The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond

Posted on January 23, 2013 by pagesofjulia

An ambitious but effective–and charming–exploration of the salutary lessons offered by traditional societies.

For many decades, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jared Diamond (Collapse; Guns, Germs and Steel) has split his time between his native United States and the traditional societies of New Guinea. In The World Until Yesterday, he compares traditional ways of life with “WEIRD” (“Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic”) methods of problem-solving. Recognizing the daunting breadth of such a subject, he selects a few areas for examination, including dispute resolution, child-rearing, elder care, religion and the connection between lifestyle and non-communicable diseases like Type II diabetes. In each area, he compares traditional practices with modern ones, considering the evidence from angles both strictly scientific and personal.

Diamond supplements his extensive fieldwork with substantial research to draw credible conclusions and posit plausible theories. But he writes conversationally, using the first person liberally as he meanders across disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, geography, statistics and evolutionary biology. This disarmingly personal tone is one of the greatest strengths of the book. Diamond also discusses preconceived notions that he and the reader may have, then moves on to new theoretical ground. While acknowledging aspects of traditional societies to which we do not wish to return–cyclical violence, infanticide, frequent starvation–he identifies certain strengths as well, like negligible rates of heart disease and restorative justice systems. “What can we learn from traditional societies?” Diamond asks in his subtitle; his plan to discover the wisdom and experimentation of more than 10,000 years of human society is well-executed.

This review originally ran as a *starred review* in the January 4, 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: 8 yams.

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

Teaser Tuesdays: Vera Gran: The Accused by Agata Tuszyńska

Posted on January 22, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

veragran

What an interesting study of a woman I’d never heard of – which has turned out to be a genre I really enjoy, in fact. (Biographies of women I’ve never heard of, that is.) And one of the central themes is the nature, and limitations, of memory:

Perhaps memory is only an element of the process, and memory modifies itself when being evoked. Perhaps memory does not weave a tapestry but runs along a particular strand, uniquely under the influence of the moment.

I am sure we can all sympathize with the shortcomings of our memories; but perhaps few have paid a price like the one Vera Gran paid. Stay tuned for my review.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants by Alison Maloney

Posted on January 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A simple but thorough glimpse into the lives of British house servants in the early 1900s.

In the wake of Downton Abbey‘s wild success, Alison Maloney’s Life Below Stairs offers an in-depth look at the lives of the serving class in the era of King Edward VII (1901-1910) and the Great War. She examines all aspects of servants’ place in society and relationships to their masters and one another, including social backgrounds, the responsibilities of each servant in households large and small–from the lowly house or hall boy and the maid-of-all-work to the butler and housekeeper–and their working conditions. She also provides details on fine dining, complete with table service instructions and menus that boggle the mind. Finally, she describes servants’ opportunities for retirement or marriage out of service, giving the modern reader an idea of exactly how limited their lives could be. Many poor children and teens would feel lucky to get a position in a “good house,” and not feel dishonored by such a post–in contrast, a contemporary source relates, “service [was] considered rather degrading in America.”

Although comprehensive in its survey of staff’s lives, options, and conditions, Life Below Stairs is a surprisingly easy read. Short chapters and accompanying tables, contemporary newspaper clippings and illustrations make this an accessible and charming way to study the lives of Edwardian servants. As a companion to Downton Abbey or simply a dip into another time, Maloney’s study satisfies.

This review originally ran in the January 4, 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 eyes lowered.

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

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde

Posted on January 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

lostAll those books on my shelves waiting to be read, and I couldn’t resist taking this one out from my local library and jumping in. You will recall that I enjoyed the first Thursday Next book on audio. I couldn’t find this one in that format, so text it is. I have some observations on the format, but first, what is it about?

Thursday Next is back, recently married, and pregnant. She and Landen are happy, but overwhelmed by the publicity linked to her successful but still controversial victory over Acheron Hades, which involved changing the ending of Jane Eyre. The forces of darkness are not through, however: Goliath Corporation wants Jack Schitt back (oh, these names!), and his brother Schitt-Hawse is not afraid to use some pretty ugly blackmail techniques to get him. Landen is in trouble, and Thursday will have to follow Schitt into Poe’s The Raven to execute both men’s safe return. And finally, Acheron Hades may be dead, but (shockingly) he had friends…

Everything I liked about the first book is here: silliness and hilarity, but also some rather sober statements on the ugliness of war, and an evil, all-powerful corporation that is both deliciously ogreish and frighteningly true to life. Not to mention that most central quality: that in this alternate world, books and literature are deeply important to everyone. This fantasy is deeply enjoyable for those of us who feel that way in the real world but who are, sadly, the minority.

What is better about book 2 than book 1 is that there is far more entering of books: in this edition, Thursday acquires the skill, with the help of the Cheshire Cat and Miss Havisham, of reading herself into any book she chooses. Thus we get to visit Sense and Sensibility and The Raven, and of course Great Expectations, as well as a few others, even unpublished manuscripts. Great fun! This aspect of the story’s possibilities (that is, the possibilities of Fforde’s delightful invented world) is not perhaps exploited fully; but the series continues, and I am joyfully anxious to read the next installment.

Format-wise, I loved the voices (and the accents) on the audiobook I listened to of book 1; but there’s a lot to be had in the print version of this one. For one thing, certain inhabitants of Book-World speak to Thursday in foot-notes, which only she can hear and which appear to me as actual foot-notes on the bottom of the page – the disjointedness of which was quite appropriate. I don’t know how that would have been executed in audio format. And there are other things: spellings, subscripts, and the like, that are very much printing jokes, and thus best (only?) enjoyed in print. So while I like the convenience of audio (and the accents!), this may be a series to read in actual book form. Which is probably how Thursday and her Book-World/JurisFiction cohorts would have it, anyway.

Rating: 7 pounds of cheese. (It fits, really.)

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

movie: Lincoln (2012)

Posted on January 17, 2013 by pagesofjulia

In honor of my mother’s birthday recently, Husband and I accompanied my parents to see Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, and Tommy Lee Jones, backed up by a further star-studded cast. It was truly impressive, as expected.

Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln (Photo: David James, DreamWorks II/Twentieth Century Fox)

Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln (photo credit)

There is no shortage out there of positive reviews of this movie, many of which say it better than I can and know the historical details better than I do, so I shall try to keep this brief. As promised, Daniel Day Lewis IS Lincoln. The visual impact of Lewis’s Lincoln, and of the period costume and cinematic effect (use of light and shadow, especially) is very good – but again, this is Spielberg, so no great surprises. The emotional impact is great, too. The scene where the 13th amendment is voted in, and the reactions to that vote, I found very powerful. It was an enjoyable experience.

I felt somewhat, and Pops expressed a similar feeling, that this movie’s view of history was a little “feel-good.” My vague recollection of American history yields a more cynical view, in which the Civil War was not so much about the human rights of black people as it was about states’ rights vs. federalism, economics, and yes, slavery, but more as an issue of the above (economy, industry) than as a civil rights issue. Specifically, I believe I recall reading the Lincoln-Douglas debates for a freshman political science course and noting that Lincoln was not quite the egalitarian the movie represents – although, to be fair, the movie does have him balk at black suffrage. At any rate, it felt like this Lincoln encourages us, as Americans, to be proud of our very principled, virtuous past, to a degree perhaps a tad simplified and glorified. That said, it DID feel good. So your feelings about this question depend on what you want from the film – historical accuracy, or fuzzy feelings.

This cast was outstanding. Aside from the big names D.D. Lewis, Sally Field, and Tommy Lee Jones (and Spielberg), you will recognize a great many faces further, and everyone did an outstanding job. (Between us, my group of 4 recognized actors from Breaking Away, Bad News Bears, ER, and Mr. Deeds, and that was fun.) I think I enjoyed Tommy Lee Jones’s Thaddeus Stevens the best. Now, the acting and the screenwriting tended towards the theatrical or dramatic rather than the realistic; many, perhaps the majority of the scenes involve grand, sweeping, profound statements, delivered with lifted chin. But this, too, is not necessarily a criticism. It’s not realism, but theatre – finely produced theatre.

As you know, I am always curious about historical accuracy in works of historical fiction or dramatizations. In this case, we all wondered about Stevens’s relationship with his housekeeper: in the movie, they are lovers. I poked around the internet enough to see that historians have speculated but cannot confirm such a theory; and it was Pops that sent along this excellent link, in which Slate discusses historical accuracy throughout the film. Don’t hesitate to click on some of the links within it, too: I did and found it all fascinating.

I will leave you here with the idea that this is a magnificent, entertaining, thought-provoking, if slightly rosy portrayal of our 16th president, presented by an outstanding cast.

Rating: 7 flashing eyes.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

article from Orion magazine: “Dark Ecology” by Paul Kingsnorth

Posted on January 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

This article came to me from coworker Liz (who always recommends good stuff), and simultaneously from Pops, who also thought it was great. That should be testimony enough; but I am unstoppable and will say just a few words myself, too.

Paul Kingsnorth writes about the future of ecology, conservationism, “green” thinking, or whatever you’d like to call it. This is “dark” ecology because the news is not good. I’ll let him give you the real dish because he does it better – as Pops says, “the good news is that Kingsnorth is a writer first, not a social scientist, so it reads pretty well” – but I really appreciated his willingness to look forward to what’s ahead and what we have to do differently than the old guard of environmentalism, which sadly hasn’t worked. And his ideas about what’s ahead and what we might do in anticipation, however dark, resonated with me. Plus, he writes beautiful thinking lines like these:

Our human relationship to the rest of nature is not akin to the analysis of bacteria in a petri dish; it is more like the complex, love-hate relationship we might have with lovers or parents or siblings. It is who we are, unspoken and felt and frustrating and inspiring and vital and impossible to peer-review. You can reach part of it with the analytical mind, but the rest will remain buried in the ancient woodland floor of human evolution and in the depths of our old ape brains, which see in pictures and think in stories. Civilization has always been a project of control, but you can’t win a war against the wild within yourself.

I give you:

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Teaser Tuesdays: The Honored Society by Petra Reski

Posted on January 15, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

honoredsociety

This is an interesting book. Its subject is the Italian Mafia and its global role; and most of the prose is straightforward. But it occasionally meanders into fancy, even poetry, as here:

In the middle of Piazza Marina there’s a huge magnolia fig tree that has grown into a vast and magical forest. The trunk is reddish brown, like the Sicilian soil, and has transformed itself into some fabulous creature that consists of knotted, frozen snakes, dragons half hidden in the ground, and elongated elephants. Every time I turn my back on this tree I half expect it to stretch out its arms and grab me.

I am charmed. And the Mafia bits are fine, too. 🙂

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

Filed under: tuesday teasers | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

vocabulary lessons: The Brave Cowboy

Posted on January 14, 2013 by pagesofjulia

bravecowboyFor a man who writes evocatively of nose picking, armpit scratching, hard drinking, and crude womanizing, Edward Abbey can be surprisingly erudite and wordy. His more informed readers will note, however, that he held a master’s degree in philosophy, and enjoyed both a Fulbright Scholarship at Edinburgh University and a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellowship at Standford.

In my recent reading of his second novel, The Brave Cowboy, I had to look up no fewer than 10 words, ranging from unfamiliar to entirely unknown to me. Perhaps you will find some new ones here, as well!

bartizan: “a small structure (as a turret) projecting from a building and serving especially for lookout or defense.”

scurf: “Scaly or shredded dry skin, such as dandruff.” Ewww! Leave it to Abbey. It was more or less clear, in context, what this word referred to; but I initially thought perhaps it was one he’d made up. Not so.

corundum: “a very hard mineral that consists of aluminum oxide occurring in massive and crystalline forms, that can be synthesized, and that is used for gemstones (as ruby and sapphire) and as an abrasive.” The first of several geological terms, not very surprisingly.

glister: As I’d suspected, a sort of blending of ‘glisten’ and ‘glitter’, but not one Abbey made up, as I’d also suspected (like ‘scurf’, above).

carnotite: “a yellow to greenish-yellow mineral consisting of a radioactive hydrous vanadate of uranium and potassium that is a source of radium and uranium.” Extra points if you go look up ‘vanadate’…

cuate: I am mostly confident following the little bits of Spanish Abbey uses, having grown up in a border state myself; but I had to check on cuate. As suggested in context, it’s another way to say “guy, buddy, pal.”

eschatology: I began to wrinkle my nose because of the similarity to scatology, but no. “A branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind.” A philosopher master’s, I said.

hosanna: “used as a cry of acclamation and adoration.”

passacaglia: “an instrumental musical composition consisting of variations usually on a ground bass in moderately slow triple time.”

tamarisk: “any of a genus (Tamarix of the family Tamaricaceae, the tamarisk family) of chiefly Old World desert shrubs and trees having tiny narrow leaves and masses of minute flowers with five stamens and a one-celled ovary —called also salt cedar.” To which I am tempted to grumble, why not just call it salt cedar?

I’m always happy to learn new words. Thanks, Ed.

You can see a few more “vocabulary lessons” posts here.

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey

Posted on January 11, 2013 by pagesofjulia

bravecowboyThe Brave Cowboy was Abbey’s second novel, published in 1956. It introduces Jack Burns, the eponymous cowboy, who will reappear in a number of Abbey’s works of fiction hereafter. We meet Jack as he rides into town (somewhere in New Mexico) on his horse, grumbling in typical Abbey fashion about the military-industrial complex creeping across the desert wilderness he loves. He visits a friend, Jerry, and her son Seth, to ask about her husband Paul, imprisoned in city jail awaiting transfer to a federal facility for a two-year term for draft dodging. Paul and Jack, it turns out, share a past as anarchist opposers of the war in Vietnam. Jack hides two files in his boots and proceeds to get drunk and look at people funny at a bar; this leads, predictably, to his joining Paul at the city jail, where his plan can begin to take action.

Obviously, Jack is there to bust his friend out of jail. But Paul wants to take an ideological stand, points out that he turned himself in and debated the question of his “crime” purposefully, and intends to serve out his term, not least because jailbreaking would lead to a life on the run and negatively effect his family. Jack is disgusted, frustrated, and miserable in jail himself (being something of an archetypal wild creature that cannot be caged) and breaks out the first night, alone.

Local law enforcement follow Jack and his horse into the hills, bound for the wilderness where they will be unable to track him, ultimately (Jack hopes) to Mexico, or who knows where. No spoilers here.

Jack is a symbol. He is everything that is wild and untameable, and counter to the “civilization” (I think of Huck Finn’s “sivilization”) of city & town, military test ranges, factories, and regular baths. He’s rough-n-tough and (I imagine) everything Abbey dreamed of being. He and Jerry, Paul’s wife, share a moment of sexual tension that goes unexplained; I wonder if light is ever shed on this subject in other novels, or if it’s just a gratuitous moment of sexuality – otherwise absent in this book, unusually for Abbey. The manhunt scenes in the desert canyons are excellent, and reminiscent of those in The Monkey Wrench Gang (which Abbey wouldn’t write for another nine years). And the opposing symbol to Jack Burns, the sheriff Morlin Johnson, is an exquisite picture of everything wrong: he picks his nose and scratches his armpits, grumbles at his wife on the phone, is incompetent in every way; and yet, to Abbey’s credit, he retains some humanizing characteristics as well. For example, he struggles to control the enthusiastic manhunters, reminding them that their quarry is not a murderer and should not be shot on sight.

Literary critics, I imagine, could find points to contend over. The good and evil may be a little straightforward; Abbey never bothered with subtlety in his values. The plot is simplistic. But I don’t necessarily find these to be weaknesses. Jack Burns is an archetype, yes, but he’s a strong and entertaining one. I found the ending (still no spoilers!) powerful. Abbey’s highly realistic descriptions of natural scenery, man’s crude habits and strengths and weaknesses, campsite routine, and urban decay are among the best I’ve encountered. Jack’s horse, Whisky, and the relationship they share were a charming addition. While not complicated in form or message, I found The Brave Cowboy to be an excellent read, and a fair representation of Abbey’s work.

Connections…

This book was adapted into a movie called Lonely Are the Brave, starring Kirk Douglas, in 1962, and I will now be seeking that out.

Also, a later Abbey novel called Fire on the Mountain (which I reviewed, and enjoyed) shares an ambiguous connection. The little boy in that book is named Billy, and seems to be the wrong age to grow up to be Jack Burns. But they share the same grandfather, whose ranch meets the same fate in each telling. Abbey wrote Fire later, and I have no explanation for the disjointed connection between the two stories. Are Billy & Jack brothers? Cousins? Mismatched versions of the same man, early & later in life? I am intrigued.

Another great Abbey novel. Luckily, like Hemingway, Abbey is on the one hand dead and no longer writing, but on the other hand, was prolific enough in life to keep me stocked for the time being. Keep ’em coming.

Rating: 7 stoic, unshaven stares into the middle distance.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | 13 Comments »

multimedia journalism from the NYT: “Snow Fall” by John Branch

Posted on January 10, 2013 by pagesofjulia

I have a librarian coworker, Liz, who always finds the coolest latest thing, and is expert at sending me articles (etc.) that will interest me. Recently, that was an article from the New York Times that blew my mind in a few different ways. For one, the story is striking: in February 2012 an avalanche in Washington state had tragic consequences for a group of skiers. The story of that day is told in this article in a structure that I very much appreciate. In a manner reminiscent of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air (a book that started as an article in Outside magazine) and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, journalist John Branch approaches his subject from various angles. He informs us on the science of weather and snowpack and how avalanches form; the latest trends in backcountry skiing; the biographies of the individuals involved. As a text article, it would be very impressive, and very moving.

But that’s not the full story on this story. As presented online, Branch’s article uses a variety of media: still images and animations, video and audio clips, computer-generated demonstrations of (for example) avalanche activity. And, as Liz points out, all the media are combined in such a way that, as one scrolls to read the article, it all flows and combines smoothly without distracting the reader. How many times have you seen this done the wrong way, where flashing images pull your eyes and/or mind away from the content you’re trying to access? I think I can say that this is the finest multimedia presentation I’ve seen online. Combined with the incredibly powerful story Branch has to tell, this is a unique experience you don’t want to miss.

And with that long introduction…

Filed under: musings | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »