July, 2021 Readings: “The Summer looks out from her brazen tower/Through the flashing bars of July.” (Francis Thompson)

Starting off this month with some sci-fi, Adrian Tchaikovsky's CHILDREN OF TIME.

Just the first book--I don 't tend to get sucked into long, fat series. Life's too short.

Trying to finish History of Europe by J.M.Roberts after a couple of very pleasant interruptions. Not the book that I thought it was going to be but an interesting experience nevertheless.

Just started In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin and read a couple of essays from Under the Sign of Saturn by Susan Sontag.

Currently reading Fowles's Daniel Martin, which is unfortunately about the sort of people I despise.

>4 justifiedsinner: You mean the English.

All Quiet On the Western Front – Erich Marie Remarque
Book on CD narrated by Frank Muller.
4****

From the book jacket: “I am young. I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow.” This is the testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

My reactions;
Many have called this the “greatest war novel of all time.” I’m not certain I agree with that superlative, but it IS a powerful, emotional, gripping, disturbing, enthralling, and honest exploration of war and its affects on the young who become the pawns of their leaders.

Remarque was himself a soldier in World War I, so he was intimately acquainted with both the romantic adventure that lures many a young person to enlist and the despair and terror of the horrors witnessed on the battlefield.

Frank Muller’s performance on the audio book is perfect. He is in turns eager, excited, confused, terrified, gentle, compassionate, ruthless, defeated, or hopeful.

I've had visitors so only now finished Tchaikovsky's CHILDREN OF TIME.

Impressive world-building, a fun ride...but its structure and certain aspects of the narrative brought to mind Vernor Vinge's DEEPNESS IN THE SKY and Colin Wilson's SPIDER WORLD series. Have no idea if the author is even aware of those tomes but there are definitely a few striking similarities.

TENDER BUTTONS by Gertrude Stein.

Written in 1914, before the advent of surrealism or Dada, six years before the publication of another modernist classic, Joyce's ULYSSES.

A perplexing, challenging book, poetic and abstract; very similar to samples of "automatic writing" I've read.

Literature for the brave at heart.

I wish the folks who published the book had provided an introduction, placing TENDER BUTTONS (and Stein) in a context where readers could grasp just how revolutionary and unique this title was/is.

Having just polished off The Shortest History of Germany, I made a quick decision to pull something unread from the TBR pile because of its coming topicality: Wally Funk's Race for Space. In case some readers weren't aware, Mary Wallace (Wally) Funk was one of the Mercury 13 astronaut trainees who went through the same training regime as the Mercury 7 astronauts in 1961 until America decided that a woman's place was not in space. She has spent the years since then doing her best to prove America wrong. Jeff Bezos' first sub-orbital flight is taking Wally along as a passenger, thus getting her (just) into space at the age of 82.

I was pleased to see our own Ian Sales namechecked in the text for including Wally in one of his Apollo Quartet novellas.

>8 RobertDay: I am? I didn't know that :-)

>9 iansales: You're not in the Acknowledgements or 'Sources and Further Reading' sections, but on p.82, Sue Nelson writes of her outline for a BBC World Service/Radio 4 programme:

"The title was easy: 'The First Woman on the Moon'. Who better to present it than a woman who, if history had been more enlightened, could have been the first woman on the lunar surface herself....

In an alternate universe, Wally had already succeeded in going to space. One of the novellas that makes up Ian Sales' Apollo Quartet had reimagined America's space history. In the novelist's world, Dr.Lovelace's Women in Space programme hadn't been cancelled. Women were needed because many American pilots were still fighting a fictionally prolonged Korean war. It resulted in 'Commander Funk' and other women from the Mercury 13 realising their dreams."

THE EARTH IS WEEPING: THE EPIC STORY OF THE INDIAN WARS FOR THE AMERICAN WEST by Peter Cozzens.

There's no such thing as a "definitive" history" of a people or region, but Cozzens' book is the best of its kind I've yet read, and that includes Dee Brown's iconic BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.

THE EARTH IS WEEPING is balanced, informed and extremely well-written.

This one will make my "Best of..." roster this year, guaranteed.

Currently reading Magnus, and also ploughing my way through Daniel Martin.

Little Big Man – Thomas Berger
Audible Audio performed by David Aaron Baker, Scott Sowers, and Henry Strozier.
3.5***, rounded up

Berger’s novel purports to be a memoir/autobiography of Jack Crabb, written with the help of ghost writer Ralph Snell. “Snell” opens the prologue thus: It was my privilege to know the late Jack Crabb – frontiersman, Indian scout, gunfighter, buffalo hunter, adopted Cheyenne – in his final days upon this earth. He goes on to relate how he learned of the reportedly 111-year-old man living in a nursing home, who claimed to be an eyewitness to Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The bulk of the novel is Crabb’s first-person account is life experiences from about 1852 to 1876. Snell then returns in an epilogue to explain that Crabb died shortly after relating that last chapter (Little Bighorn), and he regrets that he was unable to learn more of Crabb’s many exploits through the decades.

I was completely entertained by this novel of the American West. Berger gives the reader quite the raconteur in Crabb, with a gift for story-telling and colorful language. By the narrator’s own account, he certainly has a gift for landing on his feet, managing to get out of more than one potentially deadly scrape by his wits or sheer dumb luck. As he grows from boyhood Crabb is kidnapped / adopted by a Cheyenne tribe, taken in and sheltered by a minister and his wife, “works” as a gambler and gunfighter, hunts buffalo, marries a Scandinavian woman who speaks limited English, and eventually becomes a scout for George Armstrong Custer, thereby witnessing the US Army’s defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Along the way he rejoins the Cheyenne tribe numerous times, listening to the advice of Old Lodge Skins, and relating much of the culture and traditions of that Native tribe, as well as what life was like for the European settlers during that time period.

If the scenarios stretch credulity, well that is part of the fun. We have always looked on the American West with a sort of awe and wonder, elevating many of the historical figures to the level of superhuman legends. Berger sprinkles Crabb’s recollections with a number of these people: Wild Bill Hickock, Wyatt Earp and Custer, among others.

In the epilogue Snell writes ”I leave the choice in your capable hands. Jack Crabb was either the most neglected hero in the history of this country or a liar of insane proportions.. It’s fun to imagine that some “everyman” did witness so much history first hand. His exploits could easily be the inspiration for “Forest Gump.”

The audiobook is performed by a talented trio: David Aaron Baker, Scott Sowers, and Henry Strozier. I do not know which narrated which sections, but they were all good.

Yesterday, I finished Kim Stanley Robinson's THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE and it's taken me til now to (sort of) process it.

Big, sprawling, episodic novel, featuring a large cast of characters, drawn from all classes and walks of life. It depicts an all-too-near future when humanity is finally forced to deal with the environmental mess we've made. There are periodic pauses to lecture readers on economics, science, coding, etc. which some might find off-putting.

I found the novel challenging, brilliant, credible, ambitious and bold.

One of the best I've read this year.

Where We Come From – Oscar Cásares
4.5****

The setting is Brownsville, Texas, a border town with a mean reputation as a haven for human traffickers and drug runners. Some of the reputation is based in fact. But it’s also a community of hard-working, middle-class people who want nothing but a safe home for their children, decent schools, good roads, a thriving business district and reliable city services. Cásares focuses on one such family.

Nina is the only daughter, and now in her early 60s finds herself living with her invalid mother, having been forced by her older brothers (who are all married with families of their own) to abandon her teaching career and her own house to “do her duty as the only girl.” When her maid asks for a favor, Nina agrees. A small pink house at the back of their property was to be a rental property, but it’s empty, and Rumalda wonders if her sister-in-law and niece could stay there for a day or two. Nina agrees and becomes ensnared in a group of human smugglers. When her 13-year-old godson comes for an extended visit, she’s in a panic lest he discover her secret.

I really enjoyed this exploration of a complex issue. There are multiple layers to the novel and much fodder for discussion, from the many instances of mother/child relationships in all their variety and nuance, to the vivid descriptions of a landscape that is very familiar to me, to the bursts of humor, to the fear of discovery, to the loneliness each of them suffers, and to the fanciful flight of parrots who cross the man-made border at will. (Yes, the river is natural, but it’s man who made it a border between nations.)

I had the pleasure of participating in an author event via Zoom courtesy of my local independent book store. That discussion made me appreciate the novel even more.

THE QUIET BOY, the latest offering from Ben H. Winters.

Wesley Keener suffers a serious injury at school and the resulting treatment leaves him in a bizarre state: he walks endlessly, never ages, eats or makes waste.

A mix of the real (the malpractice case against the hospital is well-researched) and the uncanny. Definitely perfect for a summer read.

BENEATH MY FEET: WRITERS ON WALKING, edited by Duncan Minshull.

Should've been a slam dunk--writers ruminating on the value of taking long walks about the city or countryside--but rather a hit-and-miss selection.

Strong segments by Leslie Stephens, Will Self and Charles Dickens (one of literature's all time great flaneurs) but Thoreau's piece is tedious, as is Hazlitt's contribution (two of the longest excerpts in the book).

Lovely little edition, very nice size and format, would make a neat gift for any great walkers you might know.

The Old Gringo – Carlos Fuentes
1*

The novel is framed as the reminiscence of a woman. An old journalist heads to Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution seeking, not a story, but his death. He joins with a band of Pancho Villa’s guerilla fighters, led by General Tomas Arroyo, and witnesses events as they destroy all but the mirrored ballroom of a great hacienda. There he encounters a white woman, Harriet Winslow. Harriet had been hired as a governess for the owner’s children, but they had all fled by the time she arrived from the US, and now she is stranded and yet determined to stay and defend the property as best she can.

There has been much praise for this work; it was the first translated work by a Mexican author to become a bestseller in the United States. But I had great difficulty engaging with the characters and the plot, such as it was.

Fuentes interrupts the action with long stream-of-consciousness soliloquies by each of his characters. Some of these consist of one long sentence that takes more than a page of text to get through. Now, I’ve read other works with a similar technique – Jose Saramago’s works come to mind – and I’ve enjoyed them. But in this book, I felt that these interludes did nothing so much as interrupt the meager story and make me like the book even less.

Then there are the sex scenes. I’ll say this for Fuentes, he doesn’t pull any punches. But he also has NO IDEA how women think or what motivates them to act the way they do. These are nothing but a macho man’s fantasy. Enough said.

The Old Gringo in the story is based on Ambrose Bierce, an historical figure who disappeared shortly after he travelled to Mexico during that country’s revolution. But the name is mentioned only once towards the very end of the book.

One final note about the title of the English translation. The originally titled book in Spanish is Gringo Viejo, which does NOT include an article. So, the English title should not have that leading “The” either. A small irritation.

A Long Petal Of the Sea – Isabel Allende
Book on CD performed by Edoardo Ballerini
4****

A family epic covering six decades of history from 1930s Spanish Civil War to 1990s in Chile.

This is the kind of historical fiction at which Allende excels. She seamlessly weaves the real historical events into the story line, while giving the reader characters that come alive on the page and about which we come to care.

She begins with Part 1: War and Exodus, set in the late 1930s in Spain, which is gripped by Civil War. The Dalmau family’s two sons, Guilem and Victor, are both serving at the front – Guilem as a soldier, Victor as a “doctor” (though he doesn’t yet have his degree). Meanwhile, back in Barcelona, Professor Dalmau has opened their home to Roser Bruguera, a young woman with remarkable musical ability and no family ties.

The story follows the Dalmaus as they flee Spain for France, and ultimately sail to Chile to start anew. It is on this voyage to Chile that they encounter the del Solars, a wealthy, influential family. Felipe, the eldest son, and Ofelia, their headstrong daughter will become intimately connected to the Dalmaus.

Among the characters are real-life figures: Salvador Allende, General Augusto Pinochet and Pablo Neruda. The title comes from Neruda’s description of his homeland; he defined Chile as a “long petal of sea and wine and snow…with a belt of black and white foam”.

Central to this work, as to all of Allende’s novels, are the strong women. Roser and Ofelia certainly take center stage. But the older women – Carme, Laura and Juana – are equally strong, resilient, intelligent and determined.

There are a few elements of magical realism, a literary device for which Allende is well-known. But this is not a central focus of the work, and I wouldn’t classify the book, as a whole, as magical realism.

Edoardo Ballerini does a marvelous job performing the audio version. He has a gift for language and for making each character uniquely recognizable. 5***** for his narration.