Mount TBR #34

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

WWII: A Chronicle of Soldiering – James Jones

When I was teenager in the early Seventies, I read and enjoyed Jones’ From Here to Eternity, a novel about the peacetime army in Hawaii just prior to WWII. It was compelling in its gritty realism even though its faraway exotic locale and love/adultery stories made it hard for an untraveled and inexperienced teenage boy like me to connect with. In 1975 Jones was hired to the write the text for a coffee-table book of WWII war art.

Jones interweaves autobiographical material with a chronological narrative of the major battles of the war. Jones is best, as we would expect, on the materials with which that he has had direct experience as an enlisted man at war: the boredom of walking and waiting punctuated with the terror of battle and the disgust at sights and smells that would make a demon puke. His description of the “Evolution of a Soldier” gives insight into the process of moving  from civilian to raw recruit, raw recruit to garrison soldier, garrison soldier into combat, and his transformation into a veteran (given the knowledge, experience and luck). The acceptance of death is key.

Every combat soldier, if he follows far enough along the path that began with his induction, must, I think, be led inexorably to that awareness. He must make a compact with himself or with Fate that he is lost. Only then can he function as he ought to function, under fire. He knows and accepts beforehand that he’s dead, although he may still be walking around for a while. That soldier you have walking around there with this awareness in him is the final end product of the Evolution of a Soldier.

So Army puts people into a situation where acceptance and resignation are needed. But Jones underscores the fact that “the government had never set up any De-Evolution of a Soldier center, to match its induction centers. When you went in, they had the techniques and would ride you all the way to becoming a soldier. They had no comparable system when you came out. That you had to do on your own.”

The coffee-table book was such a best-seller that the publisher Ballantine got the cockamamie idea of issuing the book in pocket-paperback size, thus reducing the impact of the art. That’s the version I read, depending on the web to view the art (here and here) lest I tear the 40-year-old spine to pieces.

Mount TBR #33

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers

This early 20^th century spy thriller starts with Charles Carruthers plodding away in the British Foreign Office, marking time on dull reports and doing the social whirl at balls and dinners. For a change, he accepts an offer of a vacation from an old Oxford buddy, Arthur Davies. The stolid quiet Davies proposes duck shooting in the Frisian Islands on his yacht the Dulcibella. In fact, to make up for being turned down by the Royal Navy, Davies has taken to freelance espionage. He is investigating German plans to invade that royal throne of kings, that sceptered isle.

Though raised near Great Lakes, having lived on an island for six years, and living now in a place ridden by lake effect snow, I’m not really a water guy. I just read lots of nautical stories, in memoirs, serious fiction, mysteries and thrillers. In this novel, the technical information about navigation, sailing and naval dispositions is balanced by expressive narrative like this:

… A sort of buoyant fatalism possessed me as I finished my notes and pored over the stove. It upheld me, too, when I went on deck and watched the 'pretty beat', whose prettiness was mainly due to the crowd of fog-bound shipping—steamers, smacks, and sailing-vessels—now once more on the move in the confined fairway of the fiord, their baleful eyes of red, green, or yellow, opening and shutting, brightening and fading; while shore-lights and anchor-lights added to my bewilderment, and a throbbing of screws filled the air like the distant roar of London streets. In fact, every time we spun round for our dart across the fiord I felt like a rustic matron gathering her skirts for the transit of the Strand on a busy night. Davies, however, was the street arab who zigzags under the horses' feet unscathed; and all the time he discoursed placidly on the simplicity and safety of night-sailing if only you are careful, obeying rules, and burnt good lights. As we were nearing the hot glow in the sky that denoted Kiel we passed a huge scintillating bulk moored in mid-stream. 'Warships,' he murmured, ecstatically.

That second 80-word sentence is, well, something, though the ~ing verbs make movement, sights, and sounds realistic and vivid.

Historians tell us that the book was a best-seller when it was published. Public outcry stirred by the book was such that the UK shored up its coastal defense system. Critics say the book was an influence on John Buchan, whose man-child hero Richard Hannay calls to mind Davies in this one. This was Childers’ only novel. He became a stringent Irish Nationalist (his mother was Irish) and had an unfortunate end after the Great War. His son was President of Ireland in the early Seventies.

Mount TBR #32

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

Kokoro – Natsume Sōseki

The first two parts of this modernist novel in three parts are narrated by a young Japanese student, circa 1914. The collegian meets a man in early middle age by chance at a seaside resort at Kamakura. As young people sometimes do with strangers, he feels an affinity for the elder, feeling admiration and curiosity.  He rather forces his company on this private and enigmatic man, calling him Sensei (teacher). The young student, from the country, has been influenced by city life and feels estranged from the customs and ways of thinking of his rustic parents. So seeking connection and wisdom to navigate a rapidly changing urban world, the student sends hints in Sensei’s direction that he wants deep insights into life from the teacher.

Sensei seems hesitant to do this at first. But eventually he writes a long letter to the student, explaining what conclusions he has drawn from life.

And we readers feel a similar pity for Sensei that we felt for the narrator John Dowell in The Good Soldier and Marlow in Heart of Darkness, who both learned life lessons that they would just as soon have gone without. Sensei tells a story on himself that reveals him to be prejudiced, malicious, rude, insincere, dishonorable, and disloyal, all of which stem from his inability to control his own emotions and tongue and his own cowardice to take what he wants, what other people would think is reasonable and fit to take. Truly a modernist novel that brings to mind Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford – deeply sad and wise.

So, it’s a great novel for fall.

Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石 became popular with his novel Botchan, which the Japanese still love today. Also, funny were the three I am a Cat books, which satirized human foibles in general and Japanese intellectuals dealing with modernization in particular. But like a lot of funny guys, Sōseki (“gargling with stones” as the Japanese call him) was beautifully melancholy and in Japan this novel and The Gate are still read today and enjoyed, if that is the right word.

He was sad and shy and peevish because that was his temperament but also because smallpox scarred him at age six and he had problems with peptic ulcers in adulthood. He died, probably of GI bleeding, on  December 9, 1916 at the age of 49. Forty-nine – just a kid!

Mount TBR #31

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

Put on by Cunning – Ruth Rendell

The US title is Death Notes, maybe because publishers thought that American readers would not connect with the Hamlet allusion and Death Notes evokes Agatha Christie, queen of the mystery of misdirection, red herrings, and doubtful identities. This 1981 mystery is the 11th of 24 crime novels, released from 1964 to 2013, starring the crime-solving Chief Inspector Reg Wexford and his sidekick Mike Burden, set in the fictional Sussex town of Kingsmarkham.

Old, deaf, and fragile, Sir Manuel Camargue slips on a snowy bank, falls into a cold river and dies under the ice. So it's ruled by the coroner a death by misadventure. Or was there something more going on? Because it turns out that the celebrity flautist was about to get married to a woman young enough to be his daughter, young enough to be a contemporary of Sheila, the TV star daughter of Reg Wexford. Inspector Wexford wonders why Carmague’s daughter Natalie Arno, who had been estranged from her father for almost twenty years, had suddenly returned to England from LA to visit her father.

Carmague’s fiancé appeals to Wexford for help, believing that Natalie is using a fake identity, because Carmague believed the woman who visited him was an impostor. It does not take long for Reg to hit a dead end.  In fact, his superior tells him bluntly to drop the case. Because his TV star daughter doesn’t let him use his nest egg to pay for her wedding, Reg takes his wife Dora to California to investigate Natalie’s tracks there.

Not the strongest story of Rendell. Too often coincidence determines the events, too many strange turns occur in the story. The denouement is also not too strong. But so be it. Nobody wrote mysteries like Ruth Rendell, who balanced foreboding and menace with humanity, common sense, and a dash of humor. The reader can tell she was a dog lover.

The Ides of Perry Mason 5

The 15th of every month until I don't know when I will post a review of a Perry Mason mystery. For the hell of it.

The Case of the Rolling Bones – Erle Stanley Gardner

In the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Alden Leeds and his partner Bill Hogarty mined a pocket of gold. In lawless country and murky circumstances, the partnership dissolved like the hungry dreams of busted prospectors.

In noir fashion, however, the past exerts a baleful sway over the present.  In 1939, 33 years later, Leeds’ avaricious relatives worry that Leeds is bent on marrying former taxi dancer Emily Millicant and cutting them out of the will. In a desperate attempt to prevent this, they kidnap and commit Leeds with the connivance of a greedy doctor. 

As Mason works to get Leeds sprung from the sanitarium, Leeds escapes with the help of an old crony. Emily's black sheep brother, John, later ends up with a carving knife in his back with Leeds’ prints all over the apartment.

Readable as usual albeit mildly confusing. A highlight for hardcore Masonites is the first appearance of Gertie the Office Switchboard Girl. Uncharacteristically since he was not great at characterization, Gardner makes vivid the ole pard relationship between Leeds and Hogarty.

Mount TBR #30

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

French title: Le petit docteur

Year: 1943

Year Englished: 1981, tr. Jean Stewart

The Little Doctor – Georges Simenon

Jean Dollent, a.k.a. The Little Doctor, has little in common with Simenon’s other master detective, Maigret. They both like to knock back any old alcohol at all, from beer to brandy and both trust their intuition to get to the heart of the matter. But Jean is short in stature and slim compared to Maigret’s height and bulk; silly and youthful Jean contrasts with Maigret’s gravity and middle-age; and single Jean always loses his balance around pretty young women while Maigret is the exemplar of a faithful husband.

These thirteen short stories, about 25 pages long, were probably published in magazines in the late Thirties. Considering that everybody with any sense knew that war was coming with Nazi Germany, it is no wonder people turned to escapist mystery and crime stories for a little relief. The stories often take place in the summer time and Simenon is as usual just right with weather and scenery. The stories are set all over France but often in the country in Marsilly, not far from La Rochelle and the Charente countryside. The scenes are places quaint even in the late 1930s – a France where not everybody is “on the telephone,” a France that doesn’t exist anymore.

Simenon is not Agatha Christie, so the puzzles are not intricate and their resolutions are very simplistic -  even downright improbable. The riddles are not the point, with the focus more on the portraits of the characters, developed in a few words succinctly but effectively. And what characters! Right out of Balzac – the corrupt but prudish bourgeois, the avaricious peasant, the sad spinster, etc. Simenon is lighter and more facetious than usual. He gives a wink to fans by having The Little Doctor interact with Maigret’s subordinates Lucas and Torrence when cases take him Paris.

An obscure thing to read, sure, but may be of interest to fans of Simenon and light old timey crime stories.

Mount TBR #29

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

French title: Le Confessional

Year: 1966

Year Englished: 1968, tr. Jean Stewart

The Confessional – Georges Simenon

A reunion between two former fellow students – Dr. Bar, who practices dentistry in Cannes and Dr. Boisdieu, who does medicine in Nice - allows their respective adolescent children to get to know and commiserate with each other. Sixteen-year-old André Bar is an only child, and thus stereotypically lonely, selfish, impatient, introspective and only slowly waking out of the self-centered dreaminess of childhood. Francine Boisdieu, slightly older than him, compares her younger brothers and André. But she's an open and spontaneous girl that intuits André needs a friend. She comes from a loving family, which is not the case of Andrew, whose parents are having the marriage problems of discontented middle-aged people.

One day in Nice, while André escorts Francine home, André spots his mother coming out of a house and they quickly go the other way. The young man conducts a little investigation and discovers that his mother is carrying on an extramarital relationship.

Although he does not tell his parents, they understand that André is hiding something from them. They realize that he is finally awake enough to notice other people have feelings too and see something is not right in the marriage of his parents. They, in fact, dislike each other intensely. His parents try to put an end to the distress of their son by confiding their problems through hesitant and self-serving confessions to him. It’s a lot to ask of a man-child, to assume such a burden.

Lucien Bar is a mild man, but without much scope. Like other Simenonian jewelers, watchmakers, proofreaders, and bookkeepers, he’s better with exacting detail and standard protocol while the overarching and unique are outside his range. He tries to comfort his son as best he can, including taking some of the blame for the loveless marriage. As for Josée Bar, she feels more guilty towards her son than her husband. She is ashamed at her inability to provide an atmosphere of love, trust, and harmony at home. The Bar cook and housekeeper calls it a “madhouse” and yearns to go live with “real people” like her daughter and Italian son-in-law.

André feels disappointment as his parents struggle with their marriage. He talks about his problems to Francine, without explaining to her the exact nature of his worries. The girl shows him friendship and support. The trust they have for each other, however, will not lead to any love. André is not nearly ready to handle added intense complicated feelings.

In the Bar family, the atmosphere is deteriorating day by day. André's mother, in addition to her infidelity towards her husband, has a female friend Natasha who is a bad influence. Josée goes out at night as often as possible and drinks herself sick until the other patrons in the bar start giving her the disapproving looks Europeans are so good at.

Josée Bar can’t stand the feeling that that her son is judging her behavior (a constant anxiety for Simenon’s characters: being judged) and decides to leave. Her husband only narrowly manages to persuade her to stay, mainly by encouraging André to be more tender with her. Part of growing up, Simenon seems to imply, is detecting the faults of parents, understanding them as imperfect people, and forgiving them anyway.

André feels helpless in the face of family problems in which each member is a victim. He also takes the cool stance that the marriage is not his responsibility to fix. He has his own integrity and sanity to maintain.

Rather a slice of life tale, but rendered well. Simenon is sympathetic toward youth surrounded by nutty adults who are too conceited to age gracefully. For Simenon, the individual’s basic task is to be responsible for her own life; the groups that society constructs are liable to breakdown and dysfunction so we have to have inner strength to focus on what we can control – our responses to everything that happens in life, lucky and not – and rid ourselves of the illusion that we have control over our health, property, reputation, or positions of authority.

Mount TBR #28

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Pendergast Machine – Lyle W. Dorsett

Kansas City Swing – blues-based, fluid with extended solos and riffing - is my favorite kind of jazz (if you care). In the 1920s and 1930s, The Jazz Capital of the World was full of nightclubs where musicians could jam and have cutting contests where two or more musicians would alternately play parts of solo choruses. The reason is that KC was so wide-open to nightlife pleasures such as drinking, gambling, and prostitution, all of whose sensations are heightened by hard-driving music.

Collecting protection from the vice lords, the politicians – mostly Democratic – provided welfare services to their underprivileged African American, Italian, and Irish constituents. The voters rewarded this charity at election time so politicians could deliver majorities and thus dominate politics in the city, country, state, and influence federal pork to come their way.

This slim volume examines the Democratic machine that grew to dominate KC and Missouri politics from 1890 to 1940. The founder was Jim Pendergast who used his saloon as a base to appeal to voters in the working class sections of town. After Jim died in 1911 his younger brother Tom took command.

He extended favors to middle class people who needed influence to cut red tape and land lucrative contracts, not help with jobs, housing, and health care the working, the poor, and the working poor did. Gradually, with sometime setbacks delivered by reformers, Tom Pendergast was able to exert political power in all of Cowtown and Jackson County. When the New Deal came to town, the machine's leading position in Missouri’s Democratic party made it the natural canal for the diffusion of federal largess to Missourians.

The downfall of the Pendergast machine came through nepotism, cupidity and electoral chicanery that was so conspicuously bad that that it outraged even the endless tolerance that Americans have for bosses and strong men. I grow tolerant with age and don’t see as outrageous one boss controlling the financing of campaigns and influence by way of owing of favors to arrange patronage of jobs in the public sector. Let the bastards flourish as long as they are not shutting out ordinary people, probably of different colors and religions, from getting ahead.

But of course it doesn't work that way. Inevitably bossism falls due to favoritism, avarice, and narrow-mindedness because human beings, being fallible and unimaginative, lose their heads when the money and power get too good. They optimistically think the party is going to last forever and get sloppy. And mean about cutting up the pie. Furthermore, bosses and their long time minions become temperamentally unfit to be leader. They age and become erratic and unstable, besides their natural lack of principles and obsessiveness about money and power.

That’s why it’s important to fight local, state, and national  oligarchies – because they are predictably, unavoidably corrupt and their decay causes a lot of damage.

Mount TBR #27

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley

Huxley's second novel, published in 1923, is organized around a group of Lost Generation types that we hardcore readers know best probably through The Sun Also Rises. Gumbril Jr. throws over his tedious job as a composition teacher and tries to sell special pants with an inner tube in the seat to serve the market of thin guys whose bottoms are pained sitting too long on hard benches and chairs. Myra Viveash calls to mind Lady Brett Ashley with her debilitating line “Tomorrow will be as awful as today.” Coleman is an out of control devil, cynically convinced sinning largely is a big bore anyway. The biologist and exercise scientist Shearwater has lived an entirely intellectual life so when he falls for Myra, as all men do, he falls absurdly hard. His wife Rosie pathetically tries to play the woman of the world and pays a high price when she meets Coleman. Lypiatt has lofty artistic ambitions but only mediocre results as the mean critic and bon-vivant Mercaptan tirelessly points out.

I think it’s worth reading, but then I like Huxley’s novels of ideas. In this one, the characterization is more convincing than in his other novels that I’ve read – yes, especially Brave New World. The lost souls are presented vividly and come out of their post-WWI historical background persuasively. They are themselves, not just dummies to mouth Huxley’s social and mystical views. Sure, his tone is ironic but touching are the pages about Gumbril Jr.’s mindless rejection of genuine romantic contact with Emily.

Other Reviews

After Many a Summer

Time Must Have a Stop

The Genius and the Goddess

Brave New World