Spanish]Last year I read and reviewed the Veinte poemas de amor, an early work by the young Neruda. The Cien sonetos de amor were written thirty-five years later by a more mature poet, and addressed to Mathilde Urrutia Cerda, who seven years later became his third and last wife. I liked them better, although the earlier work was also good. They are much more direct than the earlier, somewhat overwrought metaphysical poetry; most identify Mathilde with some aspect of nature, especially of the south of Chile where both Neruda and Mathilde originated. The book is divided into four parts, Mañana, Mediodia, Tarde and Noche (Morning, Midday, Afternoon and Night). The last few poems are looking forward to what would happen to their love after his death, although in fact he lived with Mathilde another fourteen years, until he was (probably) murdered by the Pinochet regime.
I'm not sure whether these are technically sonnets; they are all in fourteen lines (divided 4, 4, 3 and 3) but they are not rhymed, which I think is part of the definition.
Voltaire,
Traité sur la Tolérance
[1763] 213 pages [facsimile] [in French]I don't plan to fill in all the blanks in my reading of Voltaire this time around (I'm still skipping those of the plays and the histories which I haven't already read) but when I realized I hadn't read the Traité sur la Tolérance which is one of his most important works, I had to add it to my list. I downloaded this facsimile of the original edition from Gallica, the Bibliothèque National de France website, which is another great resource for free books on the Internet.
The Traité sur la Tolérance is essentially a long political pamphlet (rather than a well-argued treatise like that of Locke) inspired by a particular case, the judicial murder of Jean Calas, a Huguenot (French Calvinist) who was framed by Catholic fanatics in Toulouse for the murder of his son (who apparently committed suicide). After summarizing the Calas case, Voltaire goes on to deal generally with the problem of religious intolerance. The combination of wit and passion made this one of the most influential writings against fanaticism and intolerance on the road from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution.
It's also a somewhat contradictory book. On the one hand, he wants to show the absurdity and inhumanity of religious persecution; on the other hand, he takes the position that persecution is a local French atavism which no longer exists elsewhere in the world, and which was generally unknown for example in the ancient world or the far east. While he makes some good points, such as that the stories of the Christian martyrs are obviously made up, and the actual state persecutions of Christians were often provoked by Christian attacks on the pagan temples and ceremonies, he uses history very selectively in support of his polemical position, that religious intolerance is peculiar to modern Christians, specifically the Catholic church, and most specifically the Jesuit order. While it is probably the case that few other religions in the past have been as relentless and systematic in their persecution as the Christian church, all religions have always been intolerant to some degree, often depending on the political and economic situations of their time and place (as we can see in the contemporary Middle East). For example Voltaire oscillates between describing the Old Testament Hebrews as persecutors (when he is trying to discredit the Bible) and denying that they were persecutors, in support of his thesis.
As often with Voltaire, he will present (usually in a long footnote) a cogent argument by someone else refuting some aspect of Christian or Catholic religion, and then at the end cover himself by saying, of course no sensible person would agree with this. He doesn't specifically deal with persecution of atheists, or mention them except to say that religious intolerance leads people to become atheists, but he also does not make them an exception to his argument for toleration as does Locke.
While I would take his history with a grain of salt, this is a book that every educated person should read at some point, particularly today when religious intolerance seems to be increasing again throughout the world.
Annie Ernaux,
Une femme
[1987] 106 pages [Kindle, Open Library] [in French]This is the third book I have read by this year's Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Annie Ernaux; all three contain the same basic story told from three different perspectives. The first, Les armoires vides, dealt with her own life, growing up and establishing her independence from her family; the second, La Place dealt mainly with the life of her father; this one centers on her mother. As she decribes the book in the next to last paragraph, "Ceci n'est pas une biographie, ni un roman naturellement, peut-être quelque chose entre la littérature, la sociologie et l'histoire."
The book is written in the first person, and begins with her mother's death. Ernaux in the weeks that followed wrote this history of her mother's life, based on her memories. It starts with a description of her maternal grandparents, farmworkers living in the countryside of Normandy. Her mother (who is never named, except as Mme. D . . .) was born in 1906, so she was about four years younger than my own grandmother. She dropped out of school at twelve and went to work in a local factory, proud to be independent and a worker, a step up from the rural life of her parents. She married Ernaux's father, a worker in the same factory. Her goal in life was to own her own shop, and eventually, despite many setbacks including the death of their first daughter and the Nazi occupation, they managed to open a combination restaurant/pub and grocery store, where Ernaux was born in 1940 and grew up. At the end of the book, after the death of her husband, she lives for a while with Ernaux and then goes into a nursing home. The description of her last years with Alzheimer's was very like my mother's. I could relate to the emotions Ernaux expresses so well in the book.
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Enemy Women – Paulette Jiles – 4****
In the last months of 1864, the residents of Missouri are being pushed and pulled between warring factions. I found this work of historical fiction fascinating and engaging. Adair is a strong woman even though she is barely out of girlhood. She remains resolute despite hardship. No horse – no problem – she will walk. She never loses sight of her goal – to find her father, to get home, to reunite her family.
LINK to my full review
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These Precious Days – Ann Patchett – 5*****
This is a series of essays about Patchett’s life and her thoughts on a variety of subjects from marriage to career, to education, to family, to grief. I love Patchett’s writing. Here, she is most herself – honest, funny, empathetic, confused, angry, caring, and passionate. I greatly enjoyed reading about her own journey as a reader, writer and owner of a bookstore.
LINK to my full review
New World: Ashes (New World #2) by Jennifer Wilson
4 ★
At the end of book 1, Phoenix sacrifices herself to protect the ones she loves and finds herself back in the hands of the Minster in the Sanctuary. It is a return to the home she does not remember, but many there remember her. Phoenix is tortured quite ruthlessly in the first few chapters of the book and it’s not the easiest thing to read. What the Minister and his soldiers due to the children is despicable. The Sanctuary is definitely not the utopia it was supposed to be and Phoenix soon finds that out, along with a lot of other things. She finally learns why her parents left.
When Phoenix finally gets rescued she finds that there are many rebels within the Wall that she grew up with and remember her fierce attitude and fighting strength from her childhood. They are a great group of characters that really add to the story and give the reader a true feeling of life in the Sanctuary. It’s not a pretty place.
Phoenix agrees to return to the Subversive in Tartarus to help get the war against the Sanctuary started and she finds that not all is well there as well. I’m looking forward to reading book 3 to see how all of this chaos and madness pans out.
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The Lager Queen of Minnesota – J Ryan Stradl – 4****
Helen and Edith are estranged sisters. Helen convinced their father to leave her the farm, and she and her husband started a very successful brewery with that nest egg. Edith lives quietly, working two jobs and raising her granddaughter, Diana. Stradal reveals the intergenerational story through multiple points of view. At its core this is a story about family. About the ties that bind us whether we recognize them or not. About perseverance and strength of character. About facing our fear of failure and taking risks. It’s about love and forgiveness.
LINK to my full review
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Gods of Jade And Shadow – Silvia Moreno-Garcia – 3***
Digital audiobook performed by Yetta Gottesman.
Fantasy is not my thing, but this book completely captured me. I loved Casiopea, a young woman who is intelligent, curious, resourceful, and determined. She’s not about to take guff from anyone – human or demon. She’s up for every challenge she’s presented with on this crazy journey to help the Mayan god of death regain his throne. I loved the rather open-ended conclusion. Where will she go? I can only imagine, but I’d be willing to read about her further adventures.
LINK to my full review
Rómulo Gallegos Freire,
Doña Barbara
[1929; 3rd rev. ed. 1954] 474 pages [Kindle, Open Library] [in Spanish]Doña Barabara is considered a classic of modern Latin American and world literature; it's on all the Internet lists and syllabi. The Ediciones Cátedra edition which I read, based on the 1954 revision, has an introduction of about a hundred pages by Domingo Miliani, which traces the history of Venezuelan literature from about 1900 to the time the first edition was written in 1929. (The novel was considerably revised the next year, perhaps as Miliani suggests to make it more accesible to non-Venezuelan readers since it was published in Spain, and revised again (and much expanded) for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 1954, returning to a more Venezuelan perspective.) The introduction situates the novel in the context of five tendencies in Venezuelan literature: positivism (I know what this is in philosophy and in politics, but I have no idea what it means as a literary tradition, and Miliani doesn't really explain it); cosmopolitanism, which is largely urban and tries to be part of world literature; regionalism, which emphasizes the specifically Venezuelan experience and especially the experience of rural Venezuela; modernism, which apparently differs from cosmopolitanism in its choice of European models; and vanguardism, which is also not really explained, but seems to be more into symbolism. Doña Barbara is presented as a synthesis (in a very Hegelian sense) of the previous tendencies. This was all very interesting and perhaps I would have understood it better had I read some of the older novels he mentions as examples, but Doña Barbara is the earliest novel I have read so far from Latin America.
After reading the novel, from a North American perspective I think there is much more obvious way to consider the tradition in which this is written. I recall once having a discussion with a friend who had a very dismissive attitude toward "genre" literature (particularly I think in regard to science fiction) as being "not real literature", and I pointed out then, and still believe, that this is an artifact of our classification. If a book has all the characteristics and typical themes of a particular "genre", but has "literary quality" in some hard-to-define but easy-to-perceive sense, it is simply not classified with that "genre". For example, Frankenstein, 1984, Brave New World and Slaughterhouse 5 are not called science fiction novels; they're not usually discussed as science fiction, don't get the science fiction labels in the library, don't get put on the science fiction shelves at the bookstore and so forth, yet they are in fact science fiction. Likewise Pride and Prejudice is not shelved with the romance novels, The Name of the Rose isn't put with the detective novels, and so forth. So "genre" literature is just what remains after one subtracts the books that one considers as "literature".
From this perspective, Doña Barbara seems to me to be something even more rare: a literary-quality Western. It has many of the standard plot elements of a Western: the feud between two cattle-ranchers; the "bad guys" rustling the cattle of the "good guys"; the macho cowboys proving their manhood by breaking horses and lassoing stray cattle; the cattle roundups; the hapless (but beautiful) young woman who needs to be "rescued" by the hero; the displaced Indian tribes in the background; and even the cliché of fencing in the grazing lands. More importantly, there is the same theme of the "taming of the West", the hero who tries to replace the lawless violence of the "wild West" and bring in law and order. Of course the setting for Doña Barbara is not the North American prairies but the Venezuelan Llano, the Llanura, but this seems to have the same sort of culture and the same sort of topography; a land more suited to cattle than farming, located far from the centers of "civilization", given to violence but also to traditions of personal loyalty and honest dealing. The customs and culture of the Llano are described here more in detail and more realistically than in a stereotyped North American Western, though.
Of course there are differences. There are specifically Latin American elements; for example the novel begins with the protagonist, Santos Luzardo, travelling in a small boat up the river. This is almost a standard cliché of Latin American literature; I must have read at least half a dozen Latin American novels in the past year which feature a journey in a small boat or pirogue on an alligator-infested river, whether the Amazon, the Magdalena, the Orinoco, or in this case the Apure. There is the "magical" aspect, which is ambiguous; every example has two explications, magic and rationalization. (The Wikipedia article on the book calls it a forerunner of "magical realism", but that label is given to most Latin American writers before Garcia Marquez; the magic here does not seem to me to be treated in anything like a "magical realist" manner.) Most significantly, there is what I have called the "literary" aspect. The ideas and themes are both more explicit and more nuanced than in a genre Western. The antithesis between the "civilizer" and the "barbarian" is not only between but within the main characters, and doesn't follow the same lines as that between the heroes and villains. To quote a phrase used in the book, "we have to kill the centaur within us". Ultimately, there is an ambiguity about how much civilization is desirable, and at what cost. Then there is the obvious — perhaps at times too obvious — symbolism, as in the names of the main characters: Santos Luzardo, whose name recalls santo or saint, Doña Barbara whose name is literally the Spanish word for barbarian, and the North American Mister Danger (in English in the book). (I read on the Internet that Hugo Chavez used to refer to George Bush as "Mister Danger" alluding to the novel.) Finally, there is a great difference in the way violence is regarded; in the usual Western, it is taken for granted that it is a good thing that the hero defeats the villain in a gunfight, which is the standard climax; in Doña Barbara this is considered a defeat, a failure of the civilizing project. In that sense, we could call this an "anti-Western".
And of course, it's also a romance. And a psychological novel. And perhaps a tale of the supernatural. And maybe even a parable of redemption, in a non-religious sense. Although Santos is the protagonist and we see most of the action through his perspective, the novel is called Doña Barbara and perhaps we could consider it as a tragedy, the rise and fall (and perhaps moral rise) of Doña Barbara herself.
The novel begins with Santos Luzardo, a young man dressed in city clothes, travelling up the Apure; his purpose and destination are not immediately revealed. There is a mysterious and somewhat disreputable man aboard the boat, later identified as El Brujeador, the male witch. We are told second-hand about the other witch, the enigmatic Doña Barbara, the "devourer of men", more or less the incarnation of evil, and Santos is warned against coming into opposition with her. The novel then regresses to give us the background; in the second chapter we learn of the feud of the Luzardos and the Barraqueños, in the third we get the back story of Doña Barabara, and initially feel some sympathy for her, as a young girl who is abused and whose first love is murdered, but then we learn that she has become an enemy of society and especially of men. Santos arrives at his family hata, Altamira, and from the fourth chapter on the novel describes his attempts to rebuild and restore the property and recover whatever he can of the cattle that has been stolen by Doña Barbara and other neighbors such as Mister Danger. Even more than advancing his personal interests, however, he is attempting to subject the Llano to the rule of law.
This is the political content of the novel, the liberal criticism of Venezuelan politics: Doña Barbara represents the same arbitrary rule as the Venezuelan dictatorship, and Santos' emphasis on legality is the position of Gallegos himself. The dictator at the time the novel was set (Juan Vincente Gomez) was still in power at the time it was written and certainly saw the novel as an attack on his regime, and (after an unsuccesful attempt to "co-opt" him) Gallegos was forced into exile, returning after the fall of the dictator to run for President. He was in fact perhaps the first and certainly one of the very few legitimately elected Presidents in the long history of Venezuelan dictators, and was of course removed by a military coup after only serving a few months in office.
The edition I read follows the novel with an appendix comparing the order of chapters in the original and revised editions, and one listing the real persons on whom the fictional characters appear to be based.
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The Porcupine Year – Louise Erdrich – 4****
Digital audiobook narrated by Christina Moore
Book three in the Birchbark House series sees Omakayas growing into young womanhood. Her leadership qualities are blossoming and becoming evident to the members of her community. The entire tribe is affected by the encroachment of white settlers who force them from their ancestral lands and send them in search of a new home. They endure a very harsh season, nearly starving, and losing a couple of valued members of the group. But always, Omakayas and her people rely on their traditions, beliefs and cooperation to survive and prosper.
LINK to my full review
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The Hindi-Bindi Club – Monica Pradhan – 3.5***
This was highly reminiscent of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club . We have two generations of three immigrant families – mothers and daughters. The central plot revolves around Kiran, who, having married against her parents wishes and now divorced, has decided to ask for their help in finding a life partner. I enjoyed learning a bit more of the history of India, and of the disparate cultures within the subcontinent. Just as in real life, it’s not all drama and angst. There is plenty of humor, tenderness, laughter and tears of joy. Oh, and Prahan includes some wonderful recipes at the end of each chapter.
LINK to my full review
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Firekeeper’s Daughter – Angeline Boulley – 4****
Book on CD narrated by Isabella Star LeBlanc
Boulley’s debut is a gripping story. Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine is a marvelous character, the daughter of an Ojibwe man and a white woman, she doesn’t quite fit in either in her hometown or on the nearby reservation. She’s on the path to success, intent on a career in medicine. But she IS a teenager, and her emotions sometimes overwhelm her. Boulley keeps the tension high with a number of twists and turns in the plot. As happens in real life, not all the bad guys get what’s coming to them, but the ending is nevertheless satisfying.
LINK to my full review
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Lake Of the Ozarks – Bill Geist – 3***
Subtitle: My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America. This is a charming memoir of the author’s teen-year summers spent working at his uncle’s resort at Lake of the Ozarks. He did any and all distasteful jobs and enjoyed the company of a bevy of lovely young women who served as housemaids and/or waitresses. The pay was abysmal, but they got free room and board and a sense of independence.
LINK to my full review
Paging All Bookworms!
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This collection of ten "bizarre-like stories" was very uneven. It begins with a much shortened translation of Les enfants verts and two very short stories, "Le passager" and "Les bocaux" which seemed pointless. The fourth story, "Les coutures" also seemed pointless, but in a deliberate way, reminiscent of Sartre's La nausée (hardly interesting three-quarters of a century after Sartre). The fifth story, "La visite" was a science fiction story about a social visit in a strange future society; "Une histoire vraie" was a less successful version of a story in Jeu des tambours et tambourins about a professor in a foreign city, and "Le coeur" was about a man who has a heart transplant and begins having unusual desires which lead him to a monastery in China (this unintelligent theme has been worked to death in science fiction, most famously by Heinlein). At this point I was about ready to give up and write a negative DNF review, but I'm glad I didn't because the last three stories were good original science fiction: "Le Transfugium" and "La montagne de Tous-les-Saints" I can't really say anything about without spoilers; "Le calendrier des fêtes humaines" was a sort of parody of the Christian year.