Book Review: Leaving Everything Most Loved

Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear is my 10th Maisie Dobbs novel. I'm most definitely a fan. Each novel features an intriguing, knotty mystery with most of the violence happening either before the story begins or outside our view. My kind of mystery... spare me the gory details. Maisie Dobbs is both cerebral and psychological in her approach to solving a case, and she is always haunted by her own demons while she  pursues justice for others.

Leaving Everything provides Winspear's typical satisfying story, combining a social problem (in this case the treatment of Indians in London) with the killer's very personal motives. But reading it, I experienced a stronger than usual sense of melancholy and dread about Maisie's future and the future of her friends and colleagues. I felt like I was supposed to be on Maisie's side and share her desire for adventure and self-discovery, but I kept thinking "Poor James!"

[Spoiler alert coming up for Elizabeth George readers] Midway through her wonderful series of mysteries, Elizabeth George chose to kill off her detective's beloved and pregnant wife, Lady Helen. Readers were livid. George spent time explaining herself on social media and even wrote another entire book about it (What Came Before He Shot Her). In the end, I think most readers forgave her. As George explained, it was something she had to do for her series to continue. Writing her detective as a happily married man with a baby simply didn't work. It lacked the level of angst and drama that she needed. 

And my point in recounting George's journey is because I think that Winspear has arrived at the same juncture. (Meaning she arrived there in 2013, when this book was published. And if you've read all her novels and know the answer, don't tell me!) I don't think she can see her way forward if Maisie becomes happily married to James, plus she needs to change up the cast of characters, replacing Billy and Sandra with new people. She's not exactly bored and out of new ideas, but she's definitely looking for a major change of scenery. When I read the next novel, I'll report back. I remain a serious Maisie Dobbs fan and don't expect to be disappointed with her next adventure.

Book Review: Reading People

Reading People by Anne Bogel is essentially a "Cliff Notes" to popular personality frameworks. Bogel takes a tour through The Five Love Languages, Keirsey's Temperaments, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, The Clifton StrengthsFinder, and The Enneagram. My primary mission for this book was to learn about the Enneagram because I am constantly encountering references to it and felt mystified.

I did learn enough about the Enneagram to fake my way through a conversation, but much to my surprise, I learned a lot more about Myers-Briggs. I first encountered Myers-Briggs several decades ago in a workshop at work. Since then, I've taken the test several more times. My results always come out the same (INTP) and my feelings about it haven't varied much over the years. 

I have no trouble with the N (big picture versus facts) and the T (driven more by reason than emotion). I tend to be an ambivert but I'm OK scoring as an introvert. But I have always struggled with the P/J. In fact, I can never adequately even describe what they are. Not surprisingly, my P/J score is almost evenly split -- 51 to 49 almost every time I test. And that is the area of my life where I am most conflicted between how I think I should be and how I am.

Reading People gave me valuable new insight. Bogel described the cognitive stacks (how we process information and make decisions) that go with each different type. I'd never encountered this discussion of cognitive stacks, before. I read the descriptions before I looked at the stacks, and low and behold, my cognitive stack is definitely INTJ. And the two stacks (INTJ and INTP) are completely different. No wonder my results always left me feeling conflicted!

I can only say, thank you Anne Bogel. The book in general was delightful to read, succinct and friendly, informative without being academic. And you helped me come to terms, finally, with my Myers-Briggs. Worth the price of admission!!

Book Review: Wish You Were Here

People who write book reviews are careful about spoilers -- either avoiding them or warning about them beforehand. In the case of Jodi Picoult's Wish You Were Here, everyone who writes about it is very careful not to spoil it for other readers because the unexpected turn it takes is such an important part of the experience. So I won't spoil it, other than to say that the turn was huge and made all the difference for me.

In Wish You Were Here, Picoult provides a nuanced exploration of the personal impact of COVID-19 from several points of view. Although this book feels very different from most of her other work, that nuanced exploration is very much Picoult at her best. She looks at survivor guilt experienced by those who are largely untouched (like me) side-by-side with the daily trauma felt by health-care workers. She spends more time than usual, for her, in examining romantic relationships. At times, this book began to feel like a romance novel and I almost put it down. 

Parent-child relationships are central to the story. As she peels back the onion of the fraught relationship that Diana, the protagonist, has with her mother, Picoult takes her on a twisted, often painful journey of self-discovery. Forgiveness and redemption ultimately enable Diana to find her way in the world, but I confess to finding the outcome equal parts sad and uplifting. 

This isn't Picoult's best work but even her "above average" is definitely worth reading.  

Book Review: We Are Not Like Them

Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, a Black woman and a white woman, long-time friends and colleagues, write a book about a Black woman and a white woman who are best friends faced with incredible challenges to their relationship. It has the potential to be trite or overwrought, but it's neither of those things. It's thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, insightful. The prose is straight-forward, not overly flowery or emotional, but laced with wonderful well-turned phrases and astute observations. As I started reading, I was almost immediately sorry I was reading a library copy because I wanted to underline and comment. Instead, my book is filled with little post-it tabs I'll need to remove before I return it to the library.

When Pride and Piazza talk about their book, they quip "Come for the friendship, stay for the social justice." They explore the challenges of any close friendship (honesty, different life experiences, diverging achievements). And then they add an incendiary social justice issue to the mix. Riley is Black and a rising media figure in Philadelphia. Jen is white and married to a cop who kills an unarmed Black teenager. As a journalist, Riley takes the lead in covering the story. (No spoilers here. This is on the book flap and in the first few chapters of the book.) Through alternating first person narratives, Pride and Piazza explore the many cracks this exposes in Riley and Jen's relationship with nuance and compassion. 

We Are Not Like Them probes difficult subjects, often painfully, but it does so against the backdrop of a deep lasting friendship. As Riley says to herself, "Sometimes you just need to be around someone who loved you before you were a fully formed person. It's like finding your favorite sweatshirt in the back of the closet, the one you forgot why you stopped wearing and once you find it again you sleep in it every night." Awkwardly constructed but heartfelt. And I'm sure these two experienced writers and editors thought long and hard about each turn of phrase. 

As Jen struggles to cope with the fallout from her husband's horrific mistake, she pleads with Riley, "I just need you to be on my side." Riley, the more introspective of the two, and the authors along with her, understand that's it's not that simple. The situation has multiple sides, and there is no right side. And therein lies the strength of this book. There is no easy answer. There is no escaping the impact of race, so Jen and Riley (and the readers) might as well face it and deal with it. Here's Riley again: "I've been consumed these last few months (or a lifetime, really) with all the ways race oozes its sticky tentacles into every relationship, every interact, every intention... There are no easy choices, no safe choices, you can't plan your way to happiness."

We Are Not Like Them is a terrific, timely, important book.

Book Review: Parable of the Sower

 Written in 1993 and set in 2025, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is a story set in a California that has descended into anarchy as a result of the impact of climate change. The fifteen-year-old narrator, Lauren Olamina alternates between fierce anger, gritty determination, and numb acceptance as she and first her biological family and then her adopted family struggle to survive.

With her straight-forward, understated style, Butler lays bare the many horrors of a rapidly disintegrating society. My mom always said "the veneer of civilization is very thin," and that's a central motif in Parable. When pushed to the brink, many will do unspeakable things.

The idea of a new "religion" called Earthseed is central to the book. It stems from the narrator Lauren's attempt to find meaning and hope in the insanity all around her. I confess that I don't really "get" Earthseed. It doesn't resonate with me, but Lauren's struggle to find meaning certainly does. Parable made me feel more terrified than hopeful. Definitely a parable for our times.

I thought that I struggled with dystopian books and that Parable of the Sower is an exception (along with Station Eleven), but then I googled "best dystopian novels" and discovered many I have loved and would even consider re-reading: 1984, Animal Farm, Handmaid's Tale, Hunger Games, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Oryx and Crake, to name just a few. I need to figure out the sub-genre I haven't enjoyed (Zone One and A Visit from the Goon Squad) so I don't miss out in the future.

Book Review: State of Terror

Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton -- what a powerhouse duo!  (Much better than James Patterson and Bill Clinton, IMHO.) They perfectly blend their different expertise and experiences with their obvious mutual respect and deep friendship to deliver a truly compelling story. A new administration is in the early stages of recovering from a disastrous 4 years with an incompetent and egotistical President who is never named but doesn't need to be.  For nefarious political reasons, the new President Doug Williams appoints Ellen Adams as his Secretary of State. Together, they confront a horrific terrorist plot that spans the globe and reaches into the depths of inner Washington.

Clinton brings to the table an enormous breadth of knowledge of world leaders, non-state actors, and Washington machinations. As Ellen Adams, she confronts some of her biggest nightmares and also gets to indulge her fondest desire to slap down a few political adversaries.

Penny contributes her masterful ability to construct an intricate plot, dropping just enough hints and red herrings along the way to keep the reader thoroughly engaged. She even includes a few nods to her loyal readers with a tiny bit of action in Three Pines and a cameo appearance by Armand Gamache. 

The thrilling, heart-stopping, page-turning plot would have made an excellent book. Combining that with the depth of female friendships, the fraught family relationships, and the nuanced portrayal of both the good guys and the bad guys bring this book to the next level. And the wonderful literary references, including the code between Ellen and Betsy, are icing on the cake. The subjunctive would have walked into a bar... had it only known. 

Needless to say, I really loved this book!

Book Review -- Edward Tulane

When Ann Patchett recommends a book, I listen...

That night I read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and, well, it changed my life. I couldn’t remember when I had read such a perfect novel. I didn’t care what age it was written for. The book defied categorization. I felt as if I had just stepped through a magic portal, and all I had to do to pass through was believe that I wasn’t too big to fit. This beautiful world had been available to me all along but I had never bothered to pick up the keys to the kingdom.

"Kid lit" isn't exactly my go-to genre when selecting what to read next, but Kate DiCamillo is wonderful. I enjoyed Because of Winn Dixie just as much as I enjoyed Edward Tulane. The writing is both lyrical and stripped to its essence. The messages are both obvious and profound... and appropriate for children of all ages. 

I'll keep reading Ann Patchett's recommendations. Her taste is impeccable.

Book Review -- Why We're Polarized

Ezra Klein is flat out brilliant. He has his own great ideas, but his magical power is synthesis. For his book Why We're Polarized, he read volumes and volumes of material and interviewed countless experts. And then he analyzed, synthesized, and organized all of that information into a coherent story. And he made it easy to read -- digestible -- without sacrificing reference to the underlying research and analysis that supports his work. 

I've read many of the books and articles that he references. Most of the concepts he highlights are familiar to me. The new ground he paves is in the logically constructed big picture where all the pieces fit together and make sense -- even if the big picture isn't particularly attractive.

He starts with historical context and how the supposed "golden age" (when both parties were on average more moderate and willing to compromise) was the result of a devil's bargain with southern racists. When that bargain fell apart after the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960's, we began to sort ourselves into liberals and conservatives aligned by party.

Klein's pillar premise is that we are living in Identity politics with a capital "I." Most of our identities are stacked and aligned with our political party so that our party affiliation becomes a mega-identity. And the other party becomes Other with a capital "O." Our party's success and the other party's failure become equally important (which is how our hard-coded group think works). 

He spends a lot of time exploring how Trump won the nomination and ultimately concludes that in some ways, it didn't matter. Many Republican party leaders were terrified that Trump would win the nomination but helpless to prevent it. And in the end, their hatred of Hilary and everything she stands for trumped their disdain for Trump. That's fundamentally important to understanding our polarization -- being against is just as important, if not more so, as being for.

Klein examines the media's role in fostering the polarization and ultimately enabling Trump. And he highlights stark differences in how Democrats and Republicans consume media. An important part of the Democrat's identity is embracing diversity -- width rather than depth. Republicans are precisely the opposite. Depth explains Fox News. Breadth explains a Democrat's willingness to read much more broadly (but not Fox News).

Klein also talks about how the idea of balance written into our Constitution was built around the idea that the individual states would have competing interests. They would have to compromise to achieve results that a majority of states could accept. Seeking compromise among many states is far different from trying to seek compromise between two nearly equal, diametrically opposed political parties. Nor did the Founding Fathers conceive of a time when population would be spread so unequally among the states. Their notion of balancing geography and the competing interest of the various states has, in our time, lead to gross inequity in representation.

I've only scratched the surface of Klein's analysis. His book is eye-opening and sobering. Although he has suggestions that might soften the hard edges of partisanship or blunt its effects, basically it is hard to see an optimistic way forward.

Mrs Palfry at the Claremont

Author Elizabeth Taylor is a new discovery for me. I receive book recommendations from a variety of sources... friends, newsletters, Goodreads. I add many to my "to read" list in Goodreads, which has ballooned ridiculously to over 900. And I add some of them to my reserve list at the library. I don't know when or why I added Mrs. Palfry at the Claremont, but it arrived just before the library closed for the COVID-19 lockdown. And, serendipitously, it arrived in the same batch with Susan Moon's this is getting old. (Or perhaps I read a newsletter about aging and that's why they both ended up on my reserve list?) But I digress...

Susan Moon's collection of essays addresses the challenges of aging with wry good humor. I saw myself in many of her vignettes, and they made me nod and smile. I found Taylor's fictional treatment of aging far more difficult to read. Her characters are a group of eccentric, lonely old people, living in reduced circumstances in a hotel in central London. Their lives are very "small" with minimal interaction beyond their little circle. 

Mrs. Palfry, the central character, is recently widowed and profoundly lonely. She has a strained relationship with her distant daughter and grandson. She doesn't feel any real connection to her fellow inhabitants at the hotel. But she does establish a relationship, of sorts, to a young man she meets while on a walk.

Some of the reviews talk about humor. And, apparently, there was a movie a few years ago. The book jacket that features a scene from the movie shows Mrs. Palfry looking well-groomed and not all that old and feeble. She smiles while her young friend laughs. I find this image almost offensive because it so completely contradicts my impressions of the book. For me, the few moments of laughter in the book bordered on pathetic. The overall impressions that stay with me are shabbiness, loneliness, and pain (both physical and emotional). This is simply not a happy book.


That being said, I do recommend it. Taylor writes masterfully, capturing the eccentricities of the Claremont inhabitants with spare but elegant prose. Following in the tradition of Jane Austen, Taylor gives us a story in which very little happens but we gain powerful insights into the indignities of aging and of human nature in general. What the heck. I guess I will add another Taylor book or two to my "to read" list.

 

Book Review -- The Three-Body Problem

Star Wars or Star Trek? Science fiction aficionados immediately understand the question and are ready with their response. Mine -- I like them both but definitely prefer Star Trek. I'm very particular about science fiction and typically only enjoy books, series, and movies with a fairly strong "cultural anthropology" bent. I cut my teeth on Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy and Poul Anderson's Boat of a Million Years. Actually, my interest started much earlier than that -- A Wrinkle in Time was a sensation when I was exactly the right age. The idea of other worlds and an entire different race of people fascinated me.

The book cover of The Three-Body Problem has a reviewer's summary: "The best kind of science fiction, familiar but strange at the same time."  Exactly. It's rooted in recent history, particularly in China. It's built on current theoretical science exploration. At least I think it is -- a lot of the physics and mathematics is way behind my ability to comprehend. And a role-playing video game is a key component of the story. All familiar until the author gradually reveals that the video game is real and the players' reactions to real-world events have set in motion a clash of different worlds.

Good historical fiction helps us understand the past in a way that history books don't. Understanding the people and how they experienced the events is far more effective than simply and factually describing the events. Similarly, science fiction enables us to envision a possible future and its implications much more powerfully than an article in a scientific journal. 

The central theme of The Three-Body Problem is the existence of another intelligence "out there" and what it might mean for us. To author Cixin Liu, it's critically important to examine this possibility and what it means for our world. In his postscript of the English edition, he writes:

I've always felt that extraterrestrial intelligence will be the greatest source of uncertainty for humanity's future. Other great shifts, such as climate change and ecological disasters, have a certain progression and built-in adjustment periods, but contact between humankind and aliens can occur at any time. Perhaps in ten thousand years, the starry sky that humankind gazes upon will remain empty and silent, but perhaps tomorrow we'll wake up and find an alien spaceship the size of the moon parked in orbit. The appearance of extraterrestrial intelligence will force humanity to confront an Other. Before then, humanity as a whole will never have had an external counterpart. The appearance of this Other, or mere knowledge of its existence, will impact our civilization in unpredictable ways.

 There's a strange contradiction revealed by the naivete and kindness demonstrated by humanity when faced with the universe: On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease. But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.

I've occasionally imagined that our world -- our universe -- is a small sphere in a much bigger universe. We're a crumb being pushed along by an ant in that much-larger universe, until someone thoughtlessly steps on the ant. In Three-Body Problem, the psychological warfare conducted by the Other before they arrive on Earth includes a chilling message: You're bugs!

I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this trilogy.

Book Review -- this is getting old

Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity. I love that. It captures what I and so many of my friends are trying to do. Keep our sense of humor. Maintain our dignity for as long as humanly possible. (Losing my "dignity" is probably the aspect of aging that most frightens me.) Not taking ourselves too seriously -- maintaining dignity is not the same as being stuffy and "dignified." And, above all, being Zen -- accepting, being present, not focusing too much on the future.

In her introduction to this wonderful collection of essays, Susan Moon says:

It annoys me when people say, "Even if you're old, you can still be young at heart!" in order to cheer up old people. Hiding inside this well-meaning phrase is a deep cultural assumption that old is bad and good is young. What's wrong with being old at heart, I'd like to know? "Old at heart" -- doesn't it have a beautiful ring? Wouldn't you like to be loved by people whose hearts have practiced loving for a long time?

Moon voices a sentiment similar to Ursula Le Guin's lament in No Time to Spare. Both women celebrate getting older, even while they bemoan it, and they both resent the ageism in our society. Not only have we lost respect for our elders but we're rapidly losing the desire and ability to learn from their wisdom. And soon, all of us "elders" will be gone.

I'm not particularly conscious of experiencing ageism -- being invisible or underestimated. Occasionally, a young male waiter or store clerk will call me "miss" instead of "ma'am." I'm sure that's how they are trained -- that it's offensive to call someone ma'am because it's means you think they are old. But good lord, I'm old enough to be this boy's grandmother. Having him call me "miss" is offensive and patronizing. And what's wrong with being old anyway? (So I guess maybe I am conscious of it...)

On the other hand, I look at our presidential candidates, all of whom have at least 5 years on me, and it terrifies me (and not just because one of them is Donald Trump). I'm in relatively good health and still mentally sharp, but i know that I don't have the same energy I once did. Nor is my ability to quickly analyze alternatives as acute as it was 10 or 20 years ago. I can't believe any of these elder statesmen has significantly more energy than I do. The body and mind start to wind down toward their expiration date as we round the corner after sixty. None of us can escape it.

I love Moon's whimsical description of a senior moment, but it's not so funny when you think of it happening to an important leader:

It's not my fault when I have a senior moment any more than it was my fault when my hair turned gray. I'm just a human being, after all.  I've had a lifetime of junior moments, when one word follows another in logical -- and boring -- succession, when each action leads to the next appropriate action. For countless years, I have remembered to bring the pencil with me when I go downstairs to use the pencil sharpener.  I think I've earned the right to break free from the imprisonment of sequential thinking.

A senior moment is a stop sign on the road to life.  It could even be a leg up toward enlightenment.  So I stay calm, let the engine idle, and enjoy the scenery.  What happens next will be revealed in due course.

Moon's book is both a delightful journey and a cautionary tale. Those of us in the second half of life need to do our best to battle the slow descent of aging while at the same time embracing it. Being old at heart isn't such a bad thing.  

Book: The Despot's Apprentice

Author Brian Klaas is a hometown boy made good. I remember him as the kid brother of our daughter's friend Ann. He was the little runt trailing after his brother James on the Little League team coached by my husband. Then all the kids grew up and went off in various directions, to their elite schools and careers. I heard about Brian periodically from his mom Barbara. She proudly and nervously described his studies in failed (and therefore not very safe) states. Fortunately, Brian survived his stays in faraway lands and emerged as a widely regarded expert in despotism and failing democracies. I barely recognize the scruffy little boy I knew beneath his very professional looking image. I wonder if he's even acquired a British accent? 

I have yet to catch Brian as a commentator on TV or radio, but I just completed his latest book. And he really is a hometown boy made good. He writes with authority and impressive command of a broad spectrum of information. His argument is logical, articulate, and well-organized.  Most importantly, it flows and it's easy to read. Giant intellects are most impressive when they make their knowledge accessible without dumbing it down. Bravo, Brian!

In the age of Trump, it is difficult not to get a serious case of whiplash wondering which misdeed to focus on -- lying, vulgarity, petulance, nepotism, misogynism? Klaas' book is both clear and comprehensive -- a sure cure for whiplash.

Here is a brief rundown of the chapters:

1. Doublethink -- lying, cognitive dissonance, convincing people that 2 + 2 = 5
2. Fake News!  -- delegitimizing the press, especially the critical press
3. Lock Her Up!  -- demonizing opponents
4. From Russia with Love -- all the possible ways that Trump and his family are benefiting from a Russian connection
5. How to Rig an Election --  theories about what happened leading up to November 2016
6. Divide and Rule -- focusing his supporters on scapegoats (immigrants, black and brown people)
7. Flood the Swamp -- benefiting financially from the office of President
8. The Deep State -- inventing a sinister conspiracy against him
9. Take Your Kids to Work Day -- unparalleled nepotism
10. The Despot's Cheerleading -- praising and cozying up to other world leaders with questionable ethics and tactics

Klaas' argument throughout is that Trump doesn't rise (or sink) to the level of any of the true despots used as examples, but Trump uses many of the same techniques. Klaas makes a convincing and obviously very frightening case that we're headed in the wrong direction. We need to take civic responsibility and try to turn the ship before we are indeed shipwrecked. Read it, weep, and then do something!

Bird by Bird

Several months ago, I wrote a post describing some people who seem to have more interesting lives, even though they are pretty ordinary, just like I am. I remarked that these people are often more observant, more present. They pay attention to detail and relish life's little absurdities.

Now, I'm reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It's a funny, delightful pallet cleanser after plowing through Auster's 4 3 2 1, at least partly because Auster takes himself so very seriously and Lamott doesn't.  And yet, in her brevity and her self-deprecating humor, Lamott reveals so many of life's truths. But I digress.

In the introduction to Bird by Bird, Lamott identifies the skilled writer's ability to capture in words what others see -- to give it shape and substance and meaning:

I started writing a lot in high school: journals, impassioned antiwar pieces, parodies of the writers I loved. And I began to notice something important. The other kids wanted me to tell them stories of what had happened, even -- or especially -- when they had been there.

I'm sure my father was the person on whom his friends relied to tell their stories... He could take major events or small episodes from daily life and shade or exaggerate things in such a way as to capture their shape and substance, capture what life felt like in the society in which he and his friends lived and worked and bred. People looked to him to put into words what was going on.

A worthy and difficult goal -- to see the world with clarity and describe it in a way that resonates with others.

I especially love Lamott's ability to be simultaneously reverent and irreverent:

.. that kind of attention is the prize. To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass -- seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.

Bird by Bird is a book about the craft of writing, but it is so much more. It is about the pain and challenge and beauty of being conscious and of looking at the world honestly. It is breathlessly honest and also so damned funny, filled with so many priceless lines, said almost in passing, like this one "I wasn't writing the book with my thumb stuck out, trying to hitchhike into history..." How does she come up with these quips?  Anne Lammot is my hero!

4 3 2 1 -- Coming of Age in the Sixties

One of the indulgences of my "college of my own making" in retirement is that I create my own syllabus and I don't finish books that I don't like. I did feel compelled, however, to slog my way all the way to the end of Paul Auster's massive tome 4 3 2 1.

The premise of the book is ingenious, interweaving the divergent stories of four different Archie Fergusons -- four possible lives of the same boy.  All born in 1947 (like Auster). Similar but different life experiences that gradually diverge more and more as they reach their early twenties. 

But I barely remember the names of characters when I'm reading a single version of a story. Keeping track of the roles of various friends and relatives in the different versions of Ferguson was just too much for me. Maybe I should have started taking notes and drawing diagrams right from the start, but then it's a text book, not a novel. So if Auster did a good job of demonstrating the impact that various life experiences had on his protagonist, some of that was lost on me because I couldn't keep them straight.

I'm a bit younger than Auster and Ferguson, but not so much younger that his life experiences are uncharted territory. The reactions of an adolescent and young adult to the unjust war and the racism of the late 60's rings true to me, even though I'm enough younger that I didn't experience it in the same way. Sharing generational experiences was probably my motivation for soldiering on through all 866 pages. I must say that the last couple pages were profoundly disappointing. He just couldn't figure out how to bring his story to a good closing.

If you are of a completely different generation than Paul Auster and I are, I'm not sure that you'll experience sufficient insight to justify the investment of your time.

The Cellist of Sarajevo

Reading the Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway almost simultaneously with Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations was a study in contrasts. Huntington is analytical, detached and almost clinical in his discussion of the conflicts that occur along the fault lines when two civilizations meet. The brutal civil war in Yugoslavia that provides the canvas for the stark portraits in the Cellist of Sarajevo is one of those fault line conflicts.

Galloway, with his spare but effective prose, provides painful glimpses into the lives of four very different people, all struggling to retain some semblance of humanity in the face of utterly inhuman conditions. There is nothing detached or clinical about his approach. Through the eyes of his characters, we come to understand the soul-crushing struggles of survival in a war zone in a way that no news story and heart-rending photos ever can. It's hard to imagine walking many miles, ever-fearful of sniper bullets, every few days to lug jugs of water for your family's needs. But with Galloway's stark descriptions, we can begin to imagine it. It's hard to imagine an economy reduced to bartering while a lucky, unscrupulous few acquire riches. But through the eyes of Galloway's characters, we can imagine it. Probably the least difficult thing to imagine is the choice to kill or be killed.

The Cellist of Sarajevo explores courage, fear, despair, and glimmers of hope in a world gone mad. It lays bare the senselessness of the conflicts wrought by our tribalism. It's uncomfortable, even painful, to read and well worth every cringe and gasp.

Clash of Civilizations

I'm a sucker for sweeping generalities when they are well argued and elegantly articulated.  Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond remains one of my all-time favorite books. I just finished reading The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P Huntington. It joins GGS on my list of really important books.

Clash of Civilizations was written in 1996. It's interesting to read a history of events that have happened mostly in my lifetime and see how predictive it has been of the most recent 20 years.

One of Huntington's central premises is that clashes among groups of people are inevitable. Despite the fact that we in the West foolishly dreamed of a universal culture after the fall of the Soviet Union, it isn't in human nature for everyone to agree on common principals and just get along.  We define ourselves, and our tribe, by how we are different from others.

Huntington argues that the Cold War was an anomaly in the history of civilizations because it was a clash of politics and ideals rather than of fundamental cultural and religious differences. But now that the Cold War has ended, the world is reverting to a norm where peoples disagree over the fundamental things that they believe -- culture, values, and religion.

The world today, he argues, has seven major civilizations:

• Sinic (Chinese)
• Japanese
• Hindu (primarily India)
• Islamic (vast but lacking a primary core state)
• Orthodox (Russian)
• Western (that's us and Europe)
• Latin American

And when push comes to shove, people will align with others who share their civilizational and cultural identity.

He identifies the key beliefs, values, and institutions that characterize "the West," and admonishes that we in the West wrongly assume that these are shared and universally correct values:

• Classical legacy coming from the Greeks and Romans
• Catholicism and Protestantism
• Separation of spiritual and temporal authority
• Social pluralism
• Representative bodies
• Individualism

"What is universalism to the West is imperialism to the rest."

The vast center of the book illuminates the history and fundamental characteristics of the other major civilizations. Huntington then examines the major and minor conflicts that continually arise along the "fault lines" where different civilizations come in contact. "Fault line wars are intermittent," he says. "Fault line conflicts are interminable."

The most sobering and prescient part of the book is the final section, where Huntington reprises the classic phases of civilization identified by other notable historians and describes a civilization in decline.  I'll quote at length because it is both important and frightening:

Civilizations decline when they stop the "application of surplus to new ways of doing things. In modern terms we say that the rate of investment decreases." (Carroll Quigley) This happens because social groups, controlling the surplus, have a vested interest in using it for "non-productive but ego-satisfying purposes... which distribute the surpluses to consumption but do not provide more effective methods of production." People live off their capital and the civilization moves from the stage of the universal state to the stage of decay. 

It's pretty hard to avoid equating that description with the huge wealth gap that is growing in Western countries, particularly the U.S., and with multinational companies hoarding huge amounts of cash instead of reinvesting.

Huntington continues, quoting Quigley at length:

This is a period of acute economic depression, declining standards of living, civil wars between the various vested interests, and growing illiteracy. The society grows weaker and weaker. Vain efforts are made to stop the wastage by legislation. But the decline continues. The religious, intellectual, social, and political levels of society began to lose the allegiance of the masses of the people on a large scale. New religious movements begin to sweep over the society. There is a growing reluctance to fight for the society or even to support it by paying taxes. 

Huntington wrote this tremendous opus before globalization and the information age had really taken hold. And he died before he could reprise his arguments in light of recent events. So much of what he predicted has come true, but I hope that his advice for saving the West is no longer completely valid. Coming from the perspective of someone who believes so strongly in the power of civilization, Huntington argues that the West won't survive if it insists on embracing multiculturalism and pluralism rather than reverting to its fundamental Christian roots.

Basically, I guess that means I love the book and hate the ending.

Station Eleven -- Calamity, Serendipity, Six Degrees of Separation, and more..

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is, simplistically, a dystopian novel -- definitely not my favorite genre. Perhaps one of the dystopia scenarios might very possibly occur in my lifetime (probably not the zombie kind) and I should therefore face up to the reality. But I find most novels in this genre to be unrelentingly humorless and grim. I prefer grim reality served up with a human touch and some people that I care about. Thank you ESJMl!

Sometimes, when I'm sitting at a stoplight in my very responsible Prius hybrid, I look around me and marvel. How could we have evolved to live like this? Tall buildings, cars, electricity, cell phones, books, television, social media... A thousand years ago, we were very different, at least as a culture. Our lives today were unimaginable back then, or even 150 years ago. We've evolved culturally to be so specialized that few of us have the expertise to recreate even one element of all the technologies that define our lives.

That's an important premise of Mandel's novel. Her description of the post-apocalyptic world -- after the catastrophic pandemic wiped out 99% of our race -- is understated and matter-of-fact, but effective. Imagine a world without any modern conveniences or modern necessities. No medicines of any kind, including simple things like insulin that keep thousands of people alive every day. Imagine a world without electricity, running water, gasoline, heat or air conditioning. No television, no Internet, no telephone. She doesn't fill in all the blanks of how the survivors cope without all those things, but with her springboard, your mind easily takes you there.

With her lightly but effectively drawn dystopian world as a canvas, Mandel depicts the before and the after for a handful of characters, loosely connected (six degrees of separation) through an aging actor. The story goes back and forth, from just Before, to just After, to Year Ten and (mostly) Year Twenty. The intermingling of the characters' lives is serendipitous, as is their survival of the initial disaster.

As with any good novel, Mandel does an outstanding job of putting you in the shoes and in the heads of her characters. You can begin to appreciate what it might be like to be an apocalyptic survivor. And you are left wondering what it really means to be civilized.

An excellent read! 

The Art of Understanding -- the Guthrie's Disgraced

We recently had the opportunity to see the Guthrie's production of the relatively new play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar. It received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. Here's the intro from the playbill: 

"A rapid-fire, award-winning social drama

Amir Kapoor, a successful Pakistani-American lawyer, is happy, in love and about to land the biggest promotion of his life. But ethnicity collides with ambition when Amir and his wife, Emily, host a dinner party at their Upper East Side apartment. Friendly conversation turns confrontational, and Amir makes a costly decision."

In a few short, well-crafted scenes, Akhtar provides important insight into ethnicity, ambition, love, loyalty, cultural misunderstanding, and the pain of loss. The audiences cringes in anticipation of the consequences of inescapable actions and literally gasps when long-buried cultural biases and problem-resolution "techniques" rear their ugly heads. 

In an era when we are subjected to so many sound bites, stereotypes, and catch phrases, Disgraced demonstrates the tremendous value of the arts to explore deeper meaning and provide greater understanding. Each of the four participants in the conversation made unforgivable mistakes in the course of the story, but we the audience can understand if not forgive.

This is an important play that is being produced at regional theaters around the country. If you have the opportunity to see it, by all means, go!

Sweating the Small Stuff

One of my mantras of life has always been "don't sweat the small stuff." It might be a bit of rationalization and self-justification, because I'm much more of a concepts person than a details person. So I often tell myself that the details aren't worth losing sleep over. And mostly this works, plus it's a good counter-balance to my Type A, always planning, side.

"Don't sweat the small stuff" was also a refrain of our parenting style. And an important corollary was "pick your battles." I really believe that children from a very young age do far better with guidelines than lots of specific rules. And they are more likely to adhere to a few key rules ("don't run in the street," "don't ever get in the car with a driver who has been drinking") because those rules stand out as crucially important.

But I have always suspected that the hidden secret of this parenting style is laziness. It's often easier to do a chore yourself than to make your children do it. It's quicker to just give kids money when they need it than to figure out the equitable way to dispense allowance to kids of diverse ages. And who really knows or cares if the beds are made every morning?

Nevertheless, for our particular children, our parenting style produced spectacular results. Through some combination of luck (lots of luck) and skill, we raised three very responsible, respectful, financially stable, wise, and compassionate adults. They don't necessarily make their beds every day, but none of them are slovenly, nor do they run in the street or drink and drive. 

So why, at this stage of my life, am I so enamored with Rubin's podcast Happier and with Gretchen Rubin's writing in general? Rubin is by no means a shallow person, and yet her focus in much of her writing and her podcast is definitely about the small stuff. And I lap it up. I've come to believe that you can be happier and you can make your life better by focusing on your daily habits. The small stuff can make a difference.

I'm still a believer in my mantra-- don't sweat the small stuff -- when it comes to the big stories of life. But I've reached a stage of life when I've checked off the big boxes and now the question becomes how to compose a further life (an interesting book by Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of Margaret Mead). And if I don't plan to join the peace corps or some similar noble commitment at this late stage, then doing what I can to make each day better increases in importance. Occasionally, their tips make me feel a little bit like I'm reading Better Home and Gardens or Good Housekeeping (perish the thought!). But usually their ideas are a bit more cerebral and personal... and it makes me happy to participate with them in thinking about the small stuff.

Mostly Frightening and Aggravating, with a Dash of Humor

Despite being retired, we somehow seldom find the time to see movies in theaters. Last night, we saw "The Big Short." Just wow! I haven't yet read Michael Lewis' book, and now I probably won't. Even if the book is, as usual, better than the movie, I think that the movie was sufficiently careful and complete to satisfy my thirst for understanding this horrible chapter in our economic history.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to be a bit removed from the still stagnating economy and the plight of most of the middle class, the Big Recession is starting to feel a bit like a distant memory. But it's good to remember...

Despite the esoteric subject-matter, the story is completely riveting. Director Adam McKay uses occasional comic sketches to illustrate the most difficult financial concepts and to provide a bit of relief from the drama. The actors all turned in stellar performances. I have to believe that they "believed" in the importance of the story they tried to tell. 

This isn't a horror film in any traditional sense of the term, but at various points, fellow audience members gasped audibly. And we all left the theater shaken and angry (and better informed). The truly frightening thing is that I don't think we have learned very much from the experience of 2008 and the subsequent years. The financial fat cats are still at it, and we've done very little to rein them in and protect ourselves from the next bubble ready to burst.