Matthew McElroy > Recent Status Updates

There is almost a Jesus-Judas dynamic here.
Almost.

This could have been a pretty standard war suspense/thriller in the hands of a lesser writer. McBride gets you to care about his characters, despite their flaws. You are emotionally invested in their survival. It feels like all the information is revealed at the perfect time.

Every chapter resolves one problem and a new issue is resolved. It doesn't feel formulaic though. It feels like life in a high tension situation. People are doing their best to stay alive and handle what they can control. Above all, we still have the mystery of the boy, and how these men are going to get home.

And seriously, who did Hector Negron shoot in the face?

I love how McBride can write about someone who should be thoroughly unlikable, and yet, they are still sympathetic.

He's clearly gone through some great effort to not only understand Black GIs, but also Italians and the history that impacted World War 2.

The section "Africa Resurgent" is the first chapter that feels outdated. Jackson identifies all the independent nations, dating back to 1970 and chronicles their independence and advances.
All of this is informational, but also strangely presented. He provides detailed information on their economies and educational status. The book has not been updated in the more recent edition.

Was Douglas Adams strapped for cash? He came back to the series nearly a decade later. Similar to the previous book focusing almost entirely on Arthur Dent staying on Earth, this book is almost entirely about Tricia McMillan. And why earth still exists. 😒 Which, even in a universe where anything is possible, feels like a massive bait and switch.

1 in 3 Africans die on the trip from the interior to the coast
1 in 3 die on the Middle Passage. Jackson estimate the slave trade cost Africa 100,000,000 lives.
People tie themselves in knots to explain Africans and Muslims made the slave trade possible and absolve Christian Europeans from responsibility possible.
Slavery on the scale and barbarity of the level of the New World was never seen before.

Hmm, probably the weakest chapter in the book. There is some remarkable information about the Kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Kongo in the... 1000-1600 Era, though Jackson presents evidence that an advanced Zimbabwe goes back much further. Unfortunately, we are dangerously close to the part of history where Africa's history is intentionally destroyed, so records may be difficult to find.

Douglas is an excellent writer. His way to look at something normal and study it in a completely different way is remarkable. Example: chapter 8- "It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not like a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal."

These are easier reads than I remember them being.
And I'm definitely paying more attention to the story. Adams does an admirable job musing on physics, philosophy and human nature. All of it is done tongue in cheek- like he knows he's smart, but isn't pretending to have any answers.

I'm rereading this after loving The City We Became by NK Jemisin. I was so impressed by her speculative fiction that I was moved to reread my favorite science fiction ever- The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm rereading each book for the first time in more than a decade and reevaluating my earlier thoughts.

I would have liked to have read more on the kingdoms of East Africa. Condensing at least 3000 years of history into 16 pages seems unfair at best. There is a lot on the history of the area we call Ethiopia 🇪🇹 and it's status as the world's oldest Christian nation. Jackson also touches on the importance of sailing and trading to the East Africans. How and when did these countries/kingdoms end?

The brilliant thing Jemisin does is allowing for a certain level of... generalization, if not outright stereotyping, about each borough's physical manifestation/protector. And then after that, everything is completely unexpected. All the names- super easy to remember, intentionally. This allows her to really cut loose with the storytelling.

Guess which borough hasn't figured out what's happening yet.🙄

A few days ago, I finished King of the World and thought, "it will be a while before I read something better than that".
Whoops.
Jemisin amazingly makes the unbelievable understandable. And let's think about what words mean: the root of fantastic is fantasy. To say a book is fantastic doesn't just mean it is great. It actually takes you to a different reality. Every page, every character is unlike anything I've read.

Oh man. This is so good.

Short version: the city of New York is under attack from an otherworldly creature. Five people, some aware of their power and some unaware, have been selected as the physical embodiment of each borough.

This is an entirely different feel fron Hundred Thousand Kingdoms- entirely relatable, and yet entirely fantastic.

The question whether Africans landed in the Western Hemisphere the great historical mystery. Jackson presents considerable evidence that they did, beyond the Olmec statuary. Jackson goes further talking about Black gods, skilled sailors and descriptions of currents running to the west. It is easy for Europeans to dismiss- they currently claim credit.
I'm not convinced, but I also have a book by Ivan Sertima ready.

Of the four big assassinations of the 60s, Malcolm X was the one where we lost the most. Malcolm was the intellectual who could also talk to the man in the streets, the man who was a little rougher around the edges. He was the one whose spiritual journey clearly changed who he was.
Yes, this is a book about Muhammad Ali, but the murder of El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz took a man of principle and strong will.

It's so good. Remnick spends an entire chapter on the Ali-Liston fight and you can almost picture the entire thing. It's brilliant.
Remnick studies the split between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad laudably. He acknowledges the positives of the Nation of Islam- providing moral structure to many formerly incarcerated Black men, while also acknowledging their segregationist views. Malcolm is the man who grows the most.

Now this is good stuff. Seeing the way columnists from different eras approach Ali, and even prefer Liston for simply fulfilling their expectations.

Question: most big cities had fairly successful Black dailies. What were their sports columnists writing about boxing and Ali, specifically?

A strangely uneven chapter: it starts with an intense dissection of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam and ends with Clay baiting Liston at his house, an action entirely unrelated to the Nation of Islam.

At times, Remnick is dangerously close to mocking the beliefs of W.D. Fard. This might be reasonable in friendly conversation- the origin story is eyebrow raising. But Remnick should be better than that.

What kind of loving husband thinks "Sally resented her crutches, too, but without them she would have been hardly more than a broken stick with eyes"?

Normally, I like to read with my phone in another room for obvious reasons. But this trip to Italy would be enhanced if you were familiar with the architecture. Stegner is trying to make you feel as if you are on the trip with the families.
I tried to find the quote, but he uses that old cliché "you can go around the world in the pages of a book".
But you don't have to take my word for it.🌈

Seriously?
What did these women do wrong, ever than support their men and be wonderful?

This should be the longest chapter in the book. What has been the most overlooked in the study of Africa are Sub-Saharan empires of the last 1000 years. Jackson certainly touches on each one, and they are impressive, but they also are underrepresented.
If you are interested: Mali, Ghana and Songhay are the kingdoms that Jackson touches on. It seems like "Sudan" is the term for everything south of the Sahara.

I ❤️ that Ali had a crush on Wilma Rudolph, but she was already seeing someone else.

The development of Ali as an athlete feels more complex than many. He's comfortable, for a Black man in the 50s, but he is clearly aware of race. We recognize him as intelligent, but he does poorly in high school. He rejects white managers on the basis of race, but accepts Dundee because... well, you'll have to read that part.

A moment for the abolitionist Cassius Clay who was John Brown-like in his hatred for slavery. I'm not sure what changed his mind in the Mexican-American War, but I'll raise a glass to anyone willing to go to his lengths in the cause of equal rights.
One of the critiques of Ali's life seems to be his surface understanding of larger causes.

A Black man on Sonny Liston: "too mean to be allowed around decent people. They ought to ship him back to Africa. No, make that Mississippi."

Unobserved in Remnick's otherwise insightful and engaging writing: Mississippi is worse than Africa.
Or perceived to be by Black Americans of that time.

Amazing. I first heard about this on the "Right Time Book Club". I was definitely intrigued. It is better than I expected.
Your opinions on Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston almost feel like a de facto personality test.

The story of Moors keeping civilization alive in Europe through their rule of Spain is enlightening. Short version: Moorish innovation allowed Cordova to be a city of 1,000,000 around 1,000AD. The largest city outside of Spain was 30,000, including London and Paris.
Jackson continues to make curious decisions including three pages on an apocryphal story of Roderick of the Visigoths seeing a vision of his downfall.

I'll give it to Stegner. He's a talented writer. There is an Updike quality to his writing, where he sets a scene immensely well. But he also seems more talented than Updike.
We finally got to the actual tension in the book, and even that doesn't set up the way you would expect. It's building, it's building and BAM! It goes a different way.