A brief overview of 2016 releases read

Although I read slightly more books in 2016 compared to 2015 (46 to 41), I only completed six books that were first printed in the US this year (I have a couple others, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's The Big Book of Science Fiction anthology and Nick Mamatas's I am Providence, to finish reading in the coming months).  I spent the majority of the year, reading slowly at my leisure around work and exercise training time 30 Library of America volumes, most of them histories, collected letters of the American Founding Fathers, and science writings by Loren Eiseley.  I am beginning to suspect this will be the new normal for me in regards to reading for the next few years, as I'm rediscovering older, mostly-forgotten loves and devoting 2-3 hours/day to reading just would be getting in the way.

Yet this does not mean that the few books published here in the US in 2016 that aren't fully reprinted material which I read didn't have some great stories in them.  No, although I didn't write reviews for four of the six books, that was in part because I found the time necessary to write fitting reviews for some of them to be rather wanting and by the time I did have more time, weeks or months had passed and I kept wanting to read something else rather than write a full-fledged review rather than a quick mention on Facebook.

But since 2016 ends for me in roughly an hour (and I have to wake up in 7 hours to work 4 hours before traveling to run my first 5K of 2017), I thought I would give a provisional "ranking" of these books, with a brief description for those curious about them:

6.  R. Scott Bakker, The Great Ordeal - reviewed back in July.

5.  Jack Kerouac, The Unknown Kerouac:  Rare, Unpublished & Newly Translated Writings - reviewed back in November.

4.  Lawrence Rosenwald, War No More:  Three Centuries of American Antiwar & Peace Writing - this Library of America anthology published this spring collects in one volume a very good selection of historical protests against war, along with the various strands of cultural thought that helped shaped diverse movements united by a common opposition to war as a means and as an end itself.

3.  Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers - originally published in 2015 in the UK, this June US release is short (barely 100 pages) but it packs the power of several gut punches as it traces a family's dealing with loss.  The quasi-lyrical arrangement of scenes adds greatly to what is already a powerfully poignant tale.

2.  Carlos Ruiz Zafón, El laberinto de los espíritus - I only finished this two nights ago, so I plan on writing a full review in the coming week or two.  I just need to dwell some more on some of the revleations made in this concluding volume to his four-part series.  What I do know is that the story, despite occasional raggedness in a few places, tied the previous volumes together in both surprising and long-expected ways.  More in the review itself.

1.  Elizabeth McKenzie, The Portable Veblen - longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award, this story contains a very important squirrel, which being a squirrel, automatically makes the book much better.  Leaving aside this bit of facetiousness, McKenzie's use of the squirrel in the midst of a young couple's internal and external conflicts is done adroitly, creating a multi-layered text that I will likely re-read again in 2017 before writing a formal review.  It is certainly the most memorable tale that I completed this year that was published then.

Hopefully my 2017 end-of-year list will contain more entries, but I think there is something here in this short list for many readers who might have diverse literary tastes.

Jack Kerouac, The Unknown Kerouac: Rare, Unpublished & Newly Translated Writings

I am French Canadian, born in New England.  When I am angry I often curse in French.  When I dream I often dream in French.  When I cry I always cry in French, and I say:  "I don't like it, I don't like it!"  It's my life in the world that I don't want.  But I have it.  I am still curious, I am still hungry, my health is excellent, I love my little woman, I am not afraid to walk far, I am not even afraid to work hard as long as I don't need to work 60 hours a week.  I can't get up in the morning but when I have to I get up.  I can work 40 hours a week if I like the job.  If I don't like it, I quit.

My family and my women have always helped me.  Without them, I think I may well have died in the snow somewhere – mayhap yes, mayhap no.  I never like alone for long.  I dream.  One day I will be a man like other men.  Today I am a child and I know it and I spend my time thinking.  I am supposed to be a writer.  I published a book, I received $1900.00 for 4 years of work on that book.  Before that I spent 10 years writing other things that I was never able to sell.  It's possible that one day, once I have gone over to the other side of the darkness to dream eternally, these things, stories, scenes, notes, a dozen impossible novels, half finished, will be published and someone will collect the money that was supposed to come to me.  But that's if I am a great writer before I die. (pp. 65-66; from the opening paragraphs to "The Night is My Woman" (originally written in French as La nuit est ma femme; translated by Jean-Christophe Cloutier, based on a partial self-translation by Kerouac))

Before The Road was La nuit est ma femme ("The Night is My Woman").  Before the 1951 scroll version of The Road was transformed into the published novel, there was a short detour outlined in Sur le chemin ("Old Bull in the Bowery").  Before there was Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation writer, there was Jean-Louis Kérouac, a child of French Canadian immigrants to Lowell, Massachusetts, who did not learn to speak English until he was six and who continually inhabited spaces between two worlds, with his shared languages serving as a bridge and occasionally as a partial eraser of boundaries of thought and concept.  In the recently published Library of America volume, The Unknown Kerouac:  Rare, Unpublished & Newly Translated Writings, editor Todd Tietchen, with assistance from translator Jean-Christophe Cloutier, reveals through several never-before published (or translated) manuscripts, essays, and journal entries the various proto-Kerouacs that led to the final publication of The Road and to his latter works such as The Dharma Bums and Visions of Cody.

The Unknown Kerouac begins with a short five paragraph piece Kerouac wrote in a 1946 journal on his experience hearing Frank Sinatra sing live.  Tietchen introduces this short essay by noting how Kerouac's observation on how Sinatra's ability to vocalize moods of melancholy and loneliness may have had a connection to how Kerouac came to explore these same moods in his own writings shortly after.  The concluding sentence, does in a way, hint at what Kerouac, then 24 years old, would go on to explore in his writings, first journal pieces and later fiction:

To young America, serious, sad, and wistful [Sinatra's singing], it is no caterwauling, it is the poetry of its time, and in it, in the longing of Sinatra's soft tones and prayerful sustaining notes, is contained most of their own youthful melancholy. (p. 3)

Many of the pieces that follow during this early 1946-1950 period, such as "America in World History" and "Private Philogies, Riddles, and a Ten-Day Writing Log," reveals Kerouac's growing interests in Shakespeare, Joyce, Spenser, Rimbaud, and surrealism.  The writing in these essays and journals is full of staccato bursts of thought and energy, tightly constructed, with little verbiage to weaken the flow of images and reflections.  It is during this time that the nascent On the Road began to emerge, but it is a piece that lurks in the background of these writing logs, something that is nebulous, something toward which Kerouac is reaching toward, yearning to grasp, yet not then fully able to do so.  Contained within these journals are references to eschatological matters, to apocalypses both private and universal, to revelations that await their moment.  This is most evident in his "–Riddles–":

Answer this: –

Who is it from whose source of life flows blood, yet lives and laughs?
What is the beautiful sound that emanates from the house of the angels?
How may I encompass a star?

ANSWERS NEXT PAGE.

1.  A young child whose mother is menstruating.
2.  Church music, as a rule.
3.  By creating a puddle of my own in which I can catch the reflection of any planet. (pp. 49-50)

Yet these early pieces, critical as they may be to understanding Kerouac's mindset as he began work on The Road, provide only small glimpses of insight.  To a greater understanding of how his experiences helped shape and hone his concept of his most famous work, there are two short, embryonic texts originally composed in French, "Night is My Woman" and "Old Bull in the Bowery," the reveal the most about this "unknown" Kerouac.  Take the passage from "The Night is My Woman" quoted at the beginning of this review.  There we experience a narrative that in key aspects (tone and character) resemble that of On the Road.  Yet it is not Sal Paradise nor Dean Moriarty that we see here.  Instead it is a French Canadian-American narrator, one whose life mirrors so closely that of Kerouac's, whose narrative helped Kerouac realize just what sort of road/life voice he wanted to capture.  "The Night is My Woman" is an unfinished novella; there is no true conclusion, only a pause in the developing life of the narrator.  Yet even in its unfinished state, there is a palpable energy to the piece, albeit an uneven one, full of herky-jerky shifts in intensity.  It certainly is a fiction that makes the reader wish for a longer, more polished piece and considering that it is in origin a translated story (Kerouac did a partial translation, which Cloutier incorporates into his excellent translation) makes it all the more revealing about how Kerouac's use of language and imagery is in its origins a mediation of sorts between his conversing in English and dreaming in French.

"The Night is My Woman" likely served as a direct impetus for the 1951 "big scroll" version of On the Road, but between that draft and the final 1957 published edition, Kerouac continued to tinker with characters and their backstories.  In late 1952, he wrote a short account of Paradise and Moriarty during the Depression years over the course of five days (he would later do a partial translation in 1954 that was scattered in several notebooks during this time period) that became "Old Bull in the Bowery."  In it, Kerouac claimed to Neal Cassidy, could be found the "clues" to several narrative histories explored in On the Road.   While many of the themes introduced here did not make it into the final On the Road, two scenes from it were later inserted into Visions of Cody.  "Old Bull in the Bowery" is not as unified of a text as was "The Night is My Woman," yet despite the nearly inchoate nature of certain passages, it definitely reveals an author who dips again into his own adolescence in order to explore how to improve the setting, voice, and tenor of On the Road.

The remaining sections of The Unknown Kerouac contain more disjecta membra than anything else in that by themselves they do not reveal much that isn't already covered in the earlier sections in regards to Kerouac's thoughts and development of themes and characters in his 1950s fictions.  Yet there is one late manuscript, the 1968 fragment "Beat Spotlight," that was begun shortly before Kerouac's death.  In it can be seen Kerouac's ambivalence toward his fame and how others have interpreted his life through his fiction.  It abruptly ends too soon for much to be said definitely on its quality of prose or thought, but there certainly are enough glimpses here and there to make a reader regret that Kerouac never lived to finish this tale.  The Unknown Kerouac concludes with a 1940s noir novel that Kerouac and William S. Burroughs had begun in 1945, first titled And the Hippos were Boiled in Their Tanks, with Burroughs and Kerouac alternating chapters, before Kerouac began revising it later that year, changing its title to I Wish I Were You.  This short novel is a curiosity more than a good noir novel, although there are moments where Kerouac in the revised version published here does manage to capture a sense of place and time.  It is a curious coda, however, as the writing and thoughts expressed therein do not correlate well with the other pieces in this collection.  Despite being the longest fiction presented in The Unknown Kerouac, I Wish I Were You might be the weakest and least interesting piece published.  Although it is not outright poor, it certainly detracts from what otherwise was a very harmonious collection of newly-published (and translated) non-fiction and fiction that helps reveal quite a bit about one of the mid-20th century's most important American writers.  Despite this misstep at the end, however, The Unknown Kerouac certainly is a book that readers of Kerouac's more famous works might find to be essential to their understanding of Kerouac.

It's been a bit quiet here lately, I suppose...

It's been almost two months since my last post here, so I suppose I should provide a little update for those who might be wondering if I have abandoned this blog for good.  No, I still plan on blogging here whenever I get the chance, but the past few months haven't been all that conducive for writing reviews.  Not that all of the reasons for that are bad, per se, but they do hamper my ability/desire to type a thousand words or so on whatever comes to mind.

Foremost, I have been recovering from what is likely a torn ligament in my right ring finger that I suffered during a fall in a creek during a six mile trail race back on my birthday in mid-July.  I reaggravated that injury back in late August when I had to block a teen with autism from attacking me.  Lately, I have very little pain in it, only when I have to have a prolonged grip on heavy items, but I did have to avoid using it whenever possible, since my hand would cramp up faster than usual due to avoiding putting any weight-bearing pressure on it.  I am optimistic that I'll be able to resume heavier weight-lifting in the next few weeks, but first it seems I'll have to re-teach myself how to type with all ten digits, as I seem to be missing typing a few letters that I used to type with that finger.

I'm still very busy with run training.  I have 3-5 more races to run this year, including a possible 12K (7.4 mile) race in early December, before I begin training in earnest for running 2-3 half-marathons in 2017 (and a hopeful marathon and 50K in 2018).  This takes a lot of my free time, especially on weekends, so it's difficult to maintain the required focus necessary for me to read and write reviews and columns (trust me, if I had the time, I would have written a lengthy piece on my thoughts on Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I just didn't have it in me this weekend), but at least I'm happy with training so far, even if it means a reduction in the pace of weight loss compared to last year or earlier this year (I have to eat more in order to fuel my body properly for these sessions; I've also had to add more muscle mass for greater endurance).

But there's another reason behind my recent semi-silence:  the current moods I see on social media exhaust me.  I've largely abandoned Twitter this year (reading it maybe 1-2 times a week for 5-10 minutes without responding for 1-3 months at a time) because the "book" conversations were so little about the books themselves and much more about the controversies du jour that I just found myself struggling to find a reason for even reading anything at all.  Might explain in part why for the past year I've read little but histories and other primary source material (largely drawn from my nearly 200 volumes of Library of America books), because there isn't the "noise" associated with those works that are associated with certain recent releases.  I hope to read more recent releases by year's end or early 2017, but I first need to achieve a greater, more proper distance between the work and whatever other people might be saying around, behind, and under the books themselves.

I must admit that it might be a blessing to have shed 90% of my former readership over the past six years.  There is that sense of greater freedom in being able to write about whatever might please me without having to worry or becoming annoyed at others who want to interject tangential opinions.  So if I don't feel like weighing in on whatever supposedly asinine and/or hurtful thing an author or "fan" wrote, I don't have to, since there should be no expectation of me "taking sides" if I consistently remain silent on such matters.  Instead, I might just write about the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the writings of three American Presidents (and Franklin and Hamilton).  That is what interests me now. 

But until I do, I think I'll just maintain mostly radio silence until I have the time, energy, and desire to write on those matters that interest me first and foremost.

Gordon S. Wood (ed.), The American Revolution: Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776

Liberty is the greatest blessing that men enjoy, and slavery the heaviest curse that human nature is capable of. – This being so, makes it a matter of the utmost importance to men, which of the two shall be their portion.  Absolute Liberty is, perhaps, incompatible with any kind of government. – The safety resulting from society, and the advantage of just and equal laws, hath caused men to forego some part of their natural liberty, and submit to government.  This appears to be the most rational account of it's beginning; although, it must be confessed, mankind have by no means been agreed about it:  Some have found it's origin in the divine appointment:  Others have thought it took it's rise from power:  Enthusiasts have dreamed that dominion was founded in grace.  Leaving these points to be settled by the descendants of Filmer, Cromwell, and Venner, we will consider the British constitution, as it at present stands, on revolution principles; and, from thence endeavour to find the measure of the magistrate's power, and the people's obedience.

This glorious constitution, the best that ever existed among men, will be confessed by all, to be founded by compact, and established by consent of the people.  By this most beneficent compact, British subjects are to be governed only agreeable to laws to which themselves have some way consented, and are not to be compelled to part with their property, but as it is called for by the authority of such laws:  The former is truly liberty; the latter is really to be possessed of property, and to have something that may be called one's own.

– ("The Rights of Colonies Examined.", Stephen Hopkins, Providence, Rhode Island, 1765, vol. I, p. 125)

The American Revolution, as distinct from the War for American Independence, did not begin with a musket shot in Lexington, Massachusetts in April 1775.  Rather, it began a decade before with a war of ideas fought in newspapers and in pamphlets sold for a shilling.  There, colonial and imperial leaders held forth on issues of liberty, representation, and the limitations and virtues of the British constitution (and Parliamentary power) as it related to the original thirteen North American English colonies.  Both sides, the nascent Patriot and Loyalist/Imperial, often alluded to Greco-Roman orators as being the ultimate source for their arguments on these topics.  In hindsight, what was transpiring just over 250 years ago is rather amazing, as civil discourse became increasingly intertwined with violence (tarring and feathering, burning of officials' houses, the Boston Massacre of 1770, etc.) and yet until the very end the rhetoric never truly (with a few notable exceptions) directly alluded to these violent acts.  It was as though there were two conflicts being acted out simultaneously and yet never truly in concert with each other.

American historian Gordon S. Wood (author of the award-winning The Radicalism of the American Revolution) in this two-volume Library of America set, The American Revolution:  Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776, has chosen 39 pamphlets published during the period between the passage of the Sugar Act and the Declaration of Independence that present the breadth and depth of the arguments made in favor or in opposition to increased American autonomy in the aftermath of the French and Indian War.  He prefaces each pamphlet with a short précis of the pamphlet's general arguments and later actions of the author.  These 1-2 page summaries help non-specialists get the gist of the arguments being presented, as there are times that the authors make so many allusions to classical writers and to legal aspects of the documents that comprise the British constitution that it can be difficult for some readers to grasp what exactly is being argued and why.

Yet a closer examination of these pamphlets and how Wood has juxtaposed them reveal some fascinating undercurrents.  In the preface to the pamphlet quoted above, Wood references Rhode Island's rather unique political system (rotation of the colonial capital among five towns, semiannual voting for assemblymen, a "modern" two party/faction system).  The information there makes Hopkins' observation about how absolute liberty might be incompatible with any form of government seem not just the abstract musing of a quasi-anarchist but rather a wry commentary from someone who is intimately versed in decentralized politics. 

Immediately following Hopkins' pamphlet is Martin Howard Jr.'s "A Letter from a Gentleman at Halifax, to his Friend in Rhode-Island, Containing Remarks upon a Pamphlet, Entitled, The Rights of Colonies Examined."  This pamphlet is not just a point-by-point response to "Rights of the Colonies Examined," but it also is one of the earliest and most forceful defenses of the Imperial viewpoint that the colonies by their very foundation by people of English descent have submitted themselves to the strictures of the English constitution:

Our personal rights, comprehending those of life, liberty and estate, are secured to us by the common law, which is every subject's birthright, whether born in Great-Britain, on the ocean, or in the colonies, and it is in this sense we are said to enjoy all the rights and privileges of Englishmen.  The political rights of the colonies, or the powers of government communicated to them, are more limited, and their nature, quality and extent depend altogether upon the patent or charter which first created and instituted them.  As individuals, the colonists participate of every blessing the English constitution can give them.  As corporations created by the crown, they are confined within the primitive views of their institution.  Whether therefore their indulgence is scanty or liberal, can be no cause of complaint; for when they accepted of their charters, they tacitly submitted to the terms and conditions of them. (I, pp. 150-151)

Howard, as part of a faction that wanted to revoke Rhode Island's charter and have its radically democratic colonial assembly come under direct royal control, came under direct attack during the Stamp Act protests and he later had to flee to England to avoid physical harm.  These threats, including those made to the royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, lie as a dark shadow upon the arguments presented during this time.  In the case of Hutchinson, a native of Massachusetts, he became one of the most hated men in North America because of his principled stance in favor of continued union with England, even as more and more colonial leaders and thinkers, especially after 1770, began to advocate autonomy, if not outright independence, as a solution for the problems surrounding representation and taxation.  In his January 1773 speech to the Massachusetts Assembly, Hutchinson outlines his opposition to this increasingly popular viewpoint:

If what I have said shall not be sufficient to satisfy such as object to the Supreme Authority of Parliament over the Plantations, there may something further be added to induce them to an Acknowledgment of it which I think will well deserve their Consideration.  I know of no Line that can be drawn between the supreme Authority of Parliament and the total Independence of the Colonies.  It is impossible there should be two independent Legislatures in one and the same State, for although there may be but one Head, the King, yet the two Legislative Bodies will make two Governments as distinct as the Kingdoms of England and Scotland before the Union.  If we might be suffered to be altogether independent of Great-Britain, could we have any Claim to the Protection of that Government of which we are no longer a Part?  Without this Protection should we not become the Prey of one or the other Powers of Europe, such as should first seize upon us?  Is there any Thing which we have more Reason to dread than Independence?  I hope it will never be our Misfortune to know by Experience the Difference between the Liberties of an English Colonist and those of the Spanish, French or Dutch. (II, p. 10)

As reasoned as Hutchinson's speech may be, he could not fathom truly the depth of desire for separation.  For him and other future Loyalists, Parliament was the protector of freedoms and to reject parliamentary suzerainty was tantamount to abandoning security in a wild goose chase for liberty unmoored from centuries of traditions accreting around the acts and documents that comprised the English constitution.  Therefore, the response made by certain members of the Massachusetts Assembly, including future American leaders John Hancock and John Adams, likely baffled him in their rejection of this view of Parliament being the protector of English and colonial freedoms:

We fully agree with your Excellency, that our own Happiness as well as his Majesty's Service, very much depends upon Peace and Order, and we shall at all Times take such Measures as are consistent with our Constitution and the Rights of the People to promote and maintain them.  That the Government at present is in a very disturbed State is apparent!  But we cannot ascribe it to the People's having adopted unconstitutional Principles, which seems to be the Cause assigned for it by your Excellency.  It appears to us to have been occasioned rather, by the British House of Commons assuming and exercising a Power inconsistent with the Freedom of the Constitution, to give and grant the Property of the Colonists, and appropriate the same without their Consent. (II, p. 24)

This grounding of the main points of contention within this perceived usurpation of constitutional power by Parliament set the framework for later arguments during the people immediately preceding and following the Battles of Lexington and Concord two years later.  Most of the subsequent pamphlets in the second volume follow, in their support or dissent, upon the premises established here.  By 1776, the argument had switched from a direct focus on Parliament's regulatory power in the colonies to a debate on the source from whence liberty and popular representation commenced.  Wood does an excellent job in weaving these strands together to present a powerful argument that the American Revolution did not begin with a shot but instead with a thorough debate, via printed media, on the origins of political powers and human rights.  Although this debate had occurred over a century before during the English Revolution through the use of broadsides (and later, the English Civil War), these ideas found their mature expression during the 1764-1776 gestation period that led to the birth of the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents written in world history.  What followed after was messy, with consequences that still affect us today.  The American Revolution:  Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1776 serves as a excellent look at these written documents that spawned the modern representative republic form of government now seen in much of the world today.

The OF Blog Turns 12

Sometimes, it is weird to reflect on how things stood back on August 25, 2004 when I created this blog.  As I said numerous anniversaries before, this blog was intended to be an outreach/supplement to the Other Fantasy section of wotmania (which went defunct in September 2009; its "successor" site, Read and Find Out, recently announced it too is about to shutter its virtual doors after seven years).  But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum and...

Yeah, a lot has changed since a barely 30 year-old me established this.  I've seen the rise and fall of many individual blogs and the spread of that bligh...err, social media that links divers groups of people together.  Twitter, podcasts, Tumblr, Reddit...none of that really existed in 2004, at least not in a mass consumption form.  I don't begrudge people who communicate via those formats, but I will admit, while I pause to tell some kids to get off my lawn, that I think something has been lost in the change.

Granted, blogs themselves were rapid-response, "hot take" vehicles as well, where each blogger could (and did) quickly spout off his or her opinion on the topic du jour.  But with much more than 140 characters or .gif memes deployed to develop a response/message, things just seemed a bit more nuanced, less dependent on immediacy of response.  I will admit that I have largely abandoned Twitter this year due to the "echo effect" I see when I see, like a burst of fireworks, one person, then a dozen, then maybe a hundred or more on my Twitter feed, sound off on something that seems more and more picayune to me with each passing day.  Sometimes, it's just better to not say anything if all it is is just a rehash/retweet of someone else's opinion, over and over again.

But enough of the old man grouching.  I am still happy that I have a place where I can muse on what literary work has grabbed my attention for the moment (right now, it is late 18th century American history).  I don't worry about who reads this (I'm not posting links to this article anywhere else) or anything else on my blog.  In a perverse way, it is comforting to know that a large percentage of those who do read my writings now (based on search engine hits) seem to be students looking for "information" *cough*plagiarizing*cough* on Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, and others that I have reviewed in recent years.  At least these visitors are here for info on literature and not my ephemeral opinion on some piddling "fandom" issue.  A pox and several plagues on those houses!

As for the future, well...it's bright enough outside that I got to wear shades...

Francis Parkman, France and England in North America

The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world, lie revealed in the clear light of History.  In appearance they are feeble; in reality, copious and full of force.  Acting at the sources of life, instruments otherwise weak become mighty for good and evil, and men, lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny.  In their toils, their sufferings, their conflicts, momentous questions were at stake, and issues vital to the future world, – the prevalence of races, the triumph of principles, health or disease, a blessing or a curse.  On the obscure strife where men died by tens or by scores hung questions of as deep import for posterity as on those mighty contests of national adolescence where carnage is reckoned by thousands.

The subject to which the proposed series will be devoted is that of "France in the New World," – the attempt of Feudalism, Monarchy, and Rome to master a continent where, at this hour, half a million of bayonets are vindicating the ascendency of a regulated freedom; – Feudalism still strong in life, though enveloped and overborne by new-born Centralization; Monarchy in the flush of triumphant power; Rome, nerved by disaster, springing with renewed vitality from ashes and corruption, and ranging the earth to reconquer abroad what she had lost at home.  These banded powers, pushing into the wilderness their indomitable soldiers and devoted priests, unveiled the secrets of the barbarous continent, pierced the forests, traced and mapped out the streams, planted their emblems, built their forts, and claimed all as their own.  New France was all head.  Under king, noble, and Jesuit, the lank, lean body would not thrive.  Even commerce wore the sword, decked itself with badges of nobility, aspired to forest seigniories and hordes of savage retainers. (Introduction, p. 13 Library of America edition, vol. I of France and England in North America)

When I was growing up in the 1980s, I frequently would check out old histories from the local library.  There was something exhilarating to read 50-100 year-old histories where there was a sense of momentousness to tales of daring and doing, of brave souls whose choices seemed to change the course of the world.  The prose might have been purple in places, but oh God was it glorious to read.  Years before I knew what "historiography" and "monograph" meant, long before I delved into primary source material, read pardon tales and experienced "fiction in the archives," I wanted to be a historian, just so I could read and re-read these fascinating tales of heroes and villains who actually lived, breathed, and died, with their actions affecting the lives of millions. 

Of course, the reality of studying history in the late 20th century at the University of Tennessee was far different from my youthful expectations.  There the focus was on trends and societal moldings of individuals and not the inverse.  I discovered a love for cultural and religious histories, seeing in preserved documents such as the trial of an Italian miller for heresy something more real and intriguing than tales of Frederick the Great's campaigns in Central Europe during the 1740s (that being said, Frederick did lead a fascinating life, full of conflicts both internal and external).  Histories that purportedly had a "theme" or moral to explore just seemed a bit too trite to me, too full of confidence in national and self-delusions to be worth anything more than a diverting look into the world-views of those who composed them in the years just prior and concurrent to Leopold von Ranke's famous maxim, "Wie es eigentlich gewesen" ("How it really was"), being composed to describe his focus on a more rational, fact-based approach to historiography.  Yet there is still something powerful to these older, more Romantic histories that still calls to me.

This certainly was the case when I recently read Francis Parkman's 1865-1893 seven volume history of France's involvement in North America, collected into two volumes by the Library of America and published as France and England in North America.  Parkman's introduction is a bracing read, especially if the reader, like myself, finds himself reacting to almost every line with questions of how something in a similar vein might never see the light of day in early 21st century "professional" journals.  One just does not talk about destinies and civilizations as being fonts of either good and/or evil without being ridiculed these days.  And yet, in re-reading just now Parkman's 1865 introduction (and realizing that he's thinking heavily upon the American Civil War and the fight to remove slavery from the land) there is a life to it that makes these 3000 pages seem fresh even 151 years later.

Parkman's prose certainly helps the curious reader settle quickly into the story he aims to tell.  Despite the lush, almost turgid quality of his introduction, much of the actual histories he tells are concise yet full of vivid descriptions, such as this observation on French resiliency after an English raid on the early settlement of Acadia (now parts of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) in 1613:

In spite of their reverses, the French kept hold on Acadia.  Biencourt, partially at least, rebuilt Port Royal; while winter after winter the smoke of fur-traders' huts curled into the still, sharp air of these frosty wilds, till at length, with happier auspices, plans of settlement were resumed. (p. 239, vol. I)

The subject matter, the invasion/settlement of North America, lends itself well to being viewed as an adventure of wills, of villains and heroes struggling for dominance.  Never mind that Parkman, even more so than many of his contemporaries, often portrays the local nations as being oft-perfidious "savages," whose lust for scalps and mutilations makes them frequent foils for these intrepid explorers.  While there are some exceptions to be found in these volumes, for the most part this is a history that downplays the intricacies of Franco-Native interactions.  This is most apparent in the final volume, Montcalm and Wolfe, as the nations are reduced to little more than waves of savages who aid the French (minus the notable exception of the Six Nations).

Yet despite this major flaw (at least for a one-time historian living in the early 21st century), this narrative approach does make the events of 1535-1763 a compelling read.  This is especially true in two volumes, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West and Montcalm and Wolfe, where Parkman's penchant for describing key historical figures as though they were characters in a novel makes for an absorbing, quick read.  La Salle in particular is a quasi-saint among ruffians, as his single-minded vision for establishing a true French empire in the forests of North America makes him a truly tragic hero whose denouement, long-foreshadowed, is nonetheless more poignant for its seemingly inevitability. 

However, Parkman is more than a one-trick pony.  Vivid and as well-constructed as his tales of historical heroes and villains might be, his use of primary sources is also important.  For the most part, leaving aside his almost calumnious depictions of Native Americans, his histories contain a plethora of citations of letters, diaries, and official documents.  While it might be inconvenient for monolingual readers, Parkman frequently cites, untranslated, various observations by the historical figures and their contemporaries, in his footnotes and appendices.  These citations lend a gravity to the texts that might otherwise have been missing.  His research is extensive and while some of his conclusions can be debated (such as viewing New France versus the English colonies as an extension of feudal/clerical powers vs. incipient liberty-seeking yeomen), the documents themselves do provide a lot of support for other arguments of his, namely the inherent weaknesses in establishing a colony that was based more on the exploitation of natural resources (especially furs) than on the cultivation of these resources.

On the whole, France and England in North America is a well-written, relatively well-researched mid-to-late 19th century history that was written during a time when historiography was being to switch from a narrative-heavy, ideological view of the past toward a more document-based, "scientific" approach toward studying past events.  While some of Parkman's terminology and conclusions might be cringe-worthy today, his fast-paced, person-centered tales create a vivid, complex tapestry of events and people that makes for a gripping read.  It certainly is one of the better examples of 19th century American histories available today for readers curious about colonial settlements but who may not wish to be bogged down with thorough examinations of contemporary societal trends.

A most heartwrenching letter, composed by Benjamin Franklin

Here is what Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1772 to Georgianna Shipley (pp. 139-141 in Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings, Library of America #39B):

Dear Miss,

I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate End of poor Mungo.  Few Squirrels were better accomplish'd; for he had had a good Education, had travell'd far, and seen much of the World.  As he had the Honour of being for his Virtues your Favourite, he should not go like common Skuggs without an Elegy or an Epitaph.  Let us give him one in the monumental Stile and Measure, which being neither Prose nor Verse, is perhaps the properest for Grief; since to use common Language would look as if we were not affected, and to make Rhimes would seem Trifling in Sorrow.

Alas!  poor Mungo!

Happy wert thou, hadst thou known

Thy own Felicity!

Remote from the fierce Bald-Eagle,

Tyrant of thy native Woods,

Thou hadst nought to fear from his piercing Talons;

Nor from the murdering Gun

Of the thoughtless Sportsman.

Safe in thy wired Castle,

Grimalkin never could annoy thee.

Daily wert thou fed with the choicest Viands

By the fair Hand

Of an indulgent Mistress.

But, discontented, thou wouldst have more Freedom.

Too soon, alas!  didst thou obtain it,

And, wandering,

Fell by the merciless Fangs,

Of wanton, cruel Ranger.

Learn hence, ye who blindly wish more Liberty,

Whether Subjects, Sons, Squirrels or Daughters,

That apparent Restraint may be real Protection, 

Yielding Peace, Plenty, and Security.

You see how much more decent and proper this broken Stile, interrupted as it were with Sighs, is for the Occasion, than if one were to say, by way of Epitaph,

Here Skugg

Lies snug

As a Bug

In a Rug.

And yet perhaps there are People in the World of so little Feeling as to think, that would be a good-enough Epitaph for our poor Mungo!

If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him.  But perhaps you will now chuse some other Amusement.  Remember me respectfully to all the [  ] good Family; and believe me ever, Your affectionate Friend

September 26, 1772

Looking at my recent reading, I almost wonder if I have entered a time warp

It is funny how sometimes the old can become new again.  When I was 23, back in 1997, I thought I was burned out on reading histories.  Back then, I thought that if I had to endure one more dip into primary source material, one more monograph, that I might explode.  Sure enough, despite having taught social studies for several years afterward, I barely read any historical non-fiction.  And yet, earlier this month, I found myself thumbing through the two-volume Library of America edition of 19th century American historian Francis Parkman's seven books on New France, France and England in North America, and I let myself get lost in his prose.  Well, until I began encountering arguments and presentations that led to think, "wait, this should have been approached from another angle" or "no, this isn't a good way of arguing the point," before finding myself engaging in the text not just as a casual reader, but as a former historian-in-training.

Now when I was in grad school, my focus was on Early Modern and Modern European cultural/intellectual/religious history, so I only had passing encounters with American history beyond the survey level (one of those, on colonial Atlantic colonies, taught me more than any other course on how to write and dissect histories).  Therefore, Parkman's histories made me look at the other Library of America volumes I had on hand.  Being typically unambitious, I selected nearly a dozen volumes to read.  However, I am not reading them sequentially, but rather in a patchwork chronological order, going from the 1760s to the 1820s.  For the curious, here's the list of books:

• Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, and Early Writings (1722-1775; already finished); Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings
• Gordon Wood (ed.), The American Revolution:  Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1764-1772 (almost finished); Writings from the Pamphlet Debate 1773-1776 
• George Washington, Writings (finished the pre-1775 section)
• Thomas Jefferson, Writings (finished his Autobiography and a pre-1776 section)
• Abigail Adams, Letters (read pre-1770 letters so far)
• John Rhodehamel (ed.), The American Revolution:  Writings from the War of Independence (will start after finishing the Wood books)
• James Madison, Writings (will read after finishing the Rhodehamel)
• Alexander Hamilton, Writings (to be read concurrently with the Madison and later Jefferson)

Time/energy permitting, I'll write short commentaries on these works in the coming weeks.  It certainly has encouraged me to read more than I have at any point these past 18 months, as I've nearly doubled my 2016 reads over the past two weeks.  If my interest is still sustained after completing these reads, I'll likely read a two-volume look at the debates surrounding the U.S. Constitution and another 19th century history, this one on Jefferson and Madison's administrations.

As for fiction reading, that too seems to have reverted to what I would read in 1996-1997 when I needed a break from reading monographs.  Almost done re-reading Theodore Dreiser's outstanding An American Tragedy and a Library of America edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's pre-1923 works (This Side of Paradise is relatively underrated these days) and I might review those as well.

Yes, I know there are some readers (if any still frequent this blog, that is) who would rather see reviews of recent speculative fictions, but sometimes a reader just has to go back to the well in order to rediscover just what s/he loved about literature in the first place.  Besides, I have 175 Library of America editions that I'd like to review before I turn 50, so might as well whittle down that mountain while my interest is high, n'est ce pas?

R. Scott Bakker, The Great Ordeal

Domination.  Over lives and nations.  Over history and ignorance.  Over existence itself, down through the leaves of reality's countless skins.  No mortal had possessed such might.  His was a power and potency that not even the Gods, who must ration themselves across all times, could hope to counter, short of scooping themselves hollow and forever dwelling as phantoms...

No soul had no owned Circumstance.  He, and he alone, was the Place, the point of maximal convergence.  Nations hung from his whim.  Reality grovelled before his song.  The Outside itself railed against him.

And yet for all of it darkness still encircled him, the obscurity of before, the blackness of after.

For those who worshipped him as a god, he remaine a mortal man, possessing but one intellect and two hands – great, perhaps, in proportion to his innumerable slaves, but scarcely a mote on the surface of something inconceivable.  He was no more a prophet than an architect or any other who wrenches his conception into labourious reality.  All the futures he had raised had been the issue of his toil...

He suffered visions, certainly, but he had long ceased to trust them. (pp. 120-121)

Despite its many flaws in form, there is something about modern epic fantasies that attracts me to read them still on occasion.  Perhaps it is the partial erasure of modernity, with its rejection of intentionalist world-views, and the resulting construction of a structured reality that is potentially pregnant with meaning in a fashion that just cannot exist today.  Struggles that are made concrete, externalized and presented frequently in anthropomorphic forms, yes, there is the possibility that something profound that could be said about life itself without reducing our own concerns to those of worker bees.  But too often, these promises of profundity dissipate into trite truisms that ring hollow, with various reiterations of pre-modern (usually) Western societies collapsing under the weight of perceived gaps in understanding humanity and its propensity to war against itself.

I have been reading R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse novels for a little over twelve years now.  His mixture of philosophical concepts of mind and reality (or rather, the artificiality of such) within the trappings of a constructed society in which there is a true, "objective" reality where religious texts possess a literal meaning captured my attention when I first read The Darkness That Comes Before back in 2004.  Over the intervening years, I have struggled at times to process what Bakker is exploring, as there are several uncomfortable elements within his fiction that can be off-putting when the reader compares them to modern debates on issues such as gender, race, and general parity between individuals.  His writing is very dense, full of concepts that do not necessarily reflect those of the author himself, but instead of the mindsets that went into the construction of religious/social milieus during the pre-modern era.  It certainly takes some patience and a willingness to trust Bakker to forge on beyond the rapes, the coercions, the general "darkness" of the series to see just where he is going with his arguments and with his characters.

His sixth novel in the overall series (and third in The Aspect-Emperor sub-series), The Great Ordeal, is a revelatory one in many senses.  We come to understand the import behind certain choices made earlier in the series, such as the effects of consuming the enemy Sranc upon the titular Great Ordeal as it moves toward its dread goal or the fate of the Emperor Kellhus's natal Ishuäl.  The reader also learns more of the Non-men and the dreadful effects of their artificial immortality.  Isolated into plot developments, these events alone would provide some fodder for fans of the series to digest until the last volume in The Aspect-Emperor sub-series, The Unholy Consult, appears in the next year.  However, there are certain metaphysical points of contention raised within The Great Ordeal that provide a greater depth to these events.

One of Bakker's concerns throughout this novel, spread as it is among scenes within the Great Ordeal, Ishuäl, the Non-men mansion of Ishterebinth, and the imperial capital of Momemn, is to illustrate how various characters try to grasp the concept of the Absolute.  The quote above, which occurs before a pivotal (and perhaps problematic) scene involving Kellhus, deals with the confluence of reality and lives into a concrete Place where the Absolute dwells.  In this passage, we see some of Kellhus's mentality laid bare for us, with conceits and self-deception ever lurking on the edges of his frank self-portrayal.  This (perhaps deserved?) arrogance, mixed with an ever-growing sense of "love" that threatens to "corrupt" the Thousandfold Thought that has conditioned his path to power, serves as a partial explanation to the events that immediately follow.  By itself, it's a deep look into one of the more mysterious characters in the series, but when viewed in conjunction with scenes that transpire late in the Ishterebinth and Ishuäl chapters, it morphs into something less lofty and more fallible in terms of how Kellhus's conception of the Place/Absolute may be something beyond his ken. 

For readers who have been disturbed in the past by Eärwa's treatment of women (particularly the numerous rapes within the previous novels), Bakker tries to make explicit, through the vision of "Whale Mothers" that Mimara has, that depiction does not equal endorsement.  There are several hints that this "objective" reduction of women to beings lesser than men is due to arbitrariness on the part of those collective beings whose intentions have driven reality in this setting.  Yet despite this, there are still moments where it seems that the female characters in three of the key scenes (Ishterebinth, Ishuäl, Momemn) fall too readily into subordinate roles even when taking into consideration the unfolding situations about them.

The prose was another challenging element.  While I understand Bakker's desire to create a narrative that would reflect (and at times, reveal internal contradictions) ancient historical and religious texts, there were times where the writing was perhaps too opaque in its descriptions of event and its import.  This was especially true in those scenes where characters were considering Love in context of the world about them.  It is one thing to express the importance (and possible deceptions) of Love, but another to weave it in seamlessly with the greater narrative.  Too frequently, I felt as though I were temporarily "tossed out" of reading the text through perceiving the maladroit integration of certain concepts within the narrative.  Yet there were times, especially with the "Boatman" scene, where Bakker's prose creates a heightened sense of horror that goes beyond the visceral into something less definable yet no less terrifying when considered at length.  On the whole, the prose did serve to create a more "alien" mindscape, especially in the Ishterebinth scenes, than what might have occurred if Bakker's prose had been more direct.

For the most part, I was fascinated (I hesitate to use the word "enjoyed," considering the unsettling nature of many of the plot revelations) by many of the scenes present within the novel, yet ultimately I felt as though it ended weakly.  Many of the scenes end on the cusp of something important happening or in the midst of key developments, lacking in any sort of firm developments to help make sense of them.  There were few, if any, "natural" end places for these character/plot arcs and by the time the last page was turned, I was acutely aware that The Great Ordeal was but the first part of a larger narrative arc.  This put a damper on my overall engagement with the novel, as it felt like I was having to abandon it at an earlier place than perhaps it should have concluded.  Now I have to wait for The Unholy Consult's arrival to be able to judge better if what I had just read was as good as I found it to be for the majority of its pages.  The Great Ordeal ultimately is a good, yet flawed, volume in the Second Apocalypse series. 

Walt Whitman, Poetry and Prose

1 

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth

     them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond

     to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the

     charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own

     bodies conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they

     who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do full as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

– opening section of "I Sing the Body Electric" (p. 250, Library of America edition)

Every so often, there comes along a literary genius who makes a genre sui generis.  Shakespeare, talented as he was, was in his lifetime merely one of several gifted English playwrights.  Goethe was a master of many trades, yet his impact on prose, drama, and poetry, while profound, did not mark as much of a break with German literary tradition as did the singular work of a 19th century American poet, Walt Whitman.  What Whitman accomplished over the course of thirty-six years of revisions of his seminal Leaves of Grass is truly remarkable.  Although there were other, earlier American poets, such as Edgar Allan Poe, who created memorable poems, there were none who captured the collective ethos of the burgeoning American republic to the depth and breadth of Whitman.

Reading Leaves of Grass is more of an experience than a passive activity.  It does not follow older poetic traditions of metre and rhyme; it often contains clashes of styles and insights within its verses (not for nothing does Whitman state in section 51 of "Song of Myself" the following:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.) (p. 246))

 Yet there is something within this occasionally bombastic collection that makes such poetic conventions seem restrictive, if not outmoded.  Whitman's poems are at once personal and epic, yet without an over-reliance upon Greco-Roman or English historical themes.  One example of this can be found in "O Captain!  My Captain!," which dealt with the assassination of President Lincoln.  The opening stanza is full of metaphors for his leadership during the American Civil War, yet there is nothing that immediately rises to the grandiose:

O Captain!  my Captain!  our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
                 But O heart!  heart!  heart!
                     O the bleeding drops of red,
                        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                            Fallen cold and dead. (p. 467)

In reading this poem, at first I saw not a myth, not an Olympian figure that might be found in the Romantic poetry of the 19th century, but a man, one chained by duty to something that afflicts him.  Lincoln's conduct of the war, this "vessel grim and daring," guided by his steady, unrelenting demeanor, is presented in a vivid, yet grounded fashion; Lincoln is merely a worker, albeit one who has achieved greatness not due so much to any preternatural gifts but because of a steadiness to him that reflects the character of the young, divided nation that he helped guide through the turmoils of the War of Secession. 

Yet as moving of an elegy as "O Captain! My Captain" is (and certainly it has been referenced frequently in the following 150 years), I think it is an outlier compared to the other poems that appeared in the various editions of Leaves of Grass.  It (and by extension, the other poems in the section "Memories of President Lincoln") is more somber, less full of the joie de vivre found in earlier sections, such as the more erotic Calamus poems.  Those, such as "We Two Boys Together Clinging," in content and form presage the works of the Beat Generation a century later:

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the
     turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray. (p. 282)

This perhaps is not one of Whitman's more famous poems, but within this litany of rakish acts I sensed a spirit of raw newness, something that isn't shaped by societal conventions or past models as much as it is testing those bounds, yearning to burst free and to live and by so living create experiences different from those that came before.  This yearning quality in Whitman's poetry does not always work (there are several poems that feel more like sketches of great works than anything substantial), but I would argue that even these relative "failures" make Leaves of Grass a staggering work, precisely because we can see the poet's work not as a polished work but instead as something whose flaws and virtues have blended together to create something that feels almost alive, replete with its own literary warts and scars.

The second half of Poetry and Prose, Whitman's numerous essays, letters, and various ruminations on contemporary events and the experiences that he distilled later into his poetry, is a fascinating read in its own light.  Whitman does not shy away from making strong comments about other writers (see his comment on Edgar Allan Poe in "A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads):

Toward the last I had among much else look'd over Edgar Poe's poems – of which I was not an admirer, tho' I always saw that beyond their limited range of melody (like perpetual chimes of music bells, ringing from lower b flat up to g) they were melodious expressions, and perhaps never excell'd ones, of certain pronounc'd phases of human morbidity. (The Poetic area is very spacious – has room for all – has so many mansions!)  But I was repaid in Poe's prose by the idea that (at any rate for our occasions, our day) there can be no such thing as a long poem.  The same thought had been haunting my mind before, but Poe's argument, though short, work'd the sum out and proved it to me. (p. 665)

But more so than his literary commentaries Whitman's diary of his time as a nurse during the Civil War makes his prose works a worthy read in their own right.  He notes several conversations with wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict, with several entries presenting in just a few lines deep insights into these soldiers' lives and their world-views.  Almost the entirety of Specimen Days is fascinating to read and consider at length.

Poetry and Prose is ultimately one of those works that is virtually impossible to review in depth in a single article under 2000 words.  There are so many poems that are worthy of deeper investigation than was possible in a short review such as this.  In composing this post, I decided that perhaps it would be better to just quote a few snippets of works that intrigued me and to discuss briefly things within them that I liked.  Hopefully those who have not read Whitman's poetry (or at least not beyond the usual suspects reproduced in literature survey anthologies) will find themselves wanting to read more.  Those who have read and enjoyed his works but who have not yet read his prose (such as myself before earlier this year) will want now to investigate those as well.  Whitman certainly is an American literary treasure, one who consciously refused to follow contemporary literary conventions.  In breaking with the literary past, Whitman ended up creating works that differed significantly from those of his peers and his influence on American poets over the past 160 years has been immeasurable.  Poetry and Prose is an excellent one-volume collection of his literary output, as it is an edition that presents the entire breadth and depth of Whitman's writing without overwhelming readers with too many citations and footnotes.  It certainly is worth the time and money spent.

Received an ARC copy of The Big Book of Science Fiction recently

Because I don't care to give away everything, since it's a flash fiction that I translated for The Big Book of Science Fiction (edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer), let's just say that there's something within the introduction that's an added bonus for readers.  The book will be released in the US on July 12th.  This is my third translation to be published.  More on this story and the anthology at a later date.

A brief update

Was busier than expected the past couple of weeks, with some times of frustration mixed in that left me with little time (or mood) to blog.  Going to be busy again this week, as I have my fourth 5K race of the year on Saturday and I have a few long runs to do (going to run a 10K by autumn).  Plus I still am trying to get some things in order to finalize my add-on certification for Special Education (the state changed some of the rules after I had registered for the Praxis tests last September, so there's been a delay in processing everything, but I will have some sort of certification in the next month or two) so I can apply for a multitude of teaching positions, but the delay might mean I'll end up having to wait a few months more before I can work again in the classroom in a full-time capacity.

However, after Memorial Day, I do have hopes of completing a few articles.  Among those will be the long-delayed review of Elizabeth McKenzie's The Portable Veblen; Carla Guelfenbein's 2015 Premio Alfaguara-winning Contigo en la distancia; and an article for another site.  I have been reading a bit more this month and I hope in a month or so to have also written commentaries on the Library of America volumes on Walt Whitman and Harriet Beecher Stowe's works included in those two volumes.  Just started re-reading Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and I am still as amused by it as I was when I first read it nearly 30 years ago in 7th grade.

But as Opus said in this past Sunday's Bloom County strip, things didn't go as planned, but that's okay.  It certainly is a comforting thought after dealing with red tape these past couple of weeks.  Now it's time to sleep, perchance to dream.

Here's some of the music I'm listening to while reading this weekend

I've never really discussed it much here, but music is very important to me.  I listen to it during nearly hour-long commutes, when I go running on the streets or treadmill (but never when trail running, as there is natural music there for me to take in), or when I'm reading late at night.  I listen to a wide variety of 20th/21st century music.  Sometimes I listen to Bob Dylan for weeks on end.  Maybe 70s hard rock another time.  Lately, it's been 80s post-punk/darkwave music.  This music is both familiar and fresh to me, as I was a preteen for much of this time, so I might have at best heard snippets while growing up (I started college in 1992 when a different yet also fascinating form of alt-rock was exploding, so my interests then were in then-current music), but it was never overplayed for me then.

Here are some of these songs, taken from a playlist I created yesterday.  Not all of these are "classics," but the overall mood fits mine and it seems to be driving me to read more than I have in recent months:

Clan of Xymox, "A Day"

Death in June, "The Calling (Mk II)"

Big Black, "Kerosene"

Love and Rockets, "Rain Bird"

Revolting Cocks, "Crackin' Up"

Bauhaus, "The Spy in the Cab"

Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Spellbound"

The Church, "Under the Milky Way"

The Jesus and Mary Chain, "The Living End"

Theatre of Hate, "Do you Believe in the Westerworld"

The Cure, "World in My Eyes"

Front Line Assembly, "Provision"

Bauhaus, "Ziggy Stardust"

Screams for Tina, "Eleven Eleven"

The Sisters of Mercy, "Detonation Boulevard"

The Teardrop Explodes, "Treason"


If there are songs in a similar vein that you think I might enjoy, please list them below.

So it seems the sky has been falling since I last wrote a blog entry

In nearly two months, it would seem for some people, a lot of important things have happened.  Something about some puppies trying to get people mad while ultimately getting pounded in the butt by a butt, I think.  Something else about sites closing after a dozen years or more, leaving some to fret about "independent" book reviewing and the decline and fall of a generation of literary/genre online reviewers.

Yes, things are changing, perhaps not to the liking of many people.  Writing out thoughts takes a lot of time and energy (so says the guy writing at 3 AM on 4.5 hours sleep, 28 hours away from running his third 5K).  So easy to want a steady euphony of thoughts on certain books, so easy to confuse conformity with clarity of insight into literary works.  Does it really matter if I were to write 150 reviews in a year (which I have done before) or if I (using myself only as one minuscule example) were to write none here?  Do people really want to hear my thoughts on matters or is it more a hope or desire that I express something in conformity with their own inclinations?

Before I began training for distance walking (and after January, running) last year, my mind was often a chaotic mix of thoughts on fictions read and opinions inflicted upon me whenever I checked social media.  Sure, there is an excitement involved in coming in contact with new people and unfamiliar ideas, but after a while, it becomes tedious to encounter the same tired opinions expressed in trite fashion.  Running became an escape for me from all of this, or rather it allowed me to clear my thoughts in order to experience things in a different light.

A week ago, I ran a 14km/8.7 mile mountain bike/running trail before going to work.  Hot, humid day (it rained an hour after I finished).  Runs (later, mostly walks as my legs grew tired) along a creek bank, the only human there for a square mile or more.  Hearing a woodpecker hammering at an oak off to my right as I struggled to run up a steep, rock-strewn stretch.  Smelling blooming plants, including the heavy perfume of a honeysuckle out of my sight.  There was a sense of being enveloped here, being a panting, sweaty part of something much greater than me.

And yet words will fail to describe the totality of this.  Sure, I can use the 128 colors in my Crayola box of literary expressions to create a simulacrum, but ultimately experiencing the Sublime defeats all attempts to describe it.  Yet as I slowed down as I encountered 6.5% climbs in rapid succession, as I saw squirrels scurrying around me as I plodded on (my personal exercise trainers?), my mind became increasingly clear and focused.  One more running step forward.  One more sprint up a twisting hilly path before slowing down to brace for the steep descents.  Then it didn't matter how much or how little I had read, what I might encounter at work shortly, what I needed to do in the future.  Right then, right there, I was living within a moment that was more than the sum of myself.

Realizations like that make it hard to sit down at night to jot them down as though they were just impersonal opinions to be shared frequently.  I haven't blogged much recently not so much due to having little to say but rather in feeling that it is almost impossible to share these sorts of experiences without coming across as insincere and garrulous.  But maybe I've been looking at it from a weaker position.  Perhaps through clearing my thoughts via exercise reading itself might become something more enjoyable, as it can be another part of experiential growth.  Later this weekend or early next week, I am going to write a review of Elizabeth McKenzie's The Portable Veblen.  It is an outstanding work of mediation on relationships, between humans and between the animals who live among us.  I took over a month to read it, not because I didn't have time to read it over the course of a night, but rather because I wanted to reflect in piecemeal fashion on some of the things it had to say about how wantonly we live our lives, often at a detriment to other living creatures.  Reflecting on this while running through neighborhoods where the scent of southern pines is strong, while hearing chirps and barks and the occasional hiss, made these scenes come to life for me.

All of this is just a long-winded way of saying that it doesn't matter so much what others are saying about works or whether or not you should be following trends or taking recommendations.  As Saint-Exupéry said in The Little Prince:

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." 

This holds true when it comes to writing commentaries on blogs such as this.  What I have to say may matter little to you, but I try to show that something mattered enough for me to write down thoughts for it, even if none of these pertain at all to you.  Writers and critics come and go, but the earth still abides and we abide within it, creatures mucking our ways around, possibly toward something greater than anything we can fathom. 

Personal news and an upcoming book review you never knew you wanted me to review

I've been busy the past couple of weeks training for my first 5K race, which was this morning.  Although I didn't break my personal best due to the cooler temps and being unaccustomed to running uphill (I usually run on a relatively flat track, since it's been too damp for me to run on trails), I did finish 23rd overall and 3rd for men 40-49 (I think there were slightly over 100 runners) at 33:17 (I walked about 1.5K out of the 5 due to the somewhat steep hills).  Won a free meal at Arby's for placing third, plus I won a door prize.  Somehow, I don't see myself using the free 30 minute massage session, but oh well.

My next scheduled race is in two weeks and is a much bigger race, so if I finish in the top third again, I'll be ecstatic.  It has been a fun journey to this point.  A year ago at this point, I could barely walk 3.1 miles/5K within an hour due to being grossly out-of-shape and with a very overweight body made much worse by my August 2014 back injury that led me to gaining almost 50 pounds (or slightly over 20 kg).  A few days ago, I stepped on the scales and saw that I had lost 101 pounds since January 12, 2015.  I am now the lightest I have been since 2008 and hopefully by the end of the year, I'll be weighing less than what I did when I was in college.

However, all of this training and weight loss has taken a toll on my reading time.  I have only finished four books this year (granted, three of them are massive Library of America volumes that contain 3-4 novels' worth of writing inside), but I am hopeful that I'll have a new review ready by Easter weekend.  Even better, this is the sort of title that long-time readers (if such exist still!) of this blog will want me to review.  After all, look at this cover:

If that gorgeous cover (squirrel!) of Elizabeth McKenzie's The Portable Veblen doesn't mesmerize you enough into buying/reading it, then maybe Jeff VanderMeer's review of it, appearing in the Los Angeles Times, will convince you.  This is the book that my reading squirrels have been clamoring for me to have finished already, so hopefully I'll have the energy/time this weekend to finish reading it.  Such a good book so far.

Hopefully I'll be more regular in my blogging after my April 2nd race, but until then, you have a squirrel-centric novel review to look forward to.

A few thoughts on the passings of Harper Lee and Umberto Eco

This past Friday saw the passing of two of my favorite writers, Harper Lee and Umberto Eco.  For very different reasons, each has influenced me as a reader.  At the risk of writing treacly tripe, I just wanted to share a bit about what I enjoyed about their works.

I first encountered Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird as part of my college prep junior English summer reading list.  Although there were several other "worthy" books there that I also enjoyed (Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon being one of them), there was something special about Lee's book that took me years to understand.  Perhaps it was a shared affinity for our hometowns, despite the ugliness that underlay local society.  Perhaps it was just the games of youth created before the age of internet and advanced video games that captivated me.  Or maybe it was this nascent, barely self-aware, sense of outrage at the world's cruelties that fascinated me.  But I suspect, in addition to these possibilities suggested to me through my experiences as an adult, what I really enjoyed about To Kill a Mockingbird was that it was a story of juvenile growth that did not dismiss the worries and concerns of childhood, but instead it was a story of humaneness in the midst of casual injustice.

Lee's interest in exploring Scout's growing awareness of the social hypocrisies around her is seen even further in the pre-Mockingbird draft, Go Set a Watchman, that was published last year.  Despite the controversies surrounding its publication and some of the character arcs, I found that novel exploring certain intriguing avenues (such as Jean Louise's clashes with her father and uncle) that the later To Kill a Mockingbird obfuscated due to its switch in focus to Scout's formative years.  As a Southerner who has conflicted views about his native region, I found Lee's exploration of similar concerns to be comforting, as her characters worked through certain doubts and conflicts in a fashion that enabled me to work through my own issues as a teenager.

But if Lee's works sparked an emotional response to matters of society and racism (and the hypocrisies that exist at their merging bounds), then Umberto Eco's works, fiction and non-fiction alike, stimulated a more intellectual response to human conflicts and the desire to understand collected knowledge.  I remember first discovering Eco by accident a little over twenty years ago, when I was outside looking through the free bin at the Knoxville McKay's used book and music store when I discovered a battered paperback, missing the front cover.  The blurb about a medieval mystery intrigued me, so I kept it for Christmas Break reading a few weeks later. 

Having taken courses in medieval intellectual history and Latin provided me with some insights into what Eco's characters were discussing and what really fascinated me was how easily he mixed the arcane with the familiar, the secular with the religious.  There was a very palpable narrative tension (William Weaver did an outstanding job with the translation; the original Italian was only slightly smoother in shifting between the erudite discussions in Latin and the vernacular) throughout the novel, yet the source of this tension was something I had never really encountered in fiction before.  Over the next few years, I read his latter novels (reading the last three soon upon their publications, the last two in Italian before the English translation was published) and found myself mesmerized by how he could mix in conspiracy theories, legenda, and humor to create engrossing tales.

Yet the more I read Eco, the more curious I became about his non-fiction.  I knew something of semiotics from grad school, but reading translations of Serendipities, Kant and the Platypus, and Mouse or Rat?, not to mention his illustrated books on beauty, ugliness, and lists, deepened my appreciation for him as a thinker.  Reading Eco is not best for more passive readers.  He wants the reader to engage with the texts, both as if they were veritable scriptures and as if they were elaborate forgeries that had to be cracked.  He "lies" to us, or perhaps reveals our possible self-deceptions through his examination of texts.  As he states in the opening chapter, "The Force of Falsity," to Serendipities regarding historical forgeries:

And yet each of these stories had a virtue:  as narratives, they seemed plausible, more than everyday or historical reality, which is far more complex and less credible.  The stories seemed to explain something that was otherwise hard to understand. (p. 17)

This "falsification" of the inexplicable in order to create coherency (albeit not a truthful one) is something he explores in multiple fashions across his works.  It is, as he said in the introduction to his book Dire Quasi la Stessa Cosa (Saying Almost the Same Thing):

Ecco il senso dei capitoli che seguono:  cercare di capire come, pur sapendo che non si dice mai la stessa cosa, si possa dire quasi la stessa cosa.  A questo punto ciò che fa problema non è più tanto l'idea della stessa cosa, né quella della stessa cosa, bensì l'idea di quel quasi. (p. 10)

This is the meaning of the following chapters: trying to understand how, despite knowing that although one never says the same thing, you can say almost the same thing. At this point the problem arises is not so much the idea of the same thing, nor that of the same thing, but the idea of that almost.

As my Italian reading comprehension is weaker than my Spanish or Portuguese, the translation is likely "rough," but yet that roughness and imprecision serves to underscore Eco's point.  It is never about saying the exact thing, providing the exact truth, but rather it's more about those almost truths from which we construct our understandings of the world and our perceived realities.  Embedded within this are our semantic memories (a topic he explores within his relatively underrated The Flame of Queen Loana), the fount from which our world views arise.

In reading Eco, especially his non-fiction, I found my interpretations of reality to be tested.  Certain narratives were rejected in favor of other, perhaps equally "false" but still more plausible, ones.  Sometimes it felt as though I were slowly being let in on a grand joke, albeit one in which I was partially the punchline.  In re-reading some of his works these past two days, I cannot help but feel we have lost a great thinker and forger of plausible lies.  Coupled with the emotional resonance I found in Lee's work, these two now-departed writers perhaps, more than most, if not all other writers, have helped mold me as a reader.  But while in certain senses the Authors are Dead, their texts still live on.  Now to free up some time to delve back into them and see how I shall be touched again on a re-read and how I might still be transformed as a reader.