Forgotten Genius: Percy Lavon Julian (2007)

     Forgotten Genius Percy Lavon Julian (1899-1975), grandson of a slave, became one of the most accomplished chemists in the USA at a time when black people were barred both legally and socially from career paths that whites took for granted. This NOVA film traces his life using dramatisation, the sadly small amount of archival material, and personal reminiscences of people who knew him. It’s depressing and inspiring, as well as educational (the film makers manage to teach a good deal of chemistry along the way). It’s one of those biographies that make you wish you had known the man himself.
     It’s easy to forget how many barriers to education black children faced, and how thoroughly their spirits were broken. Julian was an exception in part because of his father and mother, both of whom were teachers who pushed him to develop his talents; and partly because of his determination. He was a man who wouldn’t give up. It’s depressing to recall the history of racism. Canadian racism was rarely as overt and violent as in the USA, but it was (and is) bad enough. In many ways the polite racism of this country is worse: it hides the fact.
    Interesting trivia: Julian’s work at Glidden Paints  helped the company to expand into many other product lines, but for some reason Glidden decided to withdraw from them and focus on its “core business.” An opportunity missed from a stockholder’s POV, I think. Julian should be better known. Wikipedia here.  You can watch Forgotten Genius on YouTube.
     As good a biography as the available material allowed, I think. ***

About Schmidt (2002)

     About Schmidt (2002) [D:Alexander Payne. Jack Nicholson, Kathy Bates, Hope Davis] Schmidt (Nicholson) retires from a life of dutiful service to his family, earning a comfortable living as a minor insurance executive. His wife has persuaded him to buy a large RV so that they can go travelling. But the fact is that Schmidt hasn’t any interests outside of his work; he’s repressed everything he really cared about to give his family a good living. A commercial asking people to foster an orphan in Africa attracts his attention and he signs up. Returning from the post office to mail a letter to Ngudu, the African boy whom he’s adopted at the rate of $22 a month, he finds his wife dead of a stroke, the vacuum cleaner still whining away. After the funeral, and a couple of weeks or so of stunned grief, he finds love-letters to his wife from their best friend. This is the first of several unwelcome discoveries. He decides to drive the RV to Colorado to visit his daughter and persuade her to back out of marrying a gormless but friendly waterbed salesman.
     The trip takes a couple of weeks. He detours to visit his hometown and places he’s always wanted to see. He continues to write letters to Ngudu, in which he puts a brave face on his disappointments. His future in-laws are an odd collection of free spirits and failures. At the wedding, he delivers the kind of speech he’s expected to make. He returns home believing he’s a failure: he hasn’t made a difference in anyone’s life. But a letter from Ngudu’s caregiver at the orphanage lifts his spirits. Because of his $22 a month, Ngudu will have a better future.
     The road trip as voyage of discovery is a common trope, so is this one worth watching? Yes, if you don’t mind seeing a man who hasn’t done much with his life, and has developed a habit of repressing his true self and living the roles his family and society expect of him. I don’t know the book that inspired this movie, but I suspect it makes rather harsher judgments about the effects of American self-effacement than this movies does. The movie doesn’t really know how to deal with Schmidt. Should his predicament be played for laughs? Yes. Should it adopt a sentimental tone to soften Schmidt’s rage? Yes. Should it show a man developing wisdom late, but no too late, in life? Yes. Should it develop a critique of the affluent life? Yes. And so on.
     The result of this indecision about what to do with the script is a collection of vignettes of varying quality, intensity, and tone, each of which has its own charm and effect, but which don’t come together into a coherent whole. This is a movie that is less than the sum of its parts. Entertaining, but not involving. **

John Wain. The Smaller Sky (1967)

     John Wain. The Smaller Sky (1967) Arthur Geary has left his ordinary life to live at Paddington Station. Of course this small act of rebellion arouses the antagonism of all the normal people, trapped as they are in a network of obligations. In the end Geary dies. I started this book, and may finish it. Its style is dim, there’s a greyness about it all that is not at all appealing. The book will go into my collection of stories with a railway setting. ** (2002)

Robert Graves. The Shout (1965)

     Robert Graves. The Shout (1965) Graves wrote these stories for various magazines. His style is anecdotal and laid back. The stories describe events that just sort of happen. Graves claims they are all true; they certainly have the not-quite-orderly pattern of real life. I liked the “English Stories” best. The “Roman Stories” read like pieces written to educate about Roman life. Perhaps they are the ones written for Holiday. The “Majorcan Stories” are too long. The anecdotal style palls after two or three pages of rambling narrative. A pleasant read, but of greatest appeal to those who want to know more about Graves. **-½ (2002)

Gordon R. Dickson. Mutants (1973)

 Gordon R. Dickson. Mutants (1973) Short stories, some of which have been published in other collections. Dickson writes clearly and economically, and his ideas are always interesting. Characterisation, as in any romance, suffices for the plot, but unusually for SF, Dickson is as interested in the psychology as in the technology - more so, in many stories. 

     He likes the figure of the “man of war,” which he explores at length in the Dorsai series. One of these, Warrior, leads this collection. Dickson also has a talent for the extended joke, as in Idiot Solvant (a genius is given a pill that has the effect of unleashing all his talents), and Miss Prinks (in which a lady decides not to use her superpowers, bestowed on her by a being from another dimension, since it might cause her to behave in an unladylike manner. 

     These stories all originally appeared in the SF pulps of 1950s and 60s, and like all such stories show a rather timid extrapolation of existing technologies such as computers. And like many other writers of the time (esp. Philip K Dick), Dickson writes stories that may be read as political allegories. Danger - Human! For example could be seen as a disguised claim that American individualism will win out over the stultifying effects of Russian communism. 

     But there’s no need to get all solemn and earnest about themes and motifs. Dickson writes very good entertainments, some of which exceed anything else in the genre. ** to **** (2002)

Richard Neely. Shadows of the Past (1987)

     Richard Neely. Shadows of the Past (1987) A “saga” involving teenage love, class conflict, friendship, loyalty, and sex. Trashy as can be, TV Movie written all over it. (For all I know, it was made into a mini-series -- it’s hard to tell, since they all seem to be the same story.) The book is a romance, unusual only in that it focuses on a man instead of a woman. Charles Dain, son of a poor immigrant, falls in love with schoolmate Sharon Fletcher, whose father throws him out. He enlists in the army (WWI), and she, pregnant, marries an old friend. He meets and marries Harriet Calder, rich, rich, rich heiress, who buys him a newspaper. Max, his and Sharon’s old friend (and supposed chaperone on their dates) becomes his managing editor, etc. Many years later, Charles and Sharon meet and resume their affair, which ends when Dain is shot by Max, who in a drunken rage realises he has never really given up hope of winning Sharon. Charles covers up the deed, and although several people now know Sharon’s daughter Kate is Charles’ child, everything will work out well. The “shadows of the past” will be deliberately forgotten.
     There are few wrinkles of plot I’ve left out, but that’s the essence. The characterisation is superficial, the dialogue is quite good, the narrative trick of shifting back and forth form past to present works well enough, but all in all, it’s fraud, a beach book designed to while away a few hours without too much imaginative or intellectual engagement. The book succeeds at this modest goal, but I can’t help feeling that Neely wanted to write a more serious book. However, like many romances, it’s full of anachronisms, most gratingly in speech and attitudes. *(2002)

Cynthia Freeman. Portraits (1979)

    Cynthia Freeman. Portraits (1979) A Family Saga Romance. A Jewish family emigrates to the USA in the early 1900s. The story follows their fortunes, etc to the present day, when one of the last survivors starts writing this story.
     A bad book, relying on incident (eg, a vicious beating of the hero) and plot (most of which is signalled well ahead of time, just in case your attention wanders), with cursory attempts at socio-economic description. Much telling, very little showing, stereotypical characters and incidents. The story is “realistic,” in that the characters are not saints by any means; but they have moments of insight which bring them round, so that their bad feelings and attitudes don’t last very long. The book has Hollywood and TV rights written all over it; in the right hands it would make a Serious Dramatic miniseries. In other words, light weight trash. I read about 1/4 of it, and had enough. Fay got this book at Books and Stuff, for light summer reading; which it is, but not the best example of its genre.
     Freeman started writing at age 55, and had some success. She explains a lot, which makes for easy reading. She aims at the middle, that kind of reader who doesn’t want to figure things out, doesn’t want to get too involved with the characters, doesn’t want too much intellectual or moral shock, in fact wants to have her prejudices and opinions confirmed, especially the progressive ones. In this, Freeman succeeds. But I don’t like it. * (2002)

Gordon R. Dickson. Mindspan (1986)

     Gordon R. Dickson. Mindspan (1986) Collection of stories about human-alien encounters. Several of the stories form short series, one about Harry Shallo, and one about Tim and Lucy Parent. In all the stories, human (i.e., American) orneriness, cunning, and sheer irrational savvy are shown to be a match for any mere alien. Which raises the question of whether we can imagine an alien of truly superior skill and intelligence. Apparently not. Entertaining, well plotted, nicely written, and swift moving, so that one doesn’t notice the holes in the logic or the thinness of the characters while enjoying these tales. Dickson wrote them for Galaxy and similar 1950s-60s pulps. The editors’ stinginess forced low word counts, which I’m sure contributed to the compressed and often elegant style of tale telling. ** to ***. (2002)

J. Thurber. and E. B. White. Is Sex Necessary? (1929, 1950)

     J. Thurber. and E. B. White. Is Sex Necessary? (1929, 1950) Somewhat dated in its coy humour, but stylish and amusing. Thurber’s analysis of “pedestalism” still stands. The fact that this book was considered screamingly funny when it first appeared tells us a lot about the American obsession with sex, and Americans’ false assumption that other, more sophisticated, societies (e.g. Europe) don’t have the same neuroses as they do. Thurber’s drawings are wonderful. He can put more expression in a single line than some more skillful draftsmen put into a whole picture. **-½ (2002)

Robert Campbell. Plugged Nickel (1988)

     Robert Campbell. Plugged Nickel (1988) Bought at Value Village because it’s set on a train, and obviously a remaindered copy, never read. Jake Hatch is the P.I., he’s a railroad cop working for the Burlington Northern. A severed body is found on the tracks, but the two parts turn out to be from different bodies. And so what might be a gruesome accident turns out to be murder. The puzzle is competently handled, although the denouement is somewhat perfunctory. The characters and atmosphere are pleasant, and we learn a little bit about gypsies. Not the best such entertainment, and not the worst either. Campbell doesn’t get the railroady bits quite right, which may be the reason this didn’t turn into a series as planned. Or maybe it did. The next book was to be titled Red Cent. I haven’t seen it, but I will look for it. ** (2002)

Barton J. Bernstein. Towards a New Past (1969)

     Barton J. Bernstein. Towards a New Past (1969) A collection of “dissenting essays in American History,” and as such containing interesting points of view based in some cases on new data. Many of these points of view would be considered subversive right now. The trouble is, it’s an academic book, put together for undergraduate history courses. I pity the people who had to read this book for credit. The style for the most part is clotted and obscurantist, often written to an audience that presumably has the same knowledge base as the writer. The most readable essay is Christopher Lasch’s, in which he lambastes the “liberals” that allied themselves with right-wing anti-communist paranoia.
      The date of the book suggests reasons for its publication: the 60s were a brief resurgence of the liberal tradition in American society, a tradition that is once again under attack, since it represents what used to be called conservative attitudes: respect for the individual; the view that the state exists to protect the weak from the powerful (which entails redistribution of wealth); a belief that government should promote the general good and not arbitrate between competing interests (for such arbitration inevitably results in co-option by one or another of those interests); and so on.
     Much of its material is, as the academics say, “valuable,” but the academic tone and attitudes put off the people who most need a corrective to their myths of the American past: the ordinary Jane and Joe who believe what is mostly a rickety structure of lies and conscience-salving myths. The heirs of the dissenting tradition, the ultra-sensitive would-be reformers of racist, sexist, classist attitudes, are themselves as guilty of misreading the past as those whom they attack. Since their misreadings for the most part have no political or economic consequences, they are happily included in current TV and movies. The real issues, which are misunderstanding of money and power, and hence mistaken analysis of how they work in our society, are ignored in favour of attempts to avoid affronting those who feel they have a historical grievance of one kind or another.
     Clearly a book that provokes responses. But, oh, how tedious to read! ** (2002)

E. J. West Shaw on Theatre (1958)

     E. J. West Shaw on Theatre (1958) Collection of essays, and public and private letters, therefore somewhat repetitive. The last few pieces, written when Shaw had outlived everybody who ever mattered to him, could have been left out, but in fact are the best summaries of his views and knowledge, and should be first reading for any student of GBS. His claim that he went back to earlier modes of drama is one I can’t check, but from what I know of Shakespeare and the Greeks, I think it’s exaggerated. His claim that the declamatory style of acting is the main tradition, and that he wrote for it, is easier to check: one simply goes to a modern production. And guess what: his plays work just as well done in the low-key naturalistic style that is now once again in vogue. Which means that his scripts are largely director- and actor-proof, just as Shakespeare’s are.
     GBS's contempt for what he calls police magazine stories and petty adulteries as the stuff of theatre gets shriller as he ages. From what we now know about his sex life, it appears he protests too much. As some other cynic said, as sexual capability and interest diminish with age, sexual disgust increases. I read this book as much for the style as for the information. Pretty good, and quotable. *** (2002)

Norman Thelwell. Penelope Rides Again (1991)

     Norman Thelwell. Penelope Rides Again (1991) Cartoons of Penelope and her friends and their ponies. Bought at a yard sale for possible gift to one of our nieces. Like all cartoon books, hard to take in one gulp. Thelwell’s girl and pony cartoons were first published in Punch and some  British kids’ comics. The Telegraph picked him up as a regular, and this book (and many others, according to the flyleaf list) is the result. Thelwell's fat little ponies and the little girls that bounce around on them have a certain charm, but I suspect it’s a specialised taste. **

Robert Weaver. The Anthology Anthology (1984)

     Robert Weaver. The Anthology Anthology (1984) Collection of stories, poems, etc first broadcast on CBC’s Anthology, which Weaver produced for a long, long time. I vaguely remember hearing it from time to time. Anyhow, I can’t remember where I got this book. Maybe Jon gave it to me, or Cassandra, or maybe I found it on a remainder table. If so, it must have been some years ago, because I there’s no date in the front (I write the month/year in every book I buy now). The pieces vary, of course, but they do share a common tone or cast of mind or colour of the imagination. There’s a kind of melancholy, a kind of acceptance of the inevitable, of the uncontrollable encounters in one’s life, that seems to me peculiarly Canadian. When Americans try the same tone, they write stories of defeat. The Canadian stories don’t feel defeatist.
     For example, in “A Private Place” by Joyce Marshall, Lars, a newly separated Norwegian moves into a recently dead older man’s apartment, and reads the letters from the older man’s Canadian mistress. He doesn’t answer them, and she finally asks to have confirmed what she suspects and dreads, that her lover is dead, and her letters are being tossed out. By this time Lars’s wife is asking Lars to let their daughter spend more time with him, he has met a possible future mate, he knows that soon his wife will file for divorce, and he can form a family again. None of this has come about by any action on his part, he has merely drifted from one situation to another. His inability to write to the dead man’s mistress is just another symptom of his passivity. This inability to act, this drifting, occurs in most of the other stories, too. But one doesn’t feel that the protagonists are losers; one feels instead that they are survivors. Which, according to Peggy Atwood, is the essential mark of Canadian fiction.
     Perhaps instead of essential Canadianness we see merely Robert Weaver’s taste. But more recent work, by people who had barely begun their writing when Weaver published this anthology, continues the strain. Timothy Findley died yesterday (June 20, 2002). I have read very little of his work – I find him a glib trickster rather than a writer – but he, too, catches that Canadian ability to accept whatever life dumps on you. Canadians don’t think of themselves as fighting to stay alive, I guess. Just staying alive is all there is. And while you are alive, things happen. It’s the mark of a true person to accept this, not complain, and not triumph either.  A better book than I expected. *** (2002)

Keith Waterhouse. Billy Liar (1959)

     Keith Waterhouse. Billy Liar (1959) The blurbs claim this is funny, light-hearted, etc. I find it sad. Billy Fisher is the only son of a dysfunctional working class family somewhere in Yorkshire. He fantasises constantly about an alternative family, or a country called Ambrosia. In both, he is skilled, intelligent, successful, universally admired, etc. In real life he acts with only one thought, How To Get Out Of This Mess, and in the end fails to act even on his one major decision, to go to London and seek his fortune as a script writer for a stand-up comic. He has engaged himself to three young women, only one of whom is in any way his match, but she sees through his gormlessness, and decides to dump him. He has failed to mail 200 promotional calendars for his employer, an undertaker, and has been disposing of them surreptitiously at the rate of two or three per day ever since. He does a stand-up routine at a tavern, but does it badly. And so on.
     I’ve read many occasional pieces by Waterhouse in Punch, and this novel somehow seems uncharacteristic. If it’s auto-biographical, as it seems to be, then it was written to purge some demons. I read this book hoping for some redeeming action. The only insight Billy achieves is that he doesn’t have the guts to go to London, but even that is suppressed as soon as he has it. The book had some fame in its day, probably because its scenes of lower-class idiocies encouraged the readers to feel superior to the characters. ** (2002)
     Update 2013: Waterhouse died in 2009. An obituary can be found here: Waterhouse Obituary in the Telegraph

Harry Turtledove. Noninterference (1987)

     Harry Turtledove. Noninterference (1987) The Survey Service is on Bilbeis V. The local Queen is sick of cancer. One of the anthropologists persuades his team mates to give her immunity boosters to destroy the cancer. They leave. 1500 years later, a routine resurvey discovers the Queen is still alive, and revered as a goddess. She has brought her people from early iron age to approximately medieval levels of technology. The report is suppressed for political reasons: factions within the Federacy want to stop all exploration of extra-Federacy planets. All except one of the survey team is murdered in order to keep the report secret, but eventually a second follow-up expedition is dispatched. After much plotting and more or less bloody action, the bad guys get theirs, and the Queen is left musing about star people. She plans to visit them before they come back again.
     Turtledove is good on bureaucratic machinations and on the effects of even slight cultural contacts. The plotting is intricate, and develops from the characters. His characterisation is strong enough that we care about what happens to the protagonists, but it doesn’t of course get in the way of the essence of the book, which is an exploration of cultural evolution. He suggests that it is not merely the institutions that determine how a society evolves, but also the presence or absence or strong personalities at key positions in those institutions. In this, he belongs to the contingency school: general principles govern social (and other evolution), but accidents of one kind or another can and do divert it into unexpected and, more importantly, unpredictable directions. The stream always flows downhill; but if it’s blocked, or a barrier is removed, the stream will change direction, sometimes drastically. A good read, but not a keeper. **½. (2002)
     Update 2013: Turtledove is also known as an alternate history writer. this book really belongs in that genre, despite its SF trappings.

Barbara Reynolds. Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (1993)

     Barbara Reynolds. Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul (1993) Published in the centenary of Sayers’ birth, this biography gives us a sense of Dorothy the person. This arises in part from Reynolds’ friendship with Dorothy, and in part from frequent quotations from her letters.
     Dorothy turns out to have been a social and fiscal conservative, but more importantly a woman with a great capacity for joy, fun, and delight. Reynolds believes that Dorothy’s defining characteristic was her great pleasure in intellectual work. This biography naturally supports this point of view, but I think that it’s a valid one, if the letters cited represent Sayer’s belief about and responses to life. I would have liked to know Sayers; and I can’t say that of most subjects of biographies. Also, this book sends me back to Sayers’ work. One thing I would like to know is whether Anthony Fleming, Sayers’ son, married and had children. It would be a kind of comfort to know that Sayers had descendants. *** (2002)

Dorothy Sayers. Hangman’s Holiday (1933)

 

    Dorothy Sayers. Hangman’s Holiday (1933) Several stories about Wimsey and Montague Egg, plus a couple of psychological crime stories. Very much of their period, neat puzzles, nicely told. Sayers puts her own twist on standard plots – locked room mysteries, mistaken identities, and so on. I like rereading her tales; they give reliable pleasure. In these stories, Wimsey is still a fatuous ass, a sort of intelligent Bertie Wooster (which I suppose was the point of the joke). I’d forgotten what a personable young man Monty Egg is; he would make a good series character. The psychological stories don’t succeed as well; one reading is enough for them. They are “railway reading”; railway reading figures in one of them, so Sayers would not be offended by this characterisation. Slight as these stories are, they take considerable skill to concoct, and even more to write convincingly. *** (2002)

Philip J. Davis. The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn (1989)

     Philip J. Davis The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn (1989) A charming book, telling how the author, a mathematician, became curious about Pafnuty, the first name of his hero, Pafnuty Lvovitch Tschebyscheff, a pioneer in the mathematics of approximation. Approximation has become a central motif of computing, since every computer can calculate only to some finite number of decimal places. It was the rounding off the 17th digit to display a 16-digit result that led to the discovery of chaos theory. That tiny difference of a few parts in 100 quadrillion made all the difference when the result was fed back into the equations for a second run of a weather prediction model.
     But I digress. Which is what Davis does. Some of his digressions are personal, some technical, some historical. But he leads us down these byways so gracefully that we hardly notice that we are moving further and further away from the ostensible theme of the book: whare does the name Pafnuty come from? Davis brings the thread of his narrative back to this question several times, and finally gives us the answer: it derives from an Egyptian god’s name.
     Along the way, Davis instructs us in all manner of interesting facts. He illustrates one of my dicta: There is no such thing as useless knowledge; at the very least, a fact will serve to link two others. I’ll now add another corollary: and usually, this linkage satisfies our thirst for order and meaning. For order and meaning are fancy words for linkages.
     This is the second time I've read the book, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. ****

John Updike. The Same Door (1964)

     John Updike. The Same Door (1964) Updike’s first collection, mostly from The New Yorker. The earlier stories have the feel of experiments, but his melancholy view of the world is there already, as is his acute awareness of social class. North Americans deny the existence and/or importance of social class; Updike is one of many writers who remind us how wrong we are to do so. But unlike, say, Joyce Carol Oates, who tends to look at lower class life from above, Updike merely shows us what’s there. These stories tell more of adolescence, while his later books tell of young married life and the onset of middle age. Updike chronicles our lives; he observes accurately but without rancour. But this book will be enough Updike for a while. The stories range from *-1/2 to ***. (2002)

John Updike. The Music School (1966)

     John Updike. The Music School (1966) A very sixties collection, in which we see Updike’s other great gift, the ability to show you the nature of the times. These people’s choices are circumscribed by self-generated limits, mostly unconscious, certainly unexamined. At the same time, the heroes and heroines of these stories break social conventions, not from any sense that these conventions need changing, but simply because they get in the way of the fulfilment of desire. A more uneven collection than Museums and Women; Updike is still trying out what he can do. **½

John Updike. Museums and Women (1972)

     John Updike. Museums and Women (1972) A collection of Updike’s stories from the 60s and 70s. Most of these were first published in the New Yorker, and it shows. These are New Yorker stories, and then some. All the same, Updike has a gift that transcends that genre. From time to time his sentences make you gasp. He felt her wonder, Who is this child? It was as if the roof of the house were torn off, displaying the depths of the night sky. (From “Solitaire”.)
     He is very good at delineating that vague melancholy that invades people who have nothing much to struggle for, and have found no compelling passion in their lives. They just go on doing what they do because they can think of nothing else that they would rather do. They want happiness, yet their search for it is undercut by a suspicion that they don’t know what happiness is. Updike’s people have everything they could desire, and nothing that they really want. A steady diet of Updike causes a kind of spiritual queasiness. One wonders whether anything has a any sort of point. *** (2002)

Stephen Jay Gould. The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2000)

     Stephen Jay Gould. The Lying Stones of Marrakech (2000) These essays are grouped, the first bunch telling the early history of palaeontology and evolutionary theory. The latter group are a mixed bag. In this collection Gould exhibits a vice that must grow with the awareness that one has made it as an author: he overwrites, rambling on with numerous digressions (and many that aren’t, like the one in this parenthesis), he repeats himself, he builds tangled sentences. In other words, his style gets in the way, which for him is some achievement. Nonetheless, the information is as sound as recourse to original sources can make it, and he does his usual job of debunking common misconceptions and clarifying and deepening common vaguenesses. A book worth reading, despite its flaws.
     He’s especially useful in reminding us that, given a stable environment, organisms will not change - that natural selection can work to stabilise as well as change an organism’s form. *** (2002)
     Update 2020 03 16: Natural slection will also not select against neutral mutations. Hence genetic drift can create subspecies. Also, organisms with insufficient genetic variability are likely to die out if and when habitat changes. That's why rapid habait change will cause extinctions. And because we humans cause rapid habitat change, we also cause extinctions.

Mark Buchanan, Ubiquity (2000)

     Mark Buchanan Ubiquity (2000) A discussion of the concept of the critical state as it applies to diverse phenomena. In such systems, an event can trigger a large or small change, but nothing indicates the size of the change prior to its happening. There is no proportion between the triggering event and its consequences. In fact, in the simplest models, such as the sand pile on which one drops grains one by one, the triggering event is the same in every case: a grain of sand. It may trigger a small avalanche or a huge one. It may trigger one or several avalanches. The size and number of the avalanches is unpredictable.
     Buchanan’s thesis is that human systems also are often critical, that in fact human society is an assemblage of critical-state systems. Thus, changes large and small will happen. The only thing we know for sure is that larger changes are less likely than small ones. Of course we notice the large changes and seek for explanations with the hope and aim of preventing them in future. They are not preventable, says Buchanan, because they are not predictable. Moreover, attempts to prevent them may well set off different unpredictable events. Correction: Such attempts will set off different unpredictable events.
     As I noted some years ago: explicability is not the same as predictability. We can explain, or at least describe, the chain of events that led to the first world war, but no one at the time could have predicted it. In fact, people had put in place a system of alliances designed to prevent large-scale war. Critical-state physics deals with systems whose history matters. Therefore, the mathematics of critical-state physics should be applicable to history. Buchanan goes further: critical-state physics is the science of history, he claims.
     A very useful book, and a well written one. Buchanan has the knack of explaining difficult (because unfamiliar) ideas by means of homely analogies and examples. But if he’s right, the best we can do is what we do when a hurricane threatens: prepare for the worst, just in case.

     What we can’t do is devise a system that a) will do exactly what we want it to do; and b) won’t change. 

     Recommended. **** (2002)

Update 2020 03 16: The current corona virus crisis is a case in point. The triggering event was likely the sale of an infected pangolin in a wild-life market in Wuhan, China. This critter was infected by a corona virus that was able to infect at least one of the people who handled it or its carcase. Now we have a world-wide pandemic, whose course in general is predictable: infections will rise exponentially to some peak and subside at approximately the same rate. Who will die can't be predcited, only the probable number of deaths by demographic slice. And all because, this time, a virus mutated just enough to survive in a human being. It will happen again. We just don't know and can't know whether the next cross-species infection will cause a major or a minor  illness, nor can we predict how many it will infect.

The concept of critical systems should be taught to everyone who manages any kind of system, at whatever level. In short, it should be taught to all of us. 

The World The Railways Made (1990)

     Nicholas Faith The World The Railways Made (1990) Readable social and economic history of the railways. There are a few minor errors, and a few too many typos, and the picture selection has little bearing on the text (which seems to be a common fault of British books.) Faith’s journalistic training shows in the breezy style, the unerring selection of the telling anecdote, and the logical muddle of what little analysis he attempts. A fun read, and probably a good source for high school students. **-½ (2002)

Merry Murder (1994)

     Cynthia Manson ed. Merry Murder (1994) Collection of mysteries set at Christmas time. Light confections for the most part, varying from elaborate shaggy dog stories to police procedurals. "On Christmas Day in the Morning" by Margery Allingham goes beyond the usual lightheartedness, and prompts a meditation on memory and love. Stories vary from ** to **** (2002)

The Night the Gods Smiled (1983)

     Eric Wright The Night the Gods Smiled (1983) Charlie Salter makes his debut in this novel. I read it many years ago, and it wears well on second reading. Sidelined because he backed the wrong man in the office political games, Charlie now has a chance to redeem himself. He does so, with the help of Henri O’Brien, and his low-key questioning, which slowly but surely excavates facts and motives. But is is his decision to join a squash club gives him the missing pieces, the motive, and the murderer. Nicely done, with a promise of interesting developments in Charlie’s character, and his relationships with his wife and co-workers. **½ (2002)

The Salterton Trilogy (1986)

Robertson Davies  The Salterton Trilogy (1986)
     Tempest Tost (1951) The Salterton little theatre company puts on The Tempest, and a number of complications in personal and social relationships ensue. Solly Bridgetower and Pearl Veronica Vambrace appear for the first time; they hardly notice each other until near the end, when Solly takes Veronica home from the ball, and her father berates her. Hector McIlwraith suffers mid-life blues, and pursues Griselda Webster, a girl with more than her fair share of common sense, but who nevertheless is briefly flattered by a cad, Lt. Roger Tasset. The love-lives sort themselves out, not without a little pain, and some of the social relationships are, er, clarified, like butter.
     This book is a social comedy much in the style of Jane Austen, and like hers, Davies’ satire is sometimes very sharp. The persona of avuncular good will slips from time to time and reveals an irritated distaste for hypocrites, moral cowards, social climbers, and pelf-hunger; in this, Davies resembles Stephen Leacock. From time to time Davies preaches, but he does it so gracefully, and makes his sermonettes such natural parts of serious or semi-serious conversation, that one hardly notices. This is Davies’ first published novel, and shows some creakiness here and there, but any writer would be happy to have made such a well-crafted work. One of my favourite books. ***½
      Leaven of Malice (1954) A mischievous fake classified ad announces that Solly Bridgetower and Pearl Veronica Vambrace are to be married on November 31st. This starts the story; the inevitable joining of Solly and Veronica ends it. In between we have a mystery (who is the mischief maker?); a parent blinded by egotism even to his own love for his daughter; two shy and sensitive people discovering they are made for each other; and a variety of social enmities, some of which end in satisfying poetic justice.
     As in Tempest Tost, Davies’ tongue is often sharp enough to cut deeply into small-town Canadian pretensions, but his focus is family tragedy or near-tragedy. Davies is a comedian, with a comedian’s cruelty (something he discourses on in the third book). So although the story veers close to tragedy, and certainly includes a great deal of pain, his characters prove themselves resilient enough to survive and even to find happiness. Another favourite book. ****
     A Mixture of Frailties (1958) Mrs Bridgetower dies, and her will enjoins her son and daughter-in-law to produce a son before they can inherit her considerable fortune. In the meantime, its income is to be devoted to the European education of a young woman in the arts. The lucky girl is Monica Gall, a singer, and the book centres on her. I get the feeling that Davies started out with the intention of telling the story of Solly and Veronica’s marriage under the blight of the dead woman’s’ malicious testament, but that Monica got away from him. In any case, he’s more interested in the education of an artist than in a blighted marriage, albeit that education causes enough trouble.
     But the social and personal relationships and their effects on the characters, which is the stuff of novels, seems not to interest Davies as much in this book as in the other two. Rereading it, I realised how much I had forgotten of the discussions of art and art education, and how much Monica’s life reads like a case history. The satire is almost perfunctory – it’s as if Davies is discovering some new aspect of comedy. He can make fun of silliness as well (and as gently or roughly) as ever, but his heart isn’t in it. I suspect he has come to a realisation about his talent here, and that’s why this book seems to be an experiment in the themes and forms he uses in his later trilogies. Although all three books tell how troublesome, and even wicked, choices may cause unintended good, it’s in this book that this theme becomes explicit. Nevertheless, because it has the requisite happy endings, it satisfies. ***½
     The Trilogy: I reread these three novels over almost two months. I’d forgotten how much happens in them, how many characters there are, how lightly Davies wears his learning, how well the plots develop, how naturally the dialogue fits into the story. As a group, these books would make a lovely TV series (it would have to be a full season in length), or a set of three longish movies. However, if such a production kept Davies’ astringent tone, it would not be very popular. Davies is very hard on Canadian pretensions, and especially on our peculiar mix of self-deprecation and vanity, and on a trait we share with the Americans: our conviction that ignorance of politesse is a virtue. (2002)

Fierce Pyjamas (2001)

     David Remnick & Henry Finder Fierce Pyjamas (2001) An anthology of New Yorker Pieces from the 1920s to 2000. There are more pieces from more recent decades; humour dates very quickly, but for that very reason a more balanced selection would have been far more interesting. A pleasant read, with the advantage that it can be done in short takes. ** to **** (2002)

The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985)

     Douglas Adams The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985) The whole lot, including bits snipped to shorten the scripts to the mandatory 29 minutes 30 seconds. I bought this book in 1986, and it promptly disappeared into Jon’s library in the spare bedroom. Marie found it recently when she was dusting the book shelves, so I finally got to read it. It was worth the wait.
     As we all know, Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect (actually an alien from a small planet near Betelgeuse) manage to hitch a ride minutes before a Vogon space constructor fleet demolishes Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The subsequent episodes detail their rescue by a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive, meeting Ford’s semi-cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian (an astrophysicist and the only other Earth survivor), Marvin the depressed robot, and so on. The central trope is the search for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Throughout, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy informs Arthur (and us) of various background stories needed to make what sense we may of the impossible events that the five adventurers survive (but only just).
     The first six episodes were made into the TV series that introduced me and (probably) millions of other people to the Guide. Adams used the latter six when he wrote the Hitch Hiker’s trilogy of four books. The different media versions differ in detail, and occasionally in story-line, but throughout we have the picaresque quest, and Adams’ amazing ability to make deep philosophical and scientific conundrums intelligible via jokes. And it all makes the kind of absurd logical sense that only the English, it seems, are able to convey.
The book includes notes on each episode by the producer Geoffrey Perkins with interpolations by Adams. ****

Sorry, wir haben uns verfahren (2012)

     Stephan Orth & Antje Blinda Sorry, wir haben uns verfahren (2012) A collection of anecdotes about the German Federal Railway. The events range from the silly through the bizarre to the scary. One example will suffice: An elderly lady boarded the train. The conductor and fellow passengers helped her to find her seat and stow her baggage. Then she needed a place to hang her coat, and spied a lovely bright red knob. Perfect! She hung her coat on it, and promptly stopped the train. The bright red knob was the emergence brake.
     Each anecdote is signed, so presumably the events actually happened, even the ones that sound like urban legends. The title alludes to a commuter train that stopped several miles up a branch line. The train had been diverted from its planned track, and the engineer had no idea where they were. So he announced, Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we have lost our way. Amusing enough. My cousin, a ferroequinologist like me,  received two of these from his family and decide the share the surplus. I’m glad he did, the book entertained me for a two or three hours. **½

Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten (2001)

     Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten (2001) Jon gave me this book for Christmas, and I’m glad he did. Sacks tells us of his childhood and adolescence, when he was consumed by a rage for chemistry, in part stimulated by his uncles. Uncle Abe ran a factory that made light bulbs with tungsten filaments, hence the title. But the real focus is Sacks’ fascination with the elements, and his discovery of their properties. He read voraciously about the history of chemistry and chemists. He set up a lab in which he did experiments duplicating (as far as he could afford it) the discoveries of his heroes. That he didn’t destroy himself and the house was I think as much a matter of luck as of caution. Nowadays, such a course of study would not be possible, even in a well-equipped high school lab. Liability insurance has imposed safety regimes that make independent lab work by high school students almost impossible.
     Sacks, as in all the his books, comes across as a charming man with a lively curiosity, intellectual rigour, and the kind of imagination that can see the patterns that matter. This impression is strengthened by his TV interviews, which have the quality of conversations that we have the privilege of overhearing. Sacks spent some time at a horrible boarding school when he (along with thousands of other children) was evacuated from London during WW2. Reading was an escape; science, especially chemistry, promised stability and security. His large family gave him a diverse society, that loved him and his brothers unconditionally. These combined to heal the wounds inflicted by a sadistic headmaster (who, on the little evidence provided by Sacks, was a monster with demons of his own).
     I enjoyed this book enormously. The writing is graceful, intimate, intelligent, witty, wry, and above all vulnerable. One gets the impression that this is the authentic Oliver Sacks, a man one feels privileged to know in person. ****
     Update 26 March, 2013: My son Jon died on 19 March. He was 48 years old, but to me he was still the boy with whom I had conversations on our walk to school, about history and anything else that caught his interest.  I don't know how much of what I think I know of history I learned from him, but by now it's most of it. His choice of books for gifts was always thoughtful; he had little money to spend, and must have searched yard sales and library books ales all year long. He liked yard sales, actually, he was a great searcher-out of treasures that others didn't value. I shall miss him. Grief seizes me without warning. Obituary via etouch.ca or legacy.com.

Pride and Prejudice (book review)

     Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (a school edition published 1958) I like this book very much, and reread it after having seen parts of yet another TV version. This time round I noticed that Lydia’s elopement and seduction by Wickham was a far more serious thing than I had thought. We tend to impose our own values on the past, and have difficulty understanding the depth of feeling surrounding what we no longer see as serious moral lapses. No doubt the past would have the same difficulties with our moral judgments.
     I had also forgotten how much Elizabeth censured herself for her prejudices, and how much his pride had mortified Darcy. It seems to me that in praising Austen for her social comedy critics have often failed to notice how close she comes to tragedy. I suppose that is because marrying and being married seem to be mere domestic concerns, and so a romance of courtship and marriage could not express suitably tragic themes.
     But for most people, marriage is the most important decision in their lives. Our easy divorce doesn’t change this; in fact, it underlines it, for divorce is an admission that one has made a serious mistake. Besides, many of the great and powerful have been destroyed by their unfortunate choices in marriage. And Austria’s history suggests that marriage has more to do with politics than many other, apparently more important, concerns.
     So Austen, although she confined herself to a small canvas, nevertheless treats large themes. Her satire on romantic love doesn’t hide her conviction that marriage is the primary source of both happiness and misery. A good marriage is good not only for the partners but also for their children, and their community; a bad marriage can have devastating effects on everyone, not only the children. The Bennetts did not have the best of marriages, but Mr Bennett’s retreat from his paternal responsibilities magnified the bad effects of his wife’s foolishness. Money is not necessary to a good marriage, but careful stewardship of one’s wealth is. While Austen is fully alive to the benefits of a good income, she also knows that a large income can tempt to extravagance.
     One could continue drawing morals of this kind from the book, but I don’t want to emulate Mary. I enjoyed my brief stay with the Bennetts and their friends, and will likely read this book again. **** (2002)

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)

     P. G. Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954) Bertie Wooster and Aunt Dahlia get into the usual mix of pickles, some home-made by themselves, some constructed by others. Jeeves once again provides advice and action, and all ends happily. As usual, Bertie gets mixed up with a female who wants to marry him, there is the threat of physical retaliation from the spurned lover, love at first sight, missing necklaces, dark secrets, and so on. Wodehouse’s style as always amuses: he is the master of the twisted cliche and the apt (if often unattributed) quotation. Wonderful stuff. I see by the notes in the book that I bought it in 1979. Left it on the shelf for future pleasure, which it provided. ***

My Uncle Oswald (1979)

     Roald Dahl My Uncle Oswald (1979) I started this book some years ago, and found it again recently while trying to reduce the pile of books in the case by the bed. I won’t finish it. It’s silly and “clever” in the worst sense, like most of Dahl’s work. The plot of the novel is that Uncle Oswald discovers an aphrodisiac, and decides to use it for a spot of blackmail in order to get very, very rich. I think Dahl fancies himself as a writer in the Saki tradition, but he lacks the underlying moral sense of Saki, so that what should be black satire is merely nasty farce. Witty in places, and avoids the grosser kind of pornographic writing – which may not be a virtue. *

A Book of Courtly Cats (1986)

A Gentleman A Book of Courtly Cats (1986) Excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays and poems paired with portraits of cats in the style of Elizabethan miniatures. Not a book so much as an extended greeting card. I think Mum gave this to Marie. It’s a charming object. I recognised most of the quotations; the one I liked best is:
       If I could write the beauty of your eyes
      And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
      The age to come would say, ‘This poet lies;
      Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.’
      So should my papers, yellow’d with their age,
      Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue.
     And your true rights be term’d a poet’s rage
     And stretched metre of an antique song.
However, I don’t know which sonnet it’s from, so I shall have to read them all over again. Unrated (not a book). But lovely to look at and read. (2002)

Country Vet (1972)

     Denis Farrier Country Vet (1972) The blurb claims this books is in the Herriot vein, but I wouldn’t know. Its publication date suggests an attempt to cash in on vet-lit. Amusing enough, but very light reading. A few rants about the realities of animal life and death are worth keeping in mind when confronted by animal-rights activists, a stupidly sentimental lot without any real knowledge of animals. Farrier relates a few tales about his youth, his student days, his life as an assistant, and his life as an independent practitioner. Sentimental he isn’t, but he is annoyed, to put it mildly, by the mindless shooting of birds. *1/2 (2002)

Five Legs (1969), and a digression on James Joyce

     Graeme Gibson Five Legs (1969) I’ve read bits and pieces of this book for several years. I should say I’ve tried to read this book for many years. It made a splash when it first appeared (my copy is a First Edition), but as it turns out the ripples dissipated very quickly.  It looks like Gibson tries to do a Joycean stream-of-consciousness, but he’s no James Joyce. Not that this is in itself a disability, but it becomes one when you want to write like Joyce. Joyce is overrated in my opinion; Ulysses is barely readable (another book I’ve read at over the years), and Finnegan’s Wake will forever be merely a time- and academy-bound curiosity. No amount of scholarly interpretation will convince me that it’s worth the effort of deciphering the book for myself. Why should I, when the scholars have done such a good job of it?
     A book whose interpreters do a better job of telling the tale than the author did becomes a mere puzzle, and when it comes to puzzles we all have our tastes. I prefer jigsaws and crosswords. If I’m told that Ulysses does in fact trace the ancient legend of the title in a modern life and setting, I’m left wondering why I shouldn’t read the original. Reading Joyce’s book doesn’t dispel that wonder, but at least the digressions and pastiches have a charm apart from Joyce’s Grand Theme. In fact, I think they are more important than the self-conscious imitation of an old Greek tale. Joyce’s earlier work is better, especially the Portrait of the Artist. Perhaps Joyce didn’t trust the stories he had to tell, and felt he had to make them obscure in the telling to demonstrate that they had in fact the significance he ascribed to them. They certainly did, and the technique doesn’t add to that significance. For most readers it detracts, because it interposes itself between the tale and the reader.
     I was unable to discern much of a narrative in Gibson’s book; the central thread seems to concern the narrators’ trouble with women, but just exactly what that trouble is isn’t very clear. It appears to begin with the failure to impregnate his wife. But he is difficult to empathise with, despite Gibson’s obvious attempts to make his anguish palpable. But broken syntax and allusive phrases merely reveal a typically fractured consciousness, not necessarily an interesting mind. As for interesting digressions, there ain’t any.
     Perhaps Gibson thought that an avant-garde technique would lend significance. Perhaps he thought that a common-place mind would be more interesting when its working is exposed. We do have a puzzle here, but as I said above, that’s not enough. The puzzle must be worth solving, for its intellectual difficulty and/or for the solution. I didn’t find the rewards of solving the puzzle on either count sufficient to keep me reading. The stream-of-consciousness becomes an irritating impediment, and the solution (insofar as I’ve understood it) is mere commonplace. No stars. (2002)
     Update 2013: The book is out of print. Amazon offers 6 used copies of Five Legs/Communion. Various online entries report his work promoting Canadian writing, as well as his enthusiasm for bird watching. His Bedside Book of Birds looks like it's worth reading.

Daughters of Passion (1982)

   Julia O’Faolain Daughters of Passion (1982) A collection of short stories, all previously published in magazines. It’s magazine fiction alright, designed to engage interest while waiting to do something else, briefly startling, mildly provoking, witty in places, prurient in places, sentimental. Some of it rises above this level, but none of it’s memorable. O’Faolain writes skilfully, plots well, and draws vivid characters. The faint and not so faint melancholy of her stories reminds me of Mavis Gallant, but Gallant’s stories seem drawn from a deeper well. These stories are clever in the sense that student’s work is clever: one wants to give them a mark. I started this book on our trip to Brownsville last year, and stopped reading it somewhere in Texas. I finished it this morning, and can barely remember the last story. ** (2002)

The Merry Heart (1997)

     Robertson Davies The Merry Heart (1997) A collection of speeches plus a couple of pieces written for publication, and a fragment of autobiography. Because Davies spoke many times on the same themes, there is some repetition of ideas and of even of whole sentences, but that doesn’t disturb the reader unduly. Anyone who has heard Davies, even if only on TV, can read these pieces with his voice in mind, and that certainly adds to their charm. But I think what comes through most strongly is Davies’ wisdom, which is not a heavy freight of solemnly declared platitudes, but a cheerful apprehension of the way life is, passed on to us with a twinkle in the eyes and the occasional sigh. Davies knows his and our darknesses, but he does not dwell on them and dislikes those writers who present us with horrors merely to fascinate. His insistence that fiction is a necessary grace in our lives, and his belief that the imagination serves to help us understand ourselves, may be suspect but still is necessary in our country, which looks on the arts as mere frills, and prides itself on a realistic approach to the difficulties of life. But Davies is right.
     A good book; but like all collections of occasional pieces a single reading suffices. It’s worth keeping on the shelf for possible quotation, though. *** (2002)

It Could have been Worse (1980)

     Peggy Holmes It Could have been Worse (1980) Chatty reminiscences of Peggy and Harry Holmes first and only two years on their homestead in northern Alberta. Peggy also tells of her childhood in England. Harry selected the homestead when he and three buddies went hunting up there, a romantically silly way to pick land. In the event, the Holmes's managed to prove the land, that is, clear the minimum amount and build a dwelling of minimum size, but they left immediately after that, and lived in Edmonton. The narrative is piecey, probably because it was cobbled together from stories Peggy wrote for and read on CBC Calgary.
      The events she relates are the usual mix of horror, tedium, and joy, and the book is interesting on that account. But Peggy’s lack of literary skill, evidenced in everything from poor organisation to flat and trite descriptions, takes away from the narrative. She is more of a teller of tales than a writer, which means that she was undoubtedly better on the air and in person. I don’t get a sense that I really know Peggy after reading this book: I know about her, and I speculate that she was a stubborn and wilful girl with a strong romantic streak, but that’s all. She had two miscarriages, but we don’t really know how these affected her, nor how it affected her relationship with Harry. I suppose she would consider inquiry after these matters an impertinence, but I want to know more than the facts of her life. It’s all very well to tell about the things you had to do to survive, but thousands of other people had to do the same things. What makes a life interesting is not what happened in it, but the person it happened to, and the people that mattered to them. Harry was Peggy’s great love, she says; but I get only the vaguest sense of what he was like. I still recall Susannah Moodie’s book, not just the events she relates, but Susannah as the personality that experienced the southern Ontario wilderness, and the fecklessness of her husband (who like Harry clearly had silly romantic notions about land). Peggy’s book is worth reading as one more record of the pioneer life, and that’s all. *1/2 (2002)

We Are Still Married (1989)

     Garrison Keillor We Are Still Married (1989) Collection of occasional pieces, mostly written for The New Yorker. Keillor’s wry and melancholy persona drifts through these pieces like smoke through the bush. He has the knack of making you feel that you, too, lived the life he lived. This book contains the famous Young Lutheran’s Guide to the Orchestra, and several of his poems. There is a streak of rage in Keillor that he rarely lets show, but there are hints of it here and there, like lightning on the far horizon. Some of the essays have little intrinsic interest, but matter as items in Keillor’s list of works. Varies from *** to ****.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

      All That Heaven Allows (1955) [D: Douglas Sirk. Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead] Cary Scott, a 40-ish widow (Wyman), lonely and bored a few years after husband’s death, falls in love with her hunky tree-trimmer Ron Kirby  (Hudson), whose age is not specified, but one gathers from “internal evidence” that he’s 30-ish, i.e., “much younger”. He’s also of a different class, being a rude mechanical, unlike Scott’s circle, all well-off business types who foregather at the country club and each other’s homes for cocktails. One of these acquaintances is a cad who figures Scott is easy prey. When Scott brings Kirby to one of the house parties, this cad figures she’s just slumming and tries to move in on her, whereupon Kirby belts him one. This neatly divides Scott’s group into true friends (one, possibly two) and those who disguise their envy of Scott under censorious remarks about Kirby’s gauche behaviour.
     Kirby fixes up the derelict mill on his property (he owns a tree nursery), which of course impresses Scott, and she agrees to marry him. Besides, he has free-spirit type friends, who seem much more genuine and in charge of their lives than the socially constipated circle that Scott has known so far. But when her children object, she decides to sacrifice her happiness for theirs. But she soon learns that they are too focussed on their own affairs to pay any real attention to her, so she returns to Kirby, but when he’s not home she drives off, and Kirby, waving frantically to get her attention, falls off a cliff. Scott rushes back to nurse him; when he wakes up she agrees that she has come home. Fade out.
     As you can tell, this is a slick reversal of the Harlequin Romance (which at the time was not yet the world-beating brand it later became). Here, the woman is the social superior, and it’s a masterful younger man who awakens her suppressed desires. It’s clear that Kirby has aroused feelings that she perhaps never experienced in her marriage, which seems to have been pleasant enough, and which her children wish her to reprise with a pleasant and decidedly unsexy older man of her own class. In that sense she’s the ingenue. Like any Romance heroine, she’s also virtuous, unwilling to acknowledge her feelings, and ready to stifle them in the service of maintaining her children’s respectability as they claim to understand it. This self-sacrifice is a required trope in Romance, too.
     The movie is well-made. The plot is complex enough to sustain interest, but simple enough that mild distractions such as candy or pop-corn purchases or satisfying gossip with one’s friends will not interfere with understanding it. It was aimed at women who were or wanted to be in the semi-leisured class of the comfortable (and somewhat bored) housewives whose husbands earned enough that they didn’t have to work. There were many such movies. What makes this one different was the issues of class, age difference, pointless sacrifice (the children really are selfish prigs), and of course (discreetly implied) sex. The treatment of these issues is dated, and nowadays naive viewers may well be frustrated by Scott’s self-immolation, but there’s no question that the issues were real, and that many movie-goers at that time identified with her and  may have wished they too could make the kinds of choices she made.
     Two years after this movie appeared, Betty Friedan surveyed her Smith College classmates, and in 1963 published the results in The Feminine Mystique. Most middle and upper-middle-class women felt their lives were pretty pointless. It’s not much of a stretch to read the movie as an example of how to break out of the trap of useless, boring upper-middle-class lives. Both the book and the movie presented women constrained by social attitudes that made it difficult (and often impossible) for them to live fulfilling lives. This movie offered the class-renouncing choice of following your feelings, of making decisions that were authentically your own. The free spirits that Kirby hangs out with are what a generation later evolved into hippies. Betty Friedan offered work as the solution. Using one’s talents and skills to do useful work outside the home would enable women to take control of their lives. Either way, women’s lives would no longer be wasted sacrifices on the altar of respectable matrimony.
     There have been many similar movies about bored, frustrated, unhappy women and their attempts to find meaning in their lives. Around the same time, stories and movies about men’s failures to live fulfilling lives also came to dominate literature and movies. Consider The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, made as a movie in 1956. The hero sacrifices his ethics on the altar of respectability, that is, his ability to support his family. The underlying malaise was not so much one of gender roles, but of life roles. Neither men nor women were satisfied with the effects and demands of an economic system that generated immense wealth and made comfortable lives possible, even though for a time that wealth was distributed equitably across all social classes. There’s more to life than stuff and reputation. A couple of decades later, the stories dealing with these themes would have a good deal more edge. James Updike is one of many writers who made careers of chronicling the effects of affluence on the American psyche.
     This movie is worth seeing. It’s slow, you may be tempted to laugh at some of the scenes, the dialogue is passable, the acting competent, there are too many close-ups of suffering-in-silence faces, and there’s a distinct lack of chemistry between the leads, but as documentation of a certain time in America’s social evolution it’s the first of an essential triad. The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit and Peyton Place (book 1956, movie1957) are the others. As a romance flick of its time, this one rates ****, as a plain old movie **½.

Edited 2023-04-29

5 short book reviews

     Fred Archer The Village of my Childhood (1989) Just what it says. Pleasant low-key style. Archer doesn’t gloss over the bad bits, but he doesn’t emphasise them either. As he says, childhood is a time when he felt secure and nothing seemed to change. Much of the narrative consists of character portraits and anecdotes about particular events. Not as witty as Keillor, but has much of the same affection for small town or village life. Interesting words - a glossary at the end would be a bonus. The photos are not very well reproduced, a fault of much UK printing, even today. I liked this book. ***

     Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon Days (1985) The first in a series, though GK didn’t know that at the time. A semi-fictional memoir of GK’s years in his hometown, represented by Lake Wobegon. By turn sentimental, wry, cynical, furious, ironic, loving, jaundiced, satirical, etc. Keillor has the knack of making you believe you’ve lived there. The Prairie Home Companion stories preceded and underlie this book, as they do the subsequent ones. ****

     Garrison Keillor Happy to Be Here (1981) Sketches, some of them relating to Prairie Home Companion, and some not. Not as consistently good as Lake Wobegon Days, but pretty good anyhow. My, there I go sounding like a Lutheran! Some of the pieces have real bite; others are merely absurd. Keillor has a good ear for hypocrisy, stupidity, illogic, and especially for fashionable cant. Varies from ** to ****

     Paul Fussell, BAD, or, the Dumbing of America (1991) An attack on stuff that it is not merely bad (on account of ignorance, for example), but that pretends to a superior quality. Splenetic, opinionated, and of course dated in its references, but the principle is still valid. If anything, BAD has gotten worse. However, Fussell’s book on class in America is much superior to this one. **

     Geoffrey Trease Bent is the Bow (1967) Ill. By Charles Keeping, which is the reason we bought this book. The eight short chapters read more like the introductory section of a novel. It is set in the Welsh border wars under Owen Glendower. Hugh and Meg are taken as hostages by the wicked Lord Whitney at the beginning of these hostilities, and eventually escape and return to their own home. Whitney’s son Stephen becomes the master of the neighbouring castle when Whitney is killed. So there are possible complications to come, lots of them. Pity we don’t get the rest of the story. Did Trease lose interest? Did Nelson decide to publish these few first chapters as a teaser? We will never know. **

End of the Line (Franzen)

     Jonathan Franzen End of the Line (New Yorker, 11 June 2001) The daughter of a railroad executive gets a summer job in the railroad office, filing signal circuit diagrams. She has a brief affair with an older man working there. The affair affects her less than it affects him; he wants her as much because she is daughter of his boss as for her youth. He and the girl’s father began at the same rank, but he reached his level pretty quickly, and has harboured a grudge against his former colleague ever since. The girl is shocked when he reveals the anger underlying his passion for her, but in the long run it doesn’t touch her. She is insulated from long term effects of his rage by her class and education, which is already equal to his, even though she is still a college student. And besides, she accepted his advances as much for pity, because she thought he needed sex, as for any any affection for him. Sad little study in American class structure. ***