Endgame, Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization by Derrick Jensen

Posted on May 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

endgameHow to write about this book for you here? Derrick Jensen fearlessly assesses the terrifying state of our world, for us as people and as not-the-only inhabitants of a globe that is sick with our presence and practices. It is difficult to write about what he has to say and my reactions to it; it’s very personal, because I and/or people I love may or may not be trying to follow some of Jensen’s teachings even as we speak. What I really want to say in this so-called “book review” is, go read Jensen now, and then do something about it.

The concept of endgame is familiar to me from chess. The idea is that we’re trying to get to a final outcome of this chess match, trying to establish a winner and a loser, and there’s no sense hanging on to all these pieces and stretching things out. Instead, I will happily give up my bishops (knights, rooks, queen, all of ’em) in exchange for yours, in order to hurry up the desirable end of the game. Endgame takes the same concept – a desirable hurrying of this game onto its inevitable finish – and applies it to our world, or rather, to civilization. He tells his reader why and how our civilization or culture is hopelessly, insanely f*cked up. He argues that we ARE headed for an end to civilization – and quite appropriately and desirably so – and that we should be hastening this end, the sooner that we can then begin living more sanely (if there’s any “we” left), and the healthier that the planet and anything left on it will be post-endgame.

This may very well sounds nuts to you, if you haven’t given things like global warming, mass extinctions, water shortage, and worldwide social injustices much thought. But it might make a great deal of sense – especially if you let Derrick Jensen tell it, which I really recommend, as he does a far better job of it than I do. Perhaps my first surprise in reading Endgame is that there were no surprises. Jensen makes these arguments so incredibly articulately, cleverly, even funnily, and backs them up so solidly, that I am wowed; but nothing he had to say was entirely new or surprising to me (sadly). He does a really fabulous job of expressing clearly what I already knew, suspected or feared. He also presented some new angles that I hadn’t much considered; and he expands the scope and scale of our problems in a way that I appreciate and found thought-provoking. Make no mistake: Jensen is a philosopher, a thinker, a cerebral guy who has clearly done copious research and spent time talking with some of the smartest people out there. Would that we all had time to do this kind of research and thinking! (Since we don’t, read Endgame.) My father has noted that even climate change experts like Bill McKibben stop short of the dire predictions Jensen posits. I think considering these scary truths is useful, instructive, and constructive, even while it’s sad and terrifying.

If you believe that we just need to drill for more oil; that those with lots of money have the right (and the duty) to protect what’s theirs; and that poor people in poor countries that still have some trees (oil, etc.) left should just move over for those of us that know better – Jensen is unlikely to convince you otherwise. He doesn’t really bother with you, in fact: you are not his audience. (“I was going to suggest those who think the U.S. invasion [of Iraq] has nothing to do with oil should put the book down, but realized they’ve probably already tired of the big words.”) And maybe that’s as it should be, too. Convincing those people is a big job – possibly an impossible one – and there’s other important work to be done. I don’t know that we should be wasting our Derrick Jensens on convincing the hardline fans of civilization that they’re wrong.

Aside from the clearly central issue that I appreciate what he had to say, see the wisdom of his arguments, and applaud his articulations, I also really enjoy Jensen’s conversational style. He can somewhat ramble, but is abundantly coherent for all that; maybe it was just my deep interest and passion for what he was saying (I’m nodding and saying “yea, yea!” as I read), but it all flowed very well even while jumping around a little. Of course I must say too that I loved his love for parentheticals (he mentions how much this frustrates his editor!) because, can you tell, I share it. I believe it was on his website that I read that he completes each page (or several), completely, before moving on to the next: that is, when he’s writing page 11, pages 1-10 are done. I find this fascinating. (I’m always interested in the mechanics of my favorite writers.) And it allows for a journal-like feel: he’ll break off from an argument he’s making to tell an anecdote, like “tonight I gave a talk, and at the end a woman said…”, and the reader is right there in the present with him. He wrote that paragraph on the night that that woman said that thing.

I would also like to make a contrast to yesterday’s DNF book, and say that a key piece of Jensen’s structure here is in stating at the start 20 premises he believes in. He writes,

I want to lay them out as clearly as I can, for you to accept or reject. Part of the reason I want to do this is that the questions I’m exploring regarding civilization are the most important questions we as a culture and as individuals have ever been forced to face. I don’t want to cheat. I want to convince neither you nor me unfairly (nor, for that matter, do I want to convince either of us at all), but instead to help us both better understand what to do (or not do) and how to do it (or why not). This goal will be best served by as much transparency – and honesty – as I can muster.

He then spends 450 pages proving his premises.

I appreciate this clarity. Frankly, I was already on board with his assumptions, but agree wholeheartedly that this is far too important a problem to make assumptions about; the intellectual exercise of questioning our assumptions is absolutely necessary. I like that he is so reflective, asking questions he can’t answer, reconsidering. This is too important a moment for blustering false positivity. Therefore, even though I was willing to buy into premises like, “The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life,” I still value having them proven to me. Jensen questions himself and his own motives. And that’s something I respect.

A solid ‘A’ for style, then, but the real ‘eureka’ for his thoughts and arguments and philosophies. I can’t wait to read Volume II: what we’re going to do about it.

Rating: take note: 10 salmon.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 10 Comments »

did not finish: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas (audio)

Posted on May 22, 2013 by pagesofjulia

bonhoefferI’ve gotten better at putting down books I’m not enjoying. As I keep repeating to myself & others, there are far too many excellent books in this world for me to ever read them all, so why would I spend my precious, limited reading time on less-than-excellent books? But I guess I’m still working on applying this same policy to audiobooks. They are fewer, and a little harder to get my hands on, so I find myself taking more chances with audiobooks. But somewhere between a third and halfway through Bonhoeffer, I gave up.

This is the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and theologian who lost a brother in World War I and was more prescient than many during Hitler’s rise to power. He was already involved in “the church,” but as Hitler’s government worked to take over the German church establishment, Bonhoeffer became even more active. I didn’t get this far, but apparently he also acted as a spy (for the anti-Nazi Abwehr), and was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

As a non-Christian, I thought I would be able to appreciate this as a work of history and biography. But I found myself too much irked by the unspoken premises: that Bonhoeffer, as a good Christian, was a good guy; that he could do no wrong; that the Christian church was inherently good. Christian readers of this book (who I can only assume are the majority, and its target audience) will naturally not be offended by these assumptions; but I am bothered by premises being treated as fact. Bonhoeffer comes off as a good and likeable man, and I may even miss him; but he’s presented as a totally good man, and I just can’t buy that about any human being. In other words, I don’t think Metaxas treats him objectively, and that tends to bother me a great deal in my reading. The religious bias, combined with copious quotations from the Bible, proved too much for me. In a shorter book, I would have hung in there: I made it 8-10 hours into its 22 hours! But I could go no farther.

I am happy to accept that Bonhoeffer was, on balance, a force for good against Hitler’s evil; but in a lengthy biography I would expect a little more objectivity, and would prefer a nonreligious starting point for study. I found his life interesting and would read another book about him. But not this one.

Rating: 2 sermons.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Posted on May 20, 2013 by pagesofjulia

ishmaelIshmael comes recommended by my father, and that’s enough for me.

It’s an environmental novel published in 1992. So, dated? Or prophetic? I’m afraid it stands firm today; we can debate whether it’s overly alarmist (ha) or overly optimistic (sigh), but I didn’t run across anything that dated it especially for me. The premise is: our narrator (who, I’m pretty sure, remains nameless) is a disillusioned 30-something who, as a teen, had looked for someone to guide his idealistic, revolutionary, 1970’s-style environmentalism, and come out disappointed and cynical. Now that it’s “too late”, he’s frustrated to find the following advertisement in the newspaper:

TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

(Is “newspaper” the term that dates this story?) Narrator responds jadedly, assuming this is a charlatan, a scammer; but still he goes to the address listed, because he has to satisfy his curiosity (and presumably because some part of him hopes that someone out there can really teach him how to save the world). In this anonymous retail space, he finds… a gorilla. A big, scary gorilla behind a glass wall; and on Narrator’s side of the wall, a chair. He eventually sits, and our gorilla – Ishmael – “speaks” telepathically to him. Ishmael relates his life story, and they begin discussing What’s Wrong With The World And What We Can Do About It.

Leaving aside the rather strange element of the telepathic and exceptionally well-read gorilla, the structure of this story is much like Sophie’s World, a novel I read pre-blog (thus no review here, sorry) and really, deeply loathed. It is credit to my faith in my father that I picked up Ishmael, knowing it was at all like that other. The structure I’m referring to is part of what I disliked about Sophie, although it works slightly better here: there is no plot, no action in the story, and no character development, because our characters don’t do anything. They form a didactic construction that allows Quinn, in ill-disguised fashion, to voice his own thoughts. If he were doing this in dialogue form, it would make a little more sense; but unfortunately the dialogue mostly consists of many paragraphs by one character, punctuated by the occasional “yes,” “true,” or “I don’t quite understand that part; can you tell me more?” from the other. Now, I liked what Quinn had to say, and I frankly liked the gorilla Ishmael, and so this framing element bothered me far less than it did with Sophie (shudder). But I still felt that it was unnecessary, distracting, and ill-concealed. I’d rather Quinn had just written a manifesto frankly stated as his own.

Quinn’s thesis in a nutshell is that our world is badly f*ed; humans have done it by behaving badly; and we need to change quickly if we hope to salvage the earth itself, its very deserving fellow occupants like butterflies, tigers, flowers and rocks, and any of ourselves. I find this thesis abundantly easy to follow. For decades we’ve known that we were badly screwing up this planet (unless you’re Big Oil and have found a way to put your head under the sand (to look for more oil) in which case you’re probably not reading Ishmael, or this blog). Actually I found the third part of the thesis – that we need to hurry up and change so that we can save the world – hardest to follow, because I think things are worse off than Quinn paints them to be. Of course, I’m writing this more than 20 years later, so I’ll give him a pass there.

That said, the friendly gorilla and the simply stated philosophical approach that he shares with our Narrator make an accessible argument. I could see this being a good entry-level discussion piece – or a jumping-off point for further discussion in a reading group or classroom setting. Ishmael is likeable, and the philosophy is mostly sound (at least until the part about how we can change; I am less hopeful than Ishmael is), and readable.

I am not sorry I read this. But I like Derrick Jensen’s Endgame better, even though it doesn’t have as happy an ending. More on that book to come.

Rating: 5 sessions.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees (audio)

Posted on May 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

louisaThis is a fictionalization of one season in the life of Louisa May Alcott, author most famously of Little Women. Louisa and her family are very like her famous fictional creations in many ways. The eldest daughter, Anna, clearly models for Meg of LW; then there’s Louisa/Jo, then Lizzie/Beth, and then Amy/May. Louisa’s mother Abba does go by Marmee, as in the book; the first glaring departure from Alcott’s novel in her real life is that her father, Bronson, is not away at war. Instead, Bronson was a transcendentalist scholar and friend to the likes of Thoreau and Emerson, disinclined to work for a living (being principally opposed, you see); he founded a Utopian commune in which his family lived for a time, and otherwise they scrimped, borrowed, and got by how they could. [I know this is confusing: I am writing a review of a fictional book, about a real-life woman, who wrote a fictional book, about her real-life family. So far, in these bare details I’ve named, I am referring to the real-life Alcotts as well as the Alcotts represented in Kelly O’Connor McNees’ novel.]

In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, McNees sets the six Alcotts in Walpole, New Hampshire, living for the summer in a home that belongs to relatives, because they are poor and hungry and have to go where they can. The premise is that Louisa May Alcott – in real-life a confirmed spinster – had a brief love affair that summer that informed the rest of her life. History yields no indication that such an affair took place, so this is where the fiction begins.

The plot is simple and uninteresting, certainly not the strength of this book. The family is new to Walpole; Anna has recently decided that she is interested in getting married (as any good girl of her era would be) and works to make herself presentable to the town’s young men. Louisa is, as ever, hot-headed, passionate, interested mostly in her writing, and does not intend to marry because it would disrupt her freedom (to write, and otherwise). She is firmly a feminist, and deeply interested in her father’s friends Emerson and Thoreau, and in a new book of poetry called Leaves of Grass by somebody named Walt Whitman. Lizzie is sickly and fussed over. May is obnoxiously free from the privation that the rest of the family feels; Marmee is rather frustrated with her lot in life; and Bronson is thoroughly exasperating in his refusal to get realistic and provide for his family. Anna meets a boy. And Louisa meets a boy, and in stock romance-novel style, finds him unbearable right up until she falls in love with him. They are thwarted.

The strengths of The Lost Summer are in its subjects: lovers of Little Women will be charmed by the fictional-real-life models for Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. The setting is rather charming, as well, and Joseph Singer (Louisa’s love interest) is likeable. But unlike the characters in Little Women, Anna, Louisa, Lizzie and May are underdeveloped. To be fair, it is a shorter book, and spans a much briefer time than its more famous model, so perhaps this should be excused. But I’m not really that forgiving, as I’ve seen masterful character development in mere pages (see: short story masters like Hemingway and de Maupassant). To be further fair, I’m not a fan of romance novels. (Maybe I should never have picked this book up?) That said, I was impatient with the plot line that had Louisa grumpy toward this man she simultaneously felt pulled towards – she went weak in the knees, etc., etc. – and then suddenly sick with love. It’s just too familiar, ho hum. And finally, too many of these characters were unlikeable (May, Bronson, even Marmee; Louisa for her bullheadedness; minor characters Margaret and Catherine, ugh!) for my tastes. I sort of felt that this story had misplaced its heroine.

Of some interest was the opportunity that McNees took to outline Louisa’s feminism and her limited options. I confess I did buy into the romance enough to wish that Joseph and Louisa could be together – could marry, or simply cohabitat – which latter option I realize is my modern-woman’s solution, and wasn’t really available to Louisa at all. Louisa talks and thinks through their options and what they would mean to her: how, for example, marriage would mean endless drudgery and housework for her, and the loss of her ability to write. This is a message that needed communicating, and I found it interesting and instructive to consider the limited options of a woman of this era. So a few points were regained here. However, these musings were only thinly veiled as dialogue or internal thoughts of the characters; I felt I could see McNees holding the strings.

For a quick, superficial, comfortable visit with the beloved Alcotts, come on in to Lost Summer; but if you’re looking for more, look elsewhere.

Audio edition was fine but unremarkable.

Rating: 4 oh-so-important ribbons.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Yellowstone, Land of Wonders: Promenade in North America’s National Park by Jules Leclercq

Posted on May 15, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An unprecedented English translation of a travel narrative from the early years of Yellowstone National Park.

yellowstone
In 1883, a well-traveled French lawyer, writer and judge named Jules Leclercq explored the newly designated Yellowstone National Park on horseback. Three years later, he published a book praising the area’s strange and wondrous marvels–but the book is not simply a lovely appreciation of natural scenery. Leclercq also researched the history of the region and its people in order to write a scholarly study, a snapshot of a place in time. And yet there has never been a complete English-language translation of his original text until Janet Chapple and Suzanne Cane’s Yellowstone, Land of Wonders.

Leclercq is most fascinated by Yellowstone’s geysers: “The mind is so occupied with the extraordinary geological phenomena bursting upon one at every step,” he writes, “that one views the scenery only abstractedly.” He does, however, turn his pen to Yellowstone Lake and Falls; he considers the latter far superior to Niagara. He also includes a chapter on the park’s wildlife, and warns that whole species will be exterminated if hunting continues unchecked.

Leclercq’s narrative is imperfect. He sometimes quotes without attribution from contemporary sources and gets geological details wrong. But Chapple and Cane meticulously keep readers informed on such points. Their translation and editing–with copious notes–is thorough in confirming and expanding Leclercq’s points, offering commentary not just on Yellowstone but on the author and his era. The result has more than just historical value; as Leclercq concludes (and as is still true today), “All this grandeur inspires grave and religious thoughts.”

This review originally ran in the May 10, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 geysers.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

Posted on May 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

othervoicesOther Voices, Other Rooms was Truman Capote’s first novel, and I have picked it up because it was referenced in The Used World. Such is the power of Haven Kimmel.

This is a strange, spooky, sad tale, beginning with an unwanted child: we meet 13-year-old Joel as he’s hitching a ride en route from New Orleans to a crumbling estate in Mississippi. He had been living with his aunt following his mother’s death; now he has been summoned to his father, who he’s never met. Upon arriving at Skully’s Landing, he finds no father, but an odd stepmother and her even odder cousin, Randolph. Approximating friends are a neighbor tomboy named Idabel and a black servant named Zoo. Eventually Joel’s father is revealed, mute, bedridden, and as horrifying as everything and everyone else at the Landing. Among these horrors are a ghostly woman in a window where no woman belongs; a cottonmouth “thick as his leg, long as a whip”; and a mule who hangs himself.

Randolph is clearly gay, and a model for the effeminate Joel to consider, for better or for worse – sexuality aside, Randolph has a dubious moral code. He relates (among other things) the story of how he met Joel’s father, in an episode that rather reminded me of The Sun Also Rises, in which a motley mismatch of characters in a debauched setting (here, New Orleans) are remarkably frank about who wants who sexually. Later, when Joel attends a country fair with Idabel, things turn more towards Alice in Wonderland, in its sinister moments. But Capote is in his own class here, regardless of my literary comparisons. He evokes a startling, ghostly, creepy, sleepy yet stark atmosphere, and for me, that atmosphere was the great accomplishment of this novel.

Plot-wise, Joel’s story is one where not a great deal happens but a major life change takes place, anyway. This is a coming-of-age story, in which Joel starts off decidedly a child but finishes – just a few months later – a young man with a somewhat clearer picture of himself. (But, I think, no happier.) Part of that coming-of-age regards his sexuality, but only in an unstated, amorphous way, which is a fair description of the whole book, really. In fact, I have to admit to some trouble following things, as so much is unstated and wavering and strangely expressed from varying and unreliable viewpoints. That this novel is at least vaguely autobiographical I guessed; that there were themes of understanding one’s sexuality and coming-of-age was clear to me. But the rest was less clear. In fact I was reminded somewhat (to drop another literary name) of Faulkner, a la The Sound and the Fury. I won’t bother regurgitating it for you here – they are not my own interpretations – but even Wikipedia (for example) gets way more out of this story than I got. Go figure.

I think Other Voices, Other Rooms is likely to be another great candidate for a “close reading” with a knowledgeable guide – I picture my high school English teacher, Mrs. Smith – to direct related readings and fill me in on the background. Without such assistance, I still enjoyed a creepy, weird tale of cobwebbed, forgotten Southern grandeur and depravity. Take it as you will. If nothing else, Capote’s talent shines through and foreshadows his future success – but I still prefer In Cold Blood.

Rating: 6 bluejay feathers.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

In the City of Bikes by Pete Jordan

Posted on May 13, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A history of Amsterdam’s love affair with the bicycle contained within an American cyclist’s memoir.

cityofbikes
After the close of his first memoir, Dishwasher, Pete Jordan moved to Amsterdam for a semester to study urban planning, with a focus on his passion: bicycles. He never left.

Jordan’s decision to move was rather capricious–he knew almost nothing about Amsterdam–but he found a city packed with bicycles and rich with cycling history. In the City of Bikes is the story of his journey from itinerant dishwasher to settled family man, as well as a thoroughly researched history of the bicycle in Amsterdam. Beginning with the early bikes of the 1800s and cycling’s golden age in the 1890s, when the safety bicycle hit the streets, Jordan moves on to the tire shortages and (in this case, bicycle-related) atrocities of the city’s Nazi occupation before concluding with his own place in modern cycle-crazy Amsterdam.

Joining Jordan are his new wife, Amy Joy, and their son, Ferris, a passenger and later pilot of Amsterdam bicycles since his conception. When Amy Joy becomes proprietor of a local bike shop, the Jordans have truly found their home in the Dutch capital. Considering his reason for going in the first place, Jordan is especially well suited and qualified to tell this story, and he lives up to expectations with a meticulous detailing of Amsterdam’s bikes. Full of personal anecdote, self-deprecating humor, local lore and a history of cycling that positively bursts with enthusiasm, In the City of Bikes is both a memoir and an ode to bicycles.

This review originally ran in the May 3, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 tire-powered light generators.

526395_4403542975615_1825014471_n

Bonus photo I couldn’t resist, of me in the early 2000’s, cycling in Bruges – but it may as well be Amsterdam, and I did ride there too – on a Dutch-style bike. (Hoping this gives me extra reviewer-cred!)

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (audio)

Posted on May 8, 2013 by pagesofjulia

destinyJames A. Garfield was the 20th president of the United States, and served one of our shortest terms: after being shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau, he lived over two months before dying in September of 1881. Destiny of the Republic is the story of Garfield’s short presidency. As expressed in the subtitle, it is also the story of Guiteau’s madness and the medical era in which Garfield was unsuccessfully treated. What is left out of the title is the story of Alexander Graham Bell, who worked on a metal detector that was related to his recent invention, the telephone, with the intention of locating the bullet lodged in Garfield’s torso. So, to recap: this is the story of Garfield the President, Giteau the assassin, Bell the inventor, and a Dr. Bliss, who headed up the President’s medical team.

I knew next to nothing about Garfield, although I had a vague sense of his dying journey to the sea, passing by train through crowds of Americans gathered to honor him. I assume I’m not alone in my ignorance; he’s a long-dead president who (necessarily, by virtue of his short service) made no historical contributions sufficient to bring him to a modern layperson’s consciousness. So, I’ll fill in a little more. Garfield is painted in the opening chapters as a very sympathetic man: he did not aspire to the White House, but rather was nominated against his will by a post-Civil-War Republic Party that could not agree on any of the more favored candidates for nomination (Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman). He was humble. In this book, he is a likeable character (more on that to follow).

Interspersed with descriptions of Garfield, his very humble past as a poverty-stricken and fatherless child, and his marriage to Lucretia (“Crete” ), are descriptions of Guiteau. Guiteau is, briefly, delusional. I don’t know what his diagnosis would be in today’s mental health establishment, but he would be diagnosed. He believes he deserves great things and the world owes him; he is a chronic petty criminal, and because he once wrote a speech (never delivered) stumping for Garfield, he believes upon Garfield’s election that he deserves a lucrative posting, preferably to Paris. (One of the hot political issues of this age was the spoils system.) In his diseased mind, Garfield’s failure to honor him becomes a crime punishable by death; and/or it’s God’s will that Garfield be killed; and/or Vice President Chester Arthur needs to be President for the sake of the country, etc. Thus the assassination.

Also interspersed are some of the thinkers of the era. Alexander Graham Bell has just invented the telephone, which although not ubiquitous, is beginning to change communications for some of the population, and will have great future impact; in the meantime Bell works feverishly on that and other inventions. Also contemporary is the British Joseph Lister, pioneer of the concept of antisepsis, or sterilization of medical (especially surgical) equipment. Medical minds of the day did not generally believe in germs, because they could not see them, and practiced surgery on the second patient with the blood of the first still wet on their hands (not to mention pus and general dirt). Lister tried to convince American doctors of the lifesaving power of sterilization, but in the case of Garfield’s Dr. Bliss, failed.

So the action of the story follows Garfield’s nomination, election, and early days in office; Guiteau’s descent into madness, and his shooting of the President; Bell’s laboratory work, including work on a machine to locate the bullet lost inside the President; and the medical community’s thoughts on antisepsis. Dr. Bliss is an unsympathetic character. He successfully bluffs a small crowd of other doctors, several better qualified, and at least one more open to the idea of sterile surgery, out of the White House, taking over Garfield’s care himself. He is imperious, intolerant, and unpleasant; it also turns out that he had the wrong medical ideas, with the knowledge we have now. Garfield suffers in the White House for some two months after being shot, with a bullet lodged near his liver. During this time he is endlessly poked and prodded with filthy fingers and probing implements, deep into his wound. We know now – indeed, they mostly understood upon his autopsy – that it was not the gunshot that killed him, but the massive infection caused by unsterilized instruments. And then, we hear of the First Lady’s mourning, and the trial and hanging of Guiteau. In the epilogue, we also follow Bell, Bliss and Lister through to their eventual ends.

I found this story fascinating, as perhaps is clear from my lengthy synopsis. I liked that Millard sketched the political background of the United States in the decades after the Civil War, the lingering divisiveness of North vs. South, the corruption of the spoils system and the conflict between VP Arthur and Garfield’s presidency. I found the characters interesting, compelling, and real. This history is told relatively briefly and at a quick pace: I think reluctant readers of nonfiction will be pleased, and yet I don’t have reason to think it was dumbed down or oversimplified. Destiny of the Republic is good, readable history for the mainstream reader, and I recommend it.

I do have one concern. Garfield is portrayed in a wholly sympathetic light. I don’t know enough to criticize him; but I’m always suspicious of such a glowing picture of a historical figure. Surely he wasn’t all good? I worry about so much praise, as I said in my review of Team of Rivals.

I really enjoyed getting a glimpse of the medical thinking of this era, which I thought was well handled, although in brief. The conceptual leap to believing in invisible germs and the risk of infection has to be one of the more important in the history of medicine, and I can understand how people like Bliss who thought they knew what they were doing would be skeptical, although it’s hard to sympathize with him in this story of the huge consequences of his skepticism (coupled with his egotism and nasty personality, of course). There was another angle I wish had been explored as well, regarding Bliss’s very imposing nature, the bossiness with which he took over Garfield’s care, and his unwillingness to let either the President or the First Lady choose a doctor or make medical decisions. This is another area of medical practice in which change has occurred much more recently: the authority of doctor versus patient. We’re still working this one out, but today, no doctor would be so likely to barge in and tell the wife of an unconscious man which doctor would be treating him; and if she called in the doctors of her choosing and fired the first, her decision would stand. Now, Mrs. Garfield never tried to “fire” Bliss – it wasn’t done. But that’s my point: the concept of who holds the power in that relationship, doctor vs. patient (& family/caregiver) has changed drastically. As someone who works in a hospital setting with patients and family members, not to mention some of the decisions I’ve seen made in my own family, my mind jumped at this part of Garfield’s story. He had no advocate to protect him against the failures of the medical establishment; no second opinions were allowed; the patient and his family were allowed no part in the decision-making process. Not only would antisepsis have made the difference to Garfield, but, I submit, patient advocacy and empowerment would likely have made a major change as well: if he had still died, at least he might have been much more comfortable, and I think quality of life even at the end of life should not be discounted. If I had written this story (with my perspective as a medical librarian), I would have added this facet to Garfield’s story as well.

Minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed Destiny of the Republic and found it an easy, engaging, quick read that I would recommend to anyone. The audio production, read by Paul Micheal, was entertaining and gave the varying voices to the story that I think it needed. Well done.

Rating: 8 propaganda-ridden medical bulletins.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova (audio)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by pagesofjulia

This whole post below the book cover image is mildly spoiler-y. So, briefly: Love Anthony concerns two unrelated women and their respective pursuits of personal fulfillment and happy family lives. One has a little boy with autism. There is pain, and some redemption. If those few lines appeal to you, consider reading the book before you read this review.

loveantThis is Lisa Genova’s most recent novel, and I have now run out. (Her earlier works are Left Neglected and Still Alice.) This is not my favorite of her novels – that would be Still Alice. But it might be the one I found most thought-provoking.

The story jumps back and forth between the lives of two women who are connected only tenuously for most of the book. First we meet Beth. She lives on Nantucket Island year-round, and has three young daughters and a husband named Jimmy, who we learn even before we meet him is having an affair. She tells him to leave, and he does. For the bulk of the book, one of the central conflicts of Beth’s life is her struggle to deal with his infidelity and decide the future of their marriage and family. And then we meet Olivia. She is newly living year-round on Nantucket, in the cottage that she, her husband David, and her son Anthony have for years used as a summer home or rented out to vacationers. Olivia has recently experienced a series of personal tragedies, and she’s struggling just to hold it together. First, her son has autism, and the knowledge that he would never do all the things she’d imagined him doing – making friends, playing sports, dating, working, moving out of the house – would never happen, is devastating. Next, her son dies. And then her marriage falls apart, in the stress of dealing with Anthony’s autism and Anthony’s death.

Both Beth and Olivia, then, are working to cope with the unfairnesses that life has thrown their way. And here’s a twist: Beth is a writer, something she’d almost forgotten in her years of marriage and motherhood; but when Jimmy leaves, she pulls out her writing materials and begins working on a novel. Olivia is a former editor of self-help books, now working as a photographer (taking beach portraits for all those vacationing families on Nantucket). When the two women meet and discover this synchronicity, Olivia reluctantly agrees to read Beth’s novel when it’s finished. Are you ready for the big play? Beth’s novel is about a little boy named Anthony who has autism.

Beth and Olivia were both well-developed characters with realistic lives and problems. Both experience quite a bit of personal growth. I struggled for a time mid-book, because I didn’t really like either character; Beth was too much a perfectionist, sort of bitchy in her desire for the perfect family portrait in matching outfits, unconcerned with her children’s lives as long as they match and are unstained. And Olivia couldn’t love her son as he was, couldn’t get past her desire for a “perfect” or “normal” child. I was exasperated with both of them. But then they both changed, grew, and if I have had strong feelings about these characters then maybe the author reached her goal. I think there’s been a longer arc in this story than in Genova’s past books, which I loved more unequivocally, but which got me less involved. By the end, both women have changed enough that I liked them better. But they changed by becoming more perfect, which I cannot entirely buy into, so I retain some hesitation.

The friendship Beth shares with a group of women on the island (Jill, Georgia, Courtney, and Petra) is another area where I’m ambivalent. These women are diverse and likeable; but they feel like types more than real people, at least when assembled as a group. And they’re so good! There’s no cattiness, no back-biting. It’s a tight-knit, loving, supportive group, and call me cynical, but *I* have certainly never had a group of girlfriends so awesome; it’s all I can do to find one at a time, at best. They are a lovely part of this story, if they can be believed; but I am not sure they can be believed.

My central concern, however, is in the unscientific nature of the melding and meshing of Beth and Olivia’s lives, and the novel that they share. Beth’s novel turns out to be about Olivia’s son Anthony; the character in the book not only shares Anthony’s name, but his whole world. There is a metaphysical or otherworldly subplot. Is the dead boy Anthony speaking through Beth? I lost my patience here. Lisa Genova writes about hard science, and reliably – she is a neuroscientist by training – and that’s one of my favorite things about her work. So, then, for her to shift into this realm of possibly communing with the dead was jarring for me, and not what I was looking for. I have nothing against a good ghost story, but her work feels to me like it’s aspiring to realism, and I was bothered by the supernatural element. It didn’t fit.

On balance, I really enjoyed Beth’s and Olivia’s stories. Moment to moment, I was totally caught up in their lives and rooting for them. I was fully engaged, and I take my hat off to Genova who took me from not really liking either of her protagonists, to sympathizing fully; there was real growth and development. But when I zoomed out a little, I was unconvinced by and frustrated with several elements of the plot, and the type-casting of certain characters. For my money, her earlier novels were far more persuasive and easier to love wholeheartedly. That said – I am anxious for more. Lisa! Get to work!

As a side note, I found it curious that one of our characters is a woman writing a novel about a boy with autism, because Lisa Genova is of course a real-life woman writing a novel about a boy with autism. I can’t help but wonder how much of that is autobiographical, and I love the journey that line of thinking can take me down. Additionally, Beth’s writing process was fascinating to me, and I expect anyone else who dreams of being an author will feel the same. (I suspect that many avid readers fall into this category.)

Debra Messing, who plays Grace on the tv show Will and Grace, reads this audiobook convincingly, with the shifts, sighs, and varying volumes that represent speech vs. thought; she communicates emotion; a fine job. I recommend the audio version.

Rating: 6 white rocks.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

Posted on April 29, 2013 by pagesofjulia

zippyHaven Kimmel wins again. This is her best-known and best-selling book, and her first memoir, and my first of her nonfiction. It is everything I had hoped for. She’s hilarious. She communicates a rather modestly lived mid-American existence in such a way that it is compelling, interesting, and occasionally involves small-scale tragedies; and at the same time it is recognizable as the lives of all of us. But on the other hand, make no mistake: Kimmel’s life as a small girl called Zippy (for her high speeds) is frequently bizarre. She was apparently funny-looking, with eyes too close together, and as a baby she was bald for an unusually long time, save a tuft of hair on the top of her head. She did not speak a single word until she was nearly three, when she began (we are told) with complete sentences. As in her novels, Kimmel introduces fully realized canine and other animal characters that her reader comes to love.

I would read anything Haven Kimmel writes; but I am especially excited about She Got Up Off the Couch, her memoir of her mother. Said mother is a character in Zippy who receives relatively little treatment, but is hinted to possess hidden depths, and I can’t wait to get to know her in my next read. Kimmel’s father, a funny, likeable mischief-maker, is a little more heavily featured. Her brother continues the theme of odd, amusing relatives. Friends from the neighborhood and from school, the local storekeeper, the old lady in the haunted house next door, and various teachers are described in brief sketches that make me giggle and paint a complete portrait in a paragraph.

A Girl Named Zippy is very, very funny; occasionally sad; insightful, beautifully written, and long on pathos. Tomorrow, come back around for quotations from a few of my favorite passages.

Rating: 8 science fiction novels.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »