Mount TBR #7

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez

This engrossing novel explores love as in young romantic love, the love of the long-time married, love and ageing, unrequited love, love and anger, love and fear, and love and death. At first I felt embarrassed because I could not tell if the story was set in Central America or South America but then I realized settings are irrelevant because different aspects of love manifest anywhere and everywhere. Also, this amazing work is about smelliest novel I’ve ever read, with references from aromas to stenches on about every other page. This starts on in the incredible first line of the novel: “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” I recommend this novel whole-heartedly. Other themes - rivers, animals, cages, etc. -  were so compelling that I read it even after I came home from work at 9:00 p.m., something I am usually too tired to do.

Back to the Classics #8

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge

Classic Set in the Americas. It’s been about six months since I’ve read The Station by Robert Byron, a glittering example of one of my favorite genres, travel writing from between the wars. I don’t much like Greene; his capacity to be as bloody-minded as Evelyn Waugh has always dismayed me. I find his serious novels bleak, his entertainments dull, his overall tone portentous, his anti-Americanism tedious.  But, for me, the point of reading in general and a reading challenge in particular is to read writers that challenge me.

The Lawless Roads – Graham Greene

In 1937, the Vatican commissioned Greene to visit Mexico and report on the persecution of the Church by the leftist government of Plutarco Elisa Calles. By interviewing and observing, Graham found grim evidence of murders, imprisonment, and other crimes against people who just wanted to practice their religion in peace. Also, in describing a charlatan trying to exploit a so-called miracle, he observes that when organized religion is suppressed, our built-in ability and willingness to believe nuttier and nuttier things asserts itself. In uncertain times, under stress, people believe in anything.

To his credit, Greene feels for the poor who have lost so much because their religion is being suppressed.

...There  had been one priest over the border in Chiapas, but the people  had told him to go - they couldn’t protect him any longer.

‘And when you die?’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘we die like dogs.’ No religious ceremony was  allowed at the grave. The old people, of course, felt it most - a few weeks before they had smuggled the Bishop of Campeche in by plane to see her grandmother who was dying. They had money still . . . but what could the poor do?

He is also impressed by their devotion

When the rains came, men, women, and children would go on their knees - some of them carrying the cross - to the river. It must have been a journey of terrible pain - thorn bushes and rocks and steep descents: it was difficult enough for us to keep from falling. When they reached the river they poured water on the cross and carried it back. Herr F in his operations had been very careful of the church, but the Federal engineers threw out the cross and converted the chapel into a shed for their tools

Greene’s contact with believers who have suffered for their faith – facing fines, jail, beatings, contempt, death – made him see the church with more grandeur than before, that it could inspire such fidelity on the part of the faithful was  profoundly moving.

Though his descriptions of place and scene are excellent, Greene also works in the tradition of “I hate it here” travel writers between the wars. The transportation is unreliable, uncomfortable, always late. The food is bad beyond description even if one suffering from dysentery could eat it. The heat is beyond bearing. The bedbugs and rats make it impossible to sleep. Even the turkeys are frightening.

... above all the turkeys - those hideous Dali heads, with the mauve surrealist flaps of skin they had to toss aside to uncover the beak or eyes. Suppose when night fell they chose to perch on the hammock? Where birds are concerned I lose my reason, I feel panic. The turkey cock blew out its tail, a dingy Victorian fan with the whalebone broken, and hissed with balked pride and hate, like an evil impotent old pasha. One wondered what parasites swarmed under the dusty layers of black feathers. Domestic animals seem to reflect the prosperity of their owners - only the gentleman farmer possesses the plump complacent good-to-live-with fowls and pigs; these burrowing ravenous tapirs and down-at-heel turkey cocks belonged to people living on the edge of subsistence.

 Greene got very ill with dysentery so we have to forgive the rude things he says about Mexicans. When you're sick overseas, everything is dreary, scary, and maddening. And what’s really a "bee sting when you're already crying" is near the end he picks up his mail to find out that the guardians of Shirley Temple are suing him over a sulfurous review of Wee Willie Winkle. 

Anyway, reading this book moves me to grant that Greene had formidable powers of observation and description, enough to make us readers see. I would recommend this book to readers who like travel and descriptions of places. Fans of Mexico and Mexicans may be put out.

Mount TBR #6

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

Death by Water aka Appleby at Allington – Michael Innes

This light 1968 whodunnit finds series hero Sir John Appleby in retirement from Scotland Yard. He and his sculptor wife Judith trade witty observations, as if Nick and Nora Charles had aged into not drinking anything stronger than sherry.

In this novel, Sir John has an odd dinner with a new neighbor who unaccountably presses him to examine the elaborate electrical system that ran a recent outdoor lightshow on the grounds of the estate. This is 1968, recall, whenpsychedelic lightshows were all the rage for both the cheerful squares and tripping hippies. Besides, who doesn’t like pretty lights? Not liking pretty lights is like not liking to watch it raining or snowing.

Anyway, in the operations center they discover a corpse. This, however, does not stop the operations center being dismantled for a charity fete to be held on the same grounds the next day. Nothing stops the traditional village festival on the estate, after all, lest the meaning of “this green and sceptered isle” be lost forever. The action focuses on the-pain-in-the-neck family of the owner and unfolding of incidents. The families are well-drawn as athletic parents who are philistines worried that their bookworm children will develop imaginations. Innes is a writer for irredeemably bookish people, with sympathy for us A and B students fighting to do right  in a world run by conceited dummies and their chumps.

Readers that like Patricia Highsmith, Nicholas Blake, Cyril Hare, Mary Fitt and Josephine Tey will like the intelligent, deftly written, and short mysteries of Michael Innes. New readers of Innes would do better to test the early ones such as Hamlet, Revenge!, Lament for a Maker or Stop Press; fans of Innes – readers like me – will like this lesser, late-career work regardless.

European RC #5

I read this book for the European Reading Challenge 2019.

The German Generals Talk - B. H. Liddell Hart

This 1948 book is a description of WWII battles “as seen through German eyes.” It’s rather an inquest on German strategy, chronologically arranged with digressions here and there on compelling  topics such as the July 20^th assassination plot; Hitler’s fiendishly charismatic leadership style and methods; and the range of attitudes toward the Nazi Party and its brutal functionaries by the fastidious aristo generals. No campaign is fully explained; that would mean an opus on the order Operation Barbarossa by Alan Clark, at 600 pages, but multiplied 4 or 5 times. This book is written for the general reader, at reasonable length, in plain language.

In the 1920s and 1930s Liddell Hart wrote voluminously about battle strategy and tactics, especially about the development of armored forces. His writings naturally caught the eye of German officers who were working secretly – because in violation of treaty - on the re-armament of Nazi Germany.

After the Allied victory in 1945, Liddell Hart was able to interview the generals to gather their views of the recent hostilities. I suppose it is not strange that Liddell Hart reports that the generals endorse his views of defensive strategy. But I guess what makes the civilian reader uncomfortable is the palsy-walsiness between military professionals discussing the subtleties of the recent dust-up, like Bossy and Gretzky chatting affably over the 1983 Stanley Cup final. When Liddell Hart  describes Gerd von Rundstedt as a general “so straightforward, so strict in his conception of the soldierly code of honor, as to be unsuitable to participate in a conspiracy,” one is indeed reminded of rubbishy slogans - “good men in a bad cause” - that encourage the bad guys to think they are doing the right thing.

Opinions aside, there are various surprising stances and revelations in the book. The one about Dunkirk is so shocking I won’t spoil it in a review.  More than the generals, Liddell Hart grasps the inventive elements in Hitler's military thinking, such as the value of surprise and unconventional operations. Hitler also denied local commanders any initiative in ordering timely retreats. His “will beats skill” attitude did lead to failure.

Thank heaven.

Anyway, for overviews of WWII turning points in Europe, from another point of view, in approachable writing for non-experts, this is recommendable.

Back to the Classics #7

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

Classic from Africa, Asia, or Oceania. In 1979, I travelled with other college students to Japan on an exchange program that was to give me a course in life. Anyway, we had a multi-hour layover in Honolulu. We were met the by the relatives of one of our group, a Japanese-American guy. They provided a big picnic. I especially remember not only the pineapple (fresh, I discovered, is way better than canned – hey, I was young) but also the cheerful hosts. I’ve always had a fond memory of Hawaiians.

Six Months in the Sandwich Islands – Isabella Bird

This 1875 travel narrative was among the first of Bird's books, her first big project and success after The Englishwoman in America (1856). Based on letters to her sister Henrietta, her stories about her seven-month stay are written in an enthusiastic tone.

A good botanist, Bird was quite taken by lushness of the tropical forest and all its wonderful flora. She writes about flowers and ferns with a sparkle not often found in her other narratives. A good geologist, her stories of visiting volcanos Mount Loa and Mount Kilauea are exciting, even if a little long, as she herself admits. 

She’s also something of an anthropologist of the participant-observer school. Staying with friends at Puna, near the end of the book, she lollygags with friends, saying “I developed a capacity for doing nothing, which horrified me….” In another passages she says of the locals:

But the more I see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and lassoing cattle.

These letters, often in the present tense, give a nice “here and now” feeling to the book.

I’ve spent much time with Miss Bird on the road. See Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1879) and Among the Tibetans (1894). I would recommend those, however, only to readers with a strong or scholarly interest in the countries covered, old-time travel narratives or Victorian lady travelers. But I’d suggest Six Months in the Sandwich Islands to any serious reader into Hawaii or Oceania.

Mount TBR #5

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

A Change of Heir – Michael Innes

This 1966 crime novel kicks off with an out-of-work actor, George Gadberry, getting an audit notice from the British counterpart of the IRS. Understandably wanting to disappear for a time, Gadberry accepts an unusual job. He is hired by wealthy Nicholas Comberford to impersonate Nicholas Comberford. The ostensible reason is for Gadberry to accept the invitation of Comberford’s eccentric aunt for an extended stay at her country house so that the real Comberford can loll about Mediterranean Europe.

Innes often explored the theme of forgery in paintings and impersonation. In Sheiks and Adders series hero John Appleby stumbles into a costume party full of fake-sheiks who camouflage a genuine sheik who is having a secret meeting with the host. In From London Far two scholars go undercover to infiltrate a gang of smugglers of looted art. In this one, Gadberry is no dummy but it takes time for the ethical pratfalls of such a deception become clear to him. The intelligent but immoral character is a mainstay in Innes’ novels. Gadberry also stumbles onto the slippery nature of identity, a philosophical digression that is, in turn, distracted by the realization that the impersonation is an open secret among important figures in the mansion.

Innes likes to set stories in remote places. This time it is a former abbey in the Yorkshire dales. He enjoys describing the medieval architecture and its total impossibility to live in in 1966, even for an aunt stuck in the Augustan period.

Readers that like Patricia Highsmith, Nicholas Blake, Cyril Hare, Mary Fitt and Josephine Tey will like the intelligent, deftly written, and short  mysteries of Michael Innes. New readers of Innes would do better to test the early ones such as Hamlet, Revenge!, Lament for a Maker or Stop Press; fans of Innes – readers like me – will like this lesser work regardless.

Back to the Classics #6

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

Classic Novella. Like the Maigret novels, Simenon’s non-Maigret psychological thrillers are always shorter than 180 pages long, enough for an evening or longish ride on bus or plane. In Simenon’s ‘hard novels’ one of life’s ordinary crises (illness, accident, crime, moving, family members forgetting one’s birthday, etc.) motivates a protagonist to evaluate his life due to the resultant existential heebie-jeebies. Sometimes he is middle-aged, sometimes she is just entering adulthood. The moods of these novels are somber, the tone clinical, the language plain.

The Nightclub (L'âne rouge) – Georges Simenon (tr. Jean Stewart)

This early novel, published in 1933 when Simenon was only 30, stars a young man of 19. Jean Cholet is the beneficiary of blessings such as an intact family, a petty bourgeois life in the coastal city of Nantes, a job as a cub reporter for the local Catholic paper, with prospects for advancement. But the city, like lots of ports, offers plenty of the usual temptations to unbalance a youth who is not ready to exercise judgment because his teen-aged brain is literally too young to manage impulses or responsibility.

One fateful evening Cholet pushes open the doors of The Red Donkey, a shabby bar where Lulu d'Artois sings her tiny little heart out. His amygdala blends love and lust and narcissism and grandiosity’s need for admiration, driving him to blow through money to stand drinks and bed the born to lose Lulu. Fragile and stunted, she’s tells him she is “sick” but chooses to be vague as to whether the malady is TB or VD.

Cholet stumbles home reeking of cut-rate liqueurs and cheap floozy, both of which his mother smells on him and berates him with equal measures of scorn and fear for his soul and future. His father looks at him with wry expressions that alternate between indulgent regret and jealous admiration. His contact on the police beat doesn’t give details, but warns him to watch his step with the dodgy people who run The Red Donkey.

The job is also a hassle. It’s a stuffy provincial newspaper, after all, with troublesome deadlines and constant cry for copy, leading to making up reports about events never attended by the cub reporter. Cholet suffocates with employees he feels superior to, as he sees them as churls. He sexually harasses and assaults the lonely unloved Berthe, treating her like an object.

Lulu goes back to Paris to live with her aunt. Cholet follows her without a franc in his pocket. Out of work, he stalks the streets, bored and hungry and thinking what a mess he’s in. But a crisis calls him home to Nantes where he realizes he can’t proceed in the cul-de-sac he has driven himself into. This baby step in assuming responsibility is about as optimistic a note as we ever find in Simenon hard novel.

Mount TBR #4

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The DA Holds A Candle – Erle Stanly Gardner

This 1938 mystery was the second of a nonet published between 1937 and 1949 that starred the idealistic DA Doug Selby. The Gardner Fiction Factory (his words) is famous for the Perry Mason and Cool & Lam novels, too many of which have been reviewed in this blog. Like the other eight, this novel was first serialized in The Country Gentleman, an agricultural magazine with about 2.5 million subscribers.  

The DA Holds A Candle opens with Selby and his mentor Sheriff Max Brandon discussing a problem with a roadhouse in their county. The forces of law and order suspect big city gamblers are being imported to separate the local young blades from their pappy’s money. The situation is complicated because one of the youngbloods happens to be the son of a sugar beet potentate, who stoops to local politics only when his interests are threatened. Brandon, a true pard out of Westerns, and Selby’s GF Sylvia Martin, crusading reporter who could be Della Street’s sassy sister, want the moneybags taken down a peg or two.

Gardner none too subtly examines the challenges of a DA in a backwater county. Both friends and enemies assume that the DA and sheriff will accommodate their expectations for fear of political repercussions. Sylvia frankly wants scoops in exchange for political endorsements from her newspaper. The potentate wants the tickets torn up when his son speeds and gets popped in the gambling hell. The potentate derides Selby as unable to “hold a candle” to big city DA’s and calls Brandon a “comic opera” sheriff.

Gardner implies that the fight against civic corruption and malfeasance starts with realistic reformers who are as ruthlessly determined to clean up cheating and chiseling as the crooks are about making money and the bigwigs and toadies are about maintaining their position. Gardner seems to think too much money, power, and reputation have a corrupting influence on the rich and famous and their hangers-on and those who would counter the results of that corruption – cops, teachers, reporters, lawyers, doctors – must work hard forever against behavior coming out of avarice, lust, cowardice, and injustice.

Compared with The DA Calls it Murder, the first of the Selby books, the two main currents of the plot do not get tangled up (the incidents are intricately tied up and need alert attention to keep straight) and wry asides are few. Characters get a bee in the bonnet and are driven by their one big irrational idea to extremes. Selby has a touching faith in the capacity of reason and logic to explain the facts of nutty behavior. Gardner’s highly readable prose drives the story effectively. We readers can always trust his stories to move.