The Anti-Book List (Redhead & MacLeish)

     Brian Redhead and Kenneth McLeish, eds. The Anti-Booklist. (1981) A collection of short essays attacking the reputations of certain books (and their authors.) Witty and well read. Most of the criticisms of the classic, well-known, or merely popular books rest on moral grounds and/or simply bad writing. This book reminds us not so much that even good writers write bad books, but that we often value books for the wrong reasons. The other point this book makes, albeit unintentionally: it demonstrates that much of what we think of as literary judgement, positive or negative, consists of little more than following the current fashions. Many of  this book's targets no longer loom large enough in the literary world to merit this much attention (eg, Evelyn Waugh.) Nothing fades as fast as a best-seller’s popularity. A quick read, but once is enough. **½ (2001)

Model Railroad Planning 2001

     Model Railroad Planning 2001. MRR Annual. This year, Koester has chosen articles with two main themes: changing modelling goals, and smaller layouts. There are still a couple of large layouts featured, and the overall modelling philosophy is still prototype-based, but strict prototype modelling has lost its premier place. In fact, the end-piece describes Jeff Wilson’s tearing down his strictly prototype layout and replacing it with a "prototype themes" freelance plan. Iain Rice designs a couple of granger-style roads (10'x15', HO & N), Robert Nicholson designs a "based-on" fictitious Georgian branchline (15'x22, S or On2.5), and Eric Hausmann designs a 12'x12' plan based on West Virginia’s glass industry. All three use prototypes for inspiration and guidance, but each adapts and modifies the prototype to suit his space and tastes. Most importantly, each thinks in terms of the space available, and the total impression possible within that space.
     The April MRR happens to include a very small layout - 8'x8'. So perhaps the prototype fanatics are losing their predominance in the hobby. Good thing, too. A letter in MRRP 2001 laments the split in model railroading in the UK - on the one side the strictly prototype nutters, who can’t even agree on standards among themselves; and on the other the ordinary modellers, who are faced with a horrible mix of largely incompatible proprietary standards, and insufficient help from the "true" modellers. (However, Hornby and Bachmann seem to be moving towards track/wheel dimensions compatible with NEM and NMRA - about time.,)
     An intriguing engineering concept, a track elevator, extends the design possibilities. The author has built two, and his experience validates the concept. It’s billed as the helix killer - but IMO the helix is an under-valued and under-utilised scenic element, and I intend to sketch an LDA that lets the helix come into its own. *** (2001)
     Update 2013: MRP 2013 includes an example of one turn of a helix "brought forward" into the open. The builder says that now operators know where their train is, and also (bonus) it adds both a scenic element and another operating point (passing siding with team track).
     Update 2020: Even a multi-level helix can feature scenic element. The trick is to bring one or more of the levels out of the stack into the open. There, they can feature a cliff-side bench, or a curved trestle over a steep transverse gorge, or a remote and lonely station, prehaps with a water tank.

250 posts!

The review of John Armstrong's Classic Layout Designs is the 250th post. If you wish to use that a an excuse to celebrate, please do so. There are precious few reason to celebrate, so every excuse counts.

Classic Layout Designs (John Armstrong)

     John Armstrong Classic Layout Designs (2000) 15 articles reprinted from Model Railroader, all with beautifully reproduced new prototype photos. The drawings were also brought to a common standard, but the computer operator had some problems: elevation marks are inconsistent. As with most perfect-bound books, the gutters are too narrow, and bleeding pictures to the inside causes an irritating loss of graphic information.
     Armstrong has added brief comments on his articles, which are entertaining to read. He notes that "layover tracks" are now called staging. He emphasises that layouts should be designed to be built in stages. But he’s too modest to draw attention to his four primary contributions to layout design: a) scene-by-scene plans based on prototypes (the "layout design element" or LDE of the layout design SIG); b) fitting main lines into a space subdivided into squares based on minimum radius; c) staging; d) use of backdrops (even double-sided) and hidden trackage to limit the visible layout to one scene at a time. All these are aspects of total layout design, an approach that his disciple Iain Rice has also mastered. About the only difference between Armstrong and modern designers is aisle-width: 30" or more is now considered minimal.
     Reading Armstrong’s plans can be difficult, as he was a master of squeezing every last inch of track into the space available, a skill no doubt developed because he designed for real people living in real houses. This creates a deceptively spaghetti-bowl look. Careful study reveals that very rarely can one see more than one scene at a time, however, and then usually only by elevating oneself to helicopter level. Printing the scenic suggestions in darker ink could have mitigated the problem.
     Only the wretched physical design of the book prevents four stars. *** (2001)

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine July/August 1997

      Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July/August 1997. Borrowed from WCESS. Demonstrates that the short story is the mystery genre’s best format: just long enough to create barely believable characters and a plausible plot, but compressed enough for an easily visible shape of the story. Most of the stories are sentimental, a few have the Hitchcockian twist of the crook inadvertently double-crossing himself (or herself) through excessive ingenuity, and a couple work on every level.
     Memories (Wanda Jones) plays a nice variation on Southern Gothic: a plain girl’s nasty older brother gets his just deserts in a psychologically satisfying way. Stop, Thief! (Dan Sontup) works the double-cross motif expertly: honest citizen wants to use petty crook in an insurance scam and set him up as the fall guy, but makes the common error of thinking crooks are dumber than honest citizens. Streetwise (J. A Paul) believably mixes a smart kid, school bullies, an observant cop, and a martial arts coach into a well-paced yarn. Most of the stories are competently written (or edited). A few are a bit precious in style or concept, but I guess the magazine has to cater to a wide range of tastes. ** to *** (2001)

Murder on Location (Howard Engel)

     Howard Engel Murder on Location (1982) One of the Benny Cooperman series, which had a moderate success some years ago. (There’s a new one out, so I guess he’s still popular). Soft-boiled PI, gris rather than noir in mood. Plot somewhat convoluted, and Engel is not as adept at planting clues and red herrings as other writers: the reader (me) gets confused. Perhaps more recent stories are better constructed. The characters are attractive and real enough to engage interest, the style is competent, the atmosphere realistic in the mannered style of such confections. Two people are murdered; the roots of the crime are deep in the past. Cooperman is a shadowy figure, however, despite the first-person narrative. The book will do as an airplane read. ** (2001)
     Upfate 2013: I read all the Cooperman stories eventually. Most of them are better than this one.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Helen Fielding)

     Helen Fielding Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Picador, 1999) Kathryn gave me this book after failing to finish it. After failing to finish it myself, I understand her reasons: Fielding is a one-trick dog. The first Bridget Jones book had the advantage of freshness, and Bridget did display some change and development. This Bridget is trapped in her angst and neurosis. The closest she comes to change is to remind herself of what she believes she has become, a resourceful, responsible woman of substance. The constant repetition gets tiresome – plot consists of more than happenings. Also, the book has a lot of the feel of The Diary of a Nobody about it, we are supposed to feel superior to poor Bridget and laugh at her inability to get out of her emotional tarpits. Leaves a bad taste. Didn’t finish. *

Present tense (John Moss)

      John Moss Present Tense (NC Press, 1985). A collection of essays on authors such as Timothy Findley who achieved prominence from the 1960s onward. Also included: Jack Hodgins, Mavis Gallant, Michael Ondaatje, Norman Levine, Carol Shields, David Helwig, Hugh Hood, Matt Cohen, Marian Engel, Audrey Thomas, George Bowering, and Robert Kroetsch. The list illustrates how the reputation of the moment does not predict the future. Hodgins, Helwig and Kroetsch are now of merely academic interest (ie, only academics read them, not necessarily seriously), while Ondaatje achieved pop star status with The English Patient. This book is part IV of a series, and authors you might expect to be treated here appeared in earlier books. The essays themselves are on the whole not well written. Many read as if written for an undergraduate course; perhaps that is their provenance, since most of the writers discussed were at the time too new to have established an oeuvre. The photographs of the authors show them in their 30s, very young-seeming in light of their later work.
      I did not read all the essays in this book. I found the common "reader’s response" point of view tedious – a critical work should attempt to describe the objective aspects of a book, not merely the reader’s feelings. Also, several writers used the past tense to summarise a book’s story, a modern habit I find very irritating. There was also a general sense of limited experience and knowledge, hard to pin-point, and perhaps more an effect of the style and of omissions than of explicit errors. What the essayists lacked most, however, was delight in their subject. A good critic conveys not only that his subject matters enough to write about, but also that the book was a pleasure to read. That particular "reader’s response" appeared only in George Woodcock’s essay on Findley, and almost made me want to attempt again to read that tedious trickster. * (2001)

The Muppets Take Manhattan (Movie Review)

     The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) Not the best Muppet production. It tells the trite but true story of the show-biz group that tries to conquer Broadway, fails on first try, eventually gets a break, and puts on a smash hit. But the movie moves so slowly I sometimes wondered why one should call it a movie. It also lacks the Muppet zaniness, has no satirical edge whatever, and generally disappoints the seasoned Muppet expert who, like me, has watched their TV series over and over again. In the end, Kermit and Miss Piggy get married. This should’ve been an opportunity for a madhouse wedding reception, but no, the movie just stops. Mildly amusing, with a couple of bits that approach the expected standard, but overall a disappointment. Perhaps the slow pace is designed to appeal to young children. ** (2000)

Small, Smart & Practical Trackplans (Iain Rice)

     Iain Rice Small, Smart & Practical Trackplans (2000) A very well written book. The title misleads, as Rice has here designed layouts, not mere trackplans. He makes this point in the introductory chapters: that one should design a layout, not merely draw a trackplan. He also provides useful tips on construction of ultra-small layouts and staging methods, eg, the train cassette, a brilliant idea. I wonder who invented it.

     The layout designs he offers are very well done. They each have a charm of their own, are definitely practical (some are of layouts he has built), and the overall philosophy is just what’s needed, now that people are discovering that the basement-sized layout demands a club of some sort (even if only a group of the builder’s friends). I wish the book were as well designed as written. It’s a perfect-bound book with very narrow gutters, which results in slices cut out of several trackplans. Also, a spellchecker has been used to proofread the text, and it shows, from stray words in strange places, to the potentially damaging misprinting of ‘uptight’ for ‘upright’ on p.78 (in the chapter about Lake Wobegon.) These minor flaws irritate all the more as Kalmbach usually produces impeccable books. Content **** Production *
      Footnote: When I look back at the layouts I tried to design some 30 years ago, I realise that I had half-formed some of the ideas Rice presents here. They build on John Armstrong’s principles, the major change being the attempt to balance all aspects of a layout.
     Armstrong designed operating model railroads, but did not make as much use of staging as is now the norm, and sometimes skimped on scenic effects in order to get sufficient trackage for ‘real’ operation. Rice emphasises that the scene we see is all that matters, and that the trains that pass through it are like actors in a play, a point first made by Frank Ellison.Staging tracks can take the place of a basement full of railroad. Armstrong’s layout designs led to the railroad that fills up a basement. Rice’s reinterpretation of Frank Ellison reminds us that a small railroad can offer as much operating interest as a large one; and, because the layout can be finished in a reasonable time, may offer even more modelling pleasure.  (2000)

Trent's Last case (E C Bentley)

    E C Bentley Trent’s Last Case. (1913ff) With an essay by Dorothy Sayers. This is a classic, so they say. It apparently demonstrated how to open up the detective story genre, and in some ways I suppose it did. It actually blends love romance and crime novel, for the central plot point is not who done it, but will the ‘tec, Philip Trent, find true love? He suspects that his lady love, Mrs Manderson, is implicated in the murder of her husband, you see, and being the chivalrous dog he is he can’t bring himself to pass his deductions to Inspector Murch, the copper with whom he conducts a friendly rivalry. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried, for he was wrong, and his lady is innocent – as is her putative lover Marlowe, although he is the one who has discovered that Manderson has tried to frame him, and so tries to make what looks like suicide look like murder by person or persons unknown and unsuspected – himself least of all. But the real murderer is Cupples, Mrs Manderson’s uncle, and he doesn’t reveal his part in the story until the very, very end. Trent quite properly makes him pay for dinner.
     This is an interesting story, but it is terribly dated all the same. I don’t think it’s just that we’ve had the same sort of double and triple plot twists over and over again, for we don’t in fact tire of plot twists. The style is quite amusing, in the somewhat laboured Edwardian mode. It’s the sexual morality that dates the book. The purity of womanhood was a given in those days, and Mabel Manderson and Philip Trent just don’t ring true anymore. The lover tortured by moral scruples about imputing impurity to his beloved is definitely a creature of another century.
     The puzzle was quite good, but Bentley isn’t as good on the process of solution as he should be. One can see that, if this was indeed the first of its kind, it was a ground-breaking work, and why Sayers claims it set later crime writers free to write novels, not mere puzzle stories. Nevertheless, the book was a pleasant read. **1/2 (2000)

Selected Writings (Oscar Wilde)

     Oscar Wilde Selected Writings. (Selection 1961) Several essays, the fairy tales, and the two great plays – a pleasure to read. Wilde’s great gift is to express a morally serious point of view through in elegant epigrams. He is always a pleasure to read – and that pleasure exhibits Wilde’s greatest weakness. Unfortunately, many people believe that a funny saying cannot be meant seriously, and so don’t listen to the satire, even if they hear it. I read most of the selections this time round. The Importance of Being Earnest is a joy. ****

Reflections on the Psalms (C S :Lewis)

     C. S. Lewis Reflections on the Psalms (1961) Lewis is not at his best here. He writes, he says, as a neophyte for other neophytes; he aims the book at fellow Christians. And there are difficulties in doing this, but they don’t arise from Lewis’s pretended theological innocence. Lewis is a moral theologian of no mean skill, and his reflections convince most when he reflects on the psalms’ moral lessons. But underlying the whole book is an odd literalism, which often makes his arguments seem designed to conform not to logic but to some predetermined external standard of factual truth. Lewis doesn’t accept such special pleading elsewhere, so I think there is an unreconciled conflict between the need to believe that the Bible is God’s word, i.e., the Truth, and the knowledge that it is after all a collection of very old books, rife with errors, omissions, mistakes, and obvious and not so obvious redactions, let alone the inherent translation errors, and the inevitable mistakes in interpretation that come from our ignorance and prejudices, and differences in culture or worldview between ourselves and the writers.
     Lewis is disturbed by a number of things in the psalms, not least the hate-psalms, and twists and turns every which way to explain them away. His explanation essentially amounts to this: As a believer, I am bound to find some good in these horrible things, since they are inspired by God. Therefore, some good must be found. And the good is that it is a horrible example. In other words, Lewis has certain values and the Psalms must be interpreted to conform to these values. I always find this a problematic mode of argument, even when, as here, it suggests useful insights.
     Lewis would never take this approach with other literature, and I am disappointed that he does so here. It would be better in my opinion if he had said he had no explanation, that these psalms are there as much by reason of ancient reverence for ancient texts as for any spiritual reasons. Such reverence often amounts to superstition, not only in the past but nowadays, too. I also believe that the Bible is inspired, but I don’t have as literalist an interpretation of this concept as Lewis apparently does. I think the Bible should be read like any other text. That is, we need to understand as best we can what the texts meant to their writers, and distinguish that from what they might mean to us. Lewis does some of this, but unlike me he doesn’t build on what our ancestors (probably) thought they meant, instead he adds meaning from a new frame of reference, the Christian one. From time to time, his argument reads more like reading into the text than reading out of it.
     There is also more than a whiff of the Only Truth syndrome. Lewis occasionally hints that pagans and other non-Christians have a dim understanding of God’s revelation by the grace of God, but Christians have the whole thing, and pure, too. It seems to me that he is the True Believer personality. When he found atheism wanting, he went to the opposite extreme. This makes me think about exactly what I believe. First of all, I think that to say "I believe" means something quite different from "I know." Belief is about meaning (and therefore about purposes). Knowledge is about experience. One could rephrase this as, we know what we have experienced, but as soon as we try to explain it, we enter the realm of belief. EG, we know that our instruments measure certain energy flows. We believe that this means there has been a change in the energy content of electrons in the atom. The fact that we have checks on our beliefs doesn’t make them knowledge. One consequence of this: accounts of our experience are true or false (someone else can confirm or disconfirm them), but accounts of our beliefs are not. A belief is consistent or inconsistent with our accounts of experience – but consistency is not the same as truth.
     The question is, what is religious belief as distinct from other beliefs? I think it is the claim of what they cover. Simply, religious beliefs claim to explain the meaning and purpose of our existence. They don’t answer the question, How did we come to be here? but the much more serious question of Why did we come to be here? I affirm the Christian belief not because I think it is true but because it is consistent with my experience on a grander scale than any other I have encountered. Does that mean the others are any less worthy of affirmation? Not from my point of view, but that merely means that I have built (and continue to build) my Christian belief system so that it makes sense to me. No doubt other believers have done the same with their belief systems. The fact that religions have so much in common suggests that they are all, so to speak, inspired by the Spirit.
     Can a belief be true? As I said, I don’t think so. But one can test a belief’s consistency. A beliefs should be consistent with itself, and it should be consistent with experience. Related beliefs should be consistent with each other. Science is a method of testing beliefs about the meaning of ordinary experience. What’s significant here is that over time scientists affirm the same beliefs, and agree that tests show errors, that is, inconsistencies in these beliefs. Scientists also have methods of building beliefs. That is why their beliefs are called theories, or more recently models (since the word theory has lost almost all its useful meanings in everyday language.)
     Can religious belief be tested? Of course. Jesus said how: "By their fruits ye shall know them," he said, and spent a lot of time pointing out the hypocrisy of his coreligionists. If one doesn’t act consistently with one’s stated beliefs, then clearly something is wrong, either with the beliefs, or the claim that one is following them. Lewis is in fact very good on showing the fruits of belief and unbelief. His strength is moral theology. Where his book focuses on these questions, I find it convincing and helpful. Overall: *** (2000)