Peter Robinson. Blood at the Root (1998)

      Peter Robinson. Blood at the Root (1998) A white supremacist dies in a back alley, kicked to death. The first indications are that three South East Asians are responsible; their arrest causes accusations of racial profiling etc. Things go from bad to worse. Banks’s marriage is falling apart; Sandra has recognised that they no longer have anything in common. Chief Constable Riddle hates Banks, and gleefully uses whatever he can to ride Banks, and finally takes him off the case. DC Gates is used by a fellow officer to get info on Banks and pass it on to Riddle. The case spills over into international drug trading, and covers the neighbouring patch as well as Banks’s. It’s the help he gets from an old colleague there that finally breaks the case, but there are enough dangling story lines that we will want to read the next instalment.
     Well done entertainment. The solution fits the clues, but the plotting is not as careful as in the other Banks novels I’ve read. Characterisation and ambience as well done as ever. **½

Maeve Binchy. A Week in Winter

 

    Maeve Binchy. A Week in Winter (2012) Chicky returns to Stoneybridge, buys Stone House from the remaining Sheedy sister, and turns it into a boutique hotel. The book tells us the stories of the first week’s guests, in typical Binchy fashion: sketches that rely on plot lines the way a sketch relies on pencil lines. There’s the juvenile delinquent that becomes a man, the fading actor who comes to accept the company of ordinary folk, the girl deceived by a psychopathic manipulator, the woman holidaying with her  future mother-in-law who hates her, the young man unwilling to succumb to the family tradition and take over the business, and so on.
     Binchy’s characters are flawed and damaged, but for the most part prevail. Life, that is their socio-economic contexts and other people, treats them capriciously and sometimes cruelly. But most of them come to some safer harbour, and that is Binchy’s main appeal. She dispenses hope. That, and her remarkably clear and economical style. She can tell more in two or three sentences than many writers can say in two or three paragraphs. I’ve become mildly hooked on her, but not to the extent that I seek out her books. **½

Nostalgia on tap: Three by Ron Brown

     Ron Brown. Ghost Towns of Canada (1987) A compilation of Brown’s photos and research. Very good photos, OK history. The title implies a complete record of ghost towns, but there are a few gaps. The most noticeable one is the Coal Branch in Alberta, with Luscar, Mountain Park, Cadomin, etc.
     This is one of Brown’s first books. He’s an amateur historian with a strong streak of nostalgia. The book is a pleasure to look at and read. Very well printed. **½

     Terry Boyle & Ron Brown. Ontario Album (1998) Boyle and Brown present a survey of their collections of Ontario photographs. Their notes are complete enough to give one a sense of place and time. The photos themselves vary in quality, as one might expect, but the images show us what life in Ontario was like. Boyle and Brown have selected the most informative images, not necessarily the most common or popular ones. A good read for anyone who likes to indulge in nostalgia. Very good printing. **½

     Ron Brown. Disappearing Ontario (1999) Another of Brown’s compilations of photos, this time of the remnants of an earlier Ontario. He appears to want a proper program of identifying and preserving heritage buildings and other structures. This survey of what’s still out there makes a good case, especially since some of the buildings and bridges have disappeared, for example the pin-connected truss in Iron Bridge.
     There are a few errors, for example, the simplest truss bridges are not the “king’s” or queen’s” trusses, but kingpost and queenpost trusses. Unfortunately, lackadaisical maintenance has had more to do with the loss of bridges than active destruction, which is the most common fate of buildings.
     A good read, well printed, like Brown’s other works. **½

Silver Canyon (Louis L'Amour, 1956)

     Louis L’Amour. Silver Canyon (1951 & 1956) A typical L’Amour: drifter gets in the middle of a range war, meets The Girl, promises to avenge a death, acquires a ranch and a wife (The Girl). Fade out on a prospective wedding. He’s fast with his guns, survives severe injuries, deals rough justice, and inspires loyalty. He’s in his 20s, good-looking, has had a tough life, knows his craft or trade, and has read a lot of books. In short, an ideal hero for a Western. L’Amour delivers, using 1st person narration, and describing the landscape and weather so well that you can see and taste it. This hero’s name is Matt Brennan, The Girl is Moira McLaren, and assorted good and bad guys make up the rest of the cast. There’s murder and duplicity, a silver strike, squabbles over water and grazing, a town on the verge of becoming civilised, a couple of chaste sex scenes (just kissing), and a sense that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. A satisfying read for the fan of Western adventure romance. **½

A city smothered in ash

     Pompeii At the ROM, Toronto, Ontario. A thorough presentation of the life and times of the doomed city, destroyed by Vesuvius’s eruption in 79CE. The show leaves one with two dominant impressions: that the Romans were very like us, and that they were very different from us. Like us they wanted comfort and convenience, and liked to display their wealth and power. They had developed a material and civic culture that guaranteed a relatively safe and pleasant life for most citizens. That culture was sustained by slaves, who did much of the work that nowadays is done by or with the help of machines. Human and animal energy was cheap. The wealthier citizens even had laid-on indoor plumbing, via pipes from the nearest communal fountain. Their sewage systems weren’t quite as well done as ours, though. And because heating water was (and still is) energy-expensive, baths were a communal affair.
     The houses show that family life was very important. It’s not just the family shrines to ancestors and gods, it’s the layout of the rooms, organised around an atrium with a pool that collected rainwater, and backing on an enclosed private garden. The owners decorated the walls with murals, laid out mosaic pictures in their floors, and had statuettes and statues all over the place. There’s a lovely example of a multi-tiered oil lamp, each tier with four twin lamps, so that there were a dozen lights in all. It must have made quite a show. Of course, these are upper-middle class and upper class houses. The lower classes lived in flimsy wooden hovels, or rooms in flimsy wooden apartment blocks.
     The plaster casts of the hollows formed by the Pompeians who died and were covered with ash show that many of them tried to save each other. Nobody knows how many of the 12,000 inhabitants died. The eruption was a multi-stage affair; it was the last stage that blasted the top off Vesuvius and covered the city with ash and pumice. Some people escaped before the worst happened; those who stayed, I suppose believing that it was just another Vesuvian belly rumble, were caught.
     How were the Romans different from us? They were more matter-of-factly brutal, enjoying the spectacles of men and beasts fighting and killing each other. They were more practical about sex, painting erotic scenes in their bedrooms and in brothels. Religion was part of the fabric of everyday life. Public religion supported the civil society; private religion satisfied the longing for personal significance and meaning. Cults flourished. One of them was Christianity, a fact that is discreetly ignored in this show, even though Nero a few years later used Christians as scapegoats and foci of civil envy and unrest. Maybe there weren’t many Christians in Pompeii.
     Rank, and the client-culture it fostered and depended on, was stronger than today. Public works were undertaken by private citizens as signifiers of status or piety, and to curry political favour with the local electors or the powers in Rome. Politics was already violent: the Augustans came to power through wholesale murder of their opponents. There was no civil service, which would have stabilised Roman governance. The Empire devolved into a kleptocracy, a thug-state ruled by a small clique of infighting sociopaths. That’s what eventually destroyed it.
     But at the time of Pompeii’s destruction, life was still safe for most people, until the mountain blew up. I read almost all the explanations, something I rarely do, but had to skip them towards the end. I recommend a full day to see and absorb it. If you’re a ROM member, go more than once. ****

The Roman Record (1997)

     Paul Dowswell & Karen Tomlins. The Roman Record (1997) Roman history done in tabloid form. Very funny. The layout mirrors The Mirror, the writing echoes the screamier tabs, the authors rely on allusions to modern knowledge for sly irony, but the facts are there. A quick read, but it does prompt thinking. Here are a few of my thoughts.
     The  Romans loved their entertainment, became bored with the standard fare, and demanded an ever more intense frisson. They got it, eventually. The main difference between them and us was slavery (the owner had life and death power over his property), and the casual brutality of everyday life and politics.
     They were practical, focussing on making life more convenient and comfortable. They decorated their home with sculpture and painting. Upperclass homes included a private garden. Family and friends mattered most. Religion was (as it always is) a matter of cults and superstitions. They didn’t have mass media, but news spread fast via daily gossip in the baths and the the Forum.
     The apparatus of empire eventually became too much for them. Taxes rose, political infighting became more brutal and petty. One’s place in the machinery of government became more important than the purpose of government. The Romans did not develop the two most essential aspects of governance: a cadre of bureaucrats to operate the system, and kept it stable; and regulated transition at the top to prevent civil strife. By ca 500 AD, Rome was easy prey for the barbarians at the gate.
     The cover alludes to the destruction of Pompeii: Senator Livius Impluvius claims that the volcano will not erupt. He’s spent loads of money consulting with soothsayers, who all tell him that Pompeii will become “one of the most famous towns of ancient times.” Which in fact happened.
    Well worth the $9.40 it cost me. Jon would have loved it. ***

Merry Christmas

I posted this comment on a Usenet photo-sharing group. All the comments on it were positive, so here it is for your contemplation. The reason for it: Someone had posted a photo of an extremely garish Christmas lights display. Several of the Comments expressed puzzlement that non-Christian neighbours from South East Asia were putting up Christmas lights.

"The notion that Christmas is Christian is erroneous. The Dec 25th date has no biblical authority whatsoever. There isn't even a hint that it was winter. "In those days Augustus decreed a census" is the closest to a date, but Augustus decreed more than one, so Jesus's birth date is anybody's guess. The "Jesus is the reason for the season" mantra is of quite recent origin, proposed as a counter to the commercialisation of the festival. But Winter Solstice celebrations were/are pretty well universal north of the Mediterranean Sea. Many other Northern hemisphere peoples around the world also celebrate the Solstice.

Dec 25th was the date of the Roman Saturnalia, a celebration of the Solstice marked by all kinds of sensual delights. Around the same time the Norsemen and Germanic tribes celebrated Yule. The essence of these feasts was the return of the light, when the sun reverses its journey into darkness. It was an easy re-interpretation to identify this with the return of the Light of the World, aka Jesus. Hence Christ's Mass, or Weihnachten (= consecrated night), or Feliz Navidad (= happy birth), or etc.

The Puritans knew very well that Christmas is non-biblical. They banned it after they cut off Charles I's head. Many Christian sects also know this, so they don't celebrate Christmas. The Scots Presbyterians, a dour lot with a general opposition to anything suggesting that pleasure was a good thing, discouraged Christmas, too, which is why the New Year is more important in Scotland. And is celebrated by grieving for Auld Lang Syne.

I'm all for Christmas, and any other Winter Solstice feast people celebrate. The return of the light, or the Light, symbolises hope. Without hope, we despair.

So Merry Christmas to all. May you be renewed in your faith, enjoy the company of family and friends, and find peace and hope in 2016. Without hope, we despair."