|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 034552232X
| 9780345522320
| 034552232X
| 4.47
| 4,720
| Jan 22, 2019
| Jan 22, 2019
|
really liked it
|
Although not technically a biography, Last Boat Out of Shanghai serves as four biographies of very different Chinese who faced the trials and uncertai
Although not technically a biography, Last Boat Out of Shanghai serves as four biographies of very different Chinese who faced the trials and uncertainties of the Japanese occupation during WWII, the Chinese Civil War, and the imminent fall of Shanghai after Mao’s victories. To author Helen Zia’s credit, the four “biographies” interspersed with one another for both variety in pace and clarity in subject matter, are well-chosen for gender representation, familial situation, and economic status. By using this technique, we see the changing economic, military, and political situations from four different perspectives. It is masterfully done. By featuring two females as biographees, we get a chance to see the prejudicial gender bias in favor of Chinese males. When something needed to be sacrificed, it was the female’s security or the female’s education. Beginning with Bing, a girl who is shuttled from home-to-home and feeling abandoned, we see her evacuate Shanghai on a forged passport and a third-class ticket while her adoptive Elder Sister travels first-class. Bing constantly longs for her baba, despite being abandoned twice and running away once. Even the U.S. is not quite the shelter Bing had pictured. Annuo is a young girl who identifies as a taonan (person on the run from difficulty). Her father is largely absent from her life, but has dictatorial authority enough, even from long-distance, to force her physician-trained mother to stop working, and force the family to move time and again. It seems that every time Annuo’s life is stabilized, she is forced to relocate. And each relocation has a psychological (usually negative) effect on the youngster. Over and over again, this young woman feels marginalized, called by the natives of Taiwan (after evcacuating) one of the wai sheng ren (outsiders). I was pleased to read about her success as a journalist, but not surprised that she could never please her father. The two males are similarly different. Ho comes from a lower middle class family that works, scrapes, scrambles, and saves so Ho can receive the best possible education. This is different from Annuo’s often suspended education. Ho eventually typifies the foreign student in the U.S. who is allowed to study but not to work while his family is suffering hyperinflation back in China. Renting sub-standard housing and not letting his struggling family know before taking up “residence” by sleeping in a factory office is only a part of his pilgrimage. Benny, on the other hand, is a child of privilege. That is, he is a child of privilege prior to his life caving in as a result of the exposure of his father as a hanjian (collaborator/traitor). It was interesting to see how the eldest son reacts and copes with this drastic development. It was also interesting to see how his conversion to Christianity changed the trajectory of his life for the better. However, as the Communist regime tightened more and more, he became worried about being labeled a yang nu (foreign slave) or zou gou (running dog). At least, he wasn’t a xiao ke (worthless playboy). However, his life during the Cultural Revolution (where classrooms were shut down for 10 years) was even worse with constant interrogation and separation from his wife and children. Later in the book, we are also treated to the story of his younger sister, Doreen. As her elder sister pushes her to become a dance hall girl, she finds work with a reputable company because of her Shanghai classmates and facility with English. Fortunately for her, her sister’s idea is not the final verdict on her life. [SPOILER ALERT: The epilogue features some interesting details on the lives of the biographees which author Helen Zia painstakingly interviewed over hundreds of hours of interviews. I was amazed at the successes of some who had experienced so many obstacles. But most importantly, there is a delightful connection between the author and one of the biographees.] Last Boat Out of Shanghai reads like an epic novel, offers insights on the Japanese occupation, Chinese Civil War, and Cultural Revolution that few history books could provide, and creates tremendous empathy for these courageous Chinese citizens. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Aug 05, 2024
|
Aug 13, 2024
|
Aug 13, 2024
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1524745367
| 9781524745363
| 1524745367
| 3.67
| 102
| Jul 14, 2020
| Jul 14, 2020
|
it was amazing
|
It seems incredibly surprising to me that not one sports writer or analyst made a reference to multiple Wimbledon and US National Tennis champion, Ali
It seems incredibly surprising to me that not one sports writer or analyst made a reference to multiple Wimbledon and US National Tennis champion, Alice Marble, during the debate over college athletes and amateurism. The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery is Robert Weintraub’s hefty and fascinating 2020 biography of the tennis star, lounge singer, clothing and shoe designer, comic book writer, radio personality, magazine columnist, and spy. In what should have been a rags-to-riches story, Weintraub recounts how the Venus of the courts both had to work hard in the off-seasons to stay afloat and was forced to rely on the generosity of her friends. Indeed, because she spent so long playing at the much-vaunted amateur status of the world of tennis in the ‘30s, the celebrity only ended her days “in the black” because of a trust set up for her by her rejected suitor, DuPont heir Will Du Pont. Weintraub weaves a mesmerizing tale from the mines of Gold Rush California’s impact on her family to her mostly overlooked memorials on a San Francisco tennis court complex and a Palm Desert club, sharing claims that he could neither completely verify or deny and a few rumors of which the same can be said, along with a solid, well-researched, fact-based narrative. Who would have thought that someone who regularly retrieved blown hats from streetcar passengers for dime tips, worked at both her high school cafeteria and a local soda fountain, and pitched pennies in Golden Gate Park would end up befriending multi-millionaires like William Randolph Hearst and Will Du Pont, major league ballplayers, and Hollywood stars on her way to the top of the tennis world? And who would have thought that her “hero’s journey” to the top of that tennis world would include rehabilitation from an apparent career-ending tuberculosis and recovery from more than one automobile accident? Who would have thought that a tennis player could impact the war effort and early race-relations? Yet, such is the material of Alice Marble’s life and accomplishments in just the easily verified accounts in this book. Along with the fascinating biography, Weintraub accessorizes the main narrative with marvelous tableaus of cultural history. For example, having lived and worked in San Francisco, I had a great appreciation for the incredible phenomenon known as Golden Gate Park. I visited it for concerts, museums, the famous Japanese garden, and to appear in a student-directed horror film. I loved its lush expanses and incredible flowers, trees, and expansive lawns. I did not know (as Weintraub recounts on p. 39) that “It was a uniquely beautiful place with bounteous flora sprung loose by the fact the park was for many years irrigated by raw sewage.” Having stayed once in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I couldn’t imagine that one of the major activities associated with the famous hotel was the horseback rides and picnics led for many years by Marble’s eventual coach, mentor, and (possible) lover, Eleanor Tennant (pp. 73-74). Anyone who has ever visited Hearst Castle (or watched certain scenes of Citizen Kane will recognize the petit culture of San Simeon’s La Cuesta Encantada with its rich descriptions of the portico, the dining room full of medieval furniture, and both the Neptune Pool (outside) and its gold inlaid sister pool (inside) along with famous guests, aviation, and animals who held the right-of-way [recounted in Chapter 13, “Castle in the Sky”]. Weintraub describes athletes and celebrities both in and out of the closet and their respective challenges/ordeals, as well as offering descriptions of cultural attitudes in other ways. For example, I noticed a slur that seemed to be a reversal of the racist “Indian giver” (which, given the number of broken treaties by those of Euro- and Scandinavian stock should probably be “Caucasian giver”) as Marble’s coach was fascinating by philosophy, theosophy, and religion but, upon getting fed up with them, would vow to “give them back to the Indians.” (p. 65) Marble’s friendship with Gable and Lombard allowed Weintraub to interject the fact that stars at the 1939 preview of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta stayed at the Georgian Terrace hotel, except for Hattie McDaniel (excluded because of the “Whites Only” policy—p. 237). The truth is that The Divine Miss Marble would have been an even more fascinating book if I were a tennis fan. The book is delightful even though I am not a tennis fan. I like to volley informally with my wife, but neither of us “play.” Not being a fan, it was news to me that Wimbledon made use of a Rudyard Kipling quotation over the Centre Court entrance: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two imposters just the same.” (p. 179). That could also have been the frontispiece for The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery, considering the roller-coaster ride of Alice Marble’s life. I probably wouldn’t have read this book if it hadn’t been highlighted as a staff recommendation at our local public library. I am so delighted that it was. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Apr 16, 2022
|
Apr 19, 2022
|
Apr 19, 2022
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1606994794
| 9781606994795
| 1606994794
| 3.69
| 270
| Apr 2012
| Jul 16, 2012
|
really liked it
|
I have read several of the literary classics from the late Flannery O’Connor over the last two years and each volume, including a textbook containing
I have read several of the literary classics from the late Flannery O’Connor over the last two years and each volume, including a textbook containing some of her short stories, had a short biographical synopsis of her life. Several of these biographical sketches mentioned her love of cartooning as part of her high school and college years, but I had never actually seen her linoleum cuts (for such was the cartoon style used for school newspapers, magazines, books, and yearbooks in which she was published) until I saw Flannery O’ Connor: The Cartoons, edited by Kelly Gerald. Flannery O’ Connor: The Cartoons is a delightful compendium of her artistic endeavors in cartooning in which Barry Moser’s introduction talks about her style and artistic approach while Kelly Gerald concludes with an outstanding biographical chapter in which he observes the influence of James Thurber’s New Yorker cartoons, John Held (preeminent artist/illustrator/cartoonist in the early 20th century and artist-in-residence at the nearby University of Georgia when O’ Connor was in college), Matisse’s 1910 “Dance,” and, of course, Picasso’s classic “Guernica.” Comparisons to illustrator/cartoonist George Price considered and rejected, but literary similarities with Ogden Nash when considering her more whimsical animal story books were noted with some favor. It seems extra sad that this lupus-shortened life should have aspired to publish her cartoons in venues such as the New Yorker which were rejected when these cartoons have so much to offer. Yet, as Gerald’s biographical sketch indicates, perhaps she would not have been taken as seriously for her literary endeavors if she had been successful as a cartoonist. Flannery O’ Connor: The Cartoons was one of those pleasant surprises one often discovers in one’s local library and it was able to fill in a gap in my knowledge and appreciation of this worthy talent—including her predilection for keeping rejection slips. I’m so glad I discovered this book when I was looking for something in the comic or science-fiction art tradition. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Dec 29, 2021
|
Dec 29, 2021
|
Dec 29, 2021
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0670917672
| 9780670917679
| 0670917672
| 3.91
| 6,917
| 2011
| 2011
|
it was amazing
|
Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life should probably be categorized as a literary biography. To be sure, it deals with more of Charles Dickens’ li
Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life should probably be categorized as a literary biography. To be sure, it deals with more of Charles Dickens’ life than his bibliography of works published, but it is structured along the lines of his publishing career. Even intimate details of relationships, entertaining, worries, and business all lean on the stackpole of what he was working on or what was being published at the time. Of course, that’s a great structure as far as I am concerned. I was reading the biography to discover ways that personal experiences or attitudes shaped the literary works and I wanted to know more about the monetizing aspects of his career. So, Charles Dickens: A Life was everything I had hoped for and more. In other biographical sketches of the author, I had read about his issue with pirated American editions and his attempts (even through the famous Senator Henry Clay) to get Congress to do something about honoring international copyrights, but since I have not read his travelogue, I missed out on jewels from that U.S. and Canadian trip such as: “We are no in the regions of slavery, spittoons, and senators—all three are evils in all countries.” (quoted on p. 134) I hadn’t realized that his incredibly negative take on the U.S. in Martin Chuzzlewit was intentional revenge rather than Old World snobbery (p. 141). I also remember reading vague references of his efforts in prestidigitation, but hadn’t realized that it was as accomplished as the “conjuring” of a plum pudding from raw ingredients tossed into his hat (pp. 150-151). One also hears of his inclination toward mesmerism, but the account of his treatment of Madame De La Rue on pp. 160-166 was unsettling. In attempting to treat the woman’s nightmares and night fits using hypnotism (saying he “magnetized” her), he dredged up the kinds of clues from dreams that Freud, Jung, and Charcot could have used in therapy, but failed to ask the obvious questions to follow through. The hypnosis was enough to calm her down during her most excited states, but had no long-term positive effect. It did have a rather negative effect when Dickens’ wife Catharine suspected something rather like a menage a trois between Dickens and the De La Rues, since they would call upon him at all hours. Another strange account was the strange sexual tension in the bizarre pier party where a holidaying Dickens grabbed Eleanor Picken around the waist, dragged her down from the pier to one of the posts underneath it, and used both arms around her and the post to hold her captive until the tide came in and soaked her expensive gown (for which her chaperone blamed her—pp. 119-120). Add to such an account his overreaction to the death of his sister-in-law, Mary (pp. 78-79), in wishing to be buried next to her as though she was his wife rather than Catherine, and his treatment of another sister-in-law, Georgina, as “my little pet,” (p. 154) and you have evidence piling up for a Dickensian “#MeToo” story. Knowing how much it takes out of one to write a book for publication, even in the modern era, I was tremendously struck by the energy that Dickens was able to throw into entertaining—whether at parties, dining out, the clubs, or the theaters. But there was one insight that helped me with understanding how he was such an indefatigable enthusiast at producing and performing in dramatic events. “…no doubt, was that being himself was more exhausting than impersonating a stage character, who would run on predictable tracks, whereas Dickens did not always know where he was going next.” (p. 171) One aspect of Dickens’ life and thought that has never quite fit for me was the cognitive dissonance between his sympathy for those forced into prostitution and his tolerance of what he perceived as the need for such. Claire Tomlin’s account of his positive work with unfortunate women such as the Home for Homeless Women he established with Mrs. Coutts of banking fame and his rescue of a servant girl named Eliza Burgess who was accused of killing her baby (and whom Dickens not only assisted with getting legal representation, but also getting a job and rehabilitation, as well) and his personal excusing of one Samuel Rogers (who sounds like the Jeffrey Epstein of his day) by privately suggesting that the young ladies had seemed willing enough partners (p. 202). Of course, even worse was his apparent intent to seduce 18-year-old Nelly Ternan and turn her into his mistress, horrifying even though some believe it did not succeed (p. 292), though Dickens’ daughter Katey seemed convinced that the secretive machinations indicated a full-blown affair. Biographer Claire Tomalin seems certain of the consummation, though she carefully cites those who still disagree despite apparent mounting evidence. Another inconsistency was to be found between Dickens’ obvious sympathy for many, but ability to write off (cut off) members of his own family—his father, Catharine, his brother Fred, and his sons Walter and Sydney (but not Charley for some reason). As for his sons, “But all his sons baffled him, and their incapacity frightened him: he saw them as a long line of versions of himself that had come out badly.” (p. 388) Indeed, at one point he asked himself, “Why was I ever a father? Why was my father ever a father!” (p. 373) Considering how many children for whom he made arrangements, this disparagement of fatherhood seems rather odd. For me, some of the more valuable insights in the book were where Claire Tomalin connected the dots between clever Dickensian characters and the author’s own life. I didn’t realize that there was a beautician of diminutive height (then known as a dwarf) named Mrs. Seymour Hill who so clearly served as a model for a, you guessed it, “dwarf beautician” in David Copperfield (p. 224). So clearly did she serve as a model that she threatened legal action which Dickens mitigated by giving her a transformation of character by the time the installments of the book were published. Little Dorrit’s forgiveness for her corrupt father seems, according to Tomalin, to have been a way to deal with his shame for “…the anger he had felt for his father and that he wished to set entirely aside after his death.” (p. 263) After a disappointing reunion with an old flame (who had since turned to fat and bourgeois taste), he used her as Flora Finching, an overweight, garrulous, and bibulous version of said former girlfriend (p. 268). That he drew many characters from his personal observations is well-known. He admitted at one point that he impersonated his characters in the course of writing [much as I remember Sir John Mortimer indicating in his autobiography that he could hear Leo McKern’s voice in his head when he was writing dialogue for Rumpole] and this acting in private likely led to his successful reading tours (p. 279). Indeed, Dostoevsky observed that Dickens had told him, “…that all the good and simple people in his novels, Little Nell, even the holy simpletons like Barnaby Rudge, are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was (or rather, what he found in himself), his cruelty, his attacks of causeless enmity towards those who were helpless and looked to him for comfort, his shrinking from those he ought to love, being used up in what he wrote.” (p. 322) One of my favorite lines that Tomalin used to summarize Dickens’ disillusionment with politics reminds me of how I feel about the post-Trump USA: “…although he detested the Emperor’s assumption of absolute power, the political situation in England struck him as almost equally dismal, and led him to believe that ‘Representative Institutions’ had failed there for lack of an educated people to support them.” (p. 272) I guess, with human nature, some things never change. I also suppose that’s a good reason for reading worthy biographies such as this amazing work called, Charles Dickens: A Life. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Oct 10, 2021
|
Nov 06, 2021
|
Nov 06, 2021
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1324005874
| 9781324005872
| 1324005874
| 4.19
| 2,921
| Sep 08, 2020
| Sep 08, 2020
|
it was amazing
|
Although I am not mentioned by name in the book, Sid Meier’s Memoir! was particularly fascinating to me because I lived it—our paths crossing many tim
Although I am not mentioned by name in the book, Sid Meier’s Memoir! was particularly fascinating to me because I lived it—our paths crossing many times. Unlike Sid, I have “cheated death” in the Miss Microprose with Bill Stealey, his longtime business partner. Like Sid, I was at the first Computer Game Developers Conference outside of Chris Crawford’s ranch. Although Sid was one of the Legends of Game Design at a later conference (p. 62), I was the one interviewing him in front of the crowd of that plenary keynote session. And, Sid was incredibly gracious with his time to Alan Emrich and me when we wrote Sid Meier’s Civilization, Rome on 640K A Day. In fact, I think Alan kept him on the phone for at least an hour every day. Sorry, Sid. And I can remember meeting with an atypically dispirited Sid Meier during the Magic: The Gathering development period (see why on p. 172). So, you can write off my high rating on this book as bias if you like. But if you care about computer games and how they evolved; if you wish you could get into a designer’s head as he performs summary (not detailed) post-mortems on both his great successes and great efforts; if you wish you understood how other elements in the industry and game technology drove release schedules and project choices; and if you wish you could have all of this delivered with Sid’s dry wit and low-key personal delivery, Sid Meier’s Memoir! is another of his major successes. Of course, just as Sid’s great successes have been tied to many collaborators over the years (Andy Hollis, Bruce Shelley, and Arnold Hendricks to name a few), this book has marvelous pacing and has not lost Sid’s voice in his collaboration with Jennifer Lee Noonan. At times, though, one gets the feeling that some of Sid’s notes were shoveled into the book in a bizarre historical present phase. For example, on p. 154, Sid talks about “still” having red caps around the office and wearing them for “good luck” just prior to going “gold” with a release, even though he had already established his own company different from Microprose by the time this volume was published. Yes, I could just hear Sid lamenting (on p. 157): “My entire philosophy of gaming was that the player should be the star and the designer should be invisible, yet I was the guy who kept ending up on the box.” He meant it, too. Throughout the book, he gives credit to Dan Bunten/Dani Bunten Berry (calling M.U.L.E. “…which many consider to be one of the best computer games of all time, …” (p. 95), Walter Bright and Mark Baldwin (p. 190) for Empire: Game of the Century and how the way it uncovered the map influenced Civ (p. 190), Will Wright for his influence on Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon (p. 110), as well as Brian Reynolds for doing the “real” work on Sid Meier’s Colonization and Sid Meier’s Civilization II. I also have to give Sid “kudos” for his extremely accurate praise of Bing Gordon, one of the earliest pioneers at Electronic Arts and one of the smartest guys I’ve ever known in bridging concerns between marketing and gameplay (I still give him credit for being the guy who saved The Sims when it was on the cusp of success vs. failure, but that’s a different story.). [Amazingly, as powerful as he became, Bing was always one of the nicest guys I met in the industry. Lots of great people! Bing at or near the top of the list!] There are so many jewels in this volume, even though I had a privileged seat through much of the history it entails, that I was delighted to find it and even had to take notes on many of the concepts. The ones I share here should not be taken as exhaustive or even thorough in any sense. These are just points that resonated particularly well with me. Indeed, I had only reached the bottom of page 2 when I wished that, when I had been teaching game design, I had been able to synthesize Sid’s approach to game design as well as he did when he explained that game design was an outward-looking mindset. As a result, “We are surrounded by decisions, and therefore games, in everything we do. ‘Interesting’ might be subject to personal taste to some degree, but the gift of agency—that is, the ability of players to exert free will over their surroundings rather than obediently following a narrative—is what sets games apart from other media, ….” Or, as Sid summarizes later in the book: “Good games teach us that there are tradeoffs to everything, actions lead to outcomes, and the chance to try again is almost always out there.” (p. 187) Again, “I think having a slightly obsessive personality is a useful thing. On the one hand, it keeps me focused on the quality of my work, but on the other, it provides critical sources of outside inspiration, which often contribute in surprising ways.” (p. 218) During the process of building Sid Meier’s Civilization, I once harassed Sid about some of his design choices (Yeah, I know—the gall!) and he responded that they had tried many more choices but, ultimately, “It wasn’t fun, so we took it out.” I may not have the words exactly as he said them, but that’s the story I’ve told to design students over the years. He puts it significantly more elegantly in Sid Meier’s Memoir! when he talks about the dangers of giving players too many choices so that they become frustrated and quit. “It was my job, I thought, to whittle down the options and present only the best ones to the player.” (p. 73) He goes on to say, “So then: no wrong answers, and more than one right answer, but not too many.” (p. 73) Speaking of “fun,” his brutal awareness of a flaw in one prototype where he had provided a key to automate a function reads: “…if you have to offload the supposedly fun part of your game, that’s a pretty good indication that you’re confused about what fun is.” (p. 202) I wish I had emphasized the “random” problem more vividly when I was teaching. I used to rant about “unfair puzzles,” but Sid cites the bridge problem in Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon where Bruce Shelley (yes, the same one who designed Age of Empired) kept complaining about his bridges being washed out. That was when, “The key difference between a gameplay challenge and a betrayal, I realized, was whether the player had a fighting chance to avoid it. So rather than eliminate the flooding, I introduced different kinds of bridges.” (pp. 113-114) And, having had many design students (well, design groups really) who tried to shoehorn too many different types of game mechanics together, I would loved to have been able to quote Sid as saying, “The notion that ‘one good game is better than two great games’ was such a revelation that it became known in m mind as ‘The Covert Action Rule.” (p. 121) he talks about it in terms of finding a game’s center of gravity today, but I’m old enough to love its old name. Interestingly enough, I had never really noticed an animation in Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon that was particularly important to Sid. Apparently, when trains are about to crash to their ruin because of washed-out bridges, the engineers and firemen always successfully bail out. I was probably so consumed by the disaster that I didn’t notice. But it is very consistent with Sid’s perspective on violence: “The world is often a very negative place, and I’d rather push it in the opposite direction whenever I can. There’s an argument to be made that by exposing the unpleasant reality of violence, you can inspire others to push against it, too, but this generally requires a removed perspective, rather than the inherent first-person nature of games. It’s hard to claim that our products are immersive, but somehow insist that the experience has no impact.” (p. 99) Of course, I loved Sid’s philosophy about technology: “I generally saw technology in terms of progress, rather than limitations, and lived in a nearly perpetual state of excitement over what we could accomplish.” (p. 181) Another clever, but insightful, quip comes shortly after Sid confesses that he had even been late to his own meetings on the game because of playing the game: “The spectrum from interesting, to compelling, to addicting is long and nuanced.” (p. 196) The other side of technology was reflected when Sid wrote, “Most bug fixes are not about broken code, they’re about closing design loopholes that players refuse to ignore.” (p. 161) One “bug fix” that wasn’t a bug is described in detail concerning development of Sid Meier’s Civilization: Revolution. Even though it is possible to lose battles where you outnumber your opponent considerably, the code reduces the randomness so that one couldn’t lose at higher than 2:1 odds. But, when people complained about losing 2:1 battles in a sequence, they ended taking the previous battle into consideration so that you couldn’t lose a 2:1 battle twice in a row. “We made it less random, so that it could feel more random.” (p. 247) I loved Sid’s admission that he thought Brian Reynolds was wrong when he opened up Sid Meier’s Civilization II for modding. Sid felt gamers would do a poor job of modification and blame the designers or, conversely, push the designers out of a job—limiting future possibilities. “I was so wrong, on all counts. The strength of the modding community is, instead, the very reason the series survived at all.” (p. 164) More importantly, he observed on the same page: “What I didn’t see at the time is that imagination never diminishes reality; it only heightens it.” Another great observation in this book is so true to the Sid Meier I’ve known over the years. “The truth is I never really give up on anything. The ideas just sit in stasis, sometimes for decades, until I can figure out the right way to make them work.” (p. 201). One piece of wisdom I had forgotten, though either he or another Microprose veteran seems to have told me. That was the secret to making sequels in a series of games. Since life often follows the “Rule of Threes,” it isn’t surprising that Sid uses a “Rule of Thirds” (though he didn’t capitalize it). “One-third of the previous version stays in place, one-third is updated, and one-third is completely new.” (p. 228) I hope those who read this little review summary find it to be both useful and entertaining as I did in reading Sid Meier’s Memoir! to begin with. Thank you, Jennifer Lee Noonan for putting Sid’s reminiscences together in such a delightful narrative, and thank you, Sid, for sharing some introspective thoughts and biographical anecdotes we’d never have otherwise known. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Aug 20, 2021
|
Aug 23, 2021
|
Aug 23, 2021
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.28
| 25,062
| 1986
| Oct 30, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
Having interviewed Douglas Adams at a trade show where he was introducing Starship Titanic, it was fascinating to read Neil Gaiman’s take on the proje
Having interviewed Douglas Adams at a trade show where he was introducing Starship Titanic, it was fascinating to read Neil Gaiman’s take on the project in Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and agree wholeheartedly. I had been taken in by the “front” of The Digital Village being Douglas Adams’ company, but there were nagging red flags in the back of my mind as I left the room. Even years later when I dined with Douglas at a multimedia festival in Cannes, I hadn’t quite diagnosed the problem. Gaiman’s book spells it out. It wasn’t Douglas’ company and, hence, he didn’t have quite the creative impact (notwithstanding his title of Chief Fantasist) I had expected him to have. [For the record, Douglas invited me to join him for a theological debate with the ground rules that we didn’t talk about Dirk Gently, Hitchhiker’s, or multimedia. Hey, I was so thrilled to spend time alone with this literary hero that I would have agreed if he had said, “Let’s go to dinner and discuss quantum mechanics, but the ground rules require us to only converse in mime.” So, if you think I have an “inside track” on this material, you are making a significant error. I am excited about details in Gaiman’s book that I wouldn’t even have known to ask about if discussion of his work was on the agenda.] As long as I just performed the dreaded “name-dropping” routine, I might as well admit that Gaiman had a better quote from the Starship Titanic era than I was able to garner. Gaiman quotes Adams as complaining about the TrueTalk text-to-speech program saying, “…all the characters tend to end up sounding like either Stephen Hawking or a semi-concussed Scandinavian.” (p. 198) More to the point of the books, I liked Gaiman’s citation of Adams’ rationale for not making So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish more in tune with the Arthur Dent character we once knew (except maybe for the name, the dressing gown, and the towel, but except for a brief allusion, he doesn’t even appear till Chapter 5). According to Gaiman’s interview, Douglas said that Arthur Dent’s character had fundamentally changed. “So he is no longer someone through whose eyes we can see things. The whole thing has turned upside-down, and I don’t think I had got to grips with that until I was too far committed.” (p. 141) But a short review can’t even begin to touch on all of the illuminating aspects of this truly behind the scenes, behind the scenes story. I loved reading about how certain people tried to keep Douglas on track when he was (as all writers, including me, are) incredibly late on a deadline. I was fascinated by Gaiman’s explanations of how the stage play of Hitchhiker’s went wrong in the large venue after being a sold-out success at the small venues. And then, I was enjoying the appropriateness of the coincidence in the posthumous radio production where they were working on Marvin’s voice modulation. “The original harmonizer used to create the cybernetic quality of Marvin’s voice had long since passed into obsolescence, so replicating his miserable tone would require time and experimentation. Cycling through the hundreds of pre-programmed settings on a piece of effects kit, they finally found the right voice treatment. It was setting number forty-two.” (p. 219) I don’t think you could find a story more delightful than that (though the finding of the asteroid labeled 2001DA42 with the year of Douglas’ death, his initials, and the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, then officially naming it after Douglas Adams seems pretty nice, as well—p. 229). I’ve never been disappointed with a Neil Gaiman book (comic, graphic novel, or traditional novel). Don’t Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy didn’t break the string. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jun 07, 2020
|
Jun 10, 2020
|
Jun 10, 2020
|
Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1594633029
| 9781594633027
| 1594633029
| 4.06
| 8,605
| Oct 2014
| Nov 13, 2014
|
liked it
|
A friend gave me The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson. Yes, that Boris Johnson, the Brexit-foaming opportunist who tried to
A friend gave me The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History by Boris Johnson. Yes, that Boris Johnson, the Brexit-foaming opportunist who tried to prorogue Parliament to get his way in September of 2019. The Churchill Factor was written around five years before Johnson began his clear abuse of power (not only my opinion, but that of the U.K.’s highest court, as well). The good news is that Johnson has done some solid research, enough to offer a few new anecdotes, quotations, and insights, even to those who’ve read Churchill’s own writing and quite a few histories of the man himself. The bad news should be clear in the title. Johnson subscribes to the “great man” school of history and treats his subject much like a fan-boy would faun over his favorite writer/artist at a comic book convention (If you wonder how I know about the latter, I’m just remembering my own lame conversations with the late Will Eisner, Stan Sakai, and Mark Waid at one particular convention.). By calling Johnson a “fan-boy” in this sense, I do not mean to say that he doesn’t deal with Churchill’s failures; I mean he rather glosses over them as his rhetoric quickly moves from the questionable moments to the courageous and admirable decisions. And by putting this in the middle of the ratings scale, I don’t mean to suggest that the writing itself is mediocre. Johnson has a flair with his pen that seems more than equal to his flair for (often dishonest) rhetoric in his political speeches. Johnson keeps the writing lively with accounts of his personal visits to venues important to Churchill’s life and with imaginary scenes that try to put the reader into the sense of the experiences. I don’t mean that Johnson falsifies the history, but because of the author’s character, he might have. I find it ironic that the same fellow who kept and keeps telling the U.K. that Brexit won’t have severe economic consequences on the country is the same one who writes that Churchill, throughout his early career, “was not just held to be untrustworthy—he was thought to be congenitally untrustworthy.” (p. 38) For me, the most enlightening part of this biography (or, perhaps, more accurately, biographical celebration) was the theme of Winston’s problematic relationship with his father, Randolph Churchill. I wasn’t surprised to read, “He had to emulate him—how else could he prove himself to Randolph?” (p. 42) As impressive evidence was the entertaining and enlightening account of Winston’s supernatural experience where the late Randolph Churchill appears to the former Prime Minister in the studio at Chartwell where Winston painted. Psychological or psychical, Winston has a conversation with his father in which his father interrogates him on the events since his death, but consistent with his constant disapproval of Winston, he concludes with an observation completely oblivious to Winston’s service as Prime Minister, Lord of the Admiralty, and Chancellor of the Exchequer (among others). Randolph is alleged to have stated, “When I hear you talk I really wonder that you didn’t go into politics. You might have done a lot to help. You might have made a name for yourself.” (p. 44) Johnson goes into a lot of detail demonstrating similarities with and complications brought about by Randolph, but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the description of Randolph’s oratory as being delivered by a semblance of P. G. Wodehouse’s Gussie Fink-Nottle (p. 48). Wodehouse enters the equation again when Johnson compares Winston’s secretary, Eddie Marsh, to Jeeves (p. 117). Whereas I had read about Winston’s imperialistic views in other sources, I really began to comprehend why the “Empire” was so important to the statesman as I read The Churchill Factor. “When Churchill took the reins at the Colonial Office, he was at the apex of an empire that comprised fifty-eight countries covering 14 million square miles and he was responsible…for the lives and hopes of 458 million people. …six times the size of the Roman Empire at is apogee under Trajan.” (p. 303) He really feared for bloodshed (particularly vented toward Muslims) in the event of India’s independence (p. 208) and, conversely, he mistrusted the Arabs as standing in the way of progress when he tried to establish a policy where Arab and Jew could live peaceably in a Jewish Homeland (this after WWI, p. 312). Alas, his efforts in the Middle East were as ineffective as the planting of a symbolic tree which broke and died even sooner than his tentative solution (p. 309). But his analysis seems spot on when decades before the ISIS situation and the events leading up to it, Churchill described Iraq as “an ungrateful volcano.” (p. 314) Yes, there was British arrogance in his imperial positions. Franklin D. Roosevelt was particularly bothered by his anachronistic colonialism, as evidenced by FDR’s placement next to a prominent advocate for Indian independence at a state dinner. Unlike some of Churchill’s bon mots, this one seems verified. When the woman asked Churchill what he was going to do about those “wretched Indians,” Churchill replied, “Are we talking about the brown Indians in India who have multiplied alarmingly under the benevolent British rule? Or are we speaking of the red Indians in America who, I understand, are almost extinct?” (p. 323) But perhaps my emphasis has been too much on the Churchill of WWI and WWII! In all my reading, I seem to have missed the realities of Winston the “social reformer.” I suppose I so identified him with the Tory party that I failed to see his contributions to the following advances: minimum wage (p. 143), unemployment insurance (p. 144), property tax (as in land reform, p. 145), prison reform (p. 146), reducing the pension age (p. 148), and reducing military spending to redistribute to the lower class (p. 164). Actually, I wish Johnson would re-read his own book because it has a marvelous statement on pp. 151-152 dealing with social legislation: “He knew what all sensible Tories know—that the only way to keep things the same is to make sure you change them; or as Burke puts it, a state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.” In military innovation, I realized that Winston fancied himself as an aviator, but hadn’t realized how he had put himself at risk in the early years of aviation (pp. 54-59, 64-66). I knew of his service on the “Landships Committee” (p. 172) and both why they were called “ships” (to justify using Royal Navy funds) and “tanks” (as part of the “cover” for the secret project). I loved his statement, quoted by Johnson on p. 178: “Machine-power is a great substitute for manpower. Brains will save blood. Manoeuvre is a great diluting agent to slaughter.” That’s not shabby during a war characterized by static trench warfare which needed something like these machines to shake up, temporarily, the balance. I was sorry to read the necessary demythologizing of some of my favorite “Churchillian” quotations. Johnson questions the riposte to a woman who said that she would poison Winston’s coffee if he were her husband. Churchill volleyed back, allegedly, that if he were her husband, he’d drink it (p. 131). But one of my favorites, “…the kind of English up with I shall not put!” definitely predates Churchill as being published in The Strand magazine (p. 131). Research into both George Bernard Shaw’s and Winston Churchill’s correspondence shows no evidence for the exchange where Shaw allegedly sent two tickets to one of his opening nights and invites Winston to bring a friend “if you have one.” To which Churchill stated that he would attend the second night performance “if there is one.” (p. 132) Nonetheless, I was delighted to be able to reinstate the comment about chicken breasts. When Churchill requested another chicken breast at a dinner, the shocked hostess stated that, in polite society, they referred to this as “white meat.” So, as confirmed by Churchill’s granddaughter, Churchill sent an orchid to the shocked woman on the next day, suggesting that she pin it on her “white meat” (p. 135). And, one of my favorite rude remarks seems to have been authentic. He seems to have responded to one Bessie Braddock’s critical assertion that he was drunk with, “Madame, you are ugly, and I will be sober in the morning.” (p. 134) There is much to admire in the courage and creativity of Winston Spencer Churchill. I appreciate his contributions to the present condition of the world more than ever. But my biggest problem with what Johnson calls The Churchill Factor is that I couldn’t get over the feeling that Johnson sees himself as another Churchill, an iconic, position-changing, curmudgeonly politician. In addition to feeling like the history was partially sanitized, that is what kept me from enjoying this biographical effort even more. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Sep 25, 2019
|
Sep 28, 2019
|
Sep 30, 2019
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062571966
| 9780062571960
| 4.21
| 1,101
| Oct 23, 2018
| Aug 21, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
It is hard for me to imagine Robert Silverberg tapping John W. Campbell’s shoulder at a movie (Heinlein’s Destination Moon or Campbell referring to a
It is hard for me to imagine Robert Silverberg tapping John W. Campbell’s shoulder at a movie (Heinlein’s Destination Moon or Campbell referring to a shy, uncertain Isaac Asimov as “..the fan who’s been trying to be a writer…” but Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction is the kind of pop cultural history that I’ve always wanted to read. Not only have I read some of the work of every author mentioned in the book, but the book solves some of the mystery behind how L. Ron Hubbard became the high priest of the Church of Scientology (the bet with Heinlein was probably apocryphal, since Hubbard ruminated on the possibility of making money from a religion when living with Jack Parsons, a follower of Aleister Crowley and leader of an occult group known as Ordo Templi Orientis--p. 230) and how Astounding magazine survived Street & Smith’s purge of the pulp magazines (because the readership was largely college-educated with relatively high incomes compared to the readership of the cancelled pulps—p. 248), as well as the background of Heinlein’s refusal to talk to Ray Bradbury for years (Bradbury had said that he would pretend to be gay in order to avoid the draft—p. 153). I hadn’t realized that the term, psionics, as applied to mental abilities in much science-fiction (and in Dungeons & Dragons, as well) first appeared in a story by Jack Williamson in 1950 (p. 303). I loved the story about Heinlein tricking Asimov into taking a drink. The prank didn’t have the reaction expected and Heinlein laughed, “No wonder Isaac doesn’t drink. It sobers him up.” (p. 159). References to author Fletcher Pratt’s naval wargame (held first in his NYC apartment and later in a rented Manhattan ballroom) are abundant. Described on p. 116, Campbell invited L. Ron Hubbard to the game (p. 128), Asimov had three destroyers sunk by a cruiser (p. 140), and Isaac Asimov took his eventual wife to the wargame on their third date (p. 162). There were other mentions, but not as significant. Prior to reading this volume, I had never quite realized the relationship of L. Ron Hubbard’s early Dianetics work was influenced by Campbell. I hadn’t realized that Campbell had collaborated so closely with Hubbard originally and even tried to get Claude Shannon (father of modern information theory) involved in testing the procedure eventually to be known as auditing (p. 262). Shannon was also invited to test the so-called Campbell Machine that was supposed to psionically alter one’s perception of matter. Shannon never did (p. 319). I was also horrified that he required Alfred Bester of The Demolished Man fame to eliminate all references to Freudian psychology in a story (p. 278), which Bester did after deciding to submit no further stories to Campbell. Later, Hubbard and Campbell split, leaving Asimov to state, “I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs.” (p. 295) As an act of revenge against Hubbard’s Dianetics, Asimov and Campbell teamed on a parody article about a method of turning psychology into “an exact science,” (p. 319) ironic in that turning psychology into an exact science was exactly what Campbell had originally desired. Indeed, the move from Dianetics to the Scientology movement was partially a rights dispute and partially because Dianetics (and its content) sounded so much like cybernetics it could be associated with Campbell (p. 329). Hubbard claimed to be influenced by “psychoanalysis, hypnosis, and Christian Science” while Campbell claimed L. Ron’s influences to be, “Christian Science, Catholic miracle shrines, voodoo practices, native witch methods of European tradition, as well as modern psychology’s teachings.” (p. 261) Hubbard was ruthless in the manner in which he discarded his colleagues. A. E. van Vogt was extremely successful in keeping the L.A. branch of the foundation going, mainly due to his work ethic (p. 285), but Hubbard called van Vogt’s loyalty into question as, “a heavy foe of dianetics…for years, although pretending to be involved in it.” (p. 328) Nor had I realized the very racist side of Campbell. I was horrified to read some of the direct quotations from his letters. I will not quote any for the sake of this review except for the following reprehensible, but not “colorful” reply to Isaac Asimov when the writer told Campbell that he was against segregation. “If you deny the existence of racial differences, the problem of racial differences will never be solved.” (p. 361) I also hadn’t realized just how pessimistic Heinlein became. When an editor asked him to tone down the violence in one of his “juvenile novels,” he responded: “I don’t think we have a better than even chance to survive, as a nation, through the next five years. … I don’t ever want to pull my punches again.” (p. 338) It’s ironic to know that Starship Troopers with its pro-military message and Stranger in a Strange Land with its Messianic theme and its ubiquitous presence within the counter-culture were written at close to the same time. One of my favorite touches in Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction was the depiction of Isaac Asimov’s first wife being vehemently opposed to Asimov’s goal of writing 100 books (p. 346) contrasted with the 200 books he reached in only nine years after surpassing 100 (p. 400) and the more than 400 books he had written by the time of his death (p. 407). Although, as with any biographical work (even dealing with the biographies of men whose work and significance were so intricately entwined), there were some aspects and attitudes of these literary heroes that I would have preferred not to know, Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction is the book I’ve longed for about the so-called “Golden Age of Science Fiction.” ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Dec 17, 2018
|
Dec 27, 2018
|
Dec 29, 2018
|
ebook
| |||||||||||||||
| 081099447X
| 9780810994478
| 081099447X
| 4.11
| 2,430
| Feb 22, 2007
| Feb 22, 2008
|
it was amazing
|
Mark Evanier chose the perfect format for writing a biography of Jack Kirby. With the form factor of a coffee-table book or tabloid-sized comic, Kirby
Mark Evanier chose the perfect format for writing a biography of Jack Kirby. With the form factor of a coffee-table book or tabloid-sized comic, Kirby: King of Comics is a delightful blend of original sketches, reproduced covers, and reproduced pages. Although I’ve read a lot about the history of comics, there were new anecdotes and insights that I appreciated about both the early days and the latter years of Kirby’s career. There are lots of histories of comics available today, but Evanier’s work solved something of a mystery to me. One reads about the rift between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and takes in the idea that Jack was resentful of how much credit Stan received compared to Jack. This never fully soaked in to me. As a pre-teen and then, teenager in the days when the Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spiderman, The Mighty Thor, and Doctor Strange appeared on the stands, I very much remember the names of Lee and Kirby side-by-side. What I didn’t understand was that Martin Goodman and the later corporate overlords of Marvel always believed that Lee alone was the brain trust and that “anyone” could draw stories based on his genius. Since Jack often fleshed out the story seeds he agreed upon with Lee, not only drawing, but also writing dialogue for much of a story, it was understandable why he would have been offended by the lack of credit/respect, as well as disparity in pay between writers and artists. I was amazed to find out how much work Kirby had undertaken based merely on a verbal contract. It suddenly made sense as to why his partnerships with Joe Simon worked out (generally) better than his other deals. Joe understood his value and recognized how he benefited from Jack’s phenomenal work ethic. Also, having been in the magazine business, I could really resonate with the problems with distributors. And, having worked with a large publishing corporation, I felt for Kirby with regard to editorial interference on covers and his brief tenures at DC/National/Warner when corporate wonks tried to force the Kirby style into the house style (I always wondered why I never liked Kirby’s DC books as well as those in the Marvel years.). I also choked up when I read about the way he received no participation in the ancillary products based on characters he created. Kirby: King of Comics doesn’t read like a coffee-table book. The narrative is clear, straightforward, and heart-felt. The text is solid. But let’s be honest, readers wouldn’t be as overwhelmed without the behind the scenes comments on original art, the non-inked comic based on Jack’s newsboy days (entitled Street Code), and contrasting spreads with a penciled or inked version of a comic page on the left and the fully inked and colored version on the right. These are gems and well-chosen by Evanier to visually transmit the period under discussion in the text. Kirby: King of Comics is the kind of book one not only reads from cover-to-cover, but it the kind of book one picks up and flips through every so often—just to remember. Of course, it helps that I have some of the actual comics discussed in the book and flipping through the pages sends me back to them. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jan 10, 2018
|
Jan 11, 2018
|
Jan 15, 2018
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0996274057
| 9780996274050
| 0996274057
| 4.34
| 1,025
| unknown
| Oct 24, 2016
|
really liked it
|
I’m getting old enough now that a lot of my students don’t recognize my Jimmy Stewart impression with its stuttering and awkward pauses. The truth is
I’m getting old enough now that a lot of my students don’t recognize my Jimmy Stewart impression with its stuttering and awkward pauses. The truth is, I didn’t know much about Jimmy Stewart before reading this focused biography, despite my impressions of the screen actor. Stewart’s acting forms the bookends for the body of this volume. The reader is introduced to Stewart as the actor in It’s a Wonderful Life, the Christmas classic from Republic Pictures. Yet, it leaves the “snowy” set for the bulk of the book and comes back to the set toward the end. Why? Because It’s a Wonderful Life was Stewart’s first film after returning from his World War II duty in Europe. After introducing the reader to the actor, the narrative regresses to Indiana, PA and traces Stewart through his education and to his experience with famous roommates Henry Fonda and Burgess Meredith. At this point, the reader gets to see Stewart moving from relationship to relationship as a sexual swashbuckler who seems to conquer for reasons of personal confidence and security. His relationship with Norma Shearer gave rise to the famous cigarette lighter gift story which is parodied in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, “Mad About the Boy.” But it is important to understand this chapter in his life to understand his calm, mature demeanor one he gets to war. I didn’t realize that Stewart was fed up with acting prior to entering the service and it hadn’t registered to me that he had started flying as soon as he could—even going on a passenger flight with a barnstormer in the early days of aviation. I didn’t realize that several Hollywood stars flew private planes nor that Stewart had survived a crack-up during his civilian flying days. Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe shows the actor as ready for something completely different. Even though he loved flying, he wasn’t satisfied with his role as a flight trainer. He longed for combat and felt that his strict Presbyterian father (and his lineage of military officer ancestors) would not be pleased with him until he served as such an officer in time of war. So, the older actor (in his 30s) eventually ended up as an operations officer who often flew missions during the deadly daylight bombing missions on Germany during WWII. He was often decorated and some of the accounts of these missions are quite harrowing. But they aren’t really told through anything Stewart himself shared. They were told by his comrades, crew mates, and members of his team. Most memorable to me were accounts of flak, weather, and COLD. The latter was significantly worse than I had ever considered. Also, how many people actually realize how many bombers were lost during the time the formations assembled? I know I sure didn’t. But even Robert Matzen isn’t a one-trick pony. He inserts small vignettes from a girl growing up in Germany during the bombing, from a crew member, and a much-decorated enemy pilot. Such vignettes rounded out the story and reminded the reader that bomber pilots—particularly those who flew the Liberators with all of their mechanical problems—don’t accomplish their jobs in solo mode. Matzen doesn’t make Stewart invincible, either. He talks about his combat nerves and talks about his reluctant return to the film set. And here, Matzen brings us back to It’s a Wonderful Life. But now, we know it wasn’t so wonderful after all. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Dec 06, 2016
|
Dec 12, 2016
|
Dec 14, 2016
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0851157173
| 9780851157177
| 0851157173
| 3.50
| 20
| 1985
| Jan 01, 1985
|
it was amazing
|
Having never been one for hagiology, it is amazing that Who Was Saint Patrick? ended up on my shelf. Although this book is a study of the 5th century
Having never been one for hagiology, it is amazing that Who Was Saint Patrick? ended up on my shelf. Although this book is a study of the 5th century saint/missionary to the Irish, it doesn’t fit the miraculous and speculative accounts usually associated with the hagiographic literature. Who Was Saint Patrick? is informative, although often reductive, history which uses a careful methodological approach. The textual approach to Patrick’s Confessio (aka The Confession of Saint Patrick) and his Epistle to the Soldiers of Coroticus is congruent with current textual approaches to the biblical literature. The historical deductions are built off a series of questions and considerations which I would like my own history students to follow. E. A. Thompson is first and foremost a historian. The initial section of the book is somewhat reductive in that the scholar dissects legendary aspects of the literature and focuses the reader's eyes on the definitive details of the two pieces of literature. Alas, such as with biblical texts which cannot be understood without considering the Sitz im Leben (“Setting in Life”), it is not always immediately clear exactly who Patrick’s readership was supposed to be and why there would be detailed information in one section and obscure, abstract summaries in another. Once one sees that Patrick is addressing critics (and in the epistle, supposed Christians but enemies by their actions), however, the significance of omissions or delineation of detail makes sense. Naturally, this is why biblical scholars spend so much time considering audience, authorship, and date. So, Thompson isn’t convinced of such general assumptions as Britons on the English/Welsh/Scot mainland funding Patrick’s expedition (p. 97) or that Patrick was writing to Britons on the mainland (p. 120). He questions the literal 28 days that Patrick said his party (after he escaped from Ireland as a runaway slave) wandered in the desert without meeting someone because there isn’t enough desert even in Gaul or England (or even rural areas at the time) to do so (p. 32). Thompson also notes from Patrick’s lack of references to his predecessor(s) as bishop(s) and his single-minded focus on converting numbers of pagans that Patrick thinks of himself as a one-man show (p. 150). It is also interesting how Thompson and his sources conclude that Patrick was an ecclesiastical official who lacked tact, but had a profound sense of empathy and spiritual concern for the flock (p. 151) Who Was Saint Patrick? is a marvelous corrective to previous assumptions and a valuable addition to “Patriciology” (Obviously, the study of Patrick, ne c’est pas?) beyond the rather non-critical work of J. B. Bury (The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History) from the early years of the 20th century. Indeed, it is an excellent resource for both its subject matter and its methodology. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jul 06, 2016
|
Jul 08, 2016
|
Jul 08, 2016
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0805242031
| 9780805242034
| 0805242031
| 3.60
| 151
| Sep 06, 2005
| Sep 06, 2005
|
really liked it
|
The Life of David, a thoughtful look at the life of Israel’s “great” king, attempts to deal with the fractured chronology (p. 14) and delineation of f
The Life of David, a thoughtful look at the life of Israel’s “great” king, attempts to deal with the fractured chronology (p. 14) and delineation of flaws (p. 4) in the biblical narrative. This tantalizing little volume by Robert Pinsky is incredibly well-written and, though the author is clearly conversant with a historical-critical approach, takes an incredibly balanced approach in dealing with the subject. He doesn’t get stuck on the problems and expands on possibilities. The idea that Orpah, Ruth’s sister may have been an ancestor to Goliath (as suggested by the extra-biblical “Scroll of Orpah”—p. 17) of Gath is both interesting and disturbing. The quotation from Machiavelli on page 21 will send me scurrying back to The Prince to get the whole context. Referring to David and Saul’s armor, Machiavelli is reputed to have said, “…the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.” [The quotation comes from Chapter XIII of The Prince after the advisor has warned of the danger of mercenaries in Chapter XII and has described examples of treachery or insubordination at the beginning of this chapter. Strangely, my copy had the quotation marked, even though I had forgotten it.] Pinsky has a colorful way of setting up situations. In illuminating the negotiation between Saul and David over Merab, he compares it to a scene out of The Godfather (not the first I’ve read who made that comparison). Most clearly, he writes, “Saul hopes to have David killed and David hopes to avoid the expense and risk of the marriage, and probably both know neither is deceived.” (p. 21) Just as clever is Pinsky’s suggestion that David is something of a pirate or a Robin Hood when he is supposedly serving Achish while exiled from Saul’s kingdom (p. 35). The language is colorful and insightful. In describing Saul’s venture to the Witch of Endor in disguise, he writes: “To go in disguise is like the divided and uncomfortable soul of Saul, who hid in baggage when it was time to be chosen as king….” (p. 44). I relished his exposition that “…as religion is to strategy, magic is to tactics. Religion manifests itself in overarching practice…magic is more like a desperate, giddy jaunt to Las Vegas—a ploy, whereas religion is an approach.” (p. 47) Pinsky writes powerfully when telling of Abner’s use of Saul’s concubine Rizpah “…in a gesture as primitive and unmistakable as Freud’s notion of the Primal Horde…” and “Abner’s bullying sexual and verbal action is as lucid as when a male baboon displays his contemptuous buttocks…to cow some rival baboon.” (p. 71) David’s mourning ritual and public announcement serves as a pre-media press release assuring Israel, the northern tribes, of his guileless innocence (pp. 78-79). Pinsky pictures him (probably accurately) as an opportunistic politician. It is in the Bathsheba account that Pinsky really delivers a telling insight. Noting that David was “faint” in the battle, nearly killed by an apparent descendent of Goliath, rescued by a relative of General Joab’s, and urged to go home to protect himself as the “Light” of Israel, David feels somewhat emasculated and has to prove his manhood to himself. Denied the field of battle, he chooses Bathsheba as a fresh sexual conquest (p. 101). Since many sexual affairs begin as a result of an inferiority complex, this really makes sense and should resonate with a lot of modern males. In fact, Pinsky goes on to suggest that the murder of Uriah has less to do with David’s passion for Bathsheba and “…more to do with the avoidance of a paternity suit.” (p. 105) The volume even offers an interesting comparison between Samuel and Nathan as prophets. Pinsky notes that Samuel chides Saul and, since he never really liked the idea of kingship, even competed with him for authority in Israel. Yet, Nathan simply speaks the truth to David with a bit of wit and clever rhetoric to drive home his point (p. 109). Another clever observation is that, though the one syllable for father is common in names, it is interesting that the two generals who bracket David’s ascension to the throne and David’s struggle to keep it both have “ahb” or “father” in their names. Abner equals “Father is light” and Joab equals “God (Yah) is father.” (p. 117) Add to that the fact that the syllable is also in Absalom’s name (“Father of Peace”) and this syllable appears in names of several important personages in David’s life (p. 134). The explanation of Absalom setting Joab’s barley field on fire after Joab had schemed to get Absalom back reminded me of a movie villain beating up his minion to show that he means business, but Pinsky doesn’t use my metaphor; he just served up a catalyst to my imagination (p. 129). Sometimes, Pinsky just makes me think in ways that I previously missed or simply failed to consider. On page 138, he writes of the irony that David and his followers flee to the countryside to defend the kingdom with guerrilla actions. Now, the son who was exiled has caused the father to become a de facto exile. Pinsky also notes how David essentially set up his own spy network with those who carried back the ark of the covenant at his orders and when he sent Hushai to serve Absalom as a double-agent (pp. 139-140). There is an irony in the fact that David wrote such eloquent laments for Saul and Jonathan and offered great spoken epitaphs to others. Yet, the Bible records no such elegy for David. Pinsky compensates for this by claiming, “Solomon’s equivalent of an elegy for David is his building the City of David.” (p. 168) But in speaking of David’s eventual legacy, Pinsky has to deal with the strange account of David’s census and the killing of 70,000 over David’s presumption in trusting his kingdom for wealth (taxes) and protection (soldiers). In essence, Pinsky writes, the editors were “…making a narrative that stings itself in the tail, by counting the dead who died as retribution for counting the living.” (p. 170) Such poetic ideas, written in prose, are planted like mental landmines throughout The Life of David. I placed this book on my shelf some years ago after casually glancing through it. I told myself that I would read it someday, but I subconsciously discounted it because Pinsky, scholar though he seems to be, didn’t source his references. Now, that I understand he is a poet who was reacting to the David narrative in much the same way David Mamet reacted to the text when reading with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner in Five Cities of Refuge on a weekly basis. Once I associated The Life of David as being devotional reading as opposed to taking the place of more rigorous scholarship, I truly enjoyed it (and will appropriate a few lines and ideas for future sermons). The only thing missing for me was a bibliography, some references, and an indication of Pinsky’s archaeological, historical, and critical studies. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Apr 06, 2016
|
Apr 09, 2016
|
Apr 12, 2016
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.17
| 93,813
| Mar 20, 2015
| May 05, 2015
|
really liked it
|
David McCullough is a brilliant biographer/historian. I never read any of his biographical or historical work in which I don’t learn plenty about the
David McCullough is a brilliant biographer/historian. I never read any of his biographical or historical work in which I don’t learn plenty about the subject(s). Of course, that’s why one reads works of history (or, at least, why I do), but McCullough has the ability to write the narrative so crisply that his best work often reads like a novel. The Wright Brothers is one of the shorter books from this author, but it is replete with detail I wouldn’t have believed. What does the average person know about the Wright Brothers? Most of us know that they were owners of a bicycle shop before being thrust upon the world as aeronautical theorists and pioneers, but how many of us know that they were printers before and manufactured their own line of bicycles prior to becoming the first to fly a self-propelled, heavier than air machine? Some know that the Smithsonian was an early investor in flight experiments and that the machine which flew at Kitty Hawk is now displayed at the Smithsonian Museum of Air & Flight (close to the Mercury space capsule when I was there), but how many of us know that the machine was displayed in London for years and both Wilbur and Orville were dead before the machine was returned for display in the Smithsonian (p. 260)? For that matter, we all know about the flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, but how many of us know about the summer when they were attacked by swarming mosquitos (apparently a roughly dozen year cycle on the outer banks) such that they had to cover up with blankets during some stifling hot days (p. 59). How few realize how the Smithsonian helped spend nearly $70,000 on Samuel Langley’s colossal failure while the Wright Brothers spent circa $1,000 all told on their successful venture (p. 108). Some would take that as a historical parable on the difference between (largely) public and private enterprise. Speaking of business, it was rather enjoyable to read Wilbur’s own words: “Business is merely a form of warfare in which each combatant strives to get the business away from his competitors and at the same time keep them from getting what he already has. No man has ever been successful in business who was not aggressive, self-assertive, and even a little bit selfish perhaps.” (p. 24) Some of us may even know that the U.S. eventually signed a contract with the brothers (p. 238 ) and that a patent was granted three years after the successful flight (p. 133), but how many know that their first contract was with France (p. 129) after years of trying to get the U.S. government and military to be interested? Some may not even realize that Orville experienced a horrendous crash with a representative of the U.S. military who proved to be the first actual airplane fatality in aviation history. Perhaps, one of the finest bits of prose from McCullough reads: “Anyone wanting proof of the pace of change in the new century had only to consider that just one year before, in August 1908, at Le Mans, all the excitement had been about one man only, Wilbur Wright, flying one airplane before about 150 people to start with. This August, at Reims [1909], a total of twenty-two pilots would take off in as many planes, before colossal grandstands accommodating fifty thousand people.” (p. 240) And if McCullough’s writing and research wasn’t enough to commend this book, the quotations from the brothers themselves would have been worthwhile. Perhaps, the words of the brothers themselves would be appropriate for closing this review (though McCullough uses them for a caption on the final page of illustration): “The best dividends on the labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.” ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
Jan 15, 2016
|
Jan 20, 2016
|
Jan 22, 2016
|
Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0252036298
| 9780252036293
| 0252036298
| 3.96
| 75
| Aug 01, 2011
| Aug 04, 2011
|
really liked it
|
On the second page of the first chapter of Becoming Ray Bradbury, there were two quotations from the master that made this volume worth reading. The f
On the second page of the first chapter of Becoming Ray Bradbury, there were two quotations from the master that made this volume worth reading. The first is from a television interview where Bradbury stated, “Style isn’t worthwhile unless it’s absolute truth. They’re synonymous. If you tell the truth you automatically have a style.” (p. 2) Then, from an essay, “Fact without interpretation is but a glimpse of the elephant’s boneyard.” (p. 2) The latter seems like wisdom for more than writing. Becoming Ray Bradbury is about a writer developing the craft until the point of being a master practicing artisanship. I was very impressed with his relationship with Henry Kuttner. Kuttner’s advice about never writing from the perspective of the superman (except indirectly) seemed well-taken (p. 73). I was also impressed with Bradbury’s voracious reading in other fields. I very much liked his feelings about Sterling North’s observation, “Never in the history of mankind have we been so in need of an ethical pattern. But war destroys ethics, while awakening myth. And the results of our ignorance and fear and superstition lie all about us in a shattered world.” (p. 105) Later, Bradbury was enamored with Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers where “…the archetypes are the picture-memory of the wisdom of the breed and there are as many of them as there are human qualities and problems.” (p. 108) I was interested in the attitude of the mainstream (“slicks”) publications of the era. “The science fiction bias was quite strong with most of the slicks, and throughout the late 1940s Bradbury’s science fiction and dark fantasies were rejected by major market editors who almost always enjoyed the submissions, but found them ‘wrong’ or ‘not quite right’ for their readers.” (p. 179) I was very appreciative of the caustic description from fellow-novelist, Theodore Sturgeon, about the “…monumental leveling trowel of the literary critics.” (p. 203). Of course, I enjoyed his own Poe-ish rejoinder about editors and publishers in the “sophisticated” Manhattan environs as being “…a bunch of Clowns bricked into a catacomb wall with several million bottles of Amontillado…” (p. 229). In addition to being concerned about the general state of literature, Bradbury also had a well-honed social conscience. His description of the colonists in The Martian Chronicles could well fit our own present and future: “…these colonials would be going into space that they had carefully sprayed with equal parts of philosophical cyanide and scientific DDT.” (p. 209) For a while, it looked like his stand against McCarthy and McCarthyism would bar him from the film industry forever (p. 269), but Huston’s interest in having Bradbury write the screenplay for Moby Dick circumvented the potential blacklist. Still, his writing colleagues couldn’t understand how he could oppose McCarthy and be so openly hostile to the Soviet Union (p. 270) as well. Frankly, it seems he understood the dangers of tyranny at either extreme. I would have liked to have seen more about Bradbury’s relationship with “the other Ray,” Ray Harryhausen, and I would also have liked to have seen some mention of his challenge to computer game developers at a late ‘90s development conference. But, this is very much a literary biography. While it may not be all I wished to read on the subject, it is an invaluable resource to any would-be writer and, indeed, even to those of us who are somewhat “fan-boys.” (Since, I purchased a Bradbury story when I was publishing Amazing Stories for Wizards of the Coast, I allow myself to add the designator, “somewhat,” to that description.” ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Dec 13, 2015
|
Dec 16, 2015
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1632862794
| 9781632862792
| 1632862794
| 3.72
| 1,730
| Oct 06, 2015
| Oct 06, 2015
|
liked it
|
It is very clear that Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons is heavily colored by a Lake Geneva-centric perspective. T
It is very clear that Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons is heavily colored by a Lake Geneva-centric perspective. That makes sense. It is, after all, a biography of E. Gary Gygax. At times, the book was a marvelous source of anecdotal insight to the early days of Dungeons & Dragons while, at other times, it seemed rather sophomoric in style. I was particularly unamused by the conceit of beginning each chapter with a supposed Dungeon Master refereeing a thinly veiled incident in Gary’s life. Of course, as an editor, I’ve published conceits that were just as lame (or more so) than this one (Remember my pseudonymous “The Rumor Bag” or Charles Ardai’s “Titans of the Game Industry?” in Computer Gaming World.). It’s just that I feel like that conceit was so thirty years ago. That could be just me, but it reduced my rating for this book. My second problem with the book was the cavalier marginalizing of Dave Arneson’s contribution to the game. I’m almost as biased here toward Dave as Michael Witwer is toward Gary. I say, “almost” because I recognize the truth in a statement like “…although Arneson had great ideas, he didn’t seem to be able to put the pieces together. This is where Gary proved to be most valuable.” (p. 92, Loc 1309) Dave did some writing for me when I was at Computer Gaming World and I know that he was not the most prompt contributor in the world. I remember being amazed that someone as famous for his writing could make so many grammatical errors. As I realized how thorough his reviews were (He played one game more than 50 times that I thought exhausted its possibilities in a half-dozen tries—a political simulation called Hidden Agenda), I wrote off the missed deadlines and grammatical errors as being as irrelevant as a medical doctor’s handwriting. It became a joy just to shape his work into an orderly presentation. But, nothing in working with Dave ever gave me the feeling that he simply sat on his hands with regard to game design. He was always demonstrating his creativity. Certainly, he told me specifically about his legal experiences with TSR—twice litigating for what he considered to be his fair share of royalties. I’m pretty sure he resented a lot of the Gary-centric aspects of TSR. One of the things I remember him saying was, “I like to think I’m the ‘father’ of D&D and Gary is the ‘mother.’” I got the feeling that he meant ‘muthah’ and intended me to fill in the last part of it. I can just hear Dave saying, “It was very much a case of me providing various ideas and concepts but not having any say as to how they were used.” (p. 100, Loc. 1413) Please forgive the rant, but I just don’t believe the game would have happened in any sort of playable form if it hadn’t been for both of these creators. Gary may have taken control for obvious reasons, but he was building on a firm foundation. Without ideas from Wesley, Carr, and Arneson, we probably wouldn’t have role-playing as a genre in either the table-top or digital form. That being said, I learned a lot from this book—something I didn’t think possible after reading that exhaustive tome, Playing at the World (which I felt was much more even-handed in presenting its research, but it wasn’t a biography of either creator). I didn’t realize that the United States government had sent a pair of undercover Army Intelligence agents to check out Gary’s miniatures group because they thought combat simulation games were a breeding ground for real-life insurgency (p. 79, Loc 1127). And, though I remember Dave saying that they didn’t use “funny dice” (polyhedral) until later in the process, I don’t remember reading about Gary’s coffee can with the twenty (20) numbered poker chips as the random number generator before (p. 87, Loc 1243). I did remember the folks at Flying Buffalo being very careful not to make any comparisons with Dungeons & Dragons when they spoke/wrote about either Tunnels & Trolls, Monsters, Monsters or even the later modern RPG masterpiece, Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes. Apparently, they coined the phrase fantasy role-playing game after TSR threatened to litigate over “copyright infringement” when their early advertisements for Tunnels & Trolls mentioned Dungeons & Dragons (p. 128, Loc. 1766). I was glad to be reminded of this when I read Empire of Imagination. I was somewhat surprised to read about Gary’s supposed claim that he had seen the potential in computer role-playing early on, but hadn’t had the technology or financial support to be able to invest in it (p. 203, Loc. 4846). That confused me, considering that TSR published a computer version of Dawn Patrol (aka Fight in the Skies) in the early ‘80s and Dave Arneson had published computer games like Chennault’s Flying Tigers on the Atari 8-bit as early as the late ‘70s. Dave Wesely, the referee who discovered Strategos, the 19th century rules set which inspired his Brauenstein adventure, was a partner in 4D Interactive with Arneson. So, it was possible to produce such games at a relatively low cost. I suspect that Gary just wanted to make sure he controlled his digital games after seeing how easy it was to lose control of the tabletop game. But that’s a different story. I was just surprised to read: “Gary had seen this potential in CRPGs since the late 1970s, and early issues of Dragon magazine had even featured an ongoing column about computer technology called The Modern Eye, but TSR had not been positioned technically or financially to invest in such a radical industry at the time. Now, the technology had caught up with the concept, and Gary had the capacity and desire to pursue it with full force.” (p.203, Loc 2823) My biggest surprise, however, was to discover that after hearing stories about Gary’s prodigal years in Hollywood (from some very good sources, by the way), I was able to read: “’All I am is another fellow human that has at last, after many wrong paths and failed attempts, found Jesus Christ,’ he wrote in January…signing the email with his favorite Bible verse, Matthew 5:16.” (p. 218, Loc 3023) I knew that Dave had that conviction; it was nice to read that Gary did. How ironic that is in the light of all the accusations of Satanic worship leveled at the game over the years. Well, this is just a summary of my reaction to the book. I really liked reading about Gary’s early years and his friendship with Don Kaye, as well as reading about the Lorraine Williams era from his family’s perspective. The book was worth its price in spite of all my rants and self-indulgent observations. I have a personal investment in this history, having been the publisher of both Dragon and Dungeon at one time. Ironically, I can say that both Gary and Dave “worked for me” at one time (as freelancers for my magazines…chuckle). ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Oct 22, 2015
|
Nov 06, 2015
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1891620517
| 9781891620515
| 1891620517
| unknown
| 3.73
| 82
| May 29, 2001
| Jun 14, 2001
|
really liked it
|
There was a time when I thought Mike Royko was a “bleeding heart” with a “foul mouth,” but a brilliant sense of humor. I read his syndicated column (w
There was a time when I thought Mike Royko was a “bleeding heart” with a “foul mouth,” but a brilliant sense of humor. I read his syndicated column (when I could find it) with the same kind of gusto I devoured Art Buchwald’s (when I could find it). At the time, I neither lived in the Chicago of Royko or “The City” of Buchwald. Yet, each columnist expressed their city, the culture underpinning that city, and the significance of that city in ways that, as a young man, I couldn’t explain. Reading Mike Royko: A Life in Print helps me understand, a little bit, why a columnist so focused on one city could have been so important to me when living half-a-continent away. Although I ended up in “soft” journalism or “pop” journalism as editor-in-chief of a seminal computer game magazine, Royko’s hard-nosed journalism was part of my inspiration. His motto seemed to be “The Eagle Does Not Hunt Flies” (pp. 239-40), but his life and work left a reminder that one occasionally goes after the vulture and hits the sparrow (p. 12). Anyone who has ever tried to put the truth in print knows the danger of that. Even his approach to dealing with friends when he covered their lesser efforts and failures was similar to mine. “Friends are friends but the column was always the column.” (p. 193) Indeed, his advice is that same as I would give, “If you get too close, then you’re going to feel uncomfortable when you have to stick it to them.” (p. 213) Another famous creator who was syndicated in newspapers was the famous cartoonist, Bill Mauldin. My junior high school history professor introduced me to this cartoonist’s very honest view of World War II. Mauldin was pretty honest about Royko as quoted in this book: “Royko is like his city. He has sharp elbows, he thinks sulfur and soot are natural ingredients of the atmosphere, and he has an astonishing capacity for idealism and love devoid of goo.” (pp. 136-7) Perhaps, Royko’s own estimation of his personality is particularly insightful: “I would have made a bad editor. I could never fire anyone.” (p. 258) F. Richard Ciccone, who had the distinction of being Royko’s editor for a time, has written a marvelous tapestry juxtaposing the historical backdrop, the human being, and the writing of a powerful journalist. In terms of history, I hadn’t realized (and I had just graduated high school at the time) that the Students for a Democratic Society were rumored to be planning and believed to be planning the contamination of the Chicago water supply with LSD (p. 148). The mere logistics (not to mention the cost) of such an operation demands a hefty degree of skepticism. It added to my already jaundiced view of government because it sounds like an excuse for excessive government force that was leaked by the first Daley’s administration. And you really get a picture of the infamous ward boss, Ed Quigley, when you read Royko’s great line about hustling votes, “’When it came to bringing back the dead,’ one of Quigley’s old cronies said, ‘that Dr. Frankenstein was a piker compared to Big Eddie.’” (p. 241) To me, though, the two most memorable lines in the book had to do with definitions. I resonated with Royko’s definition of “clout.” Royko asserted that it didn’t simply mean power, but the will to circumvent the law in order to use it (p. 306). But, I’ll never forget his definition of a newspaper reporter: “If there’s a big puddle in the street, a gentleman puts his coat down for a lady to walk on. But a newspaperman spits in the puddle, then goes to ask the sewer department why the puddle isn’t draining.” (p. 438) No wonder Royko was seen to be such a gadfly and no wonder he was so significant. I doubt if anyone is picking up this book new, but if you’re interested in Chicago history, it’s a significant book to read. There are places where I wasn’t sure why Ciconne was detailing certain personalities or talking of insignificant events, but in spite of that, the book was significant to me. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Jul 04, 2015
|
Jul 09, 2015
|
Hardcover
| |||||||||||||
| 1568363567
| 9781568363561
| 1568363567
| 3.79
| 450
| 1967
| Aug 20, 2004
|
really liked it
|
This review is dedicated to my good friend, Pierce Waters, a dedicated student of Asian culture and purveyor of much wisdom associated with that cultu
This review is dedicated to my good friend, Pierce Waters, a dedicated student of Asian culture and purveyor of much wisdom associated with that culture. He also gave me this book almost a decade ago and it was shelved before I finished it. So, when I recently discovered it and remembered that my reading had been interrupted, I gladly devoured this fascinating history. However, one should be forewarned that Shiba Ryotaro deliberately designed this work in a narrative style such that it is devoid of the usual citations and bibliography expected from a historical work. That is both good news and bad news. There is much to learn in The Last Shogun. Since this is a translation of a work by a Japanese historian, the cultural insights into the events prior and subsequent to the Meiji Restoration were tremendously interesting to me. Previously, I didn’t really understand the relationship of the bakufu to the imperial court. I failed to grasp how both the “insiders” of the bakufu and the “outsiders” attempted to abuse the imperial power to fuel their own schemes. How easy it must have been when most imperial edicts were delivered by a voice behind the screen that was not the emperor’s. I was shocked in one scene where the “shogunal guardian” hears the emperor’s real voice for the first time and by how many times imperial edicts were “forged” or “misrepresented” during this era. The Last Shogun is the, to me, tragic story of Tokugawa Yoshinobu, informally known as Keiki. Here was a solid intellectual and capable bureaucrat who is essentially made redundant and victimized because he followed his ideals. It is tragic in one sense because he never takes the decisive actions that could have turned circumstances around, but merely accedes to a sense of duty rather than accomplishment. He sees that the in-fighting of the bakufu is such that the shogunate cannot be saved and he is fully aware of the impossibility of continuing with the Japanese-centric mantra of keeping out the barbarians (especially with the technology gap). One tragic aspect is that, not once, but twice advisors are assassinated in Yoshinobu’s stead because enemies of his position mistakenly assumed that these advisors were influencing Yoshinobu toward positions that they actually opposed in private. Perhaps, indeed, Yoshinobu’s epitaph should have been an observation made by Matsudaira Shungaku: “He is not free of the fault of relying overly on his own efforts, without taking others into consideration.” (p. 206) On the other hand, his contemporaries did speak highly of his ability at risk management: “A cautious man, Yoshinobu never undertook anything new without first preparing a way of escape for himself.” (p. 187) This volume also confirmed something I became aware of three years ago. I hadn’t realized that many of the families behind the big eponymous corporations (Toyota, Suzuki, Matsui, etc.) adopted adult men into the family to lead the companies (and become de facto CEO-elects). “Daimyo who achieved their status by adoption were in fact generally abler and more active than those who were heirs by blood, …” (p. 35). The Last Shogun also demonstrated that some historical stereotypes exist because they are essentially real. In the back of my mind, I have often assumed that the number of assassinations and ambushes in samurai films were exceedingly exaggerated. The Last Shogun recounts a number of them and describes situations as though such events were just as routine in history as they were in the movies. I was surprised, even though I probably shouldn’t have been, when I read passages like: “The two thugs escaped down Horikawa Avenue, finally stopping exhausted before a flower shop. There, one disemboweled himself with his sword, and the other held his blade upside down and stabbed himself in the throat. They lay together, lifeless, in the street. For assassins, they died magnificent deaths, and the incident was long remembered in that neighborhood.” (p. 134) The Last Shogun is excellent reading for anyone interested in the Meiji Restoration, but it is weak as a historical reference because of the lack of citations mentioned earlier. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Jan 27, 2015
|
Jan 29, 2015
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0806536152
| 9780806536156
| 0806536152
| 4.36
| 863
| 2013
| Apr 28, 2013
|
really liked it
|
Only two stations were available in the little Central Valley town where I lived in elementary school. So, one night when my parents weren’t paying at
Only two stations were available in the little Central Valley town where I lived in elementary school. So, one night when my parents weren’t paying attention, I watched television all by myself. It was an old black and white television set with a curved (as opposed to fully rectangular) picture tube. While I watched a show about a car, a car that looked a lot like Mom’s and Dad’s car, that came to life to bring a hit and run driver to justice, I was so frightened (and fascinated) that I gave up my television privilege and rushed right upstairs to the safety of my attic bedroom. Whenever I think of the Twilight Zone television series, I remember that episode. So, my eyes perked up when I read that Rod Serling’s own children weren’t allowed to watch the series until they were older. Guess I wasn’t the only one traumatized and fascinated at the same time. As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling is a personal memoir more than a biography. Serling’s youngest daughter has done a terrific job of bringing some primary sources to light with regard to Serling’s early life and the biographical sections are wonderfully written as she interweaves the events in Serling’s life with scripts he would write later in life. Yet, there are times when the personal admiration and devotion overshadows the biographical task. That doesn’t make this a bad book; it just makes it a different kind of biography. Of course, I didn’t know much about Rod Serling. He was a mysterious figure from my childhood, recognized as a brilliant writer when I experienced his “Requiem for a Heavyweight” and “Hitchhiker” scripts as a college student. He was the quintessential voice-over/narrator/master of ceremonies voice to emulate when I wanted to sound profound, enigmatic, or analytic. As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling humanizes the writer who stressed the dignity of humanity and the virtue of self-giving. I hadn’t realized that he had racked up 40 rejection slips in a row when he was working at Cincinnati’s WLW radio station and trying to freelance at night (p. 77). I didn’t know that Ed Sullivan was strangely missing from the stage when he was supposed to present Serling with his first Emmy award (p. 84). I never knew that Leon Uris of Exodus fame had protested “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” as being pro-Nazi because one German soldier was humanized. Uris apparently demanded that CBS burn the script and recording. One Serling defender reminded Uris that it was more Josef Goebbel’s style to burn intellectual property (p. 99). As a Serling admirer, I found it interesting to discover that he had a short attention span. It seems probable from Buck Houghton’s description (Houghton was the producer of The Twilight Zone to Serling as executive producer) of Serling’s self-imposed ten minute limit for story conferences that he might have had something like ADHD (p. 105), but if so, he was significantly more productive than most. I was very amused at the card sent by Jerry Paris (who played the neighbor on the old Dick Van Dyke Show and directed a lot of The Bob Newhart Show episodes) when Serling was recovering from his first heart attack. Paris wrote, “Berg said you were dead…but he always calls them wrong.” (p. 132) I also love the story about how his daughter was working at a summer camp when her father came to pick her up. One of the other counselors had seen part of a Twilight Zone episode the night before but hadn’t seen the ending. He’s begging people to tell him the ending and doesn’t see Serling sit down in the empty seat beside him. “Someone begins laughing, and he finally turns and sees my dad sitting beside him. The expression on his face was priceless.” (p. 213) I hope that when I die someone can say something as authentic and beautiful as Dick Berg said at the West Coast Memorial Service for Serling. “It’s been said that he worked hard and played hard. That isn’t so. He played with the enthusiasm of an innocent. And the work, in fact, came naturally.” (p. 248) That seemed so honest and gave me such insight into the man. Yet, my favorite line in the book was a quotation from a USC graduation speech that Serling gave on March 17, 1970: “Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our name.” (p. 212) What a horrible indictment on our culture! Yet, what a chance to turn the vehicle around! Like a prophet from the Hebrew Bible, Serling gives us damnation and hope in the same “verse.” As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling is a moving book, a heartfelt authentic communication from a child who peeked into the Valley of the Shadow, carried away the demon of grief, and managed to find life and love beyond her loss. I vicariously experienced the grief with this woman and found myself appreciating my daughters even more this week. I haven’t even lost my father (and I’m older than Anne’s father was when he died), but I feel like this book was therapy for me. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Sep 02, 2013
|
Sep 02, 2013
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0553248464
| 9780553248463
| 0553248464
| 3.89
| 892
| Mar 01, 1982
| Jan 01, 1984
|
liked it
|
The memoirs of American League Umpire Ron Luciano make for both interesting and disillusioning reading in The Umpire Strikes Back. His memories are in
The memoirs of American League Umpire Ron Luciano make for both interesting and disillusioning reading in The Umpire Strikes Back. His memories are interesting for nostalgia’s sake (I watched a lot more baseball in the ‘70s and ‘80s than I do in my present situation) where he talked of people I’d watched, rooted for, and, on a couple of occasions, met. His anecdotes are disillusioning because of the overt pride he took in sharing about his bad calls and his unrepentant willingness to change them (although, he did once as described on pp. 68-69). Even after sharing about an umpire who had to change a call three times to get it right (admittedly, the changes were due to changes in circumstances because the ball arrived in time for the tag—out, the infielder missed the tag—safe, the runner slid past the bag and was tagged—out, the infielder dropped the ball again—safe—p. 194), he couldn’t admit to changing the call—even when his colleagues on the team told him that he’d blown it and that he’d blown it badly. If I hadn’t felt that Luciano was biased in favor of East Coast teams (even though he says he liked my Oakland A’s in the early ‘70s – after I became disillusioned with the Angels and when Alvin Dark was manager—and even though he claims that he truly disliked Earl Weaver). Later in life, when I met Earl Weaver at a Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we were looking at Electronic Arts’ Earl Weaver Baseball and laughing about how often the Earl avatar came out and argued with the umpire so often. The programmers agreed to tone down the probability and Earl said something about the only time he would have argued that many calls would have been in Luciano was umpire and Luciano would have thrown him out after the first argument. So, I wasn’t pre-disposed to like this book in spite of its humorous, forthright, and “breezy” style. But I did enjoy the book. I just wished Luciano had been a little less mantic and ADD when my teams were on the field. The book is a delightful blend of Luciano’s self-deprecating anecdotes and a crisp writing style from his ghost writer, David Fisher. I loved lines like the description of the Umpires’ Strike when they were trying to get support from other unions and, “He sat down with the man and told him the complete truth, except for the parts he made up.” (p. 236) I think, perhaps, the wisest line in the book is: “Baseball, I learned, is more a game of anticipation than action.” (p. 162) I probably chuckled loudest at, “Because of my great speed and range, they found the proper position for me. Catcher.” (p. 159) Of course, when Luciano showed respect for players and managers, it raised them up a notch with me, as well. When Luciano doubted that the retired Ted Williams really meant what he said about being able to see the seams of the baseball when he hit the ball, Williams recruited a pitcher to throw in game-like conditions and put pine tar all of the barrel of the bat. When the pitches came in and Williams hit them, he would say that he hit one seam or someplace near a seam and when the balls came back, they were exactly where Williams said they would be five out of seven times (p. 130). In another story, Alvin Dark once made an entire parcel of substitutions and handed Luciano the scorecard. Luciano handed it back and said that Dark must not be managing the same game that he was umpiring because some of the guys being substituted for were already out. Dark apologized and said he must have given him the substitutions he’d been planning on making if they were behind in the 8th. Now, THAT’S risk management to plot out entire games inning by inning before they happened (p. 189). I did think it was quite remarkable that some of his childhood friends (the Barbaras) were, yes, the ones who owned the ranch where the big Mafia round up in Apalachin (1957). That weekend, Ron had been told he couldn’t come up to the ranch because their dad had friends in for the weekend. When he read the Sunday morning paper, he discovered that the dad’s friends were the leaders of the nation’s most influential crime families. (p. 5) You can’t make that stuff up. Frankly, I still don’t like Ron Luciano. But I did enjoy “his” book. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
May 25, 2013
|
May 27, 2013
|
Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1577482239
| 9781577482239
| 1577482239
| 4.29
| 250
| Jun 01, 1998
| Jun 01, 1998
|
really liked it
|
This biography of Chinese pastor and martyr Watchman Nee was surprising to me in a lot of ways. One major way was that it ruined a song I used to like
This biography of Chinese pastor and martyr Watchman Nee was surprising to me in a lot of ways. One major way was that it ruined a song I used to like. It appears that Watchman Nee’s wife died a few months before the good pastor died in prison. The song I liked was written as though it was a word of comfort to her after his death (“Hush, Lady Watchman don’t you cry; you know he’ll never die. He’ll just walk into the arms of Jesus. And though it hurts to see him go, Lady Watchman you must know, he was born to die a watchman for the Lord.”). It was catchy, moving, and inaccurate. More than that, however, was realizing how Nee failed to respond to accusation and innuendo. On one occasion, his mother was visiting the, then single, pastor and several gossips claimed that he was “living in sin.” He refused to defend himself, using the illustration, “The lower we put something, the safer it is. It is safest to put a cup on the floor.” (p. 29) On another occasion, “Brothers, if people trust us, there is no need to explain; if people do not trust us, there is no use explaining.” (p. 12) I also found it meaningful when he spoke of the likelihood of being hurt the most by those one trusts the most, citing Zechariah 13:6 and being wounded at the house of one’s friends. I loved his little teaching on baptism. “Please remember you are not the only one who is in the water. As you step down in to the water, a whole world goes down with you. When you come up, you come up in Christ.” (p. 41) He also scored some points with me with his centipede parable. In the parable, a centipede was asked to identify what order the creature used to move his legs in order to walk. When the centipede thought about it, it was paralyzed with indecision. Similarly, “We all work too hard at being religious. God is much easier to live with than we are with ourselves. As Paul said to his friends in Ephesus, simply ‘walk in love.’” (pp. 77-78) There were also some nice quotations from Nee’s sermons. For example, when he preached about the believer’s place in the world, he said: “Before we put their boats in the water, I want them to spend a few days considering the water that is already in their boats.” (p. 93) In other words, boats are made to be in the water, but one lets water into the boat to one’s own discomfort and risk. Again, Nee expressed the idea by saying, “I have no interest in Christian societies that build legalistic barriers around themselves to keep untainted from the world. Jesus Christ is our only effective barrier against the world.” (p. 97) Two of my favorite quotations from the book would include the one about power and the one about fruit. “The reason many do not have power before God is due to their either being closed on the end toward the Lord or on the end toward sinners.” (p. 100) Again, he used the parable of fruit to suggest that different people be witnessed to at different points in their lives. “Some fruit take longer to ripen than others. It is just as wrong to pick an unripe apple as it is never to go into the orchard at all.” (p. 106). In evangelical Christianity, we often have trouble understanding the relationship between faith and works and Holy Spirit-led guidance and self- and socially-influenced conscience. Nee said, “So you see that faith is the cargo and your conscience is the ship. If the ship is wrecked, the cargo will fall out. When your conscience is strong, your faith is secure; but when your conscience accuses you of sin, you faith will leak out.” (p. 107) One of my surprises was to discover Nee’s idea of gender in the church. Some women objected to the use of “Brothers” as a term of general address in the epistles to various churches. On one occasion, Nee was asked about the term “brothers” and responded, “Are you talking about the male brothers or the female brothers?” (p. 118) With regard to suffering, Nee explained, “The fact is that you will never be the same after you pass through suffering. Either you will have your capacity enlarged or you will become more hardened.” (p. 150) He knew of which he spoke. Because of his help in starting China Biological and Chemical Laboratories with his brother, he was imprisoned as a capitalist at age 50. The indictment was 2,296 pages long and he lived for 20 years before succumbing to death on June 1, 1972—a malnourished prisoner who had won over many of his fellow-prisoners and guards to the cause he believed in. “What is a blessing? It is the working of God where there is nothing to account for His working.” (p. 164) Having read many books by the late Watchman Nee, this biography was encouraging to me. It didn’t dwell so much on the suffering and persecution as upon the man’s faithfulness to the message—even in the face of difficulty. ...more |
Notes are private!
|
1
|
not set
|
Apr 21, 2013
|
May 03, 2013
|
Paperback
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
my rating |
|
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| 4.47
|
really liked it
|
Aug 13, 2024
|
Aug 13, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 3.67
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 19, 2022
|
Apr 19, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 3.69
|
really liked it
|
Dec 29, 2021
|
Dec 29, 2021
|
|||||
|
| 3.91
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 06, 2021
|
Nov 06, 2021
|
|||||
|
| 4.19
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 23, 2021
|
Aug 23, 2021
|
|||||
|
| 4.28
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 10, 2020
|
Jun 10, 2020
|
|||||
|
| 4.06
|
liked it
|
Sep 28, 2019
|
Sep 30, 2019
|
|||||
|
| 4.21
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 27, 2018
|
Dec 29, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.11
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 11, 2018
|
Jan 15, 2018
|
|||||
|
| 4.34
|
really liked it
|
Dec 12, 2016
|
Dec 14, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.50
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 08, 2016
|
Jul 08, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.60
|
really liked it
|
Apr 09, 2016
|
Apr 12, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.17
|
really liked it
|
Jan 20, 2016
|
Jan 22, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.96
|
really liked it
|
Dec 13, 2015
|
Dec 16, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.72
|
liked it
|
Oct 22, 2015
|
Nov 06, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.73
|
really liked it
|
Jul 04, 2015
|
Jul 09, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.79
|
really liked it
|
Jan 27, 2015
|
Jan 29, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.36
|
really liked it
|
Sep 02, 2013
|
Sep 02, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 3.89
|
liked it
|
May 25, 2013
|
May 27, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 4.29
|
really liked it
|
Apr 21, 2013
|
May 03, 2013
|
Loading...
