Reviews Written By: A11MLCDN9TR0PBprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | Dubliners | |
 | "Bildungsroman" | 2009-09-29 |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners
--By James Joyce Joyce's earlier works are his most accessible and personal. His semi-autobiographical "Portrait of the Artist" traces the personal and spiritual growth of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. The narrator encounters a series of physical and spiritual experiences, including losing his virginity and wrestling with his faith, on the journey to manhood. He is attracted toward the priesthood because of its ceremony, but afraid of the commitment it requires: "A flame began to flutter on Stephens's cheek as he heard in this (priest's) proud address an echo of his own proud musings. How often had he seen himself as a priest wielding calmly and humbly the awful power of which angels and saints stood in reverence. He had seen himself, a young and silent-mannered priest, entering a confessional swiftly, ascending to the altar steps, incensing, genuflecting, and accomplishing the vague acts of the priesthood which pleased him by reason of their semblance to reality and of their distance from it." "A Portrait of the Artist" ranks among the finest autobiographical essays like "The Education of Henry Adams." "Dubliners" is more a series of vignettes than a collection of conventional short stories. In stories like "Araby," the narrator has a sudden revelation or insight (Joyce called it "epiphany") that brings out a significant truth. The boy who narrates "Araby" dreams of going to a street fair where he hopes to meet a girl, but his uncle is late getting home to give him the money. He arrives as the fair is closing, and lingers while the carny's finish their work. "I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar... I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. Gazing up in the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." Joyce's language is sparse and economical, but still evocative of a time and mood. | ||
 | Dubliners (Twentieth-Century Classics) | |
| "Bildungsroman" | 2009-09-29 |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners
--By James Joyce Joyce's earlier works are his most accessible and personal. His semi-autobiographical "Portrait of the Artist" traces the personal and spiritual growth of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. The narrator encounters a series of physical and spiritual experiences, including losing his virginity and wrestling with his faith, on the journey to manhood. He is attracted toward the priesthood because of its ceremony, but afraid of the commitment it requires: "A flame began to flutter on Stephens's cheek as he heard in this (priest's) proud address an echo of his own proud musings. How often had he seen himself as a priest wielding calmly and humbly the awful power of which angels and saints stood in reverence. He had seen himself, a young and silent-mannered priest, entering a confessional swiftly, ascending to the altar steps, incensing, genuflecting, and accomplishing the vague acts of the priesthood which pleased him by reason of their semblance to reality and of their distance from it." "A Portrait of the Artist" ranks among the finest autobiographical essays like "The Education of Henry Adams." "Dubliners" is more a series of vignettes than a collection of conventional short stories. In stories like "Araby," the narrator has a sudden revelation or insight (Joyce called it "epiphany") that brings out a significant truth. The boy who narrates "Araby" dreams of going to a street fair where he hopes to meet a girl, but his uncle is late getting home to give him the money. He arrives as the fair is closing, and lingers while the carny's finish their work. "I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar... I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. Gazing up in the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." Joyce's language is sparse and economical, but still evocative of a time and mood. | ||
 | Dubliners (Dover Thrift Editions) | |
| "Bildungsroman" | 2009-09-29 |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners
--By James Joyce Joyce's earlier works are his most accessible and personal. His semi-autobiographical "Portrait of the Artist" traces the personal and spiritual growth of the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. The narrator encounters a series of physical and spiritual experiences, including losing his virginity and wrestling with his faith, on the journey to manhood. He is attracted toward the priesthood because of its ceremony, but afraid of the commitment it requires: "A flame began to flutter on Stephens's cheek as he heard in this (priest's) proud address an echo of his own proud musings. How often had he seen himself as a priest wielding calmly and humbly the awful power of which angels and saints stood in reverence. He had seen himself, a young and silent-mannered priest, entering a confessional swiftly, ascending to the altar steps, incensing, genuflecting, and accomplishing the vague acts of the priesthood which pleased him by reason of their semblance to reality and of their distance from it." "A Portrait of the Artist" ranks among the finest autobiographical essays like "The Education of Henry Adams." "Dubliners" is more a series of vignettes than a collection of conventional short stories. In stories like "Araby," the narrator has a sudden revelation or insight (Joyce called it "epiphany") that brings out a significant truth. The boy who narrates "Araby" dreams of going to a street fair where he hopes to meet a girl, but his uncle is late getting home to give him the money. He arrives as the fair is closing, and lingers while the carny's finish their work. "I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar... I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. Gazing up in the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." Joyce's language is sparse and economical, but still evocative of a time and mood. | ||
 | On the Waterfront | |
| ""D and D. Deaf and Dumb"" | 2009-08-07 |
| On the Waterfront (Special Edition) On The Waterfront Elia Kazan's classic 1954 film "On The Waterfront" isn't just great drama; it's serious social commentary as well. Based on the book by Budd Schulberg, "On the Waterfront" is the story of ex prize fighter Terry Molloy. Terry, who famously claims "I coulda been a contender," has lost a few brain cells along the way, and now hangs out on the wharf where his brother Charley The Gent (Rod Steiger) looks out for him in Johnny Friendly's (Lee J. Cobb's) crooked empire. Terry is drawn into the hostile and dangerous game of intrigue when his brother pressures him to spy on the Parish Priest played by Karl Malden, who is organizing a rival gang to take on the hoodlums. Terry says he doesn't want to be a "stoolie" for Johnny. "On the docks we've always been "D" and "D" - Deaf and Dumb." Considering Kazan was being pilloried in Hollywood for naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, his cinematic treatment of informing on colleagues has always been controversial. With the death in August, 2009, of Budd Schulberg at age 95, the story has come full circle. It's difficult in these days to comprehend the paranoia of the post-WWII world, when Russia was the devil, and people saw Communists under every bed. The pressure on Hollywood was tremendous. The LA Times quoted Schulberg as saying: "I was interested in social conditions on the waterfront and drawing a truthful story, not in justifying my position." The cast of this classic is uniformly good: Steiger, Cobb, Malden, the "newcomer" Eva Marie Saint, and the truly outstanding character actors and non-professionals who play the dockworkers... street-hardened, hard-drinking, and accustomed to playing by the rules of the docks. The Score by Leonard Bernstein is dramatic and powerful, and Kazan's direction takes on the gritty, noir character of the docks. It's not surprising "On The Waterfront" garnered eight Academy Awards in 1954 - for Best Picture, Best Director (Kazan); Best Actor (Brando); Best Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint); Best Screenplay (Schulberg), and four nominations. -- 30 -- | ||
 | On the Waterfront | |
| ""D and D. Deaf and Dumb"" | 2009-08-07 |
| On the Waterfront (Special Edition) On The Waterfront Elia Kazan's classic 1954 film "On The Waterfront" isn't just great drama; it's serious social commentary as well. Based on the book by Budd Schulberg, "On the Waterfront" is the story of ex prize fighter Terry Molloy. Terry, who famously claims "I coulda been a contender," has lost a few brain cells along the way, and now hangs out on the wharf where his brother Charley The Gent (Rod Steiger) looks out for him in Johnny Friendly's (Lee J. Cobb's) crooked empire. Terry is drawn into the hostile and dangerous game of intrigue when his brother pressures him to spy on the Parish Priest played by Karl Malden, who is organizing a rival gang to take on the hoodlums. Terry says he doesn't want to be a "stoolie" for Johnny. "On the docks we've always been "D" and "D" - Deaf and Dumb." Considering Kazan was being pilloried in Hollywood for naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, his cinematic treatment of informing on colleagues has always been controversial. With the death in August, 2009, of Budd Schulberg at age 95, the story has come full circle. It's difficult in these days to comprehend the paranoia of the post-WWII world, when Russia was the devil, and people saw Communists under every bed. The pressure on Hollywood was tremendous. The LA Times quoted Schulberg as saying: "I was interested in social conditions on the waterfront and drawing a truthful story, not in justifying my position." The cast of this classic is uniformly good: Steiger, Cobb, Malden, the "newcomer" Eva Marie Saint, and the truly outstanding character actors and non-professionals who play the dockworkers... street-hardened, hard-drinking, and accustomed to playing by the rules of the docks. The Score by Leonard Bernstein is dramatic and powerful, and Kazan's direction takes on the gritty, noir character of the docks. It's not surprising "On The Waterfront" garnered eight Academy Awards in 1954 - for Best Picture, Best Director (Kazan); Best Actor (Brando); Best Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint); Best Screenplay (Schulberg), and four nominations. -- 30 -- | ||
 | The Castle : A new translation based on the restored text | |
 | "Existential Angst" | 2009-06-24 |
| THE CASTLE by Franz Kafka (Hardcover Definitive Edition) The Castle I found it interesting to read the customer reviews of Kafka's "The Castle." It is obvious that there are no clear answers to what the book "means." Is it an analogy to modern, impersonal society; a condemnation of bureaucracy; a search for salvation; a quest for enlightenment over ignorance? The protagonist, "K", is a land-surveyor, purportedly retained by The Authorities to do some work. But what he is supposed to do is never made clear. He needs to meet with The Director, but somehow can never make contact with him. Along the way, he meets a number of characters --- The Mayor, The Barmaid, various assistants - all of whom present their view of reality. I can see The Castle as an existentialist play, perhaps by Pirandello or Brecht, or even Beckett. There is virtually no plot, and very little in the way of character development. The work ends in mid- sentence, suspended in time and space. The Castle itself is both a literal stone-and-mortar structure and a metaphor for impersonal authority...perhaps even a Dante-esque representation of hell. It is probably helpful to consider "The Castle" in its historical and social context: the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and end of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and the threshold of World War. So "K" is Modern Man: alienated, alone, disaffected, consumed with angst and ennui. | ||
 | The Castle | |
| "Existential Angst" | 2009-06-24 |
| THE CASTLE by Franz Kafka (Hardcover Definitive Edition) The Castle I found it interesting to read the customer reviews of Kafka's "The Castle." It is obvious that there are no clear answers to what the book "means." Is it an analogy to modern, impersonal society; a condemnation of bureaucracy; a search for salvation; a quest for enlightenment over ignorance? The protagonist, "K", is a land-surveyor, purportedly retained by The Authorities to do some work. But what he is supposed to do is never made clear. He needs to meet with The Director, but somehow can never make contact with him. Along the way, he meets a number of characters --- The Mayor, The Barmaid, various assistants - all of whom present their view of reality. I can see The Castle as an existentialist play, perhaps by Pirandello or Brecht, or even Beckett. There is virtually no plot, and very little in the way of character development. The work ends in mid- sentence, suspended in time and space. The Castle itself is both a literal stone-and-mortar structure and a metaphor for impersonal authority...perhaps even a Dante-esque representation of hell. It is probably helpful to consider "The Castle" in its historical and social context: the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and end of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and the threshold of World War. So "K" is Modern Man: alienated, alone, disaffected, consumed with angst and ennui. | ||
 | The Castle (Everyman's Library) | |
| "Existential Angst" | 2009-06-24 |
| THE CASTLE by Franz Kafka (Hardcover Definitive Edition) The Castle I found it interesting to read the customer reviews of Kafka's "The Castle." It is obvious that there are no clear answers to what the book "means." Is it an analogy to modern, impersonal society; a condemnation of bureaucracy; a search for salvation; a quest for enlightenment over ignorance? The protagonist, "K", is a land-surveyor, purportedly retained by The Authorities to do some work. But what he is supposed to do is never made clear. He needs to meet with The Director, but somehow can never make contact with him. Along the way, he meets a number of characters --- The Mayor, The Barmaid, various assistants - all of whom present their view of reality. I can see The Castle as an existentialist play, perhaps by Pirandello or Brecht, or even Beckett. There is virtually no plot, and very little in the way of character development. The work ends in mid- sentence, suspended in time and space. The Castle itself is both a literal stone-and-mortar structure and a metaphor for impersonal authority...perhaps even a Dante-esque representation of hell. It is probably helpful to consider "The Castle" in its historical and social context: the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and end of the Hapsburg Dynasty, and the threshold of World War. So "K" is Modern Man: alienated, alone, disaffected, consumed with angst and ennui. | ||
 | Wittgenstein's Vienna | |
| "The Birth of the Modern" | 2009-05-17 |
| Wittgenstein's Vienna Wittgenstein's Vienna Ludwig Wittgenstein was the youngest of eight children born to Austrian steel tycoon Karl Wittgenstein. At the family's sumptuous estate, major figures of European cultural life frequently appeared and performed... among them Mahler and Brahms. The entire brilliant but dysfunctional family was musically and intellectually gifted. Paul Wittgenstein was a world-renowned classical pianist despite the loss of one arm. Two of his brothers committed suicide within a few years of each other, and a third killed himself during World War I. Karl Wittgenstein was the undisputed master of his universe, tolerating no deviation from his standards by his children. A mathematical and musical prodigy largely tutored at home, Wittgenstein distinguished himself in philosophy at Cambridge and became a protégé of Bertrand Russell. His most influential philosophical treatise, Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus, was not published until after his death. Wittgenstein's Vienna was an astonishing confluence of creativity. Psychiatrists argued with conventional medical practitioners; poets talked with painters; philosophers argued with theologians. The Vienna of Wittgenstein's time was a city of paradoxes. Described by some as a second-rate power, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was characterized by extremely bourgeois values, excessively ornamental art, and mindless obedience to order and discipline. In their excellent overview of Hapsburg Vienna, "Wittgenstein's Vienna," Alan Janik and Stephen Toulmin write: "As the Good Old Days drew to a close, Vienna was above all a city of the bourgeoisie. Most of the leading figures in all fields came from a bourgeoise background. Though Vienna had been a commercial center from time immemorial and had been the center of large=scale public administration since the reign of Maria Theresa, the Viennese bourgeoisie acquired its individual character during the third quarter of the nineteenth century. ... if any single factor can be singled out to account for the special character of Vienna's bourgeois society... it is the failure of liberalism in the political sphere." Against this background came a group of intellectuals and artists dedicated to reforming the antiquated society. Led by Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, the composer Arnold Schonberg, and Gustav Klimpt. They organized a withdrawal from the Royal Academy, calling it "The Secession" and built a monument to it , "The Secession House." The motto of the movement was "Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit" ("To the era its proper art, and to art its proper function."" This is brilliant social and cultural history, well worth the reading. See Also: A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 Thunder At Twilight, Vienna 1913/1914 The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius | ||
 | At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel | |
| ""The Evil Thing is the English in Ireland"" | 2009-04-05 |
| At Swim, Two Boys: A Novel "The Evil Thing is The English in Ireland" "A moment - then all of a glow the sun is on Jim's face. He looks up where the clouds have parted. The sun shines and bathes the world, and the land trembles at the touch. How green are the fields, how lush the grass. Each blade of grass glistens, and the leaves of the trees and hedges glisten with a silvery light all their own. The crows above cease their mockery. The fat contented cows look up in wonder. How rich is this land. It is a rich and rare land. Why wouldn't it be rare, fed on the martyred dead?" Jamie O'Neill's "At Swim, Two Boys" can be read on several levels. On one level, it is a love story between two adolescent boys: one educated, privileged and destined for success; the other destitute, partially crippled, seduced and corrupted by the gentry, and likely condemned to a Dickensian life among the poor. On another level, it is a rich social and political history of the buildup to the Easter Rising of 1916 which, coming during the First World War, provides a natural dramatic backdrop. Irish Nationalism, Wolf Tone, the Green Flag and the Red Hand, Parnell , Roger Casement and the whole raft of heroes, traitors and martyrs figures in. At yet another point, it is an evocation of the rich literary heritage of Ireland: Joyce's Ulysses and Dubliners; Yeat's poems and plays, and Wilde's iconoclasm and social commentary. There is enough material in O'Neill's book to keep your interest for at least a couple of weeks. (After all, it took O'Neill ten years of working as a night porter at a London psychiatric institution to write it) O'Neill's style is intimidating at first ---local geographic references, Irish idioms and gaelic phrases. Several reviewers have faulted him for his hermetic difficulty-- but once you get the hang of it, it's understandable. (Joyce was no quick and easy read, either) The characters are well-developed and complex. Jim Mack, the senstitive, intelligent boy, is dogged by a brother fighting in Gallipoli and a bourgeoise father. Doyler is the patriotic - even radical - Irish "everyman." With his winning grin and boyish charm he's extremely likeable. MacMurrough is the most complicated character, modeled on Wilde and also imprisoned by the British for sodomy, he is apparently schizophrenic, possessed by the voices of conscience and of experience. Beginning as the seducer and corrupter, he becomes the protector and mentor. It has been many years since I've read a novel with as much substance, charm and emotion as O'Neill's "At Swim, Two Boys." Hopefully, there will be more to follow. | ||
 | The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Penguin Classics) | |
| "Mystifying " | 2009-02-20 |
| The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (Thrift Edition) The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket "The mystery of our being in existence was now soon explained. We had been run down by the whaling-ship, which was close hauled, beating up to Nantucket with every sail she could venture to set, and consequently running almost at right angles to our own course. Several men were on the look-out forward, but did not perceive our boat until it was an impossibility to avoid coming in contact -- their shouts of warning upon seeing us were what so terribly alarmed me. The huge ship, I was told, rode immediately over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would have passed over a feather." The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, Chapter 1 There are those authors you discover as a youngster, fall in love with, and then revisit as an adult. For me, they were Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe. As an imaginative fourteen year old, I would get that delicious rush of anticipation when I sat down with an as-yet-unread "Sherlock Holmes" or "The Cask of Amontillado" or "Fall of the House of Usher." I'd imagine myself trudging across the moors in "Hound of the Baskervilles," camping out with my pet Wolf in the Klondike, or diving 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Now, 50-something years later, I still get the adrenalin rush. But for real, keep-the-lights-on-all-night terror, there's nothing like Edgar Allan Poe. But after all the anticipation, in the case of Poe's only full-length novel, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym," I was disappointed. The book takes forever to tell the story; and when it does, the "narrative" is disjointed and spotty. I wonder if Poe got paid by the word to serialize it. I found my mind wandering as I read it. I even tried reading it on the Internet and it wasn't any better. As to the details, they are myriad and confusing.Young Arthur Gordon Pym and his friend Augustus devise a plan to run away to sea on the Grampus, a whale ship. Pym stows away (with his Labrador retriever, who mysteriously appears out of nowhere) andhides in a cubby deep in the ship. His friend Augustus tries to keep him supplied with food and water but is captured by mutineers. The crew divides into two armed camps. They drift for miles, run out of food, and are reduced to cannibalism. They find themselves in Antarctica among penguins and albatross and encounter bizarre tribes. Is this a re-incarnation of "Gulliver's' Travels?" I asked myself. I came away completely mystified, and returned to Poe's more familiar, and accessible, short stories. | ||
 | The Complete Stories | |
| "Better in the Original " | 2009-02-17 |
| The Complete Stories As Molly Ivins once memorably said of a speech by Pat Buchanan, "It probably sounded better in the original German." | ||
 | The Log from the Sea of Cortez (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) | |
| "The Abyss" | 2009-02-14 |
| The Log from the "Sea of Cortez" (Penguin Modern Classics) The Log from the Sea of Cortez "How deep this thing must be, the giver and the receiver again; the boat designed through millenniums of trial and error by the human consciousness, the boat which has no counterpart in nature unless it be a dry leaf fallen by accident into a stream. And Man receiving back from Boat a warping of his psyche so that the sight of a boat riding in the water clenches a fist of emotion in his chest.... This is not mysticism, but identification: man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools has in turn received a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul." The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck In 1940, fresh from the success of the publication of "The Grapes of Wrath" but in the throes of marital difficulties, John Steinbeck teamed up with marine biologist and friend Ed Ricketts for a six-week marine exploration of the Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California. They chartered a 76-foot purse-seiner, hired a crew, stocked tons of provisions, and headed for the waters that separate Baja California from the mainland of Mexico. While the object of the trip was to collect specimens of marine life, it became a sort of Homeric voyage of self-discovery. It also preceded by several decades the ground-breaking environmental journalism of Rachel Carson, raising issues of commercial over- fishing and chemical pollution. Steinbeck shows an impressive scientific knowledge and has a deft prose style. His non-fiction is worth reading. | ||
 | At the Hands of Persons Unknown : The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library) | |
| "The Hanging Tree" | 2009-02-07 |
| At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks) In the nineteen-twenties, Indiana was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. In the period following the First World War, popular sentiment supported the Klan¡¦s xenophobic, anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, and anti-black philosophy. The Grand Kleagle of the Klan in Indiana, D.C. Stevenson, boasted "I am the Law in Indiana" He was right: the Klan owned the Governor¡¦s office, the legislature, and many white males belonged to the Klan just as they would another fraternal organization like the Elks or the Lions Club. Lynching was not unknown in Indiana: in 1930, there was a public lynching of two black men believed to have made inappropriate passes at a white woman (the ultimate violation of racial etiquette), in Marion, Indiana. A famous photograph of the affair was widely circulated as a picture postcard. A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in AmericaCitizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 Having lived in Indiana in the 1960's and 1970's, I have seen some Klan activity as a journalist. I once covered a Klan rally in Southern Indiana, parts of which are as southern as Mississippi or Alabama. Against this background, Philip Dray has written a masterful and moving history of Lynching in America. He writes: ¡§The high degree of ritual seen in the Smith lynching and many others ¡V the use of fire, the sacredness of objects associated with the killing, the symbolic taking of trophies of the victims¡¦ remains, the sense of celebratory anticipation and then the lingering importance participants placed on such events --all suggest an anthropological basis for viewing lynching as a form of ritual sacrifice.¨ (P. 79) It took a dedicated group of men and women to abolish lynching just as it had to abolish slavery decades earlier. Dray examines the work of Walter White, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee University in bringing to light, and doing away with, the shame of the lynch mob. Reconstruction, and the period that followed it, continues to be one of the darkest periods in US history. Suggestions for further reading: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox | ||
 | At the Hands of Persons Unknown : The Lynching of Black America | |
| "The Hanging Tree" | 2009-02-07 |
| At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks) In the nineteen-twenties, Indiana was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity. In the period following the First World War, popular sentiment supported the Klan¡¦s xenophobic, anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, and anti-black philosophy. The Grand Kleagle of the Klan in Indiana, D.C. Stevenson, boasted "I am the Law in Indiana" He was right: the Klan owned the Governor¡¦s office, the legislature, and many white males belonged to the Klan just as they would another fraternal organization like the Elks or the Lions Club. Lynching was not unknown in Indiana: in 1930, there was a public lynching of two black men believed to have made inappropriate passes at a white woman (the ultimate violation of racial etiquette), in Marion, Indiana. A famous photograph of the affair was widely circulated as a picture postcard. A Lynching in the Heartland: Race and Memory in AmericaCitizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 Having lived in Indiana in the 1960's and 1970's, I have seen some Klan activity as a journalist. I once covered a Klan rally in Southern Indiana, parts of which are as southern as Mississippi or Alabama. Against this background, Philip Dray has written a masterful and moving history of Lynching in America. He writes: ¡§The high degree of ritual seen in the Smith lynching and many others ¡V the use of fire, the sacredness of objects associated with the killing, the symbolic taking of trophies of the victims¡¦ remains, the sense of celebratory anticipation and then the lingering importance participants placed on such events --all suggest an anthropological basis for viewing lynching as a form of ritual sacrifice.¨ (P. 79) It took a dedicated group of men and women to abolish lynching just as it had to abolish slavery decades earlier. Dray examines the work of Walter White, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington and Tuskegee University in bringing to light, and doing away with, the shame of the lynch mob. Reconstruction, and the period that followed it, continues to be one of the darkest periods in US history. Suggestions for further reading: Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox | ||
 | The Quiet American (Penguin Classics) | |
| ""I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" " | 2009-01-30 |
| The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) "I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" Graham Greene's exploration of the French Indochina Wars evokes memories for me of Saigon, the media's coverage of the war, and my own participation as a military journalist (now there's an oxymoron if there ever was one) Written in 1955, "The Quiet American" precedes US involvement by ten years, but it accurately forecast the gradual insinuation of US influence through the CIA, for which Pyle presumably worked. The story works on several levels: as a romantic novel in which the older man, Fowler, duels with Pyle for the affection of the Vietnamese girl Phuong; as an indictment of French and British colonialism; and as an allegory of war. Fowler is the British expatriate - middle aged, cynical, addicted to his opium pipe, and detached. Pyle is the young, college-educated American covert operative, ostensibly working for the Economic Attaché, but probably involved in arms deals. (One of his shipments, imported under the guise of economic aid, actually is plastics - probably explosives.) In one pivotal scene, Fowler travels north to see the action with his own eyes, rather than through the prism of French public relations. Pyle hitches a ride and joins him - then, in a masterful dramatic scene, prevails on Fowler to let him, Pyle, take Phuong. Unlike the American journalists, who spend their days listening to official explanations, and their nights drinking at the bar at the Continental Hotel (where I, too, drank in the evenings), Fowler wants to get out in the field. When he travels north, he finds evidence that things aren't going as well as the French High Command would have him believe: "Now, after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. " Fowler perceived what few others did: "We are the old colonial peoples, Pyle, but we've learned a bit of reality. We've learned not to play with matches. This Third Force - it comes out of a book, that's all. General The's only a bandit with a few thousand men; he's not a national democracy" It was as if he had been staring at me through a letterbox to see who was there, and now, letting the flap fall, had shut out the unwelcome intruder. His eyes were out of sight." I don't know what you mean, Thomas." "Those bicycle bombs. They were a good joke, even though one man did lose a foot. But Pyle, you can't trust men like The'. They aren't going to save the east from Communism. We know their kind." "We?' "The old colonialists." "I thought you took no sides." "I don't, Pyle, but if someone has got to make a mess of things in your outfit, leave it to Joe. Go home with Phuong. Forget the Third Force." Pyle's naïve faith in the ability of the people to forge their own destiny echoes more recent American intervention in foreign affairs. | ||
 | The Quiet American | |
| ""I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" " | 2009-01-30 |
| The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) "I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" Graham Greene's exploration of the French Indochina Wars evokes memories for me of Saigon, the media's coverage of the war, and my own participation as a military journalist (now there's an oxymoron if there ever was one) Written in 1955, "The Quiet American" precedes US involvement by ten years, but it accurately forecast the gradual insinuation of US influence through the CIA, for which Pyle presumably worked. The story works on several levels: as a romantic novel in which the older man, Fowler, duels with Pyle for the affection of the Vietnamese girl Phuong; as an indictment of French and British colonialism; and as an allegory of war. Fowler is the British expatriate - middle aged, cynical, addicted to his opium pipe, and detached. Pyle is the young, college-educated American covert operative, ostensibly working for the Economic Attaché, but probably involved in arms deals. (One of his shipments, imported under the guise of economic aid, actually is plastics - probably explosives.) In one pivotal scene, Fowler travels north to see the action with his own eyes, rather than through the prism of French public relations. Pyle hitches a ride and joins him - then, in a masterful dramatic scene, prevails on Fowler to let him, Pyle, take Phuong. Unlike the American journalists, who spend their days listening to official explanations, and their nights drinking at the bar at the Continental Hotel (where I, too, drank in the evenings), Fowler wants to get out in the field. When he travels north, he finds evidence that things aren't going as well as the French High Command would have him believe: "Now, after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. " Fowler perceived what few others did: "We are the old colonial peoples, Pyle, but we've learned a bit of reality. We've learned not to play with matches. This Third Force - it comes out of a book, that's all. General The's only a bandit with a few thousand men; he's not a national democracy" It was as if he had been staring at me through a letterbox to see who was there, and now, letting the flap fall, had shut out the unwelcome intruder. His eyes were out of sight." I don't know what you mean, Thomas." "Those bicycle bombs. They were a good joke, even though one man did lose a foot. But Pyle, you can't trust men like The'. They aren't going to save the east from Communism. We know their kind." "We?' "The old colonialists." "I thought you took no sides." "I don't, Pyle, but if someone has got to make a mess of things in your outfit, leave it to Joe. Go home with Phuong. Forget the Third Force." Pyle's naïve faith in the ability of the people to forge their own destiny echoes more recent American intervention in foreign affairs. | ||
 | The Quiet American | |
| ""I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" " | 2009-01-30 |
| The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) "I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" Graham Greene's exploration of the French Indochina Wars evokes memories for me of Saigon, the media's coverage of the war, and my own participation as a military journalist (now there's an oxymoron if there ever was one) Written in 1955, "The Quiet American" precedes US involvement by ten years, but it accurately forecast the gradual insinuation of US influence through the CIA, for which Pyle presumably worked. The story works on several levels: as a romantic novel in which the older man, Fowler, duels with Pyle for the affection of the Vietnamese girl Phuong; as an indictment of French and British colonialism; and as an allegory of war. Fowler is the British expatriate - middle aged, cynical, addicted to his opium pipe, and detached. Pyle is the young, college-educated American covert operative, ostensibly working for the Economic Attaché, but probably involved in arms deals. (One of his shipments, imported under the guise of economic aid, actually is plastics - probably explosives.) In one pivotal scene, Fowler travels north to see the action with his own eyes, rather than through the prism of French public relations. Pyle hitches a ride and joins him - then, in a masterful dramatic scene, prevails on Fowler to let him, Pyle, take Phuong. Unlike the American journalists, who spend their days listening to official explanations, and their nights drinking at the bar at the Continental Hotel (where I, too, drank in the evenings), Fowler wants to get out in the field. When he travels north, he finds evidence that things aren't going as well as the French High Command would have him believe: "Now, after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. " Fowler perceived what few others did: "We are the old colonial peoples, Pyle, but we've learned a bit of reality. We've learned not to play with matches. This Third Force - it comes out of a book, that's all. General The's only a bandit with a few thousand men; he's not a national democracy" It was as if he had been staring at me through a letterbox to see who was there, and now, letting the flap fall, had shut out the unwelcome intruder. His eyes were out of sight." I don't know what you mean, Thomas." "Those bicycle bombs. They were a good joke, even though one man did lose a foot. But Pyle, you can't trust men like The'. They aren't going to save the east from Communism. We know their kind." "We?' "The old colonialists." "I thought you took no sides." "I don't, Pyle, but if someone has got to make a mess of things in your outfit, leave it to Joe. Go home with Phuong. Forget the Third Force." Pyle's naïve faith in the ability of the people to forge their own destiny echoes more recent American intervention in foreign affairs. | ||
 | The Quiet American (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) | |
| ""I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" " | 2009-01-30 |
| The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) "I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war" Graham Greene's exploration of the French Indochina Wars evokes memories for me of Saigon, the media's coverage of the war, and my own participation as a military journalist (now there's an oxymoron if there ever was one) Written in 1955, "The Quiet American" precedes US involvement by ten years, but it accurately forecast the gradual insinuation of US influence through the CIA, for which Pyle presumably worked. The story works on several levels: as a romantic novel in which the older man, Fowler, duels with Pyle for the affection of the Vietnamese girl Phuong; as an indictment of French and British colonialism; and as an allegory of war. Fowler is the British expatriate - middle aged, cynical, addicted to his opium pipe, and detached. Pyle is the young, college-educated American covert operative, ostensibly working for the Economic Attaché, but probably involved in arms deals. (One of his shipments, imported under the guise of economic aid, actually is plastics - probably explosives.) In one pivotal scene, Fowler travels north to see the action with his own eyes, rather than through the prism of French public relations. Pyle hitches a ride and joins him - then, in a masterful dramatic scene, prevails on Fowler to let him, Pyle, take Phuong. Unlike the American journalists, who spend their days listening to official explanations, and their nights drinking at the bar at the Continental Hotel (where I, too, drank in the evenings), Fowler wants to get out in the field. When he travels north, he finds evidence that things aren't going as well as the French High Command would have him believe: "Now, after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. " Fowler perceived what few others did: "We are the old colonial peoples, Pyle, but we've learned a bit of reality. We've learned not to play with matches. This Third Force - it comes out of a book, that's all. General The's only a bandit with a few thousand men; he's not a national democracy" It was as if he had been staring at me through a letterbox to see who was there, and now, letting the flap fall, had shut out the unwelcome intruder. His eyes were out of sight." I don't know what you mean, Thomas." "Those bicycle bombs. They were a good joke, even though one man did lose a foot. But Pyle, you can't trust men like The'. They aren't going to save the east from Communism. We know their kind." "We?' "The old colonialists." "I thought you took no sides." "I don't, Pyle, but if someone has got to make a mess of things in your outfit, leave it to Joe. Go home with Phuong. Forget the Third Force." Pyle's naïve faith in the ability of the people to forge their own destiny echoes more recent American intervention in foreign affairs. | ||
 | The Comedians (Twentieth Century Classics) | |
| "Life as Comedy " | 2009-01-25 |
| "The Comedians" is one of Graham Greene's best novels. Set in the nebulous world of Papa Doc's Haiti, it is a story of intrigue, betrayal, and faith. Three strangers ... the narrator, Mr. Brown, the idealist, Mr. Smith, and the confidence Man, Mr Jones, meet on a broken-down Dutch freighter enroute to Haiti. Their lives interconnect on the island, amidst the paranoia of Duvalier's dictatorship and the omnipresent secret police, the Tontons Macoutes. One of the most memorable scenes is of a midnight voodoo ceremony involving Brown's servant who later joins the opposition and is never heard from again. There is an ongoing, unsatisfying love affair between Brown and the wife of a South American diplomat. Brown finds himself, despite his lack of patriotism or belief, somehow at home in the "shabby land of terror" where he had found himself. "There are those who belong by their birth inextricably to a country, who even when they leave it feel the tie. And there are those who belong in a province, a country, a village, but I could feel no link at all with the hundred or so kilometres around the gardens and boulevards of Monte Carlo, a city of transients. I felt a greater tie here, in the shabby land of terror, chosen for me by chance." Greene writes of the absurdity of life, but at the same time he holds out the hope of survival, even in the hellish slums of Haiti. Although Greene places his dramas in different locations -- Haiti, Cuba (Our Man in Havana); Africa (The Heart of the Matter); Vietnam (The Quiet American) -- he often returns to the same themes: the loss of (Catholic) faith, the tension between good intentions and practical harm (politics); and the frailties of man -- drinking, sex, and pride. | ||
 | The Comedians | |
| "Life as Comedy " | 2009-01-25 |
| "The Comedians" is one of Graham Greene's best novels. Set in the nebulous world of Papa Doc's Haiti, it is a story of intrigue, betrayal, and faith. Three strangers ... the narrator, Mr. Brown, the idealist, Mr. Smith, and the confidence Man, Mr Jones, meet on a broken-down Dutch freighter enroute to Haiti. Their lives interconnect on the island, amidst the paranoia of Duvalier's dictatorship and the omnipresent secret police, the Tontons Macoutes. One of the most memorable scenes is of a midnight voodoo ceremony involving Brown's servant who later joins the opposition and is never heard from again. There is an ongoing, unsatisfying love affair between Brown and the wife of a South American diplomat. Brown finds himself, despite his lack of patriotism or belief, somehow at home in the "shabby land of terror" where he had found himself. "There are those who belong by their birth inextricably to a country, who even when they leave it feel the tie. And there are those who belong in a province, a country, a village, but I could feel no link at all with the hundred or so kilometres around the gardens and boulevards of Monte Carlo, a city of transients. I felt a greater tie here, in the shabby land of terror, chosen for me by chance." Greene writes of the absurdity of life, but at the same time he holds out the hope of survival, even in the hellish slums of Haiti. Although Greene places his dramas in different locations -- Haiti, Cuba (Our Man in Havana); Africa (The Heart of the Matter); Vietnam (The Quiet American) -- he often returns to the same themes: the loss of (Catholic) faith, the tension between good intentions and practical harm (politics); and the frailties of man -- drinking, sex, and pride. | ||
 | Arc of Justice : A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age | |
| "Clarence Darrow, Race, and Justice " | 2009-01-05 |
| Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age Arc of Justice Between World War I and the Great Depression, over seven million southern blacks migrated north. The causes of this great migration were several: the lingering effects of Jim Crow and discrimination; the lessening of the importance of agricultural crops like cotton, but mostly, opportunity - real or perceived. The lure of five-dollar-a-day jobs in Henry Ford's automotive plants was an alluring, if unrealistic, hope for many...most of whom found themselves consigned to menial jobs. One of these hopeful migrants was Ossian Sweet, a medical doctor who moved his family from northern Florida to Detroit in hopes of a better life. What he found was old fashioned bigotry and prejudice. When he had the temerity to move into an all-white neighborhood, the battle was joined. On a hot summer night in 1925, Sweet and his wife were in their new home in the segregated neighborhood when a crowd began to form, hearing rumors of the move. Sweet assembled some trusted friends and prepared to wait out the inevitable riot, but things got worse. The Detroit police weren't able, or inclined, to control the violence. Shots rang out: two white protesters lay dead. Sweet, his wife, brother Henry, and friends were arrested and booked for murder. It looked like prison or worse until the NAACP persuaded Clarence Darrow, one of the century's most celebrated lawyers, to take their case. Darrow had gained prominence in the cases of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two wealthy Chicago college students who killed a boy for the thrill of it. Darrow prevailed on the judge to sentence them to life, rather than execution, based on expert and groundbreaking testimony on their mental condition. He had also defended Tennessee school teacher John Scopes on charges of teaching evolution in violation of state law. Even though Scopes was convicted of a misdemeanor, Darrow had a heavyweight showdown with fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan over the merits of evolution vs creationism. (The fight isn't over yet) The trial of Henry and Dr. Sweet featured two key elements: the mental state of the defendants, and the right of self-defense. The jury in the first trial was unable to reach a verdict and it ended in mistrial. A second trial resulted in acquittal. But it was a bittersweet victory: a parallel lawsuit brought before the Supreme Court by the NAACP challenged restrictive racial covenants in housing. That suit failed, opening the door to continued, legal discrimination. And Dr. Ossian Sweet, beset by personal and financial troubles, took his own life in 1960, just as the civil rights movement got underway. In Ossian Sweet's case, the legal system worked, unlike an earlier tragedy, the so-called "Colfax Massacre" In 1873, the height of reconstruction, at least eighty African-Americans were massacred in Colfax, Louisiana, as they defended a court house to which they were legally entitled. A white lynch mob descended on the building, firing at will. A subsequent trial went all the way to the Supreme Court, which reneged on its duties and basically allowed only the States, not the Federal Government, to pursue civil rights cases. The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction | ||
 | And the Dead Shall Rise : The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank | |
| "Legal Drama and Social History " | 2008-11-26 |
| And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank Steve Oney's massive, and definitive history of the Leo Frank case is much more than "True Crime" or reality literature. It is essentially a social history of the New South from Reconstruction through the 1920s. It was a period of enormous growth in the South, with the influx of refugees from the Old World and newly-emancipated blacks. The two groups would come into conflict with the Leo Frank case. Frank, a northern Jew and part of Atlanta's Jewish society, was the manager of a pencil factory and Mary Phagan was a child employee. (Another part of the story was the use of child labor in the industrial south) Jim Conley was a semi-literate Negro janitor whose ability to write became a focus of the trial because of handwritten notes left at the crime scene. Frank's and Conley's conflicting statements to police would become the grist of an enormous newspaper war between the Atlanta Constitution and the Georgian, the Hearst Paper. The story contains all the elements of great drama: ambition on the part of the politicians and prosecutors; greed for reward money; betrayal by friends and allies; and even a little romance. Even though the trial transcript mysteriously disappeared, Oney reconstructs the testimony through newspaper accounts. The papers put out dozens of "extra's" every day, hanging on every word. The trial split community opinion along ethnic, religious and racial lines, and when Georgia's governor commuted Frank's death sentence, the Mob took matters into their own hands. Leo Frank was taken from the jail and publicly hanged - no one was ever charged or indicted. The lynching saw the rebirth of the KKK and the birth of the anti-defamation league. Even though Oney's book clocks in at over 700 pages, it moves right along. Even more impressive is that Oney did all the research and reporting, instead of hiring an editorial assistant as usually happens with complicated research jobs. | ||
 | WORSE THAN SLAVERY | |
| "Let the Midnight Special Shine its Light on Me " | 2008-11-24 |
| Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice Parchman Farm "By 1915, Parchman was already a self-sufficient operation. It contained a sawmill, a brick yard, a slaughterhouse, a vegetable canning plant, and two cotton gins. In design, it resembled an antebellum plantation with convicts in place of slaves. Both systems used captive labor to grow the same crops in identical ways. Both relied on a small staff of rural, lower-class whites to supervise the black labor gangs. And both staffs mixed physical punishment with paternalistic rewards in order to motivate their workers.' In short, Parchman Farm was a farm with slaves." ("Worse than Slavery") Parchman Farm was known throughout the south as a bad place to go. It was memorialized in song and fiction. ("The Midnight Special" was the train that the convicts' wives and girlfriends rode for conjugal visits; and Faulkner's short story "Old Man" is about two Parchman inmates sent out to help in the Flood of 1927) It was predominantly black. Once you were inside, it was hard to get out; Most convicts served fixed terms and parole was a relatively new concept. It used a system in which "trustees," usually men convicted of violent crimes and who were quick to fire their shotguns at escapees, supervised the rest. It was expected to, and usually did, return a profit. In fact, it was a major contributor to Mississippi's economy. The system it replaced, known as "convict leasing," was, if possible, worse. And rehabilitation was not high on the Prison Superintendent's agenda. The superintendent was a farmer, not a social worker. Historian David Oshinsky ("Polio: An American Story") uses Parchman to illustrate the long and pervasive history of Jim Crow justice in the South. During the Civil Rights Movement, Parchman was used as leverage against out-of-state "agitators." Many of them were sent up to Parchman after being railroaded into convictions for "disturbing the peace" and "inciting." It was only after civil rights lawyers brought class-actions against the state corrections department that reform came... and even then it was slow-going. "Worse Than Slavery" is investigative reporting and social history at its best. Polio: An American Story RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927 AND HOW IT CHANGED AMERICA | ||
 | Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing | |
| "How Insanity Happens " | 2008-10-16 |
| Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing How Insanity Happens As the title of his book suggests, James Waller believes mass murder is a process. In the past century, it has happened over and over again: Rwandan Hutus killed 800,000 Tutsis with machetes while the world stood by and watched; Bosnian Serbs exterminated Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina; at least 1.5 million Cambodians were killed in Pol Pot's concentration camps. And the Holocaust stands as history's greatest mass extermination. All of these activities require a willingness to obey authority; a level of cultural context, or differentiation between "us" and "them"; a degree of self-interest and self-preservation of the perpetrators; and an ability to create an emotional distance between perpetrator and victim. It is the "ordinariness," or as Jewish sociologist Hannah Arendt says, "the Banality," of evil that is so puzzling. It means that the next mass murderer could be the guy next to us on the bus, across the street, in the next office cubicle ... or ourselves. In Southern California, a financial analyst whose business was failing methodically killed his wife, his mother in law, and his three children before killing himself. It made perfect sense to him at the time. Understanding sociopathic behavior doesn't exonerate it, and demonizing the perpetrators doesn't help explain it. Waller has a compelling, easy to comprehend style and uses case studies to reinforce his points using examples from East Timor, Turkey, Cambodia, and Bosnia to illustrate his arguments. Suggestions for further reading: Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, Third Edition We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics) Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past | ||
 | Empire of the Sun | |
| "Remember, We're British " | 2008-09-29 |
| Empire of the Sun Based on J.G. Ballard's autobiographical book of the same name, "Empire of the Sun" follows the life of a young British schoolboy caught in the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. The British tried to recreate England in their enclave, complete with Church of England services and elaborate costume parties. As the Japanese advance the British evacuate, mostly by sea to Hong Kong and Singapore. The boy, James Graham,(Christian Bale in a remarkable film debut) is separated from his parents and is befriended by a couple of scruffy American blackmarketers (John Malkovich and Joe Pantoliano). They are interned in a Japanese camp for the duration of the war, where once again they re-create a microcosm of England, complete with its own economy, bartering, and social hierarchy. "Remember, we're British" as the camp doctor tells Jim, who quickly learns how to survive in a prison camp through bartering, bullying, and theft. Evacuation and imprisonment is also the theme of Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields," based on New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg's friendship with his Cambodian interpreter, Dith Pran during the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh. (Sam Waterston plays Schanberg, and Dr. Haing S. Ngor is Dith Pran, winning a much deserved "Best Supporting Actor" for his first film role.) Spielberg also dealt with imprisonment in "Schindler's List" and, in a way, with the loss of the familiar in "E.T." (?) In both stories, the Western superpowers abandon their native servants and compatriots. Schanberg manages to get Pran's family out of Cambodia on the last flight, but loses Pran, who ends up in a Khmer Rouge "Re-education" camp as part of Pol Pot's twisted sense of socialism. Overcome with guilt, Schanberg spends years trying to find Dith Pran. Both directors convey a great sense of place; "Empire" was the first movie filmed in Mainland China since the Revolution, and it carefully creates the mood of 1940's Shanghai. "The Killing Fields" was shot in Thailand, where many of the Cambodian refugees ended up. Both films carry political messages - among them that the comfort zone of the establishment is easily undone by its hubris. I give both movies four and a half stars. (5 Being for Genius) The Killing Fields | ||
 | Selected Stories of H. G. Wells (Modern Library Classics) | |
| "Back to the Future" | 2008-09-23 |
| Selected Stories of H. G. Wells (Modern Library Classics) Widely regarded as a founder of science fiction, H.G. Wells predicted, among other things, nuclear and biological warfare ("The War of the World" and "The Island of Dr. Moreau." His longer works are well known, but his short stories deserve critical acclaim as well. In "The Land Ironclads," Wells also accurately predicted the use of tanks in battle, although they did not appear until years later. His description of the gunsights and navigational systems are incredibly accurate... his gunners use a sort of "heads-up display" and a kind of laser sighting. "The sighting was ingeniously contrived. The rifleman stood at the table with a thing like an elaboration of a draughtsman's dividers in his hand, and he opened and closed those dividers, so that they were always at the apparent height --- of it was an ordinary sized man... of the man he wanted to kill." "Changes in the clearness of the atmosphere, due to changes of moisture, were met by an ingenious use of the meteorologically sensitive substance, catgut and when the land ironclad moved forward the sights got a compensatory deflection in the direction of its motion." His prediction of technology using thermal imaging, laser sighting and gyro-controlled stabilization is amazing. But it isn't technological innovation, but social analysis that makes his short stories worth reading. Technology is a double-edged sword: it improves man's ability to deal with the environment but diminishes his quality of life. | ||
 | We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda | |
| ""The Idea is the Crime"" | 2008-08-24 |
| We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda A Preventable Tragedy " Philip Gourevich's award-winning retrospective of the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 takes a rational look at the unfathomable and irrational. Gourevich spent many months in the war-ravaged country and talked with dozens of survivors. The facts aren't in dispute...over 800,000 Tutsis were hacked to death by machete-wielding Hutus...but the causes are. Among his conclusions: the "ancient animosity" between Hutus and Tutsi's is largely a creation of the West; the colonial powers Germany and Belgium inflamed ethnic divisions where they did exist; and the Church (Protestant and Catholic) remained silent as the killing continued. There is enough blame to go around in the story: the International Relief Community, the UN, the media and the major powers. International tribunals have found fault with everyone. Gourevich takes some time exploring the whole concept of genocide: "Nobody knows how many people were killed at Nyarubuye. Some say a thousand, and some say many more: fifteen hundred, two thousand, three thousand. Big difference. But body counts aren't the point in a genocide, a crime for which, at the time of my first visit to Rwanda, nobody on earth had ever been brought to trial, much less convicted. What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many lives, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime." As a double-dose of genocide studies, I am also currently reading "Pol Pot:Anatomy of a Nightmare." Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare | ||
 | A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Trans Atlantic Cable | |
| "Deep Six " | 2008-08-14 |
| A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable The Nineteenth Century saw massive growth in America's industrial infrastructure. Railroads criss-crossed the nation, factories grew up in New England and the mid Atlantic manufacturing shoes, clocks, guns, furniture, steel and machinery for making more products. Communications were vastly better with the telegraph than with its predecessor, the Pony Express, but messages still took days and weeks to cross the Ocean. Then, in the 1800's, along came Cyrus West Field, an original entrepreneur who made his fortune in the paper manufacturing business. An expert organizer and lobbyist, Field enlisted the support of other businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic in forming the organization that funded and designed the project. It took twelve years of cajoling and massaging investors, several abortive attempts to lay the cable, and millions of wasted dollars before Field and his team of engineers finally succeeded. On July 27, 1866, when the wire was finally in place, Field sent back the first message to Europe: "Thank God," he wrote, "the Cable is Laid." Since that day, almost 140 years ago, nothing has broken his communications link with Europe -- not storms, earthquakes or world wars,It took a consortium of businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic, Acts of Congress, persistent lobbying, and constant innovation with material and techniques. (The cable was insulated with Gutta Percha, a rubber-like substance from the Far East that required the harvesting of most of the world's Gutta Percha crop to build the cable) The cable couldn't have been laid without The Great Eastern, at the time, and for many years afterward, the biggest ship in the world. At over 700 feet, she was enormous, requiring two separate power sources, a conventional marine engine and a paddlewheel. The Great Eastern had a rocky (literally) career: she was disabled by a boiler explosion and nearly sunk when she hit an uncharted rock in the entrance to New York Harbor. The only thing that saved her was the double hull. She carried troops and supplies during the Civil War. But the Great Eastern came into her own when Field's company enlisted her to lay the three-thousand-miles of cable from Newfoundland to Great Britain. She later became a stationary museum in England. | ||
 | A Thread Across the Ocean : The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable | |
| "Deep Six " | 2008-08-14 |
| A Thread Across the Ocean: The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable
The Nineteenth Century saw massive growth in America's industrial infrastructure. Railroads criss-crossed the nation, factories grew up in New England and the mid Atlantic manufacturing shoes, clocks, guns, furniture, steel and machinery for making more products. Communications were vastly better with the telegraph than with its predecessor, the Pony Express, but messages still took days and weeks to cross the Ocean. Then, in the 1800's, along came Cyrus West Field, an original entrepreneur who made his fortune in the paper manufacturing business. An expert organizer and lobbyist, Field enlisted the support of other businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic in forming the organization that funded and designed the project. It took twelve years of cajoling and massaging investors, several abortive attempts to lay the cable, and millions of wasted dollars before Field and his team of engineers finally succeeded. On July 27, 1866, when the wire was finally in place, Field sent back the first message to Europe: "Thank God," he wrote, "the Cable is Laid." Since that day, almost 140 years ago, nothing has broken his communications link with Europe -- not storms, earthquakes or world wars,It took a consortium of businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic, Acts of Congress, persistent lobbying, and constant innovation with material and techniques. (The cable was insulated with Gutta Percha, a rubber-like substance from the Far East that required the harvesting of most of the world's Gutta Percha crop to build the cable) The cable couldn't have been laid without The Great Eastern, at the time, and for many years afterward, the biggest ship in the world. At over 700 feet, she was enormous, requiring two separate power sources, a conventional marine engine and a paddlewheel. The Great Eastern had a rocky (literally) career: she was disabled by a boiler explosion and nearly sunk when she hit an uncharted rock in the entrance to New York Harbor. The only thing that saved her was the double hull. She carried troops and supplies during the Civil War. But the Great Eastern came into her own when Field's company enlisted her to lay the three-thousand-miles of cable from Newfoundland to Great Britain. She later became a stationary museum in England. | ||
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