2006 Reading Blog by Ernie Seckinger The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.
-Anatole Broyard
January
*** The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Audiobook unabridged read by the author. A thoughtful approach to accepting the moment and how to recognize it. Whether or not he would place my experience of a week or so ago into this framework, going through this book did prepare me for an opportunity of the moment. I took it and good things happened.*** Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson. An abridged (but still 7 hours) audio book read by Boyd Gaines. From the Friends of the Daphne Public Library bookstore. Really a nice surprise. A picture of the many sides of Franklin. On balance, a favorable report without entering hagiography. If Franklin lived to 84 in the 18th century, why can't we live to be 184?!
**** Alabama in the Twentieth Century by Wayne Flynt. University of Alabama Press. 2004. Can even a large book as this (531 pages) capture the essence of a state as contradictory, complex, and confusing to an outsider (though I've lived here for over 28 years)? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that this book, which will, I think be called just Alabama as it lives a long life, recounts a rich tapestry of one of the more stereotypically viewed regions of the world. Of course Flynt brings out as much of the positive as he can, telling us of its great accomplishments in literature, music, and yes, sports. Yet in an amazingly clear examination of the patient, he reports all its pathologies on the chart. They, frankly, are worse than the public perspective and continue to plague progress in the state. While much racism has faded away, the 1901 Constitution remains as does the cabal that created it, led by the Alabama Farm Bureau, itself funded in part by the ALFA insurance company. That legacy perpetuates the class struggle that keeps Alabama near the bottom of most statistics considered positive. My view was that the structure afforded Alabama was limited by the Constitution; Flynt confirms this view. So, now I even more proudly sport a bumper sticker that reads "Fight for the Rewrite of Alabama's Constitution."
**** The Shores of Light: A Literary Chronicle of the 1920s and 1930s by Edmund Wilson. Originally published in 1952, my copy is a 1979 paperback bought at Poor Richard's Discount Bookstore in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A marvelous combo bookstore and restaurant. I'm still trying to figure out their armadillo symbolism though. Wilson, as I've said before, is disregarded at your peril There was not a more prodigious critic (and writer) in his time--the 1920s into the 1970s--of contemporary literature. Thankfully, his writing is clear and accessible. My copy is inscribed with the owner's name, "American Literature 1914-1950, November 1980."
February
***** The Diary of Samuel Pepys. An audio book of excerpts from the diary. I had completed the reading of his diary up to 1664 when I encountered The Journal of Mrs. Pepys by Sara George on BBC Audiobooks. It is a nice treatment--a fictionalization of Pepys's diary from his wife's perspective. As she began to describe events beyond 1664, the Plague and the Great Fire, I could not go on without a bit of how Pepys recorded those events so I listened to this 3 tape presentation of excerpts from the diary. Regarding the entire diary, I am once again a bit disappointed to learn, as with Thoreau's Journal in its 1906 manifestation, that editors monkied with the text. Not a good thing to learn after making it slightly more than halfway through. An unexpurgated edition of Pepys's Diary (in 10 volumes, hint, hint) is available, edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews, from the University of California Press, released from 1970-1977.Reading the Landscape. No, not the title of a book, but an experience making up a good bit of my observations so far this year. From the virtual tours of Google Earth to the direct observation of the landscapes of the North Georgia mountains, of the Flint River in Albany on the spot soon to be occupied by the Ray Charles Museum, an aerial view of the Chandeliers and the flooded country below New Orleans, to seeing Pikes Peak from my hotel in Colorado Springs, to my daily tread over the head of Mobile Bay, the landscape feeds my soul.
*** The Journal of Mrs. Pepys by Sara George on BBC Audiobooks. Very nice. See Pepys above.
** No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy Recorded Books audio, unabridged. Performed by Tom Stechschulte. 2005. 7.5 hours. You get to a point where you exhaust the available selection of audiobooks at a small library. Then a new volume shows up outside the range of best sellers and romance. What's a body to do but give it a try. Literature must, by its very nature, cover the range of human experience or it is nothing. Therein lies the only justification for the sort of mindless violence and ultimate greed revealed in this book. Perhaps only law enforcement investigators should be the only ones exposed to this sort. Perhaps the rest of us should live in a state of denial that such people and actions exist. Or not.
**** Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris Little Brown. 2000. The blurbs for this book all say the same thing: It's funny. I'll only add two things to that: (1) parts are beyond what you thought funny could be; (2) Read it.
March
*** Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Starr. Ballatine Books. 1988. As a follower of Henry David Thoreau, the ultimate American seeker and writer of solitude, I found it impossible to resist, first, buying this book (from the Friends of the Daphne Public Library Bookstore), and second, reading a book with such a title. It was not exactly as I envisioned, but then few books worth reading are--or fail to expand one's notions of an area of thought. Rather than a philosopher or a self-seeker seeking solitude, Starr is a psychiatrist examining the subject.**** Prometheus Bound I purchased a 2-volume set of Greek tragedies at the Texarkana Goodwill Store. Since the store was on the east side of the street, it was in Arkansas. So P. suffers at the hand of Zeus because he gave humans a sense of self and fire. Perhaps the story comes from a shadowy knowledge of the Hebrew god who used man's sense of self to limit their growth.
**** Pedlar's Progress: The Life of Bronson Alcott by Odell Shepard 1937. Bronson Alcott still is often ridiculed for his airy pronouncements, which he called Orphic Sayings and denigrated for not being an effective breadwinner. Indeed, he was not successful in the American capitalistic meaning of the words; he never sought that kind of success. Rather his was one of the spirit. His influence should be the measure of this man. In that those that sat before him were many students at his schools. These schools failed for philosophical differences with parents and the public. His influence there though continued through Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who began the first American kindergarten and through her discussion with her brother-in-law Horace Mann. Alcott was a friend and influencer of Thoreau and Emerson. He and Thoreau moved the Transcendentalists from a philosophical objection to slavery to a position of active Abolitionism including support of John Brown. Undoubtedly this book is a bit hagiographic but perhaps Alcott needs some praise after a long life of ridicule and now two lifetimes after his death. And oh yes, he deeply loved his family and would not fail to even chop wood at a dollar a day to support them.
April
**** Science fiction: The Literature of the Technological Imagination. Lectures by Eric Pablin, University of Michigan. The Great Courses. The Teaching company. 4 cassette tapes. 1998. From Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to the Cyberpunk work of William Gibson, Pabkin traces the history of science fiction. In his search for influences and origins, he begins with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Prometheus, Faust, and Golem and take us through writers like Mary Shelly, Poe, Verne, Asimov, H.G. Wells. Others covered are Hugo Gernsback, John W. Campbell Jr, Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Samuel Delany, Ursula K. LeGuin and many others. Film is also covered, from German expressionism to Jurassic Park. A fine listen.*** Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston. 2005. Pure entertainment for readers that demand content in their diversions. Here is a good bit of fine scenery, science, and excitement. I'll be on the look out for another of his novels.
May
***** John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds. Knopf. 2005. 506 pages. In this cultural biography Reynolds presents his thesis in the subtitle backed up by evidence from the words of Brown, his supporters, and his critics. I came away from the book with an altered view of Brown, considering him less the raving lunatic I had before. Even so, I find Reynolds's stand on Brown to be more favorable than mine remains. There are lines, which once crossed, color the freedom fighter the hue of a terrorist. John Brown at Osawatomie, Kansas crossed that line. As hair-splitting as it may seem to some, there is a fundamental difference between sniping at enemy soldiers as our Revolutionary militia did and calling out proslavery men and boys from their beds and brutally executing them.That said, this book is more than that. By showing how Brown reflected, transcended, and impacted his time, Reynolds creates a cultural biography of the United States and its people in their second and third generation from the Revolution seeking to either live up to its lofty goals elegantly stated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution or to continue to hold millions in bondage.
Reynolds goes far beyond other historians in assessing Brown's support among whites. The Secret Six are known to all but the depth of support from Thoreau then Emerson is not widely known. He says "without the Concord Transcendentalists, John Brown would have had little cultural impact." This in comparison to hardly a mention of this support in Nevins's eight volume Civil War history. He uses Nevins's thought that the Civil War could have been avoided if Brown and his like had not agitated so strongly as they did.
Here I came to know John Brown as an integrationist, Cromwellian Puritan, Unionist, Abolitionist, devoted family man, and--hard for us to think about clearly given events of the last decade or so--someone willing to kill in the name of God and Right to defeat slavery. Reynolds makes a strong defense separating Brown from Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden by saying his "goal was a democratic society that assigned full rights to all, irrespective of religion, race, or gender" while the evidence shows Brown was a specific model for political violence of John Wilkes Booth to McVeigh.
My words are but a poor abstraction of an important book. No one with personal or research interest in Brown, US history, resistance to civil government, the Transcendentalists, Thoreau, Emerson, race in America, American literary history, or the Civil War should go another month without reading Reynolds's John Brown.
*** The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Revised and Expanded Edition by Robert Middlekauff. A volume in the Oxford History of the United States, David M. Kennedy, General Editor. 2005. First edition was 1982. This series originally conceived by C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter. This second edition adds social history to the political history of the First Edition. A good one-volume treatment of the American Revolution. I found the book informative and interesting, but it did not engage me to the extent I thought it would. I did come away with some important points, the least of which is not
Framing public policy out of a sense of abstract right is a dangerous practice for any government.Lay Baptists and Presbyterians were suspicious, not of their own ministers but of anything that would enable the old establishment to rise again. And these dissenters seem to have been moved by the argument that held to protect religious freedom the state must be denied any part in religious life.
There were no genuine evangelicals in the [Constitutional] Convention, and there were no heated declarations of Christian piety.
Hmmm.
While I was reading about the Stamp Act furor and 'Taxation without representation,' a news story hit where Great Britain, with apparent glee, was able to say of the US in the UN, "Representation without Taxation!"
** The Codex by Douglas Preston. 2004. Forge Books. A most formulaic tale about the stupidity of the present and the wisdom of the past but a fun read. Tom Broadbent and Sally Colorado here meet and have their first adventure to be followed by others in Tyrannosaur Canyon.
****The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci, pictures by Jerry Pinkney. A Caldecott Honor Book and a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award. Daphne Public Library's then children's librarian recommended this children's book to me when I did not recognize images based on it in the new mural at the library. Indeed, the artwork is wonderful, being an integral part of this book and it should be in illustrated books for any age. As an analog, one could say this is a Creole Cinderella, but with I felt, a more realistic sense of the importance of character. A sequel could be written on the formal dressed, dancing rabbits!
*** Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky ready by Scott Brick. A Recorded Books, LLC audiotape book. A lot of fun in the car with 14 hours of salt.
***** Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Audiobook read by Gary Sinese. I have no idea how many times I've read this book; I'd say at least three. A marvelous, moving, and true masterpiece.
June
***Ginny Good by Gerard Jones I listened to this in the audiobook format, available free from Jones's website . With appropriate music from the San Francisco of the 1960s (and of the era in general), listening to this book is a gas. That is not to say that every story has a happy ending. I first heard about the book on the Moby Lives blog where Jones wrote a guest column and Moby Lives Radio .*** Mating by Norman Rush. Very good literary fiction. An anthropologist, the Kalahari, idealism in practice. What more do you need!
**** Way Station by Clifford Simak. OK, so maybe this is my 5th time through this book but a guy has to get in his comfort zone sometime. A marvelous story and a fun read. Keywords would include: Civil War, SW Wisconsin, palisades on the Mississippi River, aliens, interplanetary travel, ginseng, kindness, friends. If I read it again, it may just achieve 5 stars.
July
**** To A God Unknown by John Steinbeck. I thought I knew all of Steinbeck's books until an acquaintance at Fort Hunter Liggett in California mentioned that this book was set in that area also the home of Mission San Antonio de Padua, which moved to its present location there in 1773. And I thought The Grapes of Wrath was transcendentalist in its outlook! To a God Unknown seems at first glance to explore pantheism but then Joseph Wayne found that he was the rain. Steinbeck remains popular 35 years after his death but I think his work deserves a closer reading for its sheer American-ness.****Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers Pages 301-305 of the New York Review Books trade paperback edition reveals some of the best "road not taken" writing I have read. Reviewers often call this a comic tour de force but as a preacher's kid, I could only call it comic in the Shakespearean sense. Church politics and general pettiness cut me to the quick since I was personally affected by such whilst growing up in the racially-charged 1960s in south Georgia. Add an issue like race then to the standard overlay of bureaucratic politics and you have a.... well, a mess. I first heard of the book, and to tell you the truth the author, reading Garrison Keillor's The Writers' Almanac for July 8, 2006 .
***Paycheck by Philip K. Dick. On unabridged audiotape by Recorded Books. The box says it is now a movie with Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart, and Uma Thurman. I appreciated the short story being read to me in 40 minutes probably far more than I would have sitting before a 90 minute movie.
August
*** Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard. Unabridged audiobook read by Alexander Adams. 8 hours. Books on Tape, Inc. Print 1982, audio 1995. Once again it's fun to sit back and listen to an Elmore Leonard story. One thing I've noticed: within a core of characters, say three in this novel, Leonard cares about them as people--no matter what their status in life.* Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. You know, sometimes an attitude can simply get old. I made it all the way through A Walk in the Woods but felt the insults were mean-spirited. That continues in this book. Even as just airplane reading, I could only get through 173 pages.
September
*** Everyman by Philip Roth. An audiobook on CD from the Daphne Public Library. Roth is Roth. This is not my usual manner of usage, but I think it conveys the sense of this book: First you have everything then as life goes on, you fuck up, gradually losing it all until you have nothing left. Then you die. Actually a book that caused me to think on some issues of life, but I must say my perspective is a bit brighter than his.*** Natural Life: Thoreau's Worldly Transcendentalism by David M. Robinson. Cornell University Press. 2004. As soon as I heard of the publication of this book I began to salivate and at the same time feel sorry for myself since I should have written a book with a similar focus. My reading was satisfactory, but I no longer feel sorry for myself since this did not present Henry Thoreau's Transcendentalism in a way I would have (will?). I learned or was reminded of a great deal in this book: of Thoreau's association with Orestes Brownson before his more famous association with Emerson; his search for a unified theory "the principal by which the various facts of the natural world can be brought into harmony." Robinson points out that
The laws that structured the natural world, Thoreau believed, also structured human consciousness and defined human action. The inner life was therefore inextricably tied to the life of nature.While Robinson certainly deals with Thoreau's Transcendentalism he does it, I think, in an oblique way and concentrates perhaps too heavily on his study of nature. Certainly an odd thing to say since nature was the center of Thoreau's daily experience. And to be fair, Robinson focuses on the symbolism Thoreau looks for in "nature as a perpetually renewing scripture." My thoughts are, however, more to Thoreau's thoughts, not his daily experience and attempts to develop this unified theory. At the end of each of Thoreau's days, he, it seems to me, comes back to the land between his ears no matter what flower bloomed that day, or what the ice on Walden Pond did, or however the passing train evoked a thought. He was about him as were, really by definition, all the Transcendentalists. This deep and frank introspection led many if not most of them to greater service in support of abolition or the working classes, but they began and continued within.Ultimately, Robinson does get down to the bare bones of Thoreau's Transcendentalism (on the last page) by quoting a letter he wrote to his friend Harrison Blake:
Do what you love...know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it stillWhich, in summary, IMHO, highlights the very nature of Transcendentalism. It is, at its very core, in its very definition, a seeking of one's own way. So, to get its true sense one needs to look within oneself, and not within the pages of someone else's book.** In the Moon of Red Ponies by James Lee Burke. An audiobook on 10 discs from the Daphne Public Library. A hard-edge police novel. I suppose one is supposed to say mystery but I didn't much care about the resolution of the story. This was worth my time because I would not have been doing any reading during the times I listened plus I used this 10 disc set to learn how to put it on my mp3 player for a temporary file while I listened. Not the straightforward experience I believe it should be--but I managed to succeed.
*** The Care and Feeding of Books Old and New: A Simple Repair Manual for Book Lovers by Margot Rosenberg and Bern Marcowitz. MJF Books 2002. How can I go wrong reading a book about books?! Good practical information on the care and repair of your books. I would be careful adapting all their methods, particularly for books with rarity and value but fine information for the average home library of booklovers.
October
*****The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman. OK, the time has come to write something of my experience with this book. At least 3 points come to mind: 1) coming of age; 2) beautiful writing, and 3) How did I not know of it and how on Earth did it fall out of print? I had a bookmark with a few quotes noted but lost it. Now I think that is just as well because this is a work that speaks loudest when looked back upon as a whole. Quotes out of context, no matter how beautiful the writing, may seem trite. Other books in that small category include Walden and The Magic Mountain. As I have said in comments before, my powers of review pale before this work. My hope is that my feeble attempt will lead you to read it. From the first page to the last.****Every Book its Reader by Nicholas Basbanes . Stellar in my relationship with this book is that I bought it from the hand of Basbanes at the New Hampshire Antiquarian Book Fair in Concord, NH in September. By page 2 he had me hooked with a discussion of a used book with the previous owner's name inscribed. How many times have I been in that zone explaining to friends that to have and to read such puts you into a community of readers. As they say, it just got better with each page. For readers and appreciators of books, perhaps this says, if not all, a lot: "In one essay she wrote about Read Out and Read, Klass (a pediatrician) offered this... 'When I think about children growing up in homes without books, I have the same visceral reaction as I have when I think of children in homes without milk or food or heat: It cannot be, it must not be. It stunts them and deprives them before they've had a fair chance.'"
**** When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom. 1992. Another book I'm amazed I missed along the way. An historical novel about very real people. The only fiction is that Nietzsche and Josef Breuer never met. But the triangle between Nietzsche, Lou Salomé, and Paul Rée did exist and is somewhat documented. I take the ending in more than one way. While it may say too much, Amor fati has much to do with the meaning of this book, if one must have meaning in one's fiction reading. I'm not sure that to love my fate is a whole answer for me but reading this triggered my thinking on the matter. Someone once said "You can only tell the truth in fiction." So true here. At the same time, a good story well presented. I think the story flows well having thought it might not given the author is a a professor of psychiatry. From my favorite bookseller .
*****Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel . Simply and completely describes his path to enlightenment through the medium of archery. His confused frustration breaks out of a dark tunnel into the light.
* Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I've read good reviews of this but I just don't get it. I could be interested in an Iranian family trying to become American, about families adopting Korean babies (well, not really), but the combination just is a free-for-all... well, I don't know what. I couldn't even finish the audiobook.
**** Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills Touchstone 1992. Bought from Jane Landwehr at the marvelous but sadly closed Fireside Book Company in Columbus, Ohio. Seeing the 1992 date in the book surprised me since I knew it had a few years on it, but I would have guess 2002. Oh well, why read a book that has not stood the test of at least a little time. Reading Lincoln at Gettysburg is, simply put, delicious. Wills points out Lincoln's closeness to the main current of American philosophy at the time, Transcendentalism. He goes to some length illustrating the contribution that Theodore Parker made to Lincoln's thought, most notable the of, by, and for clause not such a part of American thought. He goes so far as to call Lincoln "a Transcendentalist without the fuzziness." Wills handily debunks the myth so often heard that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope during the train ride to the dedication. Of particular interest is his analysis of the talk in light of the structure of funeral orations derived from Pericles. Hardly the sort of thing one spins out extemporaneously.
*** Lying Awake by Mark Salzman Knopf 2001. Recommended to me by a friend for its consideration of the contemplative life. I was pleased that it was on the shelf of the Daphne Public Library. The recommendation came as a page-turner for the airplane. Alas, this is not to be since I began reading as soon as I arrived home from the library and finished it before full light the next morning--today! The story line is thoughtful and a good read but what struck me was the struggle of the nuns in their search for liberation from the tyranny of the self. A Transcendentalist life embraces the tyranny of the self, seeking personal connection with the cosmos. But what a dull place this would be if we all thought alike.
November
November was a wide-ranging and busy month. Travel limited paper reading, but the audiobook quotient slightly up. Highs include me being named chair of the Daphne Library Board and delving deeply into David M. Kennedy's Freedom From Fear. Lows include learning of the death of the original crabby but lovable curmudgeon Roy Schmidt of American Hot Rod, of Ed Bradley a good man and great jazz lover, and my viewing of the incredibly low-brow Borat. The latter delivers what it promises, but what it promises can be done without: the lowest of the low common denominator. My travels bizarrely took me from Daphne to Pittsburgh, Colorado Springs, Piñon Canyon, Atlanta, and Young Harris, GA. Thanksgiving dinner was great and my memory of it is enhanced by having already lost that weight gain!*** COSM by Gregory Benford. Avon Books, 1998. Nice story about the nature and origins of the universe(s). As usual, Benford shows off his erudition without being overpowering. Must be his fine early education in Baldwin County, Alabama! A fun read.
**** The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking. On CD from the Daphne Public Library. My second time through and an interesting coincidence having just read COSM. Hamlet was right," I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."
****Fridays with Red, A Radio Friendship by Bob Edwards. This is a great story and memoir Bob Edwards has crafted recounted the NPR show and his friendship with Red Barber. I so well remember those broadcasts every Friday morning. And I do so miss them. Red Barber was many things: an announcer with a wonderful voice, a great sports announcer (a rare breed today), a purveyor of the English language (even more rare), an enlightened Southerner, and a gentleman. I miss knowing what's happening in the Tallahassee garden, even though I live in the same climate. To hear Red say it was actually better than going into my back yard to check out my azaleas! His contribution to the acceptance of baseball integration is covered in the book as is his life in sports broadcasting in which he was not only a pioneer but also the best. Indeed, Red sat "in the catbird's seat." I am proud to have the opportunity to pass this book along to my baseball loving father.
***** Typee by Herman Melville. Audiobook from Librovox . Typee was probably the first 'adult' book I read as a teenager. I still have that falling apart Bantam paperback. I read that copy at least twice and here I went again with the audio version. Over 40 years later I found the book quite fresh since my memory of its details had faded (my memory is not in the same category as Harold Bloom's!).
December
*** The Road by Cormac McCarthy. A brutal post-apocalyptic novel laced with a father's love of son and a son's love of father. As for the violence, it is far less than his previous novel, and far more what I would expect in such a world. Odd though that this story comes on now, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the lessening or even disappearance of our Armageddon-like fears of the 1980s. Does McCarthy see something we don't?*** Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. 2004. Written as a directed journal from an elderly preacher to his quite young son, Gilead was recommended as a model by a family history program. So I read it. In that it is, I suppose OK. We read it now as the proximate age in the 2000s as that young son would now be for the writing is in the 1950s. John Ames tells of his day, what the young son--directly addressed--is doing, and digresses in his family history to his grandfather, a participant in John Brown's Kansas antislavery violence. Perhaps its lack of engagement for me stems from my keeping of a journal and family history vignettes, or perhaps the rumination of an elderly retired preacher--which my father is. Perhaps I wish he would write such....
***** Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M. Kennedy. Oxford University Press 1999. A volume in the Oxford History of the United States. From my perspective, there are at least 4 dimensions of any book, particularly one of history: information, the writing, the feelings of the reader, and potential lessons to carry forward. Freedom From Fear (FFF)is a book heavy with all these points and is, in my opinion, destined to be the standard text of the period for the next generation. I will briefly comment on each of my points:
Kennedy separates the October 1929 Crash and the Depression from the pop-historical Cause and Effect. Hoover at the time was seen as a leader in the fight against the Depression. In 1932, many Democrats, including Garner, were to the right of Hoover. The pages of FFF are filled with facts that from the beginning outstripped my knowledge of the period. But, sheer facts never explain why I read. There is also the Information
Kennedy writes well, clearly, and in the current idiom. In this, he leaves no excuse for the student of the period beyond the sheer number of pages. In an hour or less every morning, not counting several trips (for this book is a bit heavy for the plane), I read the book in less than two months. A more concentrated approach by those with the time would yet results sooner. Writing
Sven Birketts provided the idea that how a book leaves the reader feeling is an important element of its value and a significant component of his reviewing style. Though he primarily referred to fiction, a book like this lends itself to this technique of analysis due to its breath, its clear point of view, and the philosophical and emotional baggage carried by all of us concerning the period. Feelings of the Reader
If I am not careful, this part could go on forever! It seems to me that there might be lessons today in the divided Democratic Party of the 1920s that was divided between the Northeast-Catholic-wet and the Southern and Western-Protestant-dry. Today the divisions are Northeastern and California liberalism and Southern, Midwestern, and Western conservatism. Who will be our master reconciler as FDR was theirs? As much as I like her, not Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama, having arrived through the Great American Success Story perhaps. Lessons to carry forward
Tocqueville wrote populist Americans would not accept aristocracy. Yet I see they are presently buying the Republican mantraic attempt to establish one with their drive to repeal the 'death tax.' No Republican can now tell the truth that the tax was designed as a part of the package to control aristocracy! Fix the problem with the amounts rather than demolish the entire program is, unfortunately, one of those issues too logical for success within politics.
Chapter 13 is such a sad tale of the poor response to aggression in the 1930s. The isolationist quarter was just too strong in this country. Now we face issues brought about by opposite forces--hegemony. Those including the Vice President assume that once they conquer the world by the gun, democracy will spread by an organic process. I propose that other principles exist, not necessarily halfway between isolationism and world hegemony. Perhaps Internationalism would be one way of say it. To even discuss it in the assembly of American public opinion though would require a broad-based educational program seeking to diminish the demagoguery of those opposed on ideological grounds. And here I mean opposed to everything that cannot be expressed in clear black and white terms which means that once again the American educational system has veiled the reality of shades of gray. Odd that the same people rallying behind the President in Iraq are the self-same who would seal the borders and deny the rest of the world a legitimate claim to anything. How is this happening?!
Victory disease is a concept Kennedy frequently returns to in this narrative. On page 560, it pertains to early Japanese actions at Guadalcanal. I think it also is relevant to the period immediately following the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. As the President spoke of "Mission Accomplished," about 250 Americans had died. As I write this over the 2006 Christmas holiday, the number of Americans who have succumbed to the ultimate sacrifice advances ever so closer to 3,000.
In 1942, Bull Conner warned Roosevelt "that further federal pressure on the South's segregated regime would lead to 'the Annihilation of the Democratic Party in this section of the Nation.'" He was right! This is the reason the one party Democratic South is now the one party Republican South!
At the close of the book, speaking of the world after World War II, Kennedy says, "They had inherited a new world, and a brave one too. Like all worlds, it held its share of peril as well as promise." And does not the world now before us?!
**** Mr. Emerson's Wife by Amy Belding Brown. St. Martin's Griffin, NY 2005. A trade paperback bought at Toad Hall Books, Rockport, MA. The author's name caught my eye as did Emerson in the title. My knowledge of Lidian and Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau let me immediately know what this was to be about. Also, Brown's photographs of Walden share space with mine on Richard Lenat's Thoreau Reader website . My emotions caught a bit as she introduced Waldo's brother Charles and his fiancé Elizabeth Hoar since I knew their union was not to be. This and many of the central facts of Lidian and Henry Thoreau's life are here considered: her moving from Emerson's friend and philosophical conversationalist to the mother of his children and the keeper of his house, Henry Thoreau's fixation on her and his juxtaposition and merging of the love and the hate of a friend. With appropriate literary license, she of course goes beyond those bare facts or there would be no reason for a novelist's approach to the story. I enjoyed the story, found the writing to be quite nice, and the book now takes its place in my library of Transcendentalism. OK, that is me. I also think the average reader will appreciate this book; a love story without a formulaic ending.
*** The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman. Recorded Books, 2006. 7.25 hours. What better to listen to on a thousand mile round trip than a new Tony Hillerman! This one gets 3 stars rather than the 4 it should have solely because of something Leaphorn does that I do not believe Joe Leaphorn would do. But remember, there are no bad Hillerman's!
**** The Best Essays of 2005. Susan Orlean, Editor. Houghton Mifflin. This is a wonderful annual series. If I were to have one complaint, it would be the list of the notable essays of the subject year. Though it may not be statistically true, it seems to me that many great essayists are in that listing while more well-known writers are represented upfront with actual essays. I particularly enjoyed the entries by Jonathan Franzen, Edward Hoagland, and Oliver Sacks. But would I not have also enjoyed Stephen Harvey who shows up almost every year in the notable list? But a very nice way to end the year.
Finis 2006
Created January 14,2006 Updated January 31, 2007
© 2006, 2007 by Ernie Seckinger