Books read January through December 1983
| Author | Camus, Albert |
|---|---|
| Original Language | French |
| Translators | Gilbert, Stuart |
| Publication | New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1972 |
| Copyright Date | 1947 |
| Number of Pages | 287 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A novel of an (I presume fictitious) outbreak of bubonic plague in Oran, Algeria, in the 1940's. The characters include Bernard Rieux, a doctor and, as is revealed at the end, narrator of the story, Tarrou, a middle aged ex-revolutionary who no longer believes in politics but only in individual acts of kindness and commitment, Rambert, a French journalist trapped in the city who wants only to escape to his wife in Paris, Cottard, a smuggler profiteer, and various others - a priest, a loony asthmatic, Grand, the elderly clerk who has spent years on the first sentence of a novel.
Except for the smuggler, all of these people are drawn into the fight against the plague. They work at hopeless jobs, quarantining houses, forcing sick people into makeshift hospitals, filling out forms and burying the dead. Nothing they do has any obvious beneficial effect but they succeed in keeping at least a semblance of order and continuity amidst the carnage. It remains possible to read news bulletins and eat in cafes. The opera continues. People still at least go through the motions of relying on doctors and obeying the paralyzed municipal authorities.
In the end Rieux, Grand, and Rambert survive, though Rieux's wife dies of an unrelated illness in a sanatorium from which Rieux is quarantined away.
This is a positive novel, a novel of values found and confirmed in service to people, of the values of individual human life over abstract ideas. It is sparse - perhaps close to Barthes' "degree zero", but effective nonetheless. Its moments of emotion are accented by this.
It's been a long time since I've thought about Roland Barthes or Camus or existentialism. Those men were older than me and by the time that I got interested, I think their influence was already in decline in the literary world, but it seems to me that what they had to say has not ceased to be relevant or of interest.
| Author | Farmer, Philip Jose |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Berkeley Medallion, 1971 |
| Number of Pages | 222 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A Hugo award winning novel which confirms once again that much of the most respected S-F is mediocre by any other standards.
All of the earth people who have ever lived, 36 billion of them, are brought back to life along the banks of a great river on a planet manipulated by people of the future. The main character, 19th century British explorer/adventurer Richard Burton, spends his time searching the river for its source and the secret of its controllers. Thousands of tiny civilizations based on the thousands of different historical cultures, come to life on the river. Burton's fortunes seem tied to those of Hermann Goering and others.
What is so disappointing in all of this is the great number of easy gratifications that Farmer builds in. One can fight to the death and know that he will be reincarnated. There is a convenient hidden enemy who chases Burton but won't hurt him. Sex is easy. Triumph is easy. Evil is easy to find and easy to beat. There is no end of new "worlds" to explore on the river and no end of new plots to append to the story. Any historical character can arise. Any situation can be changed by death and random reincarnation. All cheap. All easy.
Certainly the book was easy to read and compelling in the way that such books are - and also juvenile in its cheap gratification. Of course it is the first in a series.
This is another one of those books that I judged to be poor and yet which I remember well in comparison with others of the period. The reincarnation theme had to do with all 36 billion people being alive in the river world. Just as people who died on earth were reincarnated in the river world, so people who died in the river world were reincarnated in the river world - but always in a random place on the river. Burton's main means of exploration after examining one place was to go drown himself in the river in order to be reincarnated somewhere else - a method of locomotion that didn't appeal to me.
I seem to recall that the cover of the book had an illustration of a mid-19th century Mississippi River steamer, with Mark Twain on board. He was one of the good guys while Goering and the Nazis were bad. But bad guys couldn't oppress good guys for long. All the good guys had to do was to find a way to jump in the river or kill themselves some other way in order to escape.
I think science fiction may have just been growing up at this time. Stanislaw Lem's Solaris was written in 1961 but was first translated into English in 1970. It was a revelation for me.
| Author | Tolstoy, Leo |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Russian |
| Translators | Maude, Aylmer |
| Publication | New York: Signet Classics, 1960 |
| Copyright Date | 1886 |
| Number of Pages | 62 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | January 1983 |
This is pages 95-156 of The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories.
A very fine story about an ambitious and successful man who accepts the conventional values of society and then finds, during a fatal illness, that these values are hollow and have given him nothing.
Ivan Ilyich Golovin graduates law school with a degree and a fashionable wardrobe. He takes a low position in the Ministry of Justice and, by competence, likableness, and winning ways, gradually promotes himself into higher and higher positions. Along the way he marries and has children but is estranged from them. He fights with his wife over petty things and doesn't know why. All he can do is throw himself into his bureaucratic work, his social ambitions, and his games of cards with friends.
In middle age he contracts a pain in his side, possibly due to an injury while hanging curtains in his ultra-conventional living room. The illness gets worse and worse. The doctors treat him with the same professional attitude that he himself uses on defendants in court. He cannot escape the lies, the useless treatments, the pooh-poohing of his wife and daughter, the gradual loss of his health, and his ultimate death. Only at the very end does he have even an inkling of the reasons for his dissatisfaction. His wife worries about a pension. His colleagues look for new positions opened by his death. His friends are forced to miss the first round of bridge by his funeral, but are soon able to start up their game.
It is a powerful story, subtly and effectively told.
I loved this story and loved every other novel and story by Tolstoy that I have read. He had a rare ability to dig down to the most important, most essential, character of a person's life. Whether we're reading about Pierre Bezhuhov, Anna Karenina, Ivan Ilyich, or Alyosha the Pot, we always feel that we have learned something important from the story.
| Author | Woodward, Bob |
|---|---|
| Author | Bernstein, Carl |
| Publication | New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976 |
| Number of Pages | 476 |
| Extras | photos, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History; Politics |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A blow by blow account of the last days of the Nixon administration, starting about nine months earlier and getting gradually more detailed towards the end, where chapters are devoted to each day.
This reportage by two Washington Post writers caused a sensation because of its wealth of inside information - all of which appears to have been gathered by the most meticulous interviewing and cross comparing of testimony of 394 involved people. This makes the book almost unique in its portraits of Nixon and the events concerning his impeachment.
Nixon appears erratic, severely neurotic, incompetent at many things, though decisive and surprisingly tough until very close to the end - when he is broken by the experience. He is also crass, petty, bigoted, foul mouthed, and in general a contemptible person. Although there is no discussion of the actual Watergate events it is clear that Nixon is at least completely guilty of the cover-up [if not the original crime.]
The people around him are generally, or even highly, competent (as Kissinger, one of the few real intellectuals, and Haig, an unbelievable stalwart) but are in over their heads. Few are able to deal with the broader issues or see Nixon in an objective light. They are professionals who view their jobs only from the interior of their own skills and ambitions, only peripherally looking at the good of the nation, or else not lasting long with Nixon.
Quite a book.
American democracy has brought some very impressive men to the presidency and some very strange and neurotic ones. Nixon was one that scared me, as does Trump today. I read books like this to get more understanding of what is happening at the head of our country. However, it seems possible to me that the more I learn the less I feel equipped to understand what to do about our misfortunes.
I appreciate the thoroughness and intensity of the research that W and B performed. This was the first book by Bob Woodward that I read. I've read five more since then.
| Author | Johnson, John E. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Bantam Books, 1980 |
| Copyright Date | 1964 |
| Number of Pages | 280 |
| Extras | index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Aviation; World War II |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A retrospective history of air warfare from 1914-1964 from the British point of view, by Air Vice Marshall Johnson - a leading British squadron leader and top fighter pilot (38 victories) in WWII, who also flew in Korea.
J emphasizes the long periods of time required to learn and assimilate the important lessons of strategy, technology, and tactics. Lessons learned the hard way in WWI were quite forgotten by the RAF by WWII. Instead, useless formation flying exercises were emphasized which proved totally impossible to execute under the crisis of combat. The Germans also made mistakes but, by the Battle of Britain, were far more experienced after Spain, Poland, and France, in air warfare.
J makes clear that air operations are not like moving pins on maps. Flying is a human skill. Weather, technology, ground support, training, etc., all play major roles. Small human errors can turn success into failure or even disaster. The people who excelled at it were very formidable men.
No co-author is credited but I suspect this book was at least heavily edited, if not professionally written.
I have no idea why I wrote that nasty seeming comment. Having read Winged Victory by V.M. Yeates in 1974, I should have known that good flying and good writing are not incompatible. A more recent read, Viper Pilot by Daniel Hampden is another example. I either had some specific issue in mind, or else I was in a bad mood.
| Author | Schaff, Adam |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Polish |
| Translators | Schaff, Adam |
| Publication | New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1968 |
| Copyright Date | 1962 |
| Number of Pages | 139 |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Philosophy |
| Keywords | Marxism |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A Marxist reply to existentialism by a Polish philosopher and leading Party worker in a collection of related essays.
This is the most intellectually honest book I have seen by an "official" communist writer. He acknowledges that most philosophy published in the Eastern block is arm waving which does not do justice to its critics. He castigates the Party's writers for not reading the work of their opponents and not seriously addressing the issues they raise.
In the substance of the book he argues that the existentialist dilemma is real. We should ask about the meaning of life and we should ask about ethics. The Marxist and Positivist refusals to address this question cannot make it go away. They only relegate its solution to the existentialists and obscurantists.
The existentialist viewpoint on these problems is always subjective. It always starts with the position of the individual. This, says Schaff, cannot be the real starting point. The individual is formed by the conditions of society and his role in it. It is there where we must begin the investigation of the meaning of life, and it is to there that we return for its solution. It is in the transformation of society and in living for others that one finds meaning.
The position is well defended and well developed. While not a major work of philosophy, it is at least respectable in its willingness to use reason instead of slogans and to address people with ideas instead of merely mouthing the line.
In and after grad school I read a number of the classic writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, even Stalin and Mao, and others. Before the onset of Stalinism, the debate was vigorous and open. Afterwards, at least in the socialist countries themselves, it was all governed by Party discipline. I was hoping for it to be otherwise and occasionally read books I found in the Communist Party bookstore hoping to find something. The store might have been on Park Avenue behind where I worked at the Enoch Pratt Free Library at 400 Cathedral St. It's possible that I got this book there, or maybe not, Dell Publishing Company was a mainstream American publisher.
| Author | Toland, John |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Random House, 1970 |
| Number of Pages | 537 |
| Extras | photos |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Japan; World War II |
| When Read | January 1983 |
A factual but superficial history of Japan's role in World War II. T has clearly interviewed a large number of Japanese officers and government officials and read the popular accounts. However he provides no analysis of Japanese society or the economic and social dynamics underlying Japanese militarism. Instead there is a long, albeit interesting, recounting of the plain facts of diplomatic and military moves.
This was 1/2 of the study.
The spectrum of opinion in the pre-war Japanese government seemed to range from Fascist-Imperialist to Fascist-Imperialist Mad Dog. Every new aggression was either justified by "provocations" or by Japan's "needs". The suicidal confrontation with the U.S. was caused by American efforts to roll back what Japan had already sacrificed so much to gain. Incredible that such men - arrogant, cruel, bigoted - should have commanded the state
Some interesting conclusions:
The military made many of its own decisions, independently of the government.
The officers, soldiers and civilians were in general fanatic patriots.
Cruelty to other peoples (and to Japanese subordinates) was rampant.
Japanese victories were often achieved with inferior force but superior leadership and, especially, courage - Singapore and Philippines both fell to numerically inferior armies.
War with the U.S. was foredoomed to failure.
See my notes on volume 2.
| Author | Francis, Dick |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Harper and Row, 1977 |
| Number of Pages | 240 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | February 1983 |
A mystery novel about an accountant and amateur jockey in England who is abducted, escapes, is abducted again, and then freed. He eventually discovers that one of the clients has embezzled a fortune and his abduction was to prevent his discovering it.
The whole book is really quite well done. The characters are all simple and thin, but different and interesting enough to accept. The action is compelling and always within reason (as such things go.) And of course there is Francis knowledge of horses and racing - which, although I have never been interested in that - brings the same enthusiasm and technical interest into the book that Forester does with the sea.
As is customary in mysteries, the book starts and ends abruptly, concerned only with the resolution of the plot and not any advance in understanding or sympathy in the reader. Still, it hangs together well and is a good read. Just the thing when you want that sort of thing.
This appears to be the first book by Dick Francis that I read. As of this writing, twenty more followed. Although his books were never deep or challenging, they were among those I came to rely upon as always enjoyable to read.
I still remember what I liked about this book. It's what I liked about all of his books and probably said in most of my comments on each one. The main character was honest, courageous, and intelligent, but not any sort of super-hero. He was no Saint (from Leslie Charteris) or Jason Bourne (from Robert Ludlum.) If forced into a fight, he fought hard but not with any special strength or professional skill. However, the character did have skills. He was a good and professional accountant. He was a good amateur jockey. He used those skills intelligently. He pointed the way towards which all of us should aspire - to learn our jobs whatever they are and do the best we can, to practice our professions honestly and in the best interests of others as well as ourselves.
Francis' mysteries always seemed appropriate to me. The bad guys were bad guys, but not supermen and not representatives of a vast conspiracy ranged against our hero. There were always decent and honest people in the story as well, and trust was often possible and justified. Both the plot and the characters were on a human scale.
The last Dick Francis story that I read was in 2011. It was written collaboratively with his son Felix. There are lots of others that I haven't read. Maybe I'll go back and read some.
Francis died in 2010 at age 89. I thank him for the many enjoyable hours I spent reading his books.
| Author | Le Guin, Ursula K. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Harper and Row, 1974 |
| Number of Pages | 341 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | February 1983 |
A sociological S-F story about a leading physicist born in a poor anarchist society settled on a planet where they were allowed to emigrate from a larger twin planet where their presence was a danger. This anarchist society is "an ambiguous utopia" of equality and revolutionary tradition, but poverty and some measure of intolerance.
The physicist, Shevek, visits the home planet where a kind of America and Russia contend for hegemony. He is partly seduced by the easy life they have prepared for him and the higher state of their science but it ultimately repelled by their class society, sexism, and materialist goals.
The story alternates between events leading up to Shevek's departure from Anarres and events after his arrival on Urras. In the end he attempts a return.
I regard this as one of the better SF novels and one of the few novels of any genre in the West to take radicalism so seriously and with such sincere efforts to work out the problems. The Amarran society - with its equality of sexes, fair work assignments, community of production and consumption, etc., is attractive for all its flaws. L has made some almost convincing descriptions of what anarchism might be like.
A great improvement over the earlier Planet of Exile.
| Author | Forsyth, Frederick |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Viking Press, 1975 |
| Number of Pages | 123 |
| Extras | illustrations |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | February 1983 |
A simple, rather trite, Christmasy tale that must have been told in 20 short stories and 30 TV shows before Forsyth did his version of it.
A pilot takes off from Germany on Christmas Eve 1957 to fly his Vampire fighter back to England for the holidays. En route his electrical system fails and he finds himself over England in night and fog without radio or instruments, unable even to find an airfield. As a last hope he flies a pattern, waiting for radar to sense his dilemma to guide him in.
The plane that comes turns out to be a WWII Mosquito which, in the end, appears to have been flown by a pilot who disappeared in 1943 - all sentiments and spooks.
Not badly done as a flying tale and with nice drawings - also sentimental and trite.
Really a short story rather than a novel - read because of its subject and competent author.
Not remembering illustration, I looked up Lou Feck on the Internet. He appears to have been a very successful commercial artist who produced a large number of book covers, especially for science fiction but also for other subjects. There are cowboys, barbarian swordsmen, spaceships, images of Clint Eastwood and Captain Kirk and Spock, and lots of sexy looking babes. I didn't see any Christmas themes in the pictures retrieved by Google.
| Author | Doyle, Arthur Conan |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: George H. Doran Co. |
| Copyright Date | 1926 |
| Number of Pages | 285 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | March 1983 |
This "novel" is Conan Doyle's [see notes below] all out attempt to make the case for spiritualism - the belief that many of the spirits of the dead have survived and can be contacted through the intervention of sensitive mediums.
The characters of the story are reporter Edward Malone with Professor Challenger and his daughter Enid. But even Challenger is not his old self and the main thrust is Malone's trip from seance to haunted house to seance again - and a relay of Doyle's own spiritualist experiences and reports of others. There are "ectoplasmic" materializations, voices in the dark, etc.
D's evidence is all experiential reports from seances, sometimes apparently attended by scientists, murky photos, and a wax hand left by a materialized spirit who dipped his hand in hot wax, cooled it, and then dematerialized.
Following Hume, I still can't accept any of this. There is a certain amount of Victorian / Edwardian nonsense in it - a bent over woolly haired ape man, seven heavens, religious things. There is the fact of events occurring only at night, etc. And of course there is no attempt to explain how any of this can happen.
Still, it is fascinating that a man as perceptive as Doyle is so attracted to this. Are there psychic phenomena involved? That would be easier to believe than spirits of the dead.
We humans are not a terribly rational species. I currently do a lot of work in an Internet prostate cancer support group. There are a certain number of people in the group who cannot bring themselves to abandon dreams of "alternative" medicine cures for their cancers. That's too big a subject to bring in to this book by Doyle, but it's what comes to mind.
Many years ago I recall reading that some women claimed that they had been the mediums consulted by Doyle, and that they successfully deceived him. If Doyle were still alive, would that have changed his mind about spiritualism or merely caused him to throw out that bit of his experience but hold on tightly to others?
On another topic, the article on Doyle in the Wikipedia discusses whether his surname is Doyle or Conan Doyle. It concludes that, although both have been used, even by Doyle's wife, it is Doyle and not Conan Doyle that is the most accurate name.
| Author | Ludlum, Robert |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1980 |
| Number of Pages | 523 |
| Genres | Fiction; Thriller |
| When Read | March 1983 |
A fast paced thriller about a man who survives being shot to wake up with total amnesia. He finds that he is a skilled fighter and killer, being pursued by Carlos the Assassin and his gang, plus the police of three countries. But he can't remember why.
Many things happen. He wins a girl. He kills all kinds of terrible bastards. Eventually he regains the trust of the CIA and relearns his identity - though Carlos lives, no doubt to appear in some future Ludlum book, his identity still a secret.
A very absorbing read - does just what a book of this type is supposed to do. However there is a bit more roll and shoot and a bit less technical detail than meets my taste. Not as good as Forsyth and not nearly as good as Le Carre, but I may try another some day.
As of this note I had read two more Ludlums, the last in 1992. I did note then that Ludlum is doing very well without me as one of his readers.
| Author | Wolters, Richard |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Crown Publishers, 1974 |
| Number of Pages | 152 |
| Genres | Non-fiction |
| Keywords | Flying |
| When Read | March 1983 |
"Old Dog" Wolters, tired of writing books about dogs, tired of his wife, depressed, hitting age 48, takes up soaring (his old Jewish mother will stand right out of her wheelchair when she sees him fly.) Gradually he learns to fly, wins his license, his silver C, his gold C, and diamonds. Finally after tremendous efforts and many contests, he wins first place in a 200 mile out and return - the only one to finish.
Old Dog aside, this book brought all of the excitement back to me. The beauty of the sky and the land from aloft. The great satisfaction of staying up. The thrill of competition. The danger, and the ability to face it and survive by always keeping your wits.
I checked my logbooks. My first flight after 15 years on the ground was on March 6, 1987. I had thought about flying again ever since my last flight in 1972. Reading this book was one of the steps that I took on the way to becoming a pilot again.
The "Silver C", "Gold C", and "Diamonds" are badges awarded by the Soaring Society of America to pilots who achieve flights of certain distances and height gains. An "out and return" flight is one that starts at a particular gliderport goes out so many miles, then comes back to land at the same gliderport. Wolters being the only pilot to return means the other contest pilots were unable to find enough rising air to stay up and return. They had to land somewhere along the way." Wolters was called "Old Dog" because he wrote articles and books about dogs and dog shows before he got into flying gliders.
| Author | Sheckley, Robert |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Delacorte Press, 1965 |
| Number of Pages | 188 |
| Genres | Fiction; Comedy |
| When Read | March 1983 |
An awfully funny spy spoof about an unemployed young American in Paris who accepts a job as a spy and is built up by his CIA employer to be the deadly Agent X.
William Nye, as Agent X, arrives in Venice to work with Agent Guesci to spirit defector Karinovsky out of the city, past the many agents of the diabolical super spy Forster.
The story is a riot. Nye constantly stumbles into the right action - the fantastic effort with aqualung, hydrofoil, light plane, or Viking battle ax which, by combination of verve and luck, always wins the day.
A wonderful story - like an ice cream treat. Very fast reading. Sheckley's total irreverence and marvelously inventive imagination are here to the fullest.
| Author | Gann, Ernest K. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970 |
| Number of Pages | 277 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | Rome |
| When Read | April 1983 |
"A novel about Masada." G joins the story during the last month of the siege, in AD 73, from the alternating viewpoints of Flavius Silva, commander of the Romans, and Eleazar ben Yair, leader of the Jews.
Silva's is the longer and more developed story. He is portrayed as a dedicated, intelligent Roman officer who is also alcoholic and totally in love with a young Jewish girl. He would like to end the siege by making prisoners, but the Jews won't give in.
Ben Yair is portrayed as a man also in doubt about his ability and the future of his cause.
The greatest interest in the story is Silva's own motivations, his struggles against the homosexual and perverse Pomponius Falco, his increasing commitment to his love - which he sees as the one thing that can save him, and his total determination to take Masada.
The book is acceptably well written. There are flashes of insight, occasional turns of phrase, that indicate serious intentions towards good writing as well as good story telling. There is a genuine regard for the Jews, but G is committed to showing us all of the ambiguities of the situation. He will not ignore the historical inevitabilities of the situation or thoroughly condemn those characters such as Silva and Sheva, the Jewish girl, who also recognize and accept them.
In the end, all the Jews commit suicide. Sheva too does the same. Silva, not knowing of Sheva's death, thrills to his final release from the siege and his wonderful, unimagined opportunity to be in love again.
The last paragraph of the comment above should be classified as part of the abstract but I decided to leave it where it is. I wasn't dividing things into abstracts and comments on the book cards. That became explicit only later in my reading career.
| Author | Asturias, Miguel Angel |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Spanish |
| Translators | Shuttleworth, Martin |
| Publication | Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1971 |
| Copyright Date | 1971 |
| Number of Pages | 188 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | May 1983 |
A mystical dream like story of a young boy, "El Alhajadito", growing up first in a mansion with pigtailed servants and a lake called the Beggar's Puddle where fishermen fish and mythological events occur at the bottom, and a little barn where the little boy plays, and a statue of the Bad Robber, and a circus comes to town, and, and, and, and all of this occurs in a stream of experience and inference and sea voyages and bird allegories.
The book is divided into three parts. The big house, the sea voyage, and life in the town with the boy's two mothers. Only in the last ten pages does the boy begin his transition to objective understanding. Only then does he integrate the three stories as all being his, the two mothers as being mother and aunt. Only then does he step out of his world of dreams.
The book is a masterpiece of its type. It uses the mythology and folk consciousness of Guatemala not to tell stories culled from peasants, but to evoke a kind of somnambulant image - a dream of a reality of dreams. Its images, its associations, its use of the fantastic, are all the products of an innately talented imagination, allowing itself to run free with the cultural heritage of its owner. And in that very freedom, the heritage is expressed with more intuitive understanding than could be presented in a more objective work.
A very difficult but excellent book.
I'm sorry that I don't remember this book but I'm glad that I wrote about it and so preserved something that can be experienced again, if only at second hand.
| Author | Snow, Edgar |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Grove Press, 1968 |
| Copyright Date | 1938 |
| Number of Pages | 543 |
| Extras | notes, bibliography, biographies, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | China |
| When Read | May 1983 |
This is the "first revised and enlarged edition".
This was one of the only serious attempts by a Western writer to see the Chinese revolutionaries in person and write an accurate report on them.
Snow, although obviously sympathetic to the cause, made scrupulous efforts to be fair and unbiased in his reports. He made hundreds of interviews with people at all levels, constantly seeking more information and a more rounded picture. The result is a tremendously valuable document of the people, economy, society, army, and leadership of the communist revolutionaries.
The picture that emerges is of a people pulling itself up by its own bootstraps, learning reading, soldiering, and the simplest politics - adapted to the immediate needs of the revolution. The people were transformed by the experience from isolated peasants to dedicated fighters willing to give their lives for the cause.
Interviews with the top leadership are also revealing. The total submergence of self in party and struggle, the long hours of work, the simple material life, all are foreign to our established bourgeois society (and maybe an established socialist one too.)
All in all it's a beautiful book.
Books like this are hard to research, hard to write, and, I think, hard to think and write about. Some readers like me, will be captivated by the specter of millions of the world's poorest and most downtrodden people rising up and creating a new society. Others will see in this book a piece of political propaganda written by a man so starry eyed and blinded by propaganda himself that he cannot see the simple truth before his eyes.
One way to resolve this dilemma is to proclaim that the truth lies in between those two extreme views. Many journalists would almost automatically say that and might even weigh the number of words they have written for each side to be sure they are near equal. But that's a cop out. I see no reason to assume that the truth is more likely to be right in the middle, or close to the middle, then it to be at or near one of the extreme ends.
Maybe Chiang Kai Shek would have led China to the same place it's at now without the detours and difficulties of the Great Leap Forward or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Maybe where China is today is a betrayal of the struggle of the 1930's, or maybe it's a culmination. I don't know. The story of China hasn't yet stabilized.
| Author | Shute, Nevil |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: William Morrow and Co. |
| Copyright Date | 1940 |
| Number of Pages | 284 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | May 1983 |
A young middle class RAF pilot Jerry Chambers, and working class barmaid Mona Stevens, fall in love. He is mistakenly accused of sinking a British submarine and has to leave the unit. He flies a propaganda leaflet mission over Germany and then volunteers for secret work testing some new bombing device. He is almost killed in the test.
All comes right in the end. Mona proves that the sub Jerry sank was a German, he is a hero in the tests, he recovers, wins medals, marries the girl, and goes off to an instructor's job in Canada where class distinctions mean less anyway.
The story is trite and predictable, the characters fairly shallow. Surprisingly, S doesn't portray them as in any way deep. Mona aspires to sell cosmetics in a shop and Jerry builds ship models and listens to American stations on short wave. All they have to say to each other is vacuous banter and serious protestations of love and duty.
It seems like an odd and shallow book today. In its time it was no doubt an attempt to add helpful and home interpretive stories to the home effort to help people identify and sympathize with the war. It is perhaps a sketch of a novel like a wartime building - built to serve a pressing need.
Since Shute was 41 years old when this was published, and since his first Stephen Morris, also about a pilot, was finished in 1923, 17 years before this one, I can't call this an early work. However, I don't think it met the high standards set by the other books, written after this one, that I have since read.
I remember it, but not well.
| Author | Agee, James |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1967 |
| Number of Pages | 339 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | May 1983 |
A posthumously published novel about a family in Knoxville Tennessee, sometime around 1920 or so. The father, Jay Follet, is called out to a town in the country where his father is sick. On the way back, hurrying to see his kids before they go to sleep, his steering wheel falls off and he is killed. His wife Mary responds by strengthening her religion. His little six year old son Rufus responds with childlike self-centeredness and confusion.
The writing is sometimes awkward, the plot unbalanced. Characters are introduced and developed - including Jay first and foremost, but also his brother Ralph - and then suddenly heard from no more. One even wonders if the car was sabotaged and a murder was involved, but this is not explained. Perhaps Agee meant to polish all these but didn't live to do it.
Yet in spite of all these deficiencies there is a penetration into the inner lives of these people which is rare and impressive. It is a dogged sort of insight, built on repetitive observation of the most mundane details. Yet it is deep. It is also very developed, far beyond the insights of which the people themselves - plain people, Southerners, but fine, strong, humane people.
Very anti-religious and anti-Catholic.
The Wikipedia article on this book says that, in 2007, University of Tennessee Professor Michael Lofaro claimed that the version published in 1957 was significantly altered by editor David McDowell after Agee's death in 1955. He prepared a new version from the manuscripts which he believes to be much more authentic. I recorded copyright dates of 1937, 1938, and 1956 on my book card. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1958 and was included in Time Magazine's list of 100 best English language books written since 1923.
I think (it's hard to be certain) that I am more conscious today than I was in 1983 that what I write in my book notes might be read by others. It's possible that the next reader of this note, if there ever is one, won't be me. In that case he might be curious about how well I understood this famous, Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Did I do it justice? Probably not. Sigh.
| Editor | Aldiss, Brian W. |
|---|---|
| Publication | Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1975 |
| Number of Pages | 321 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories |
| When Read | May 1983 |
Fourteen SF stories, mostly from the early fifties, all of the real wild space adventure type.
"Colony" by Philip K. dick is about an intelligent life, hostile to man, that can mimic any inanimate form, and then kill. "The Storm" by A.E. Van Vogt is a broad sweeping space civilization story, as is Edmund Hamilton's "Star of Life".
I do like some of the stories. I like the broad imagination and way out futures. Yet they are mostly fluff.
| Author | Trew, Antony |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973 |
| Number of Pages | 222 |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | May 1983 |
A WWII arctic convoy vs. submarine adventure story told with a very high order of technical knowledge and acceptably good story telling skill.
The convoy leaves England in winter at the end of 1944. It is powerfully defended by a very large number of escorts (26!) including aircraft. It is attacked by a pack of 15 subs operating under the command of a surviving submarine ace who hopes to revive the old wolf pack surface attack tactics in a surprise trap. The trap works and the old ace sinks three ships and an escort before being sunk himself but the others do much less well. All things considered, it is a German defeat.
The main character is an English captain, deeply guilt ridden about deaths he has caused or failed to prevent. He is an excellent captain, sinking two subs, but unable to find satisfaction in it or to relate to his crew. In the end, his ship is sunk and he and most of the other characters die.
The story is told from both sides, often by repeating key action sequences from the other side - even though the end is known. I liked this concern for technical detail and authenticity.
Very good example of the type. I will read more of Trew in the future.
Well, I did it again. I read this book in August of 2016 with no recollection of the fact that I had read it 33 years before. My write-up of the second reading, not limited to a 3x5 inch index card, is much more thorough.
I read another Antony Trew novel in 1986 but no more for 30 years until I read this one again. It's possible that I never saw another in the libraries. The spate of e-book publishing now underway is making the old books available once again.
| Author | Childe, V. Gordon |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Mentor Books, 1951 |
| Copyright Date | 1936 |
| Number of Pages | 192 |
| Extras | index, drawings |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Anthropology |
| When Read | June 1983 |
A popular anthropology focusing on two great revolutions in human history, the Neolithic revolution and the rise of cities.
Of particular interest is C's discussion of the spread of urban culture. Its growth in a few areas, the Nile, the Tigris Euphrates, the Indus, called into existence cities and towns in peripheral areas. By conquest, by trade, by settlement, the culture spread with derivative forms many hundreds of miles from the centers. These places often preserved the culture, language, styles, etc. of the cities many centuries after they had changed in the sources.
Childe is a progressive concerned to understand the concept of progress in history.
I seem to recall that Childe discussed the physical evolution of humans in this book and argued that, at some point, the things humans tried to do with their hands directed the course of evolution of our brains. That's how I remember the title. Man makes himself in the sense that man's making things also reflects back upon himself. In the making of things, the intellectual and manual skills that are used in the making become evolutionary survival factors in natural selection.
I didn't see any of that on my book card. Am I misremembering? Am I making it up? I would have to reread part of it to find out.
The Wikipedia tells me that Childe was rather heroic in his dedication to the working classes. He could not work as a professor in his native Australia because of his known views, and could not even visit the United States despite invitations to lecture here. He apparently defended the USSR right up until the Hungarian revolution in 1956. He committed suicide in 1957 at age 65. Was it the suppression of the Hungarian revolt? Was it Khrushchev's "secret speech" that soon became public and denounced Stalin? Maybe Childe felt ashamed of his decades long support for the Stalinist regime. Or maybe his death had nothing to do with politics. Maybe he had terminal cancer and decided to end it, or maybe he was depressed for purely personal reasons.
When I read books by radical intellectuals I got the pleasures of what today we call confirmation bias. It was reassuring to me to read a Marxist history and feel that, yes, my ideas were not at odds with reality, only with conventional thought. Now I have retreated into indecision and loss of self-confidence. I no longer think I know what is right in the way of large scale ideology, or even in many small issues. I think I would still read Childe today with an open mind and with an appreciation of his analysis, but I might be less dismissive of his critics.
| Author | Andric, Ivo |
|---|---|
| Original Language | sr |
| Translators | Johnstone, Kenneth |
| Publication | New York: Grove Press, 1962 |
| Number of Pages | 137 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| When Read | June 1983 |
A near perfect novella.
A monk of a Bosnian monastery, upon inventorying the belongings of the late Brother Petar, reminisces about the story Petar told him of his time in the "Devil's Yard", the holding jail at Istanbul. Petar's tale includes Karadjus, the warden with an underworld past who loves to outwit criminals, Zaim the liar who tells stories of his fictitious wives, Haim the paranoid Jew of Syrna who knows all, including things he can't know.
But most important of all is the story of Djamil, the young Turkish intellectual with a bizarre past and a bizarre obsession with the life of a 16th century pretender to the Sultanate. He knows every detail of the tragic life of his hero and is, in the last analysis, insanely but harmlessly deluded into believing that he is that man. Eventually he is killed in a confrontation with his interrogators who have been told that this interest in Sultan's affairs is political, dangerous, and proscribed.
There is thus a story within a story within a story within a story. A reminiscence of a reminiscence of an obsession and tragedy of an obsession and tragedy.
The tale is beautifully told. The characters extremes of human personality - but sympathetic extremes, taken seriously, never caricatured. The narrator, Petar, a perfect, sympathetic narrator. A small masterpiece.
I had trouble deciding on a language code for the original language of this book. The Wikipedia article on Andric says he was a Bosnian Croat who wrote in a local dialect, then switched to a Serbian dialect. I would have picked Serbo-Croat as the language, but I don't see that in the list of ISO 2 character codes. Now there are only Serbian and Croatian. Since he identified himself as a Serbian in later life (I wonder if it had to do with Croatian collaborators with the Nazis) I chose "sr" as the code. Andric is properly spelled with an acute accent over the 'c' but I'm not using accents in this text to avoid the encoding issues.
I have access to another Andric book, Bosnian Chronicle, that I have not read. Maybe I will since I liked this one and his Bridge on the Drina.
| Author | Orwell, George |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962 |
| Copyright Date | 1934 |
| Number of Pages | 287 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | June 1983 |
A story of colonialism in Burma, taking place in 1926.
The main character, Flory, is a 35 year old lumber company supervisor who has lived in Burma 14 years. He hates the colonial life and society - oppression of the Burmans, sickening attitudes of superiority by the whites, the relationships of combined fear and contempt of the local people, the venality and corruption of the local Burman administration and the white administration that created it, and the symbol and summation of it all, the town's European club.
There are several plots. One is Flory's attempt to win the heart of young Elizabeth Lockersteen - a woman guaranteed to destroy him if she succumbs, but he is too starved for companionship to admit it to himself. The other is local magistrate U Po Kyin's attempt to get into the European club by defaming and destroying his only possible competitor - the good Dr. Veraswami - who is the epitome of loyalty and virtue.
In the end, of course, Flory loses the girl and commits suicide. Veraswami, having lost his only protector, falls into disgrace. U Po Kyin achieves all his aims, and Elizabeth marries one of the whites to settle down to "the position which Nature had designed for her from the first, that of a burra memsahib."
An excellent book telling an important and seldom told story. Orwell is not read enough for these fine books - all the attention going to 1984 (a derivative of Zamyatin anyway.)
As I re-read and convert book cards into XML I often wonder why I wrote something. Why did I say that "of course" Flory loses the girl and commits suicide? Maybe the story was written in such a way that this was the expected and foreshadowed outcome. Or maybe I was just in a mood where things seemed obvious to me even though they weren't really obvious or even likely. It can happen.
The reference in the last line is to Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We, published in 1921. Maybe Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was a better reflection of We, though Huxley supposedly hadn't read the Russian novel before publishing his own.
| Author | Ambler, Eric |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Atheneum, 1972 |
| Number of Pages | 307 |
| Genres | Fiction; Thriller |
| When Read | June 1983 |
An unusual political thriller about a Middle Eastern entrepreneur, Michael Howell (his grandfather was English) whose joint venture with the Syrian government to make batteries is taken over by a Palestinian terrorist organization. The leader of that group, Salah Ghaled, threatens to destroy the Agence Howell and Michael if he does not join the organization and assist in a plan to shell and bomb Tel Aviv. In the end Howell betrays the plan to the Israelis and kills Ghaled.
The story was neither well nor badly done. My interest in it has to do with its treatment of the Middle East and the radical Palestinian guerrillas.
The treatment is convincing. It conveys details of official and economic life in Syria that I have never been exposed to before. There is a Syrian minister of industry - honest and brilliant yet vain and self-serving; a security chief to be avoided at all costs; a building contractor who specializes in shoddy work and cheating. Most interesting are the Palestinians. The leader is a patriot and in some sense a decent man. Yet he is ruthless. He holds with no qualms at all the view that his end justifies any action and any use, misuse, or injury to any other person.
Certainly that is the view of the worst of the terrorists.
This appears to be the first book I read by Eric Ambler. The book jacket advertised him as a famous writer of thrillers and the name was vaguely familiar to me when I came across this book, I think in the Wheaton Library. I was curious about him when I read it but thought that he was competent but not exceptional or exceptionally different from other writers. However now that I've read some of his earlier work, such as The Mask of Dimitrios, published 33 years before this one, I see that his writing changed a lot over the years, as indeed the whole genre of thriller writing changed, perhaps under the impact of writers like John Le Carre.
Public libraries tend to wind up with recent books. To some extent, they throw out old ones to make room for new ones, and to some extent the books fall apart after they've been borrowed and handled enough times. (I was taught in library school that a hardback lasted for an average of 50 loans and a paperback for 5 loans - though I don't know if that was really true or not.) So I think it often happened that I read the late works of authors before I read the early ones.
I was very interested in the Israeli Palestinian conflict and was first introduced to the Palestinian perspective in the early 1970's at the University of Illinois. It was not too many years after this book that writers of thrillers began to see the conflict in a more complex light than we find here and in books like Nelson DeMille's By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978 - perhaps the last published of what I'll call the naive pro-Israeli books that I read.
| Author | Dostoevsky, Fyodor |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Russian |
| Translators | Hogarth, CJ |
| Publication | London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1962 |
| Copyright Date | 1866 |
| Number of Pages | 167 |
| Extras | Introduction by Nikolay Andreyev |
| Extras | Bound with Poor Folk, 307 pages total |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | July 1983 |
A short novel, less well done than most of them, about a young Russian tutor in the household of a retired general staying at a spa in "Roulettenberg" in Germany. There he is hopelessly in love with the General's neurotic, beautiful, typically Dostoevskyan daughter. She spurns him and he, of course, becomes ever more madly in love with her.
Other characters include the General's imperious 75 year old wheelchair bound mother who discovers roulette only to lose all her money, an avaricious but nice French girl who dangles the General on a string and takes all of the hero's winnings, and Astley, an English bourgeois gentleman who knows the true secrets of Polina's inner life but will not tell the hero - whom he despises for his weakness.
The hero himself is, of course, lost in gambling. His soul is destroyed. His "present dreams and aspirations do not rise above pair, impair, rouge, noir, the twelve middle numbers, and so forth." Even the money means nothing since, if he won, he only squandered it. It is the fever of winning and losing that consumes him.
D's great talents are not fully utilized here. His characters are shallow, even the hero, and his silliness about Russians and Frenchmen and Poles and Jews is particularly obnoxious. Yet there are moments of high comedy and touches of phrases which reveal the master.
My abstract left out a key element of the plot. Alexei Ivanovich, the hero of the story, wins a fortune at the casino but doesn't know what to do with it. He never won big before. He lives it up and squanders the money very quickly. It doesn't really mean anything to him. Within a short time he is back at the roulette tables, totally addicted and doomed.
Dostoevsky himself was a compulsive gambler, a problem that Tolstoy also had. It is reported that he wrote this book under pressure from a publisher who demanded that it be finished and delivered by a particular time or else D would give all of his writing to this publisher for free for the next nine years. D finished the book on time - no doubt accounting for the hasty writing that I thought it had. I wonder what would really have happened if he had not finished on time.
| Author | Arnson, Cynthia |
|---|---|
| Publication | Washington DC: Institute for Policy Studies Transnational Institute, 1982 |
| Number of Pages | 118 |
| Extras | notes, bibliography, glossary, appendices |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History; Politics |
| Keywords | Latin America |
| When Read | July 1983 |
A very simple, sympathetic political history-summary of El Salvador with most of the emphasis on the current crisis there. A number of key facts are clarified and documented including:
1. A tiny oligarchy has always controlled the country since the Spanish conquest. Their politics are unbelievably far right. Their political instrument is always naked military force.
2. Left wing politics almost came to power in the 1930's, only to be drowned in blood. The left rose again in the 1970's with the complete failure of any center force to gain recognition from the right.
3. Major elections in 1972 and 1977 were stolen by the right. Pure fraud was used to insure rightist victory over the center/left coalition.
4. The coup which deposed Romero in 1979 and replaced him with a progressive junta never had the support of the army. The Army immediately instigated mass repression, partly to discredit the junta and bring down its center/left elements.
5. While some elements in the U.S. State Department under Carter made serious attempts to halt the repression, even under Carter and especially under Reagan the U.S. has increasingly looked for a purely military solution. A "clean counterinsurgency" they called it.
6. There is strong evidence concerning the murders of Archbishop Romero, the nuns, the land reform experts, and others. And the U.S. government knows it.
7. No meaningful land or other reform ever took place except nationalization of coffee and sugar exportation.
[No comments.]
In case someone reads this who didn't live through or doesn't remember the battles of the 1970's, here are some of the references.
Carlos Umberto Romero was the man who became President after the stolen election in 1977 (point 3 above). He was deposed by the coup in 1979 (point 4 above.)
Archbishop Romero (Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez - point 6 above) is a different Romero. He was a progressive leader of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. His murder on March 24, 1980 was eventually proven to be at the hands of a right wing death squad. "The nuns" were a group four American nuns plus another American woman who were raped and murdered by a death squad on December 2, 1980. This got the attention of the American media and many Americans who had not previously followed the events in El Salvador.
I joined the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) at that time and, to this day, still give them small amounts of money every year. Maybe the work of CISPES helped to at least keep the truth alive.
| Author | Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Russian |
| Translators | De Garis, Roger |
| Publication | New York: MacMillan Co., 1982 |
| Number of Pages | 321 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | July 1983 |
Three novellas of Earthmen and alien humanoids.
"Escape Attempt" has three Earthmen, Vadim, "the most structuralist-est linguist", Anton, a pilot, and Saul, a historian of the 20th century, visit a planet where they discover human life in a terrible medieval society. The people there have been visited by the "Wanderers", who left an infinite trail of trucks performing "null transport." The filthy rulers sacrifice prisoners to try to discover how the trucks work. Two of the Earthmen react with naive sympathy. The historian sees it as ugly fascism, needing to be crushed.
In "The Kid from Hell", Gack, a "fighting Cat" professional soldier, is rescued from death in a stupid alien 20th century type war and brought to an advanced and civilized earth. There he cannot cope with the trust and openness of society or its peaceful ways. He eventually returns to hell - in the midst of a covertly earth engineered revolution overthrowing the terrible regimes. He is home, but changed.
"Space Mowgli" has an Earth team on a supposed deserted planet contacted by a 12 year old boy whose parents crashed there and who has been raised by non-human aliens - too different to even begin to understand. The boy is only barely human himself. The four Earth people react to him as both alien and human, object and person. There are conflicts and misunderstandings between the four and with the boy - but a start is made towards communication.
All three stories are powerful and imaginative. The people are the Strugatskys' civilized but young and impetuous types, all locked in to their own perspectives, all trying hard to break out. The science is marvelous and natural - even if it's entirely unexplained - we still accept it. As usual, plots are unresolved, issues left open, philosophical questions raised.
For some reason or other, the "null transport" of "Escape Attempt" sticks in my mind from this book. As I recall, there was a highway originating at the exit of a tunnel. A continuous stream of trucks or tractor trailers traveled the highway until they disappeared in an entrance to another tunnel. I don't think there were drivers on the trucks. They were robotic. None of the residents of the planet knows the purpose of these trucks or the cargoes inside. The Earthmen recognize it immediately as "null transport" but they don't bother to inform the reader about what it really is. The local ruler sacrifices the lives of prisoners to stop one of the trucks and break-in to the inside but I don't recall what they discover, if anything.
The Strugatskys introduced me to a new type of science fiction and a new type of Soviet fiction, one which skirted the boundaries of Soviet censorship, perhaps because of its optimistic view of a socialist future. I liked them a lot.
Arkady died in 1991 and Boris in 2012.
| Author | Reeman, Douglas |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: William Morrow and Co., 1981 |
| Number of Pages | 290 |
| Genres | Fiction; Historical fiction |
| Keywords | World War II |
| When Read | July 1983 |
The action of the novel takes place in the Black Sea where a squadron of five British Motor Torpedo Boats is helping the Russians. Almost no attempt at all is made to describe Russia and only one page is devoted to a Russian's eye view - and perhaps two more to the Germans. The Russians are described as tough and dedicated but ruthless and inscrutable.
This, the 21st of Reeman's sea adventures, is no better than the first and not as good as the one from the middle of his career. The sea action is a bit wild and reckless, with a touch more gratification and gratuitous last minute rescues, and somewhat less realism. The characters are quite simple. There is the heroic young commander and his devoted crew, and the desk jockey bastard of a captain. The love scenes are obligatory and embarrassing.
There is still some of Reeman's love of the men - but nothing has been added over the years.
| Author | Halabi, Rafik |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Hebrew |
| Translators | Friedman, Ina |
| Publication | New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982 |
| Copyright Date | 1981 |
| Number of Pages | 304 |
| Extras | index, map |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Israel |
| When Read | July 1983 |
H is a Druse, born in 1946, growing up an Israeli citizen. Although he grew up in an Arab / Druse village, he attended high school and college in Jewish dominated schools, learning good Hebrew and coming to admire and assimilate with Jewish Israeli society. He has served in the army and in the military government of the West Bank, and is now a reporter for Israel Television.
What he reports is a history of misunderstanding, friction, and growing polarization between Jews and Arabs. Despite many progressive tendencies in Israel, a continual, uninterrupted patter of violations of Arab rights and heaping of indignities upon them is driving the two communities apart. Extremists among the Jews are held in check, but never punished for their excesses - which are numerous and frequent. Moderates among the Arabs are soon silenced or even killed by PLO extremists. Each action by extremists on either side (and many on the Israeli side are in positions of real power) causes more people to join the extremists on the other side.
He specifically records many Israeli actions that make things worse. Settler arrogance and vandalism; blowing up houses of innocent people; harassing searches; suppression of demonstrations, publications, meetings, even art exhibitions; exploitation of Arab labor.
Ironically, the Arab community is growing more numerous, more educated, and much richer under Israeli rule, even as their radicalism increases.
H holds out little hope for improvement.
As bad as the situation was in 1981 when Halabi wrote this book, I think it's worse now. And however bad it was before today, I expect it to get worse now that Donald Trump is the President of the United States. I think Halabi was right that things would not improve. I still see no light at the end of this tunnel.
| Author | Stevenson, William |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Viking Press, 1971 |
| Number of Pages | 344 |
| Extras | index, map |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Aviation; Israel |
| When Read | July 1983 |
An American journalist went to Israel during the "war of attrition" waged between Israel and Egypt and Syria after 1967 to study the Israeli Air Force. He reports the Israeli airman's view of that war - the heroism, super competence, grueling hard work, austerity, imagination, camaraderie, and total dedication.
This inside view looks very much like the RAF during the Battle of Britain, or many other situations in which a small group fought a larger foe using superior courage, competence, and ingenuity to transform weakness into strength.
It is very much an interior view. It is the unabashed view of the dedicated Zionist, believing his cause to be morally beyond reproach, his enemies to be dupes or cynical evil doers, and the whole world to be indifferent or actively hostile. Most of my relatives would subscribe to it completely.
Leaving that issue aside, S leaves no doubt that these are decent and heroic people. He shows the heroic dimensions of their effort. He shows how much the high superiority of the IAF, which is so easily taken for granted, is in fact founded on human rather than material strength. And the magnitude of that human strength is enormous. Men fly for hours on missions to attract missiles! They have two seconds to save themselves after detecting a missile launch. Men improvise equipment, fly outmoded aircraft, delete expensive equipment to save money, accept any odds.
While holding my reservations on Zionism's course, I still can't help but admire the achievement.
I would be curious to read an account from the Egyptian or Syrian side of this air war. I picture their pilots as starting out with courage, but without the intensive selection and training, the technical depth in their support personnel, or the confidence in their commanders that the Israelis had. They would inevitably have suffered a crisis of morale, knowing that they were flying into more or less certain doom. For the Israelis on the other hand, all the stars were aligned. The pilots were selected as the most suited of all of the youth of the country. Their rigorous training began when they were teenagers. They believed in their country and were ready to accept ultimate sacrifices to defend it. In World War II, this was partly true of all of the major air forces. Few of the pilots were brought up to the profession as the Israelis were but most, perhaps even among Americans who had the least reason to die for a country that was not really endangered by the enemy, were committed to the death. I don't know if any of this was true for the Arab air forces.
| Author | Karol, K.S. |
|---|---|
| Original Language | French |
| Translators | Pomerans, Arnold |
| Publication | New York: Hill and Wang, 1970 |
| Copyright Date | 1970 |
| Number of Pages | x + 624 |
| Extras | index, chronology, charts, notes |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History; Politics |
| Keywords | Cuba |
| When Read | August 1983 |
A Polish Marxist, living in France, who has spent much time in the USSR (Red Army!), China and Cuba, reports on the course of the revolution. K met Castro, Che, and many other Cuban leaders and had many discussions with them.
Cuba clearly began its revolution differently from in Russia. After a single year of high influence in 1962, the Stalinst CP (PSP) in Cuba was discredited and defeated. The guerrilleros, inexperienced, idealist, going off in many directions, were nonetheless building a far freer, more open, more honest society than in Russia.
Still, K feels that they failed to build and institutionalize true democracy, i.e., popular power, popular initiatives, free elections, free press. This, he feels, is a key element in their failure to achieve labor discipline and high productivity and their failure to build institutions which do not depend on Fidel.
K himself is an interesting, sophisticated writer. He has the right mix of Marxist analysis, sympathy for the poor, commitment to democracy and socialism, and healthy skepticism. He reports a Cuba of many contradictions. He also reports terrible things about the Russian and East European economies and leadership - stagnation, waste, bureaucracy, failure.
This was another book on my intellectual journey away from "orthodox" Marxism and its dictatorship of the proletariat.
| Author | Wiesenthal, Simon |
|---|---|
| Original Language | German |
| Translators | Winston, Richard and Clara |
| Publication | New York: MacMillan, 1973 |
| Copyright Date | 1972 |
| Number of Pages | 248 |
| Extras | bibliography, index, illustrations |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Judaism |
| When Read | August 1983 |
The book is primarily about the fate of the Jews under the inquisition in Spain and only secondarily about Columbus.
Jews may have amounted to 1/6 to 1/2 the population of medieval Castille. They suffered severely in the pogroms of 1391 and again after 1465 to their total expulsion in 1492.
Many had great wealth and occupied key positions in society - but they were often the first to suffer. Even the Conversos suffered terribly.
This great tragedy was in many ways a precursor to the modern one. Untold thousands died - tortured and burned. Thousands became slaves. Thousands were forced to convert. Thousands had children taken from them and raised Christian. An estimated 300,000 were expelled, all under terrible conditions
Columbus may have been a converted Jew or descendant of Jews. His chief translator was a Jew. His expedition was financed by Marranos and Conversos. He may have hoped to find the rumored long lost Jews of the ten tribes - maybe even a Jewish kingdom.
There are hints of all of this, no proof.
This book came from a, to me, unexpected source. I knew of Wiesenthal as an indefatigable Nazi hunter but had no idea that he did research on Columbus or the Inquisition. I was not convinced by this book at the time but could not dismiss W as a crackpot or a sensationalist. He was a man I deeply respected. This story is one of those that one puts on a shelf in a special cabinet of oddities.
For many years I supported the Simon Wiesenthal Center with small contributions. After W's death the Center passed into the hands of Rabbi Marvin Hier, who took a salary of $300,000 from it and gave another salary of $250,000 to his wife. On top of that, the Center became yet another of the Jewish institutions that threw themselves in with the State of Israel, no matter how right wing or politically wrong it became. I haven't sent them any money in years and probably never will. But they don't care. For the time at least, they're getting big bucks from wealthy older Jews who lived at the time of the Holocaust or under its shadow and who stayed with Israel long after it ceased to merit their support.
My claim that "they're getting big bucks from wealthy older Jews ..." comes from reading Peter Beinart's The Crisis of Zionism (q.v.). All of the Jewish organizations have been pressured, and most distorted, by the temptation to portray Jews as under siege by antisemites, and to portray Israel as the only final haven for the Jewish people. See Beinart, and my notes on his book, for more.
| Author | Wolfe, Tom |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979 |
| Number of Pages | 436 |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History |
| Keywords | Aviation |
| When Read | August 1983 |
An outstanding history of the astronaut program, taking as its focus the driving ambition of the seven original astronauts, all but one former military "fighter jocks", to "hang their hides over the edge" and demonstrate that they were made of the "right stuff".
The pilots all belonged to a kind of fraternity of flying. These were extremely courageous men, many of whom had seen combat in WWII and/or in Korea (John Glenn had 18 clusters on 5 DFC's with kills in both wars.) They lived for flying, drinking and driving and their ambitions to achieve the respect of their peers. As astronauts they first lacked that respect due to the automatic nature of the equipment. But all unexpectedly, they achieved the total adulation of the nation and reached the pyramid of the flying brotherhood.
Glenn was the odd man out. Devoutly religious, ostentatiously conventional, patriotic, stodgy, and yet willing to stand up against the tide for what he believed in. This is particularly interesting given his current campaign for the presidency. I don't know if there is anyone quite like him in politics.
The book chronicles the development of the astronaut program through all sorts of trials and ridiculous events, including the press hysteria, impact on the wives, medical mania, cold war, service careers, and so on.
W is a delightful writer. We laugh and laugh at his parodies. He has Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier with two broken ribs, terrible pain, and yet a bored, ironic, up hollow, hill billy drawl of a report - the quintessence of the right stuff. His scenes of the press and his descriptions of training flight and so on are just marvelous. His astronauts, in spite of all difficulties in describing such men, do indeed emerge as people and as heroes.
It's hard, at this distance in time, to disentangle this fine book from the fine movie made from it, a movie I've seen at least a couple of times. I had forgotten that Glenn ran for President but now I remember how upset some of his rivals were. How was it possible to run a campaign against such a movie hero. His heroism appealed not only to manly men who wished they were as courageous and competent as he was, but also to all of the wives of America who saw him defend his bashful, speech impedimented wife against the demands of Lyndon Johnson, then vice-president of the United States, to meet with her publicly for the TV cameras. In an iconic scene, Glenn walks in a sweaty space suit from an ordeal and is told there is a phone call for him. It is his wife telling him that she can't do what they are demanding that she do. He tells her she doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to do and reassures her that John Glenn said that she doesn't have to do it. His bosses tell him he is "out of line". He rages back - "No, you're out of line" and stalks off with the other six astronauts closing ranks around him.
Great stuff!
| Author | Perez Lopez, Francisco |
|---|---|
| Original Language | French |
| Translators | Harris, Joseph D. |
| Publication | Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1972 |
| Copyright Date | 1970 |
| Number of Pages | 275 |
| Extras | Edited and introduction by Victor Guerrier |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History; Autobiography |
| Keywords | Spanish Civil War |
| When Read | August 1983 |
This diary was written after the war in Spain, based on the author's recollections and notes he made at the time.
The story is written at the boundaries of human experience, where warfare, mass murder, justice, revenge, all begin to blend into each other. P joined the International Brigades in 1938, fought, was captured, worked as a very unique prisoner for two years, then escaped, fought again as leader of a tiny guerrilla band long after the Republic had been defeated, and finally escaped to France. He must literally have killed hundreds of people - many by deceit, many in ambush, many who had already surrendered. By cunning, competence, wide experience, and absolute unequivocal courage in the face of death, he became a master of warfare. He always attacked. He was always cool. He rested and ate in the middle of flight because he knew it was smart. He almost always turned back on his pursuers - ambushing them, attacking in the night, massacring them in droves. He led small bands of equally courageous men molded under his leadership, but all killed in action. He goal was not survival but never ending revenge against fascists and exploiters.
The book is a very straight, understated account, as one would expect from such man. P himself is one of those extraordinary characters of real life who are normally never seen because of their low station.
For all his bloodiness, he defended the poor, he tried not to ever kill draftees. Ruthless with his enemies he redeemed himself with humanity towards the great poverty stricken mass.
The scene that I remember, or seem to remember, from this book is the one in which P is captured. As I recall it, he was cornered. With no way out he went forward shooting the first group of men who tried to stop him and then shooting another group before giving himself up in a hopeless situation. He described it matter-of-factly as if, well, here are some more fascists, there's nothing to do but just shoot them and move on. I hadn't read anything like it before.
I know that in my youth I read Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War. Since then I have read more books that have given me some understanding of the class divisions in Spain. The war was certainly a tragedy with a tragic outcome.
| Author | Follett, Ken |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: William Morrow and Co., 1982 |
| Number of Pages | 305 |
| Genres | Fiction; Thriller |
| When Read | September 1983 |
A suspense thriller set in England in 1914. A Russian prince arrives in London to negotiate a deal over the Bosphorus with the British, the British hoping to draw Russia into the coming war. He stays at the house of his old friend Lord Walden and his Russian wife Lydia and daughter Charlotte. Meanwhile, anarchist Feliks arrives from Russia to kill Prince Orlov and prevent Russia's entry into the war. It turns out that Lydia is Feliks' old lover and Charlotte his daughter. He uses them to close in on Orlov. Eventually he penetrates all the security and kills Orlov - then dies while saving Charlotte from a fire he set. The assassination of course does not prevent the war.
This is not just a suspense novel. Follett also includes serious, albeit simple, passages on Victorian morality, sexism, imperialism, the life of anarchists, etc. He develops Feliks, Charlotte and Walden, all as sympathetic characters, refusing to treat Feliks as a bloody assassin.
The suspense is acceptable, the writing is acceptable, the ancillary content of place and time is above average, as is the social conscience - hence a relatively good book of its type.
I quite liked it.
Follett also authored Eye of the Needle - later done as a quite good film with Ronald Sutherland.
Besides whatever I read before this book, I read another nine by Follett after it, the last one A Dangerous Fortune just a couple of months ago. He's never impressed me as a great writer, not like, for example John Le Carre. But he has continued to attract my interest.
| Author | Dickson, Gordon R. |
|---|---|
| Publication | Garden City: Doubleday and Co., 1974 |
| Number of Pages | 215 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | September 1983 |
A collection of nine SF stories originally published between 1951 and 1969.
"Ancient My Enemy", '69, has a prospector on a hot planet kill an alien native who believes the two were destined to be enemies. "The Odd Ones", '55, is a very nice tale of two alien philosophers observing a pair of earthlings and finally concluding that they are fine folks. "The Monkey Wrench", '51, is one of those stories of a computer blowing its circuits trying to solve a paradox - Was this an early one? There have been so many. "Tiger Green" on individualism vs. bad collectivism, "The Friendly Man" - limited robots, "Love Me True" - a sweet deadly alien, "Our First Death" - a better story about a dim, limited colonial life, "In the Bone"and "The Bleak and Barren Land" - more conflicts with aliens.
D has mastered the craft of writing a story with appropriate plot, character, ending, and so on, but there is no real interest to these pieces. They are sometimes harsh and sometimes bright, but they are usually predictable.
Looking back, with no real memory of any of these stories, the single phrase synopsis of each of them makes them sound very interesting. The comment seems harsh. But I will trust my 37 years old judgment and assume that the comment was right.
It was a catchy title though. When I picked up the book card for it I thought, "this is going to be an interesting one."
| Author | Powers, Thomas |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Pocket Books, 1981 |
| Copyright Date | 1979 |
| Number of Pages | 508 |
| Extras | notes, index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; History; Biography |
| When Read | September 1983 |
This book is really a history of the CIA with special emphasis on Helms. Major controversial issues are discussed at length, including Guatemala, Bay of Pigs, Castro assassination plot, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Chile.
The picture is what one would expect. Men with great intelligence and ability, but dubious ideology, have attempted to order the world to their own liking. Helms was far from the worst of the lot. His ideology seemed closer to loyal service to the executive branch than Cold War fantasies of good and evil. Yet he too considered it right to be and cheat for the good of the service.
The hundreds of footnotes and references are particularly interesting.
| Author | Brown, Deaver |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Ballantine Books, 1980 |
| Number of Pages | 209 |
| Extras | index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Business |
| When Read | September 1983 |
Brown is an entrepreneur whose greatest success, up to the time of writing, appears to be the Cross River Co., makers of the Umbroller Stroller. According to the book, he earned his Bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1966 and a Masters from the Harvard Business School in '68, all of which makes him very young for his considerable accomplishments.
B gives very practical, down to earth advice. He reports his experience in sales, credit operations (production), union negotiations, etc. It has helped me particularly in the matter of partners (don't) and marketing - which he regards as the most iportant ingredient in success.
I do not aspire to emulate this entrepreneur or to copy his business practices, but I have gotten some good ideas from him.
When I read this book I had already given notice to Online Computer Systems that I intended to leave the company and become an independent consultant. I had not yet begun my independent business and I wanted to learn what I needed to know to be an entrepreneur. My first actual invoice, at least the first numbered one, went out on December 15, 1983.
As it turns out, I don't think there was much, if anything in this book that applied to me, but I do remember the book. Brown related anecdotes of his experience. For example, he had a client that sent him a letter congratulating him on becoming a preferred provider with their company. The letter stated baldly that preferred providers would give the client an extra 5% discount over their current prices, and would accept payment in 60 days instead of 30 days. Walmart was not the first company to learn how to squeeze its suppliers.
Brown's business was not like mine. He had no passion for baby buggies. His passion was entrepreneurship. I think he loved the idea of being independent, of being the master of his own fate, of spinning up an idea in his own mind and turning it into a concrete product that people bought. He never actually built a factory. He contracted out the manufacturing.
...
So I just looked up Deaver Brown on Google. It turns out that his full name is Dave Denver Brown and he has been in trouble with the law, accused and convicted of scamming investors in two different companies. Perhaps his passion was neither baby buggies nor entrepreneurship. Perhaps his passion was just Deaver Brown. Screw him.
| Author | Freud, Sigmund |
|---|---|
| Original Language | German |
| Translators | Riviere, Joan |
| Publication | Garden City: Permabooks (Doubleday), 1956 |
| Copyright Date | 1920 |
| Number of Pages | 480 |
| Extras | Preface and introduction by Ernest Jones and G. Stanley Hall |
| Extras | index |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Psychology |
| When Read | September 1983 |
A course of lectures offered by Freud in 1917 in Vienna.
This is the "Authorized English Translation of the Revised Edition by Joan Riviere". The lectures given in 1917 were published in German in 1920 and in English translation in 1924.
It is impossible here to summarize the contents of this book so I shall give only general impressions. Freud is a great revolutionary thinker. He introduced such basic concepts as the unconscious and subconscious minds, repression, conflict, the unraveling of the mental causes of mental events, the power of sexuality in mental life, etc.
Today we may attack some of these views from a more advanced perspective but we could not have reached that advanced perspective without Freud.
I am impressed with the sophistication of his thinking, his familiarity with philosophy and literature, his ability to see the objections to his views and explain them in their best and most convincing light - and then definitively answer them. He makes sweeping statements but always with a full consciousness of the dangers and responsibilities of doing so.
Although I would not always give assent to the views propounded I still felt that I was being introduced to a powerful and insightful mode of thought, and a genuinely scientific approach to the study of behavior - not what I expected.
See my diary entries for late spring and early summer for more. I read small snatches over a long period.
The diary entries listed below reflect the same enthusiasm for Freud's book that I manifested in the comment above. Before reading this I assumed the truth of the fairly common view that Freud was some sort of an overzealous believer in sensationalist theories that won him great attention but could not pass scientific muster. I don't know to what extent his theories can pass scientific muster but this book convinced me that Freud was a very sophisticated thinker who may have made some very important discoveries about the human mind. Or, failing that, I think we can at least say that he raised some very cogent questions about the nature of the human mind.
The last two diary entries discuss some of the issues in more depth.
| Author | Sheckley, Robert |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983 |
| Number of Pages | 204 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | September 1983 |
Another delightful Sheckley SF comedy. Perhaps not as tight as Crompton Divided, but still fun to read.
Dramocles, King of the planet Glorm, finds his memory jogged at age 50 to suddenly recall that he has a destiny, only he can't remember what it is. He determines that the memory of it was suppressed 30 years before, to be revealed to him in pieces. Following the clues, he takes another planet, then attacks a third, only fo find himself in a long drawn out war. In the end he stops the war by a total surrender and learns at least part of the truth - involving his father Otho the Weird (or Tlaloc in his Earth name), a sophisticated computer produced by old Earth Science that maintains a delusion of living in the 17th century Earth, and more.
S allows himself to be carried away in many passages, producing marvelous turns and flashes of imagination. He does this even in his own writing self-criticism (also sometimes built into the story - see diary for September 22.) This reduces the tightness of the story but gives it much of its delightfulness.
As in Crompton Divided there are many characters and attitudes that can only be described as California. There is the softness of thinking, total indulgence of self and others, search for the ultimate high, and so on - which S so well understands and satirizes.
I read some books for edification, some for appreciation, some for a whole variety of reasons. I read Sheckley for pure pleasure.
| Author | Goldman, Marshall I. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: WW Norton and Co., 1983 |
| Number of Pages | 210 |
| Extras | index, notes, bibliography |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Economics |
| Keywords | Soviet Union |
| When Read | October 1983 |
G is Associate Directory of the Russian Research Center at Harvard, and a professor of economics, consultant to the State Department, etc. The book is very non-technical and popular in style, although heavily documented.
G considers the USSR to be completely stagnant, incapable of moving forward politically or economically. The economic planning and leadership processes are too centralized and to stultified in conservative pressures that cannot be altered or escaped. The system grew up to meet increasing production targets of very basic producer goods - especially steel. However, according to G, it never adapted to high tech or to meeting consumer demand - for which it hasn't the basic market mechanisms needed to adapt. He claims that, in order for anything to happen in the Soviet Union, someone at the top has to plan it and order it - in spite of its never having been done before - an impossible task.
G is not maliciously anti-communist. He has sympathy for the Soviet dilemma and recommends moderate, not radical change. But he is clearly an outsider with totally opposite ideology.
In any case the facts he brings together are not to be ignored. The Soviet Union is in big trouble and in need of very profound change.
When I left the University of Illinois in June of 1974 I was a convinced Marxist. I had plenty of criticisms of the Soviet Union, but I was a believer in socialism and my criticisms were from the left. By the time I read this book in 1983 my political and economic ideas were in flux. I accepted a job at Online Computer Systems in 1979, began to work very hard for that private enterprise, and was impressed with the achievements of the company. I became much more receptive to Marshall's arguments. I think this was one of the books that helped me to reach my current position, which is that capitalist and socialist enterprise each have positive roles to play in a mixed economy, and that each one also has negative tendencies that must be fought against and regulated.
| Author | Cather, Willa |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953 |
| Copyright Date | 1925 |
| Number of Pages | 283 |
| Genres | Fiction |
| When Read | October 1983 |
A study of the inner life of a professor of Spanish American history at an undistinguished Midwest college. Godfrey St. Peter, in his mid-fifties, with two grown and married daughters, passes through a psychological crisis. He has completed his magnum opus eight volume history. His greatest student and friend, Tom Outland, has died in the war. His married daughters bicker with each other and the wealthy one behaves badly to the other and to other people. Although not exactly estranged from his wife, his relations with her have become correct and concerned rather than warm and affectionate.
He responds by withdrawal. He stays in the poorly heated attic of his old house to work after his wife has moved to a new one. He almost dies in a gas heating accident - which has considerable elements of death wish to it. He stays home while his wife, daughter, and son-in-law summer in Europe. In the end, passing through a crisis of apathy, he pulls himself together and continues on.
C's writing is, as in other books, very subtle, very sympathetic. She cares very much about the man. She portrays him, very successfully, as a man whom readers must care about too. And all of this is done with a minimum of plot and action. It is based mainly on the interior thoughts of the character.
C's writing always makes me see my life in a wider and deeper perspective. While denying all larger than life illusions, she makes the reality of life more valuable in our perception.
Still one of my favorite authors.
Unlike the characters in My Antonia, O Pioneers!, or Shadows on the Rock, Godfrey St. Peter is an intellectual, a man who lives in his mind, in his house, reading and writing, reflecting on his life and on history. While I very much appreciated those other books, and consider at least two of them to be greater books than this one, St. Peter appealed to me in a personal way and added to my appreciation of Cather.
Obviously, St. Peter had achieved more than I have in his intellectual life, but the most important difference from my perspective is that my marriage is warm and affectionate and I consider my children to be good and successful in their different ways. I don't know if I was certain of all of that in 1983 but I'm certain of it now.
| Author | Williams, Harold A. |
|---|---|
| Publication | Baltimore: Bodine and Associates, 1971 |
| Number of Pages | 82 |
| Extras | photos |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Biography |
| When Read | October 1983 |
A biography of the _Sun_ photographer A. Aubrey Bodine, together with a selection of his most important prize winning photos.
The only one word that nicely describes Bodine as a person is "asshole". He was arrogant, bigoted, reactionary, and, in many circumstances, rude and nasty.
But the photos sure are marvelous.
The care he took with time of day, light, atmosphere, weather, even season, was extraordinary. His eye for pictorialism is unmatched. The pictures are, in a very popular and clearly understandable sense, beautiful.
Growing up in Baltimore, with the _Sun_ newspaper delivered to our house, I saw Bodine's photo of the week each Sunday. The photos were always black and white or sepia and printed large in the magazine section of the paper.
I just went down to the basement and found my copy of Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater, copyright 1954 by Bodine and Associates. His daughter, Jennifer Bodine is still alive and runs a small enterprise selling his books, her books about him, and individual photos.
There is a dark atmosphere to B's photos that I don't recall in the work of any other photographer. Photos taken on a sunny day often show the main subject back lit or in shadow, or just printed a little darker than other photographers might print them. Skies are usually cloudy and often have dark, dramatic looking, threatening clouds on what is otherwise a very peaceful scene.
I still like his photos a lot. I didn't remember writing this book card and had forgotten that I thought the man was an asshole, or why I thought he was arrogant, bigoted, reactionary, rude, and nasty. Maybe I'd be more forgiving now. Or maybe not.
| Author | Chandler, Raymond |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940 |
| Copyright Date | 1940 |
| Number of Pages | 273 |
| Genres | Fiction; Mystery |
| When Read | October 1983 |
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is dragged into witnessing Moose Malloy kill a man in a black bar in LA in a search for his girl Velma. One event leads to another and Marlowe is led through a series of seemingly unrelated adventures which in fact have a common thread which he must unravel. Velma turns out to be the rich Mrs. Grayle. Marlowe arranges a confrontation but she kills Moose and escapes - only to commit suicide months later when discovered.
This is a well handled Chandler story in the classic American private eye genre. The action is sustained, the characters all very exotic, with nice touches of wholesome manhood and innocent girlhood offsetting the procession of crooked cops, corrupt doctors, selfish beauties, sophisticated gangsters, etc.
There is a surprising amount of racist language. The words "nigger", "shine", and "wop" all flow freely from Marlowe's lips - which spoils some of the innocent pleasure of this kind of novel. But if we leave that aside this is a good example of its type.
I note that this is a first edition, marked $1.00 by the Pratt Library which, based on the accession number, probably got it as a gift in 1958.
An Englishman once told me that he thought antisemitism was common and respectable in polite society until, in the aftermath of World War II, people learned what it led to. I think the same was true of anti-Negro racism, though perhaps it took longer, reaching into the civil rights struggles of the 1950's and 60's, before educated people began to understand the nastiness and inhumanity of racism.
A hundred years from now, when people read the books of our era, what horrors will they discover that we unconsciously indulge in? Will it be religion, nationalism, Trump style populism, political correctness, inequality? There are lots of candidates but no strong reason to suppose that the future will be more humane than the past.
| Author | Le Guin, Ursula K. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Harper and Row, 1978 |
| Number of Pages | 179 |
| Genres | Fiction; Science fiction |
| When Read | November 1983 |
Another story in L's anarchist vision. Two small communities, one stemming from a Brazilian penal colony, the other from a group of exiled pacifists, live side by side on a planet totally cutoff from earth. Only three ships ever landed, one with the pacifists 60 years before the story begins, and two with prisoners over a hundred years before. They live in a low level material culture with parallel and radically different societies.
The Brazilians are beginning to evolve an oppressive class society. Don Luis Falco manipulates the young bully Don Herman MacMillan to form a gang of elite thugs to whip the "Shantih Towners" in line. Falco's daughter, Luz Marina, goes over to the pacifists. There is a confrontation. People are killed. The pacifists also kill. Lev Shults, the main pacifist protagonist and attraction to Luz is killed.
In the end a small group of 67 of the pacifists, with Luz, leaves the whole mess behind and strikes off into the woods to run away and found a new settlement.
The book has the same tone, if not the same depth, as The Dispossessed. It is acceptably well written (though not good) and has interesting political and social themes. It makes a real attempt at sincerity - even to the death of the main love interest.
| Author | Simenon, Georges |
|---|---|
| Original Language | French |
| Translators | Stevenson, Christopher Sinclair |
| Publication | New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1968 |
| Copyright Date | 1967 |
| Number of Pages | 148 |
| Genres | Fiction; Thriller |
| When Read | November 1983 |
Emile Jovis, a very limited uninteresting man who manages a branch of a travel agency, buys an apartment in a new development community outside Paris. His humble wife Blanche makes adaptations but seems disoriented in the new setting. His son Alain has no new friends and in any case is very distant from his father. Jovis is at a loss to understand any of this.
At night, through the walls, Jovis hears his neighbors engage in a wild and crude love making session. He becomes obsessed with listening to them and finding out more. He understands that they are involved in a shady business involving a night club, prostitution, and possibly car theft.
One night he lies to his wife and goes to the night club. He drinks, has sex with one of the women, drinks more, talks too much, is perceived as a threat, and later murdered. He dies in the hospital uncomprehending, guilty, sorry.
The book is very like The Venice Train. A psychologically stunted man becomes involved in, and obsessed with, some event outside his ability to deal with. He is destroyed by it. Again, it is well written and perceptive. The limitations of the characters are very ordinary and common. What seems like a very simple, secure and stodgy life is in fact very fragile - unable to stand contact with any larger, less structured, more threatening existence.
The Venice Train was the first book by Simenon that I read. After that I read a Maigret novel and then this one. So my real introduction to Simenon was not through Maigret - the part of his work that boiled his pots, but rather through these two psychological stories.
Is it right to call a novel of a depressive a "thriller"? I can't call it a "mystery" because the mysteries are never solved or even addressed. Perhaps I ought to have a genre category named "psychological", but then most books would fit in there. So I'll settle for "thriller".
| Author | Hall, Calvin S. |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: New American Library |
| Copyright Date | 1954 |
| Number of Pages | 127 |
| Extras | index, bibliography |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Psychology |
| When Read | December 1983 |
A short primer explicating Freud's theory of psychology as he expounded it in his later works. Hall does not attempt to argue for Freud's position, only to state clearly, simply, and as comprehensively as possible in so short a work, just what that position was.
In a fascinating introduction, Hall explains the importance of the newly discovered principle of conservation of energy as a paradigm for other sciences. Freud, much influenced by this, was building a theory of psychic energy - the dynamics of its movement, its conservation, its sources, and its outlets.
Freud's theories are almost impossible for me to accept. The claims concerning division of the personality, toilet training, sex, and everything else are highly controversial. It is especially difficult to read them in a document that does not attempt to justify them.
Freud's own writings are like Plato's. Whether or not you accept the conclusions, the arguments are always extremely enlightening. Unfortunately, this cannot be said to be true of this primer.
Hall has nevertheless performed a valuable service in bringing the scattered writings together into a coherent and comprehensive view of Freud's late theory.
| Author | Le Carre, John |
|---|---|
| Publication | New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983 |
| Number of Pages | 430 |
| Genres | Fiction; Spy |
| When Read | December 1983 |
A chilling novel in Le Carre's sophisticated style about a radical English actress who is recruited by the Israeli secret services in a successful attempt to find and kill an Arab terrorist. Le Carre mixes extensive, broad, and very authentic seeming detail with a continuous and equally detailed display of the psychological distortions and psychic damage suffered by the girl and the other characters.
The Israelis are portrayed as extremely effective, good to their own, but ruthless with their enemies. Their aim is to kill the entire terrorist ring while avoiding all suspicion. They succeed.
The girl, Charlie, is recruited by Gadi Becker, called Joseph and Jose by Charlie. He gets her to fall in love with him and then trains her in enormous detail to pretend that she has in fact fallen in love with a young terrorist whom the Israelis have captured - the brother of the man they want.
To penetrate the ring she literally becomes a terrorist herself, trained at a PLO camp in Lebanon. She always lives at the fine edge between belief in her role as terrorist and subservience to Joseph and the Israeli team. Eventually, when the operation is over, she is sheltered, treated, and then released by the Israelis - a complete psychological wreck. Joseph on his own, at the end, meets her to try and save her and himself from their past.
As usual, Le Carre's book is complimentary to no one. It makes the PLO case quite well and has us sympathizing with both sides. It presents the violence as both inevitable and intolerable.
This book was a departure from Le Carre's cold war books that I read before and after this one. I was tremendously impressed by it and came to see that the author's talent was even broader than I originally thought.
| Author | Thomson, John M. |
|---|---|
| Publication | London: Faber and Faber, 1968 |
| Number of Pages | 75 |
| Extras | illustrations, bibliography |
| Genres | Non-fiction; Music |
| When Read | December 1983 |
A short essay on recorders giving a very brief history, summary of the literature, and short sections on "How a recorder is made", and "Contemporary players".
The illustrations include early engravings and photos of painting and sculpture depicting recorder playing.
No comments.
I'm sorry I never learned to play this, possibly the simplest, cheapest and easiest of all instruments.
I presume that all of the illustrations were out of copyright images that could be incorporated without royalty payments. Today one can search for such images on the Internet. I wonder how it was done then. Perhaps a company collected them and charged small fees for allowing people to search for them and get copies. In 1968, when this book was published, no computers were likely to have been involved.