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 | Can You Forgive Her (The Penguine Trollope, vol. 17) | |
 | "Using your wife's money" | 2009-11-06 |
| There are power structures. Alice Vavasor is connected. She is the daughter of a younger son. Her father, a barrister, has nominal employment. George Vavasor is Alice's first cousin. Alice is to marry Jon Grey, but the date hasn't been set. He is steady. When Alice draws Grey away from her, abetted by Goerge's sister Kate, she laments her foolishness.
Lady Glencora is a cousin of Alice Vavasor. Lady Glencora has married Mr. Palliser, the heir to the Duke of Omnium. Lady Glencora frets that she is thus far without child, but she hastens to add that Plantagenet Palliser would not say an unkind thing. Mr. Palliser is a politician and is very dull. When Alice Vavasor visits Lady Glencora at Matching, she becomes concerned that Lady Glencora might place herself in the company of Burgo Fitsgerald. When George appears his presence inspires disgust in Alice, not love. Discussions between George Vavasor, who needs money deperately for a parliamentary run, and his supporter resemble discussion of the characters in THE WINGS OF DOVE, they are so calculating, intense, and dark. George, by seeming to take Alice's money, has committed a sort of sacrilege. This action imposes on him mental distress. Botts, another character, is a toady, but George could have been good and isn't. Vavsor sits for the Chelsea District. Having spent everything he has to become a member of the house, George Vavsor suffers buyer's remorse. Alice struggles to be triumphant, but she is repentant. She has made a mistake. How Lady Glencora gains her independence and dignity in her marrige is described with eloquence in volume two of the novel. The travails of George Vavosor are covered, also. George's sister Kate observes to him that he doesn't know what it is to be honest. | ||
 | The Last Chronicle of Barset (Penguin Classics) | |
| "Pride" | 2009-09-28 |
| The introduction notes that Trollope wrote the first novel sequences, the Barsetshire and the Palliser novels, in English. The Barsetshire books were written over a twelve year period. Mr. Crawley, perpetual curate at Hogglestock, is accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds. Grace Crawley, his daughter, nineteen years old, is a teacher. Dean Arabin has undertaken to finance the studies of Bob Crawley, currently in school at Marlborough, and headed for Cambridge. The son of Archdeacon Grantly, Major Grantly, is interested in Grace Crawley. Griselda Grantly, daughter of the archdeacon, is now Marchioness of Hartletop.
Mr. Crawley's role in the twenty pound cheque matter is a muddle, notwithstanding his innate honestly and his superior intellect and academic achievement. Grace Crawley and Lily Dale of Allington are friends. For Crawley's hearing, the board of magistrates includes Lord Lufton, a member of the DeCourcy family, and Dr. Thorne. Mr. Robarts advises Mrs. Crawley that he will arrange bail, should it be necessary. The case is bound over to be heard by the Assizes in April and Mr. Crawley is released on bail, (he had refused to be represented by a lawyer). Bitterness is produced by poverty in the poor gentry. The Crawley family is in such circumstances. Behind Mr. Crawley's humility there is crushing pride. Later when Mr. Robarts tries to persuade him to accept the services of an attorney, Crawley reponds that he doesn't want to obstruct justice and is reluctant to mislead a jury. Grace's mother seeks to shield her from the trouble and she is sent to visit Lily Dale. Mrs. Proudie worries about the souls at Hogglestock and tries to have Crawley removed from his curacy. At the preliminary stage it is not really within the bishop's power to act against Mr. Crawley. John Eames, Grace's cousin, undertakes a journey to uncover the truth in Crawley's case. Trollope is particularly good on pecuniary matters, changes of fortune. He writes movingly, also, of honor. The portrait of Mr. Crawley, of stiff-necked pride, is a wonder. The novel is a highly satisfactory end to the Barset sextet. | ||
 | Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (Classics S.) | |
| "Genius" | 2009-09-10 |
| These books are fiction in the form of autobiography. The first was Leo Tolstoy's initial published work. Since the age of nineteen, the introduction notes, he had wanted to be an author in order to get to know himself. As the story begins, it is learned that the narrator, Nikolai, and his brother are to go to Moscow with their father to continue their education. The tutor, Karl Ivanych, contrives to have himself included in the move. Playing Robinson to the children means performing scenes from THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON and this is described. The father of the family, Piotr Alexandrych, is enterprising and chivalrous Nikolai avers.
In the first thirty-eight pages everything is here-- the serfs, a hunt scene, the monetary issues regarding the management of the estate, the matrimonial fortune brought to Piotr Alexandrych and the need to segregate those funds, the tutor from Germany, the use of the French language, the family retainer, the holy fool. The boys are called home from Moscow because their mother is ill. She had not left her room in six days and dies in dreadful agony. CHILDHOOD was completed in 1852. BOYHOOD commences with a description of a journey during a thunder storm. One of the servants has been appointed the alms-giver. In Moscow the family lives with the maternal grandmother. After the mourning period-- it lasts a year-- visitors are received. Nikolai gets into trouble as he fantasizes that unlike his brother, Volodya, and his sister, Lyuba, he is adopted. The tutor, St.-Jerome, Karl's successor, does not wish to remain at his post for reason of Nikky's misbehavior. Volodya, a year and some months older than Nikki, is sent to the university. University students wear uniforms. The grandmother dies, leaving everything to Lyuba in her will. Nikki prepares for the Faculty of Mathematics because, he claims, he likes words such as sine, tangent differential. The novela was completed in 1854. YOUTH opens with the friendship of the narrator and Dmitri. He is nearly sixteen and it is the year he enters the university. The plan is for the brothers to stay in Moscow near the university while Lyuba and her father travel to Italy for a couple of years. In the absence of the mother and the grandmother, dinner is no longer ceremonial. It is no longer a joyous family festival. The narrator, Nikolai Petrovich, fears being snubbed. After he passes his university entrance exams, his father assigns specific horses for his use, there is a dinner celebrating the event, and he is compelled to make a number of formal visits. At the visit to Dmitri's family, the Nekhlyudovs, ROB ROY is being read aloud. During the summer Nikolai plays the piano, (both brothers have become interested in girls). He also reads French novels. The author devotes an entire chapter to the concept comme il faut. The father remarries. Nikolai fails his first exam. YOUTH was completed in 1857. It is clear that the short novels were preparation for the author's subsequent masterpieces, ANNA KARENINA and WAR AND PEACE. | ||
 | Framley Parsonage | |
| "Worse than Pay Day Lenders" | 2009-09-05 |
| As part of the Barchester series, it is unsurprising to learn that the two church parties are represented in this novel. On the High Church side are Lady Lufton and Mark Robarts, the vicar, the living at Framley having been the gift of the Lufton family. The other side, Low Church, consists of the Childicotes set of Mrs. Proudie and the bishop. Mark Robarts finds the rule of Lady Lufton lighter than that of Mrs. Proudie.
When Mark's sister Lucy visits the vicarage, Lady Lufton becomes fearful that Lucy will become too close to Lady Lufton's son Ludovic. Fanny Robarts, Mark's wife, is stalwart in support of her sister-in-law. She ridicules Lady Lufton's concerns. Mr. Crawley is the rector at Hogglestock. Mr. Arabin arranges for Mr. Hogglestock's curacy at Hogglestock. The two men men have een school fellows. Lady Lufton wants Griselda Grantly, the daughter of the archdeacon and the grandchild of Mr. Harding and the niece of Mrs. Arabin, for Ludovic. Lord Lufton contrarily likes Lucy Robarts. Trollope uses irony to put across his points. Frequently he resorts to classical allusions. Suffice to say that everything does not turn out as Lady Lufton desires at the beginning of the tale. There is richness to the story combined with much good sense. Trollope hits his stride in this volume of the Barset group. | ||
 | Framley Parsonage (Penguin English Library) | |
| "Worse than Pay Day Lenders" | 2009-09-05 |
| As part of the Barchester series, it is unsurprising to learn that the two church parties are represented in this novel. On the High Church side are Lady Lufton and Mark Robarts, the vicar, the living at Framley having been the gift of the Lufton family. The other side, Low Church, consists of the Childicotes set of Mrs. Proudie and the bishop. Mark Robarts finds the rule of Lady Lufton lighter than that of Mrs. Proudie.
When Mark's sister Lucy visits the vicarage, Lady Lufton becomes fearful that Lucy will become too close to Lady Lufton's son Ludovic. Fanny Robarts, Mark's wife, is stalwart in support of her sister-in-law. She ridicules Lady Lufton's concerns. Mr. Crawley is the rector at Hogglestock. Mr. Arabin arranges for Mr. Hogglestock's curacy at Hogglestock. The two men men have een school fellows. Lady Lufton wants Griselda Grantly, the daughter of the archdeacon and the grandchild of Mr. Harding and the niece of Mrs. Arabin, for Ludovic. Lord Lufton contrarily likes Lucy Robarts. Trollope uses irony to put across his points. Frequently he resorts to classical allusions. Suffice to say that everything does not turn out as Lady Lufton desires at the beginning of the tale. There is richness to the story combined with much good sense. Trollope hits his stride in this volume of the Barset group. | ||
 | Brave New World | |
| "Back to the Future" | 2009-09-05 |
| Production of identical beings, neo-Pavlovian conditioning, surrogate parenting, ranking from birth, mass production in biology, Fordism--these are factors in the new age the novelist describes. Sleep teaching is practiced. The caste system is followed in the new world. There are soma bottles and sex hormone chewing gum used to satisfy the desires of the populace. There is a Bureau of Propaganda, (and a College of Emotional Engineering), to assist in the running of society.
Names of the character are clever and significant--Lenina, Hoover, Bernard Marx, Herbert Bakunin, Morgana Rothschild, George Edzel. Sometimes people go to New Mexico to look at the savages. Travel is nearly instantaneous in rockets. The best quality is Fordliness. There are two kinds of existence, one of which takes place at the Reservation of Savages. In the other kind of existence clothes are discarded, not mended, people look healthier, and Bloomsbury is the centre of industry. There is a Social Predestination Room filled with embryos. Bernard Marx, an Alpha-Plus, is to be sent to Iceland by way of punishment until a trick is played on the Director. The Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Bernard's overlord, is confronted by Linda, a savage, an apparition in the nature of the first Mrs. Rochester in JANE EYRE. The man becomes an ex-Director. Upper caste London is agog. Linda obtains soma and remains in Bernard's apartment. While touring Eton, Linda's son John is told that the students don't read Shakespeare. Hemholtz Watson is Bernards friend. He has also come into conflict with authority. Ultimately John gags on civilization. Reading the book leaves the reader as puzzled as before the experience takes place. It is a solid work, sustaining a place among the top literary titles. The book is a rebuttal to the formation of mass society and resultant standardization. The challenges to liberty are suggested. Ideas such as history is bunk, end not mend, (forced obsolescence), the loss of individuality are chilling. | ||
 | 1984 | |
| "Dystopia" | 2009-09-02 |
| The slogan Big Brother is Watching derives from this work. Winston Smith decides to keep a diary, (against all regulations prevalent in Oceania). He detects that a man named O'Brien is a fellow dissident. Smith works at the Ministry of Truth. The really scary organization is the Ministry of Love. The danger of history is not knowing history. Winston Smith has a problem. He remembers. Ingsoc may have dated back to 1960. Newspeak has a vocabulary that grows smaller every year. There is a Ministry of Plenty, but there is rationing. Winston separated from his wife eleven years earlier. The Party prefers celibacy.
Winston believes the best chance for the future is the proletarians, (proles). He decides to wander among them. The one thing they pay attention to is the lottery. There are big prizes. The book shows Orwell's mastery of the uses of propaganda, the perils of bureaucracy, and an understanding of totalitarian trends as exemplified by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and in smaller ways by the modern democracies of England, the United States, and the colonies of India and Burma. Orwell was a student of the uses and abuses of authority. Winston Smith's descent among the proletariat resembles Orwell's experiences, THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER and DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON. Loving details of the scene reflect also Orwell's love of Dickens and Kipling. A girl from the Fiction Department writes a love note to Winston. He is amazed. They arrange to meet at a crowded square. Even though there are telescreens, it should be okay. (Not only is the Party Puritanical, but it is expected that Party members engage in wholesome communal activities. Sexual privacy induces hysteria.) Surveillance of citizens is carried on with the cooperation of other citizens rather in the way of Stasi or the block captains of Chairman Mao. Winston rents a room above a shop. Julia brings Inner Party coffee to the meeting, not the victory coffee everyone else drinks. Winston and Julia know their conduct is suicidal, but they continue. Winston is no longer bored with life. Julia believes that everyone secretly hates the Party. As under Stalin, there are show trials. (Taking things a step further, there are hate campaigns. One means of civil control by the Party is mass demonstrations.) Children are encouraged to spy on their parents. Winston explains to Julia that the past is actually being abolished. Suddenly Oceania is at war with Eastasia. All information concerning Oceania's war with Eurasia has to be obliterated. The Party has an enemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, a Trotsky-like figure. There is an anti-Party organization, the Brotherhood. Goldstein has a book, although most copies have been destroyed. O'Brien endeavors to get a copy of it for Winston and Julia. Reading Goldstein's book, Winston learns that the three superstates are permanently at war. Even if war hysteria is continuous, war takes place on the margins, and is the product of specialists. War cannot be decisive because the parties are too evenly matched. War uses up surpluses. A war that is continuous ceases to be dangerous. Party weapons are doublethinks and the mutability of the past. The end is nightmare. There is a Cold War flavor to this, (Orwell seems to have anticipated everything). Beyond politics there is the point, raised recently in a journal, that the author of this masterpiece was dying of tuberculosis during its composition. It is his testament. Our clever author has left us with a prized gift at the end of the volume, an Appendix detailing the Principles of Newspeak. Bravo--this is a book to be read and reread only by the strong-minded. | ||
 | Barchester Towers (Oxford World's Classics) | |
| "Grace and Favor" | 2009-09-02 |
| Subsequent to his father's death, the archdeacon is not made bishop. Dr. Proudie receives the appointment to that office. Another change in Barchester from the circumstances portrayed in THE WARDEN is the status of Mr. Harding's daughter, Eleanor Bold. She is a widow. Eight months after the death of John Bold, another John Bold is born.
Dr. Grantly and Mr. Harding find themselves disliking the bishop's chaplain, Mr. Slope, and his wife, Mrs. Proudie. If Mr. Proudie is to return to his former position of warden, Mr. Slope claims he must embrace certain conditions. Under the circumstances, Mr. Harding refuses. The position is given to Mr. Quiverful, Mrs. Proudie's candidate. Dr. Proudie raises the issue of absent clergy, and Dr. Vesey Stanhope returns to England after having resided in Italy for twelve years. Mr. Arabin, the new man recruited by the archdeacon for the living at St. Ewold, has been on the side of the Tractarians at Oxford. (Schism has the advantage of calling attention to religion.) Arabin has become tired of his Oxford room and college life. He is forty. Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie are in a contest to be puppet master to the bishop. In the book's plot, Eleanor Bold, one of the more engaging characters, shoulders an immense burden through a misunderstanding. An added interest is the jockeying of the High Church group, the archdeacon and Mr. Arabin and Mr. Harding, and the Low Church enclave, the bishop, Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope, for power. That said, the larger part of the reading experience is an enounter with comedy, rather than tragedy. The characters are delightful. | ||
 | Barchester Towers | |
| "Grace and Favor" | 2009-09-02 |
| Subsequent to his father's death, the archdeacon is not made bishop. Dr. Proudie receives the appointment to that office. Another change in Barchester from the circumstances portrayed in THE WARDEN is the status of Mr. Harding's daughter, Eleanor Bold. She is a widow. Eight months after the death of John Bold, another John Bold is born.
Dr. Grantly and Mr. Harding find themselves disliking the bishop's chaplain, Mr. Slope, and his wife, Mrs. Proudie. If Mr. Proudie is to return to his former position of warden, Mr. Slope claims he must embrace certain conditions. Under the circumstances, Mr. Harding refuses. The position is given to Mr. Quiverful, Mrs. Proudie's candidate. Dr. Proudie raises the issue of absent clergy, and Dr. Vesey Stanhope returns to England after having resided in Italy for twelve years. Mr. Arabin, the new man recruited by the archdeacon for the living at St. Ewold, has been on the side of the Tractarians at Oxford. (Schism has the advantage of calling attention to religion.) Arabin has become tired of his Oxford room and college life. He is forty. Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie are in a contest to be puppet master to the bishop. In the book's plot, Eleanor Bold, one of the more engaging characters, shoulders an immense burden through a misunderstanding. An added interest is the jockeying of the High Church group, the archdeacon and Mr. Arabin and Mr. Harding, and the Low Church enclave, the bishop, Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope, for power. That said, the larger part of the reading experience is an enounter with comedy, rather than tragedy. The characters are delightful. | ||
 | The Warden (The Modern Library Classics) | |
| "Barset at the beginning" | 2009-08-31 |
| Septimus Harding, a clergyman, lives at Barchester. His daughter Susan has married the son of the bishop, an archdecon, Theophilus Grantly. Harding is made precentor of the cathedral. He is also warden of the almshouse.
The retreat is called Hiram's Hospital after the benefactor. There are twelve old men. The men sign a petition claiming they are not receiving what they are entitled to under Hiram's estate. John Bold is chided by his sister Mary because he loves Eleanor Harding, Susan's younger sister, but is willing to stir up a protest to the detriment of Mr. Harding's position. When John Bold does not appear at a party, Mr. Harding is faced with having to tell Eleanor about the petition that John Bold has encouraged the twelve old men to sign. Dr. Grantly, the archdeacon, seeks to support his father-in-law in the matter. Next, legal opinion is received that the case as it stands presently will probably be nonsuited. In the meantime the warden has come to believe that the absence of work for holding the postion of warden has brought him the tribulations. Eleanor urges Mr. Harding to give up the position, which is his desire. She says that she is able to be happy with much less. John Bold is persuaded by Eleanor to abandon the cause. Trollope, a contemporary of Dickens, gives the book many Dickens-like touches, sanctum sanctorum being just one example. Bold attempts but fails to stop the stories in the JUPITER. Press accounts have been particularly damaging to Mr. Harding's psyche. This is a gripping tale of conscience versus preferment. The politics of the matter are intriguing. | ||
 | The Warden by Geoffrey Harvey, ISBN 1551111381 | |
| "Barset at the beginning" | 2009-08-31 |
| Septimus Harding, a clergyman, lives at Barchester. His daughter Susan has married the son of the bishop, an archdecon, Theophilus Grantly. Harding is made precentor of the cathedral. He is also warden of the almshouse.
The retreat is called Hiram's Hospital after the benefactor. There are twelve old men. The men sign a petition claiming they are not receiving what they are entitled to under Hiram's estate. John Bold is chided by his sister Mary because he loves Eleanor Harding, Susan's younger sister, but is willing to stir up a protest to the detriment of Mr. Harding's position. When John Bold does not appear at a party, Mr. Harding is faced with having to tell Eleanor about the petition that John Bold has encouraged the twelve old men to sign. Dr. Grantly, the archdeacon, seeks to support his father-in-law in the matter. Next, legal opinion is received that the case as it stands presently will probably be nonsuited. In the meantime the warden has come to believe that the absence of work for holding the postion of warden has brought him the tribulations. Eleanor urges Mr. Harding to give up the position, which is his desire. She says that she is able to be happy with much less. John Bold is persuaded by Eleanor to abandon the cause. Trollope, a contemporary of Dickens, gives the book many Dickens-like touches, sanctum sanctorum being just one example. Bold attempts but fails to stop the stories in the JUPITER. Press accounts have been particularly damaging to Mr. Harding's psyche. This is a gripping tale of conscience versus preferment. The politics of the matter are intriguing. | ||
 | Interpreter of Maladies | |
| "Couples" | 2009-08-26 |
| This is a compelling short story collection. For example, a couple suffers a loss of a baby and a loss of their lives together, belief in their future together being absent on the part of one of the partners. In another offering, a man watches chaotic events in East Pakistan on the television of friends. His family resides in the area of civil disturbance.
An American family visits India, the site of its antecedents. One family member tells the guide a secret to the distress of both of them. Is it possible a Bengali cleaner was a landlord before the partition some characters in an apartment house in Calcutta wonder. The stories, taken together, are narrations of loneliness, discontent, notwithstanding the efforts of everyone involved to live fulfilling lives. Troubled marriages are identified by bickering, protracted silence, and indifference. The author is a good psychologist and a deft writer. | ||
 | Interpreter of Maladies CD | |
| "Couples" | 2009-08-26 |
| This is a compelling short story collection. For example, a couple suffers a loss of a baby and a loss of their lives together, belief in their future together being absent on the part of one of the partners. In another offering, a man watches chaotic events in East Pakistan on the television of friends. His family resides in the area of civil disturbance.
An American family visits India, the site of its antecedents. One family member tells the guide a secret to the distress of both of them. Is it possible a Bengali cleaner was a landlord before the partition some characters in an apartment house in Calcutta wonder. The stories, taken together, are narrations of loneliness, discontent, notwithstanding the efforts of everyone involved to live fulfilling lives. Troubled marriages are identified by bickering, protracted silence, and indifference. The author is a good psychologist and a deft writer. | ||
 | Birdsong : A Novel of Love and War | |
| "Immediacy of War" | 2009-08-05 |
| In Amiens, 1910, Stephen Wraysford encounters Madame Azaire and Gregoire for the first time. Stephen is twenty. He knows about textiles and finance. Azaire is forty. Azaire has a factory in town and has another not far away. Cloth is produced in Manchester for two thirds of the price it is manufactured in Amiens. Stephen is in Amiens to visit the factories.
Isabelle Azaire married to be free of her parent's house in Rouen. After a series of emotional confrontations, Stephen and Isabelle Azaire go away to a spa town in the south of France. After a time, Isabelle leaves Stephen. The story shifts to 1916. Lieutenant Wraysford is to decide the fate of a tuneller who fell asleep while on duty. Wraysford and his company commander decline to punish the man. Conditions in World War I are so bad that Stephen feels it is an exploration on how far men can be degraded. The fighting is so intense that Stephen feels the new reality is being condemned to live. Part Three moves to 1978, England. A grandchild, Elizabeth, has the notebooks of Stephen Wraysford. They are in code. Part Four returns the reader to the war, 1917, France, and Part Five is England, 1978 and 1979. Part Six is September 1918. Part Seven is England, 1979. The means of telling the story is intricate. The reader is made to care about the characters. The braided chronology is adroit. This is historical fiction at its best. | ||
 | The End of the Affair (Twentieth Century Classics) | |
| "Trust in Love" | 2009-07-21 |
| The narrator, Maurice Bendrix, purports to hate Henry Miles and his wife Sarah at the time he happens to run into Miles. It is 1946. Bendrix and Miles had not seen each other since June 1944. Henry Miles is a civil servant. He was an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Pensions. Later he was moved to the Ministry of Home Security. At his request Maurice follows Henry to his house. Henry is worried about Sarah. Sarah and Maurice Bendrix had been out of contact for eighteen months. The affair between the two had begun in 1939. When Sarah gets in touch with him after his meeting with Miles, Bendrix is elated. (He has just arranged with a private detective to have Sarah followed. Henry expressed to Maurice a sense of unease.) Well, that is the set up. The writing is sensitive, nuanced. Sarah had refused to leave Henry for Bendrix. Eventually, in 1946, Henry sees that Bendrix and Sarah had been lovers. In current parlance, Maurice accuses Henry of enabling the liaison. The book embodies Graham Greene's sincere embrace of Roman Catholicism in the 1940's. Much of the plot and the themes of the novel turn on the religious and spiritual understanding of the characters. Sarah Miles berates herself for having no trust in love. What vows, what promises must be kept to God and to man Sarah wonders. This is her dilemma, the dilemma of a fundamentally good person. Further developments of this excellent story I leave to the reader to discover. | ||
 | The End Of The Affair (Penguin Classics) | |
| "Trust in Love" | 2009-07-21 |
| The narrator, Maurice Bendrix, purports to hate Henry Miles and his wife Sarah at the time he happens to run into Miles. It is 1946. Bendrix and Miles had not seen each other since June 1944.
Henry Miles is a civil servant. He was an Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of Pensions. Later he was moved to the Ministry of Home Security. At his request Maurice follows Henry to his house. Henry is worried about Sarah. Sarah and Maurice Bendrix had been out of contact for eighteen months. The affair between the two had begun in 1939. When Sarah gets in touch with him after his meeting with Miles, Bendrix is elated. (He has just arranged with a private detective to have Sarah followed. Henry expressed to Maurice a sense of unease.) Well, that is the set up. The writing is sensitive, nuanced. Sarah had refused to leave Henry for Bendrix. Eventually, in 1946, Henry sees that Bendrix and Sarah had been lovers. In current parlance, Maurice accuses Henry of enabling the liaison. The book embodies Graham Greene's sincere embrace of Roman Catholicism in the 1940's. Much of the plot and the themes of the novel turn on the religious and spiritual understanding of the characters. Sarah Miles berates herself for having no trust in love. What vows, what promises must be kept to God and to man Sarah wonders. This is her dilemma, the dilemma of a fundamentally good person. Further developments of this excellent story I leave to the reader to discover. | ||
 | The Grave Maurice (Richard Jury Novels) | |
 | "An eye for an eye" | 2009-07-09 |
| The title, a pub, is a bit of a play on words, or names and words, one surmises. At the opening a young man, Maurice, and a horse, Samarkand, are featured. The scene shifts to the Grave Maurice in the vicinity of the Royal London Hospital. Melrose Plant wonders whether it is a stopping off point for the staff. Richard Jury is in the hospital. He was found in a coma.
His doctor, Roger Ryder, gives Jury a problem. Roger Ryder's daughter vanished two years ago. Nell had been fifteen. She didn't run away. Maurice and Nell are cousins. They both live at their grandfather's stud farm. Melrose Plant hears enough from a book seller to bring animal rights activists into the picture. Melrose buys a horse from Nell's grandfather, Arthur Ryder. This is one of the best works by Martha Grimes. She has devised a fiendlishly clever plot for her readers. Execution is excellent. Melrose Plant and the others don't have much to do in this Jury mystery, but they do provide comic relief. All in all it is a job well done. | ||
 | The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction House Scandal | |
| "Gemini" | 2009-07-06 |
| The time was December 1999. It was Davidge of Christie's v. Diane (Dede) Brooks of Sotheby's since Tennant and Taubman of Christie's and Sotheby's, heads of the boards of directors, had seemingly conspired to fix prices. They, Taubman and Tennant, sought to withdraw from the fray and view the matter from on high while tasking their underlings to work out the details. Alfred Taubman was the white knight to Sotheby's in 1993 when he acquired a controlling interest in it. He had been a developer of luxury shopping centers. Taubman's father lost all his money in the Depression. As a teenage retail clerk Taubman urged his employer to break down threshold resistance to buying through focus on the aesthetic and emotional experience of the customer at the point of entry. Taubman was entranced by the ambition and intelligence of Dede Brooks. She learned finance at Citibank in their lending program and worked initially as an unpaid assistant at Sotheby's. The auction process intrigued her. In the old Sotheby's people were made to feel stupid. Alfred Taubman wanted Sotheby's to forsake such off-putting arrogance. (This was an instance of solving the problem of threshold resistance.) Taubman was fixated on market share. He saw that the business practices of the auction houses were antiquated and that their incomes could be increased. He suggested leveraging art ownership. Davidge was given the job of transforming Christie's to a sleek modern firm to compete with Taubman's Sotheby's. (Behind his back he was referred to as the butler for class reasons.) In the seventies there had been a dust-up over buyer's premiums. The two firms were alleged to have colluded and fines were imposed in Britain. In 1988 Taubman took Sotheby's public. Staff was reminded that American anti-trust laws were punitive. At Christie's Davidge was protected by Lord Carrington. Carrington led the firm until Sir Anthony Tennant became chairman of the board in 1993, (whereby he opened the dialogue with Alfred Taubman). That same year Davidge was appointed CEO of Christie's and Dede Brooks at Sotheby's acquired a promotion to global duties. Investigation for anti-competitive practices began in Britain in 1996. Around the same time carefully wrought, (and potentially illegal), agreements began to unravel. In 1997 the U.S. Justice Department in Manhattan subpoened Sotheby's and Christie's officals on suspician of colluding on the setting of commisssions. In June 1997 the NEW YORK TIMES broke the story. Christies, providing documents, (mostly Davidge's meticulous notes), sought entry into the government's anti-trust amnesty program. Christie's moves came two and a half years after the initial interviews and requests for documents. Davidge, no longer Christie's CEO, was needed to bring the case against Taubman and Brooks and Christie's was able to secure his cooperation. Sotheby's and Brooks entered pleas of guilty. Taubman was found guilty at trial. This book is a stunning narrative of a smashingly interesting case. | ||
 | The Life of Graham Greene, Volume 3: 1956-1991 | |
| "Maturity" | 2009-07-06 |
| Graham Greene died in 1991. His writing career dated back to 1925. The introduction is about finding Greene: wars, politics, geography. He was adventurous and curious. His nature had variety. He was plagued by depressions. Greene moved from his father's school to Oxford. He was fastidious, sensitive, observant. Shortly after graduation Graham Greene acquired a job as subeditor of THE TIMES. His third novel was published and became a literary success. He got married, having converted to Catholicism for his wife's sake. Another novel, STAMBOUL TRAIN, was successful. He traveled to Liberia and wrote, JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS. While conceiving BRIGHTON ROCK, Greene went to Mexico to write about religious persecution. Back in England he arranged to rent a studio in which to write and turned out THE CONFIDENTIAL AGENT and THE POWER AND THE GLORY. Next came THE MINISTRY OF FEAR. In 1942 Greene went to Sierra Leone for the SIS and wrote THE HEART OF THE MATTER. After the war Catherine Walston became Greene's lover for thirteen years. The complex and beautiful love was best described in THE END OF THE AFFAIR. Greene was a compulsive writer, producing five hundred words a day. In 1955 Greene was fifty-one, the year of THE QUIET AMERICAN. He had a feeling for victims. Greene had an outcast of a brother and his mother had always put his father first. In the fifties Greene spent three weeks in China. At that time Greene was trying to hold onto at least two women and was failing with one, Catherine. OUR MAN IN HAVANA came out in 1958. Greene served as a watchdog for the Bodley Head publishing firm. He assisted in bringing out a favorite of his, Ford Maddox Ford. After OUR MAN IN HAVANA, book and movie, Greene sought material for A BURNT-OUT CASE. That book is an introspective study of crisis. Greene was a man of five different personalities. His frantic busyness began after Catherine Walston refused marriage. His contact with her became more and more tenuous. The journey to the Congo took place in 1959. In visiting a leper colony Greene was seeking spiritual hope. The doctor in charge opined that Greene was the opposite of a journalist. He did not look at people like cockroaches. Revising BURNT-OUT CASE without Catherine Walston was difficult. THE COMPLAISANT LOVER, a play, was a success, but the next play wasn't. THE COMEDIANS was set in Duvalier's Haiti. By focusing on Duvalier, Greene escaped himself. Greene is more revelatory in his fiction than he is in his memoirs. (He was a shy man.) The biographer believes his last masterpiece was THE HONORARY CONSUL. Greene wanted to tell the truth. He possessed a sharply sceptical mind. Work on THE HUMAN FACTOR was interrupted in 1963 by the Kim Philby affair. The book came out in 1978. For the sake of his work, Greene gave up being a comrade to men and a lover to women. In 1980 Greene received death threats. Faith and doubt were the topics of MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE, 1982. The book traces the mature working habits of the writer. He arranged his life so as not to interfere with the inner voice. He found material for his work in his travels. The five women he loved, basically serially, were of immense importance to his literary and personal development. The biographer has achieved excellence through documenting exhaustively the life of the writer on his artistic and spiritual journeys. | ||
 | Pictures of People: Alice Neels American Portrait Gallery | |
| "Truth" | 2009-07-02 |
| Throughout her long artistic career Alice Neel was primarily a figurative painter producing portraits and thus her career's arc gives rise to the author's title. Neel spent years not being recognized as critics focused on art movements such as abstract expressionism. Her own early expressionism found subjects in trauma and the family. Work produced before 1933 had innovative content. Alice Neel married a fellow young artist, a Cuban, Carlos Enriquez. Cuba was a source of interest to a number of Americans including Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos and Walker Evans. Neel and her husband were influenced by the Cuban avant-garde. The artist moved to Greenwich Village in 1931. At the time she could be characterized as a social realist and after 1933 through the early years of the forties she was a WPA artist. She moved to Spanish Harlem in 1939. One of the author's contentions is that Neel created a proletarian portrait gallery. When following the war America became child-centered, Neel painted an America of poverty. Neel's family, raising sons Richard and Harley, was matrifocal. Alice Neel appeared in the movie, PULL MY DAISY. Later the proletarian gallery of Neel shifted to being a New York Art Network as her sitters began to include quasi-famous people. She gained recognition in 1962. The book describes a long journey to acclaim. Some of the issues the author treats in an interesting fashion are political. Our family bought this book after viewing a movie about Alice Neel created by a grandchild. The book is everything we had hoped for in broadening our appreciation of Neel. It is now possible to understand how circumstances bearing on a woman's place deprived her of public appreciation earlier in her career. That said, leftist politics did provide a community of comrades tending to give the artist some psychological and spiritual support. She remains a role model to anyone seeking sustenance through her example of leading an extraordinarily productive life amidst serious material and emotional deprivations. | ||
 | The Magic Mountain | |
| "Parallel Existence" | 2009-07-02 |
| At the end there is a piece on the making of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN. The author spent three weeks at Davos in 1912 visiting his wife who was undergoing treatment for a lung condition. The Berghof was a pre-war phenomenon. It permitted parallel existence. THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN was supposed to be a companion to "Death in Venice" and a satire in juxtaposition to the above-noted long short story. Hans Castorp, a young engineer, travels from Hamburg to Davos to visit his cousin. The visit is to be of three weeks duration. Castorp is supposed to commence to work for a firm of ship-builders. Joachim Ziemssen, the cousin, tells Castorp about the elongation of time at the International Sanatorium Berghof. Early in the novel Castorp meets Settembrini, a humanist. He suggests that Castorp is like Odysseus in the kingdom of shades. At first Castorp is a disinterested spectator. There are five meals daily, but little opportunity to socialize in conventional ways except with those seated at the same assigned table. Hans Castorp wants to know about one Clavdia Chauchat. At the end of three weeks stay it is determined that Hans Castorp has a moist spot on one of his lungs. After a period of bed rest, he resumes the regulated life at Berghof. It is no wonder that Mann first conceives of this work as a short story, a comic twin of his tragic "Death in Venice", because a group of people sitting about waiting to be cured is hardly a picture of dynamic life. Just as Voltaire challenged the reality of the Lisbon Earthquake, Settembrini urges Hans Castorp to resist his diagnosis. The message imparted is do not accept it. Castorp is mystified. Pretty soon it is winter, the real season in the mountains. Castorp pursues a self-prescribed education in biology. It is Christmas and the cousins receive packages. The cousins send flowers to a dying girl to counter the prevailing egotism of the Berghof and assume a sort of social work function for the other inmates. In the village they meet Naphta, a fellow lodger of Settembrini. The latter has an aversion to a piece of Gothic art possessed by Naphta. During the second winter Hans Castorp obtains skis. Castorp remains at the Berghof for seven years. Settembrini attempt a duel, but Settembrini refuses, and Naphta kills himself. And then there is World War I. This is absolutely beyond being a masterpiece. An exercise of reading it again and again would not be a case of time misused. Bravo. | ||
 | Hooking Up | |
| "Exuberance" | 2009-06-23 |
| The book is a collection of essays covering a variety of topics. One piece concerns the origins of Fairfield Semiconductor and Intel. Following the invention of the semi-conductor the micro-chip emerged. It was believed that the company needed to have an operating structure but not a social structure. Two of the founders at Fairfield, Miller and Noyce, went on to start Intel in Santa Clara near Mountain View. Everyone would have stock options. There would be low partitions separating work areas. Noyce had lived in Grinnell, Iowa. It was a bastion of dissenters. His generation was the end of the line, the last embodiment of the Protestant Ethic. Other essays concern THE NEW YORKER, sociobiology, and realistic novels. The volume is an exuberant display of writerly descriptions. | ||
 | Vinegar Hill (Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)) | |
 | "Threat" | 2009-06-23 |
| Ellen's husband James is laid off when the lilacs bloom. There are two children Herbert and Amy. When James refuses to look for work and the family's savings run out, James and Ellen and children move to Wisconsin to live with James's parents. Unfortunately something is wrong in that house. Ellen realizes she and her mother-in-law share similar fates, but the older woman is resentful, bristling with hostility. James seems to be willing to sacrifice his new family in order to be a good son to his mother. One reason for returning to Wisconsin it to tend his brother's grave. The book certainly portrays family malaise perfectly. The naturalism is both sympathetic and gripping. Patriarchal attitudes have caused havoc for several generations, but it is difficult to discern this. The story is one where the heroine understands gradually the necessity for change. The book is a job well done. | ||
 | Rabbit is Rich | |
| "Social historian" | 2009-05-26 |
| Rabbit is selling Toyotas. He owns Springer Motors with his wife and mother-in-law. Rabbit sees himself as a big, bland, good guy. Harry's, Rabbit's, rival, Charlie Stavros, works at Springer Motors. (Later, Rabbit is shocked that the two women, who out vote him, are willing to let him lay off Charlie in order to give his son Nelson a job.) Harry's son, Nelson, who is supposed to be working in Colorado, arrives home. The death of a great American writer causes one to reconsider his oeuvre. Some commentators have stated that Updike arrived at a position of being a great writer without having written a great book. Others have suggested that some of the later novels have not gotten their critical due. The Rabbit books, since there are four of them, are in the running for being deemed Updike's substantial contribution to literature. Actually I don't think they, the Rabbit quartet, really make the cut, although the writing is of the highest order. The problem is subject matter. There is something light weight about a former high school basketball star selling cars and achieving success through the luck of having married into a family business. Whereas the rendition of a superficial life is carefully wrought, it isn't sufficiently tragic or glamorous to merit serious attention. It is a comic turn by an incredibly gifted and hard working novelist. Updike, perhaps fortunately, could not summon the cynicism and the anger of a Sinclair Lewis to make Rabbit's portrait significant. The maximum allowable stars are granted because this is, nevertheless, a jewel of a book. Rabbit is prosperous in this installment. He goes on vacation with other couples, has a new house, and revisits some relationships. It is a case of John Updike, master writer, doing his magic. | ||
 | Rabbit Is Rich | |
| "Social historian" | 2009-05-26 |
| Rabbit is selling Toyotas. He owns Springer Motors with his wife and mother-in-law. Rabbit sees himself as a big, bland, good guy. Harry's, Rabbit's, rival, Charlie Stavros, works at Springer Motors. (Later, Rabbit is shocked that the two women, who out vote him, are willing to let him lay off Charlie in order to give his son Nelson a job.) Harry's son, Nelson, who is supposed to be working in Colorado, arrives home. The death of a great American writer causes one to reconsider his oeuvre. Some commentators have stated that Updike arrived at a position of being a great writer without having written a great book. Others have suggested that some of the later novels have not gotten their critical due. The Rabbit books, since there are four of them, are in the running for being deemed Updike's substantial contribution to literature. Actually I don't think they, the Rabbit quartet, really make the cut, although the writing is of the highest order. The problem is subject matter. There is something light weight about a former high school basketball star selling cars and achieving success through the luck of having married into a family business. Whereas the rendition of a superficial life is carefully wrought, it isn't sufficiently tragic or glamorous to merit serious attention. It is a comic turn by an incredibly gifted and hard working novelist. Updike, perhaps fortunately, could not summon the cynicism and the anger of a Sinclair Lewis to make Rabbit's portrait significant. The maximum allowable stars are granted because this is, nevertheless, a jewel of a book. Rabbit is prosperous in this installment. He goes on vacation with other couples, has a new house, and revisits some relationships. It is a case of John Updike, master writer, doing his magic. | ||
 | A Handful of Dust | |
| "Being a Gentleman" | 2009-05-23 |
| John Beaver, (the worm in the apple), lives with his mother at Sussex Gardens. He saves a substantial amount by staying there with the four servants and furniture from two large houses. His mother seems to know about everyone. Tony Last likes his estate, Hetton. It is not in style, half-timber and pewter. Tony and his wife Brenda get on well together. They are shocked to learn that John Beaver is on a train heading for a visit with them at Hetton. As a pledge of hospitality there is champagne. Brenda refers to her husband Tony as madly feudal. When Brenda Last goes to town, John Beaver is pressed into duty as her escort. Everyone talks. Christmas at Hetton is charades and other festive traditions. Following Christmas it is arranged that Brenda has a flat in town and is scheduled to take a course in economics. After a tragedy Tony's world ceases to exist. Like Percy Fawcett his lost time is spent in Brazil exploring. There he is immersed in the works of Charles Dickens in a most peculiar way. Hetton, the estate, rounds out the story. There is cynicism sprinkled about heavily masking the sheer waste, recklessness, and folly surrounding the characters and their pursuits. The book is also very funny. | ||
 | A Handful of Dust | |
| "Being a Gentleman" | 2009-05-23 |
| John Beaver, (the worm in the apple), lives with his mother at Sussex Gardens. He saves a substantial amount by staying there with the four servants and furniture from two large houses. His mother seems to know about everyone. Tony Last likes his estate, Hetton. It is not in style, half-timber and pewter. Tony and his wife Brenda get on well together. They are shocked to learn that John Beaver is on a train heading for a visit with them at Hetton. As a pledge of hospitality there is champagne. Brenda refers to her husband Tony as madly feudal. When Brenda Last goes to town, John Beaver is pressed into duty as her escort. Everyone talks. Christmas at Hetton is charades and other festive traditions. Following Christmas it is arranged that Brenda has a flat in town and is scheduled to take a course in economics. After a tragedy Tony's world ceases to exist. Like Percy Fawcett his lost time is spent in Brazil exploring. There he is immersed in the works of Charles Dickens in a most peculiar way. Hetton, the estate, rounds out the story. There is cynicism sprinkled about heavily masking the sheer waste, recklessness, and folly surrounding the characters and their pursuits. The book is also very funny. | ||
 | Samaritan | |
| "Secret history of the projects" | 2009-05-10 |
| Ray Mitchell has been assaulted. He was a Hollywood writer and has given a workshop at his old high school in New Jersey. Nerese Ammons is giving a crime prevention program at the same high school and is asked by the principal to look into Ray's assault. The victim and officer know each other. Ray is reluctant to identify the assailant. Nerese says she could have been a teacher. Ray, who taught for awhile, says he could have been a cop. Nerese's advancement in the department has been blocked by the public knowledge of her drug-using brothers. She is scheduled to retire in six months. Ray may have been beaten for doing an extraordinarily good deed. Someone may have misinterpreted his gesture. Ray is trying to be an honorable guy, but the neediness of the persons in the projects feed his selfish desires, Nerese theorizes. This book speaks to the heart. The problem facing the main character, Ray Mitchell, is that in trying to carry out good acts, he is viewed with suspicion in the community. His motives are suspect. Price carries the reader along with adroit moves through twists and turns in the plot, using emotional leverage to secure attention. Samaritan is a good title for the book. It implies good, but it also stands for outsider. | ||
 | Samaritan (GMA June Pick) | |
| "Secret history of the projects" | 2009-05-10 |
| Ray Mitchell has been assaulted. He was a Hollywood writer and has given a workshop at his old high school in New Jersey. Nerese Ammons is giving a crime prevention program at the same high school and is asked by the principal to look into Ray's assault. The victim and officer know each other. Ray is reluctant to identify the assailant. Nerese says she could have been a teacher. Ray, who taught for awhile, says he could have been a cop. Nerese's advancement in the department has been blocked by the public knowledge of her drug-using brothers. She is scheduled to retire in six months. Ray may have been beaten for doing an extraordinarily good deed. Someone may have misinterpreted his gesture. Ray is trying to be an honorable guy, but the neediness of the persons in the projects feed his selfish desires, Nerese theorizes. This book speaks to the heart. The problem facing the main character, Ray Mitchell, is that in trying to carry out good acts, he is viewed with suspicion in the community. His motives are suspect. Price carries the reader along with adroit moves through twists and turns in the plot, using emotional leverage to secure attention. Samaritan is a good title for the book. It implies good, but it also stands for outsider. | ||
 | Tesla : Man Out of Time | |
| "Lone Runner" | 2009-04-23 |
| Nikola Tesla was a bachelor. Born in 1856, he died at age eighty-six in 1943. He was a prolific inventor. Addressing the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Tesla introduced a new scientific principle. He hit upon the notion of a rotating magnetic field produced by two or more alternating currents out of step with each other to make his induction machine. Obsession plagued his life. He excelled in languages but starred in math at school. He had an abnormal ability to visualize and retain images. He was introduced to physics at age ten and was enthralled. Tesla continued his studies at a school in Karstadt, (the family was Servian but lived in Croatia). In 1875 he was enrolled at the Austrian Polytechnic School in Graz. He sought to complete two years of work in one. In the second year, Nikola Tesla toyed with the idea of an alternative to direct current machines. His financial circumstances were grim. He had to become a school drop-out. He was basically self-taught. From a telegraph office in Germany, Tesla moved to a telephone office in Paris in 1883. He travelled to America in 1884, the year of the panic. He gained employment with Thomas Edison on his first day. There were personality differences. Edison had a vested interest in direct current machines. Tesla redesigned the Edison dynamos. He thought he had been promised fifty thousand dollars for the work of a year. When it was not forthcoming he resigned. Tesla made a deal with George Westinghouse for an alternating current system. The public was confused by Edison's propaganda and G.E.'s efforts to contest Tesla's priority of invention. It was never fully understood even by engineers that the system almost universally adopted was Tesla's. When Westinghouse faced a financial calamity, Tesla signed over his patents for the polyphase system to Westinghouse. The first commercial use of Tesla's system was undertaken in Telluride, Colorado, in 1891. Tesla gave demonstrations of light sources in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair. Milikan was inspired by Tesla's claim of cosmic rays and Compton, too, expressed his debt to his Victorian predecessor. Tesla anticipated the electron microscope and the atom smasher. Marconi and Tesla wrangled over priority in the matter of radio patents, although neither man originated the law suits. The polyphase system was used by the Niagra Falls Power Co. and it laid the groundwork for all the electricity service systems in the United States. In 1895 there was a fire at Tesla's New York City laboratory. Everything was destroyed. The fire took place amid the happiest and most productive decade of Tesla's life. Newspapers reported that the fruits of genius had been swept away. His researches included radio, energy transmission, guided vehicles, liquid oxygen and X rays. A new lab was located on East Houston Street. Tesla accepted money from a financier, start-up funds, but to his material detriment rejected an alliance with the House of Morgan. Because his work was interrupted, Tesla was bested by Linde in developing the commercial breakthrough to produce liquified oxygen. Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled robot boat at Madison Square Garden in 1898. Tesla's laboratory was moved to Colorado Springs in 1899. He had an experimental lab built to his specifications. He returned to New York City in 1990 and in 1901 one of Tesla's patents specifically addressed the issue of supercooling conductors. In 1943, after his death, the United States Supreme Court held that Tesla had anticipated all other contenders with his fundamental radio patents. Nikoa Tesla was ahead of his time and mistaken for a dreamer. In 1975 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This is a wonderful book. | ||
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