Winged Migration

“The story of bird migration is a story of promise, a promise to return.”

Breath taking and remarkable close up cinematography places you in the center of the flight patterns and along the nesting sites on cliffs and the sandy beaches as the film crew spent nearly 4 years filming from all corners of the earth.

The near lack of narration, I thought was perfect for the film, although some have disagreed with me. I did not think this film needed narration, on the other hand, I thought Morgan Freeman’s narration of The March of the Penguins was the bee’s knees and a film that needed that narration to be complete.

SPOILER ALERT: (do not read any further: I will reveal spoilers)

 

 

 

 

As I watched the film I was shocked that the birds would not shy away from the filming crew, only to learn that flocks of the birds bring filmed were raised and imprinted on the film crew for this film. So this film is not quite a documentary, not quite fiction, but somewhere in between. (But not at the level of This is Spinal Tap). Did watching the “making of” change my thoughts on the movie? Yes and No.

I still thought the movie was great and I was fascinated by the story, but I was disappointed in the “imprinting” aspect. My daughter felt a little lied to after watching the “making of” bonus feature. I can understand her point of view, now it’s your time to decide.

Check the WRL catalog for this DVD

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The Birds

When Melanie Daniels rolls into Bodega Bay in pursuit of eligible bachelor Mitch Brenner, the small California town is inexplicably and viciously attacked by thousands of birds.

 Of course we know birds to not attack people, but that’s ok…let’s suspend belief and look at this wonderful Hitchcock film that was recently thrown back into the spotlight with the death of Suzanne Pleshette.

Rumors about bird care during the filming still persist today, I have read that magnet and fishing line were use to keep birds on phone wires and on roofs, also the use of birdseed in the hair of actors as well to promote the “active feeding” on the characters. I’m sure Hitchcock would have animal rights activist lurking around if the filming was today; be that as it may, sit back and enjoy the terror of The Birds, and look for Hitchcock walking his dogs for his cameo.

As I selected categories for this entry, I wondered is this movie a “classic”?

 

Check the WRL catalog for this movie

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To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, Son and a Lifelong Obsession, by Dan Koeppel

I know we talked about birds yesterday, but that was birds during one year, this is birding over a lifetime.

Dan Koeppel tells the life obsession of his father, an extreme birder, one of the few persons in the world to have seen over 7000 species. Only from a lifetime commitment can you see such a high number of species; special vacations and travel arrangements, effort, money, strategy, and knowledge all play a large part of this lifelong compulsion.

Richard Koeppel wanted to become an ornithologist, but after much pressure from his family he decided on a medical career, a career that has allowed him to travel the world in search of birds.

A quick read that opens the birding world to everyone. The history of birding, rules and technicalities of creating a lifelong big list, and even the taxonomy of birds are examined. A closer look at the deteriation of the American family, this one torn apart, not from drugs or alcohol but from the natural world is also revealed in this gem of a book.

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The Big Year: A tale of man, nature and fowl obsession, by Mark Obmascik

Recently in Williamsburg there has been an unusual sighting of a rare bird in the area, a Townsend’s Solitaire. I came across a handful of folks that made more than an hour’s drive to see this western, Rocky Mountain native; folks from Charlottesville, Roanoke and even the brave folks that came through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel on a weekend from Chesapeake. Luckily my daughters and I had to drive about 3 miles to see the bird.

The Big Year by Mark Obmascik details his “Big Year”(a birding term) that birders use to define a year long contest to see who can identify the most species during 365 day period. Obmascik also relates the year long obsession of other birders during 1998, how they cross paths, help each other and he even dabbles in the environmental and societal issues for birders as well.

At break-neck speed the story unfolds, from the western islands of Alaska to the keys in Florida birds are identified and checked off the list only to finally award the Big Year champion in December.

The trials, triumphs and frustrations of these three birders make this book a wonderful read for non-birders. If you are driving to see other rare species and don’t have the time to read the book, the Williamsburg Library offers this selection on audio cd as well. The Audio version was an Audiofile Earphones award winning selection.

2008 is THE BIG YEAR in my household, my oldest daughter and I are keeping track of the different bird species we see this year, and the Townsend’s Solitaire is one that I never would have guessed we’d see near the coast of Virginia.

Check the WRL Catalog for the book

Check the WRL Catalog for the Audio-CD

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The Twilight series, by Stephenie Meyer

“You are going to hate it in so many ways,” I told Jessica before she started reading Twilight. I could anticipate the criticisms: sappy romance, amateurish writing, serious transgressions of feminist ethics…

As it turns out, Edward Cullen trumps all of the above. “You didn’t tell me this was a vampire romance,” growled Jessica, who was feeling thwarted because all copies of book two were checked out.

It’s not hard to understand why the Twilight series has millions of followers, including Jessica and me. The formula is love, danger, and sacrifice. Edward and Bella are 17-year-olds whose attraction to each other is unhealthy and absolute. He’s a vampire, impossibly beautiful, masterful, and about as powerful as Superman. She’s a klutzy human who happens to smell more delicious to vampires than anyone else on earth. Edward is a “vegetarian” vampire, one of a family who feed only on animals, but he can barely control himself around Bella.

The story begins with entertaining, sometimes humorous twists on the teen-romance theme, and slowly builds to high suspense as Edward tries to protect Bella from other vampires who hunt humans. Bella and Edwards’ dilemma, and the dangers they face, become more complex and anguished in the second and third books, New Moon and Eclipse.

Jessica was quite disgruntled to learn that the series isn’t complete–she and the rest of us will have to wait for a resolution in book four, Breaking Dawn, which is due to be published in Fall 2008.

Check the WRL catalog for book one, Twilight.

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Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen

Ambivalent about rodents? Don’t let that keep you away from the exquisite comic book series, Mouse Guard. Under leaves, behind rocks, in the hollows of trees, a medieval mouse world flourishes. Stonemasons carve mouse tombstones, potters make tiny crockery, bakers bake thumbnail-sized loaves. These settlements, so fragile and threatened by predators, are protected by the Mouse Guard, who secure the borders and escort tradesmen from town to town.

The series follows the exploits of a trio of guardsmice: Lieam, Kenzie, and Saxon. These mouse-keteers battle danger at every turn. Snakes are dragons from a mouse’s perspective… and crabs? Don’t go there. But the ultimate threat is fellow mice gone bad.

David Petersen’s beautiful art will keep you turning the pages again and again. Every panel, from action scene to spot art, is vivid and marvelously detailed. Many, including this spot art panel of a pine cone, have a quality that makes me think of Japanese prints. A second series, Winter 1152, is now being published in bimonthly comic book form. Take a peek here.

Check the WRL catalog for Mouse Guard: Fall 1152

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The Spell Book of Listen Taylor, by Jaclyn Moriarty

Listen Taylor’s magical spell book, which the rising 7th-grader discovers just before the start of the school year, isn’t a very good example of its kind. If you’re going to work magic, you want spells that actually do something, preferably right away, maybe a poof of colored smoke. Listen’s book contains spells for things like making someone decide to take a taxi, and what’s the point of that?

Meanwhile, in another part of the book, someone decides to take a taxi, and it changes their life.

Marbie Zing is so happy at having moved in with her boyfriend and his daughter Listen that it’s making her miserable. Accidents happen! Any minute now, she might do something that she will regret for the rest of her life! Meanwhile, Fancy Zing is convinced that her husband is having an affair. Meanwhile, there’s this second-grade teacher who…

OK, there’s a lot of “meanwhile” in this book, which is crowded with characters and busy with subplots. The point is, every Friday night, they all drop everything and meet in Marbie and Fancy’s parents’ garden shed to discuss the Zing Family Secret. And I read this book in two sittings because I had to find out what that Secret was.

Jaclyn Moriarty excels at taking multitudes of characters and little things that you think are coincidences and tying them all together in an unexpected way. Watching the Rube Goldberg machine of cause and effect work its way through the novel was entertaining, and I enjoyed the screwball comedy ending. This wasn’t my favorite of Moriarty’s books, but still a fun, quick read with an offbeat, slightly manic, sense of humor.

You’ll find it on the young adult shelves, but note that the novel is more concerned with the affairs and infidelities of the adults than with poor Listen Taylor, who gets a title credit but not enough screen time.

Check the WRL catalog.

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The Second Objective, by Mark Frost

 

Just before Christmas 1944, the German Army attacked lightly defended Allied lines through the Ardennes Forest, driving a mixture of green American recruits and exhausted veterans back into Belgium. Accompanying the crack German units was a handful of English-speaking Germans, dressed in American uniforms and carrying forged papers. These men were commanded by the infamous Colonel Otto Skorzeny, whose lightning commando raids had already stunned the Allies. Skorzeny planned to use his men to capture and hold vital bridges, to sow confusion in the American rear, and to delay any counterattack.

Frost has taken these well-known events and added another element. If the first objective was to disrupt Allied defenses, the second objective was even more audacious – to get a German soldier all the way to Paris, find General Eisenhower, and kill him. Among the potential assassins chosen is a real sociopath, Erich Von Leinsdorf. Fresh from the death camp at Dachau, von Leinsdorf is a committed SS officer willing to take any measures to accomplish his goal. Accompanied by Bernie Oster, a German soldier born in New York, Von Leinsdorf crosses into Allied lines, killing freely to conceal his tracks. Even in the midst of a war zone, though, his killings attract attention from a New York homicide detective serving as an MP.

Frost takes the reader between Von Leinsdorf’s implacable progress towards his target, Captain Earl Grannit’s pursuit, and the larger historical view of panic, opportunism, and heroism that the Battle of the Bulge created. His ability to create twists and turns, set up coincidences that acquire larger significance, and develop his characters beyond the page make this a page-turner. No wonder it was just named an American Library Association Notable Book.

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Revere: Revolution in Silver, by Ed Lavallee and Grant Bond

Listen, my children, and you shall hear… Whoa, hold it right there. This is one Paul Revere story that is not fit for children’s ears or eyes. Revere: Revolution in Silver is scary, gory, and sort of sick, actually. That’s not meant as criticism, just a warning to anyone who might confuse this dark graphic novel with a nice, patriotic comic book for kids.

Lavallee’s concept is wickedly clever: Revere, the legendary midnight rider, is recast as a caped crusader who patrols the highways and byways of colonial Massachusetts to protect every Middlesex village and farm from–werewolves. Big, horrible, sexually predatory werewolves. One night in April of ’75, he runs afoul of a company of sadistic British regulars (think of the redcoats in the movie, Patriot, and you’ve got the idea), and the rest is not history. The climactic scene in the Old North Church has a firing squad taking aim at Revere’s family, a flock of crow-demons attacking a rebel minister a la Hitchcock, and a werewolf pack adding to the mayhem.

Grant Bond’s art is sensational. You have to see the werewolves to believe them. Revere is a great dark hero: mounted on a huge rearing horse, masked up to the eyes, he is a protector, but a savage one. Check out samples of Bond’s art here.

Originally published in comic book form as a four-part miniseries, Revolution in Silver is now bound in hardback form by Archaia Studios. Lavallee and Bond are planning a sequel, Revere: Salem’s Plot. Could this mean the witches are coming?

Check the WRL catalog for Revere: Revolution in Silver

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The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

 

 

In the last few months, I’ve been living in denial.

“You can always reread them,” I said. “Life goes on.”

But it’s a sad fact: I don’t have any new adventures to look forward to at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. No new bungled transfiguration attempts. No more Quidditch. No more snide comments from Professor Snape.

But I’m happy to report that I’m on my way back. And this is thanks, partly, to The Mysterious Benedict Society.

There are no pointy hats or magic wands here, and certainly no Hogwarts. But there is a sense of delight similar to the early Potters. And once again, a group of bright, enterprising kids become friends while skulking around, dashing from enemies, puzzling over mysteries and, I almost forgot, saving the world.

And who wouldn’t want to share an adventure with the crew of Reynie Muldoon, Sticky Washington, Kate Wetherall and Constance Contraire? Reynie is the group’s puzzler, and the story gives him—and the reader—plenty of mental knots to untie. Sticky is bald and nervous, but he can remember anything.

Kate is bold and athletic and on her belt wears a bucket filled with an assortment of items, including a horseshoe magnet, fishing line, a bottle of extra-strength glue, a slingshot and a spyglass disguised as a kaleidoscope.

Constance is so short and pudgy that Reynie thinks she resembles a fire hydrant. She’s as crabby as her name implies, and readers will think, “What’s with her?” They’ll find out in a wonderful surprise near the end.

“Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?” This is the newspaper advertisement that attracts our four heroes.

They join lots of other children in a series of quirky tests. They take a sit-down written exam with absurdly difficult questions–until Reynie notices that the answers to each question are hidden in the text of other questions.

Later, they are instructed to cross a tiled room without their feet touching any yellow squares. On their way to one exam, they’re faced with another challenge, in the form of a girl, supposedly another test-taker, who has dropped her pencil in a grate. Will they help her, and how, since they were instructed to bring one pencil only.

When only Reynie, Sticky, Kate and Constance remain, they meet Mr. Benedict, a loveable genius who has figured out that a nearby school for gifted children is sending strange brainwashing messages into the world.

In between sudden bouts of sleep—Mr. Benedict is a narcoleptic—he asks the four to enroll in the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened to find out what is happening and stop it. They agree and The Mysterious Benedict Society is formed.

It’s hard to say more without giving anything away. But the children will not succeed without each contributing his or her unique talents. Along the way, they climb elevator shafts, send and receive Morse Code messages and create a vomiting epidemic among their fellow students.

Parts of this book will remind readers of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and in a spot or two, A Wrinkle in Time. The tone isn’t as maudlin, but it will also appeal to Lemony Snicket fans who are missing that series.

With any luck, author Trenton Lee Stewart will plan to make a series out of this one, too.

 

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Unwind, by Neal Shusterman

What is your life worth? Imagine a future in which those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice have fought a second civil war over the sanctity of life. They end the war by compromising on a “Bill of Life” that states all pregnancies must come to term; however, parents and guardians have the right when their child is between the ages of thirteen and eighteen to abort them. The child does not die though. Each and every part of the child is kept alive; thus they are technically still alive, just in separate pieces. This process is known as “unwinding.” Once the unwind order is signed, no changes can be made; even if the parent changes their mind, it is irreversible.

Connor discovers his own unwinding order after investigating tickets he finds, tickets to the Bahamas for everyone in his family, except for him. Connor is a good teen, but like many teens, his emotions can get the better of him and his parents have a hard time controlling him. Risa is a ward of the state of Ohio and the orphanage is overcrowded. She tries to convince the headmaster of her worth, but bungles her chance when she makes five mistakes at her piano recital. Lev rejoices in his destiny at a party solely dedicated to celebrating him and his life. Lev’s family is extremely devoted to their religion; Lev, as the tenth child in his family, is destined to be a human tithe, a human sacrifice. Lev enjoys the attention this brings and is happy to fulfill his destiny.

These three teenagers meet when Connor decides to go AWOL and escape his unwinding order. The book develops through their, and others, alternating viewpoints of what happens to a teenager once the order is signed. Connor, Risa, and Lev’s journey to their future follows their growing recognition of what their life means to them.

Shusterman teases the reader with just enough information to keep going, but continues to build this disturbing view of the future as the storyline develops. Mysterious references to clappers and storked babies are explained more fully later in the book and these people round out the unsettling forces at work in this troubled society. This very thought-provoking book would not leave my mind for days, or truthfully weeks, after reading it. This book has made the rounds of the youth services division and one of my co-workers still gives me grief over the books weeks after reading it. Not for the faint-hearted, especially as the reader learns more about the unwinding process, this disturbing novel will pluck at your mind and have you wondering what your life is worth.

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My Desperate Love Diary by Liz Rettig

If you are looking for a light, very funny Chick Lit read, you may want to give Liz Rettig a try with her debut novel, My Desperate Love Diary. I couldn’t put it down! It is written in the first person in diary format, and tells of the ups and downs of sixteen year old Kelly Ann’s life in Glasgow, Scotland. The novel, gave me lots of laughs with it’s painfully honest, day-to-day account of Kelly-Ann’s teenage life. It reminded me of the very witty Adrian Mole Diaries by Sue Townsend and also Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison. My Desperate Love Diary, however, has a very distinctive Glasgow flavor with hilarious, gritty humor and lots of earthy characters.

Ms Connor, the feisty English teacher, especially moody since her husband left her for a blond has taken to teaching about mad feminist literature and gives Kelly Ann’s class a thousand-word essay on “Are Men Really Necessary Now That the Future is Female?’ Discuss.” Ms Connor goes on to tell her class that Robert Burns, the famous Scottish Bard, in her opinion was a dissolute, drunken womanizer whose poetry is completely overrated and had her class study The Female Eunuch, instead!

Mr. Dunn, a new teacher for religious studies begins teaching at the school. He arrives in black leather biker’s gear, with studs pierced in every part of his body – announcing that he was only teaching religion to keep him off the unemployment. Mr. Dunn’s classroom is next to Ms. Connors’ which result in consequences.

Kelly-Ann’s mother is going through a mid-life crisis at the thought of turning forty and being thrown into being a grandmother when Kelly Ann ‘s sister Angela becomes pregnant to her nerdy boyfriend. The mother starts to go clubbing. “It can’t be right when your mother dresses even more tackily than you do” bemoans Kelly Ann. Her mother then decides to have a holiday in Spain but stays on with a Spanish waiter she meets there. The local newspaper gets wind of this story, comparing it to the Shirley Valentine movie and splashes it on the front pages for everyone to see, much to Kelly Ann’s mortification.

Kelly Ann’s own story of unrequited love with the unintelligent, cheating, hot boy G at her school threads throughout the book. Liz Rettig’s experience as a teacher is reflected in her knowledge of high school culture, in Scotland. The diary goes on to reveal how they all survive and eventually sort their lives out, that is until the sequel – soon to be in the WRL catalog, too:

My Now or Never Diary.

YA novel, suitable for ages 14 and up.

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Rover by Jackie French

Having always been fascinated by Viking Mythology I naturally gravitated towards reading award-winning, Australian author, Jackie French. This historical novel was originally published in Australia as They Came in Viking Ships and then in U.K. as The Slave Girl.

Jackie French’s historical novel is based on real events in the Icelandic Sagas written about eight hundred years ago. The sagas tell the story of Erik the Red, founder of the Greenland Colony and his son Leif who sailed to Vinland. During her research, the author discovered Freydis, Erik the Red’s daughter, a leader of men. Rover makes a fascinating read about this period – it is the remarkable story of two, very strong, courageous female characters from completely different backgrounds.

Freydis is a Viking chief’s daughter and Hejak a Viking thrall kidnapped from her native island. Freydis, the imposing Viking warrior claims Hejak as her thrall. Freydis is determined to prove herself as her father Eric and brother Leif did before her, by discovering new lands. The author tells us that we will never know what Freydis was really like and she suspects she has been lost to history because the later male writers didn’t know what to make of her. French gives us a glimpse of a real Viking warrior-woman in her character, Freydis.

Hejak is able to prove herself over and over again, beginning with the treacherous voyage to Greenland after she was captured. She survives a storm and also bravely dives overboard to rescue her loyal wolfhound, Snarfarai. The dog also proves himself by being able to sniff out unseen icebergs and saves the whole party on the Viking longboat. Freydis names him Ice-Nose.

The relationship between the the thrall Hejak, and and the warrior Freydis gradually evolves from slave and mistress to daughter and mother as Freydis eventually adopts Hejak. (This was apparently quite a common thing to do during this period as it was a way to make important alliances and ensure loyalty) They voyage to Vinland together after Erik the Red dies.

The story climaxes with an amazing description of a battle with the Skraelings; the natives of Vinland. The Norsemen try to run away, yes, the Vikings try to run……! but Freydis their leader, who is eight months pregnant, shrieked a blood curdling battle cry and rips her dress so the bodice hung down and exposed her pregnant belly. “ She bent down and picked up a sword from a man crumpled at her feet, then slapped it three times against her naked breast. “If men will not fight, then women must!”and she charged a horde of Skraelings shrieking like a storm on a mountain. The Skraelings stopped.” The Norsemen finally came to her aid at this point! After the battle Freydis and Hekja were referred as berserkers – perhaps the greatest warriors but without the animal skins!

Definitely fast paced action, story goes from strength to strength with historically accurate details. Junior Fiction, recommended for Grades 5-8 and up. Jackie French is the author of Diary of a Wombat and Hitler’s Daughter.

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Tangerine, by Edward Bloor

 

You’ve got to love a book that features a giant sinkhole gobbling up portable middle-school classrooms.

Tangerine’s got that and so much more. There are also underground fires, mosquitoes, termites and a psychopathic sports hero.

This is the story of the Fisher family, who move to Lake Windsor Downs, Florida in search of “The Erik Fisher Football Dream.” Erik can kick 50-foot field goals all day. He’s also an out-of-control bully who enjoys terrorizing and hurting people.

Erik’s middle-school-aged brother Paul is the only member of the family who realizes that there’s something wrong with his brother. Their mother is too busy running the neighborhood association. (She refers to neighbors as “the two-story-Lancaster with the teal trim” or “the white Tudor with the red tile roof.) Their father is preoccupied living vicariously through Erik’s stardom.

The Fisher’s story is reflected in the hastily-built community of Lake Windsor Downs. Things look great on the outside, but, like Erik’s dreams, they’re about to get sucked into a big hole.

Developers threw up the houses on top of bulldozed tangerine groves. They covered the earth with white sand and built a perimeter wall, but nature seems determined to get the last laugh. Lightning storms blast afternoon football practices. Underground “muck” fires smolder in backyards. When the neighborhood association tries to douse the never-ending fires, they create a pestilence of mosquitoes.

But the sinkhole is still my favorite.

After his overcrowded school’s portable classrooms slide into the mud, Paul Fisher switches schools to attend Tangerine Middle, where he joins the soccer team. Paul is an athlete in his own right, and soccer fans will enjoy the play-by-play of several matches.

Paul’s teammates are a tough group of kids who spend much of their off-time sweating in the remaining tangerine groves to help a local man who’s life’s dream is developing a new variety of tangerine. Erik has the citrus farmer attacked, which eventually leads to a face off between students from Tangerine and Lake Windsor Downs.

It’s time for Paul to break family tradition and tell the truth.

This book is shelved with the junior fiction, but it’s a fun, quirky read for all ages.

 

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They Call Me Naughty Lola, edited by David Rose

If you’ve ever closely read, or even scanned, the pages of a typical personals ad, you’d recognized the usual format – gender preference, age, something about the advertiser’s looks and interests.  Specialty and ‘elite’ publications might have more information tailored toward the expected demographic – second home location, brand of Scotch, favorite theorist – that tells those in the know what kind of person is placing the ad.  All of the advertisers, though, try to present themselves in the best possible light.  Then you look at these selected ads from the London Review of Books personals column, and see how little light those other ads really shed.

In 1998, the LRB began the column with the ideal of emulating the successful New York Review of Books’ attempt to match literate and presumably solvent singles.  They reckoned without the sense of British humor, and their readers’ apparent willingness to lay everything out for their hoped-for matches.  Thus an ad that reads:

Gynotikolobomassophile (M, 43) seeks neanimorphic F to 60 to share euneirophrenia.  Must enjoy pissing off librarians (and be able to provide the correct term for same). 

Not exactly the kind of person most of us (especially the librarians) would consider, right?  Editor David Rose, who wrote the introduction and the footnotes that translate cultural references, speculates that those advertisers might be using a kind of reverse psychology that attracts attention and may even make their ad worth a reply.  Then again, maybe the writer is summoning up his or her courage and trying to be honest about their perceived shortcomings:

Like the ad above, but better-educated and well-read.  Also larger bosoms.  Man, 38, Watford. 

If you can discipline yourself (I couldn’t), these are best taken in small doses to preserve their individual shock and/or humor value.  Opening the book at random can produce those milk-out-of-your-nose moments, and also make you wonder about the hidden biographies of people you may see every day.  But there’s always that ‘what if’ moment – what if the writer actually is in jail?  What if she does have a contagious foot disease, or he might run off with your music collection?  What if the ad is meant to be whimsical and humorous, and you take it seriously, or vice-versa?  Most importantly, what if this is a person you might really connect with?   

This is a fun little book with moments of surprising insight.  And if anyone can tell me the correct term for pissing off librarians, I know someone else who’ll be impressed.

 

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The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

Two couples – the Dowells and the Ashburnhams – live a life of luxury and idleness in pre-World War I Europe.  To narrator John Dowell, they represent the height of civilization.  Spa treatments, educational tours of nearby landmarks, dressing for dinner, and accepting the deference of servants and hoteliers are all the ‘nice’ things that ‘nice’ people do.  But Dowell gradually exposes the reality behind the façade – the self-appointed superiority of British Protestants; the desperate economies that prop up vanished family fortunes; the seduction, infidelity, madness, and suicide that these ‘nice’  people are capable of.   

The Good Soldier broke new ground in storytelling by giving the narrator late and incomplete understanding of the events he has witnessed, and by retelling the key episodes with the subtle differences that come with dawning comprehension.  At the beginning, Dowell informs the reader that he is going to tell the story as if he is sitting by the fire with a sympathetic listener, and that is what he does – flashing forward, making side comments about the other characters and about himself, lightly touching on asonishing revelations, but at all times keeping as his focus the detailed destruction of the five people involved. 

Ford’s sure hand guides Dowell in his narration, turning him from a passive, chaste innocent into an embittered man barely suppressing his rage even as he upholds the noblesse oblige that traps him.  Like an jeweler shaping a stone, Ford holds each character, save one, to the light of his examination.  The work he does polishing each facet is not to reveal beauty in the individual, but to show the complexity of each character and the rottenness at the heart of each one.  As a psychological examination, this is a masterwork. 

As you might imagine, this is not the stuff of pageturners.  Dowell is frequently more interested in the motives of the Ashburnhams than in what they do.  His nonlinear narration makes it difficult to keep precise track of events in order.  He himself is filled with self-pity, self-deception, class and religious bigotry, and a willful blindness towards the faults of those ‘nice’ people.  But the growing sense of disaster and gathering doom that portends not only the destruction of the Dowells and the Ashburnhams but of their entire way of life becomes a compelling reason to continue reading. 

It is difficult to imagine much of 20^th Century British and American literature without Ford as a major influence.  I’m not a literary historian (and I didn’t stay at Holiday Inn Express), but I think Ford led the way in breaking the narrator free of omniscience, in breaking the rigid storyline from it’s A-B-C requirements, and in prying into the depths of human psychology without judging or moralizing.  As an editor, sponsor, and collaborator, his work with Conrad, Hemingway, and Lawrence maintained the continuum from the late 19^th Century into the explosively creative 1920’s.  As an author, The Good Soldier stands easily with the best in modern writing, and deserves consideration by any reader.

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Or place a reservation for the Gab Bag

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The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman

I’m going to get flak for this post, even if it’s just sour looks from my colleagues, so at least I can say I know what I’m getting into.  I read The Golden Compass, mostly because a group of blathering troglodytes told me I can’t, but if this is the biggest challenge organized religion has to face, it has nothing to worry about.   (Yeah, I know it was the movie that tripped their ire-trigger, but I don’t go to the movies often and the book was at hand.  So my bid for free speech was really more a matter of convenience…) 

I don’t really know what the big deal is.  Granted I didn’t read the whole trilogy, and based on the execution of the first book am not terribly inclined to.  I’m not going to get into the whole theology/atheism authoritarian/’child empowerment’ debate because I don’t care.  And I’m certainly going to look askance at anyone who gushes that it is the best book evah, or that it is a readalike for Harry Potter. 

Pullman has a wonderful imagination – fertile enough to create a technological world that still worships science as magic, and people it with vividly introduced characters accompanied by animal daemons that reflect their personalities.  Beyond that, though, the Golden Compass devolved into a mishmash of adventure stories, a tentative coming of age tale, and a multi-dimensional political battle.  The adventure stories weren’t particularly gripping, the coming of age undelineated, and the offstage politics only provided Pullman a deus ex machina to imperil and rescue people as needed. 

The main character, Lyra, is threatened by a mysterious group known for kidnapping children.  After escaping from a villain, she joins a group of “Gyptians” (read water-borne gypsies) searching for the mysterious group.  Lyra and the Gyptians end up heading North, and finding an armored bear (the most interesting character in the story) who helps them rescue the stolen children.  Lyra chases after one of the kids, who has been taken for extra-nefarious purposes, and climbs an aurora into the sky.  Along the way there is some babble about ‘the Magisterium’ which is supposed to represent an unReformed Catholic Church, and Dust, which represents some theological or physical power. 

Maybe I’m approaching it as a too-critical adult; maybe I didn’t give it enough time or thought; maybe I’ve been tortured by Skraelings – in any case, The Golden Compass wasn’t my cup of tea.  Read it and decide for yourself.

 

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Drop City, by T. C. Boyle

After having him on my To Be Read pile for a long time, I finally found my way to T.C. Boyle, and was immensely rewarded by the read. Drop City is a great example of a culture clash – wanderers searching for purpose and identity coming up against a rooted community that doesn’t want the change they bring.

The wanderers in this case are hippies who have come from all over the United States to Drop City, a notorious commune in California. There, the allure of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll comes up against the quotidian reality of sewage, food supply, and differing interpretations of what ‘dropping out’ really means. When ‘the man’ crashes their party, they pack up goats, children, and amplifiers, and head to rural Alaska to recreate Drop City in a true wilderness.

Boynton, Alaska is the last stop on the road to that wilderness, home to a cast of fiercely independent people determined to wrest a living from the backcountry. Sess Harder is a young newly wed fur trapper carving a homestead twelve miles into the bush from Boynton. He and his beautiful wife are building their self-sufficient lives when the unprepared, enthusiastic, and idealistic hippies arrive in a convoy to occupy the nearby cabin of his mentor.

Boyle captures the needs and wants of these people through the eyes of Sess and Star, a former teacher who embarked on an unsettling cross-country trip before landing at the original Drop City. As opinionated but not close-minded observers and participants, Sess and Star carry the story and provide insights into the two cultures. While both of them value the core of their lifestyles, neither is unwilling to reject the other life to cling to their own way. Sess and his wife Pamela find kindred souls among the hippies, and Star finds the sense of home and freedom she has been searching for.

Such a story doesn’t come with conflict, though. Boyle delves into the internal clashes in the hippie community, while setting Sess up against a rogue bush pilot. The questions that come out of these conflicts gets to the nature of community – can a loner be a better member of society than someone who uses isolation to escape social norms? Is it possible to have a peaceful, productive society without some central organization or leadership? How do people dedicated to pacifist ideals enforce their rules?

The secondary characters are as closely drawn as the two main characters, and Boyle often focuses on them as he carries the story forward. Boyle has also captured the settings – both time and place – with a keen eye for detail and a sharp but not unsympathetic insight into the motives of very different people. This is not the kind of book you forget when you’ve finished it, and I look forward to experiencing Boyle’s skill in the future.

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