This is a play for two actors, a mother and a daughter. One set.
The dialog takes place over an evening. It builds from the mundane to more emotionallyThis is a play for two actors, a mother and a daughter. One set.
The dialog takes place over an evening. It builds from the mundane to more emotionally charged topic. Neither gives complete answers to the other's questions, but the sketches show both lives in summary.
This is a short play, and saying more could reveal too much too soon.
This is certainly in the firmament of fellow Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. It goes beyond satire of Jewish AmeThis is certainly in the firmament of fellow Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. It goes beyond satire of Jewish American family life, it takes on academia and the background of Israel’s (contemporary to its publication) Prime Minister. The challenge is not just for the writer, but for also the reader.
The setting is a university in New York State’s Finger Lakes region. In Roth style, the narrator, Professor Ruben Blum, presents his in-laws, his parents, wife and his wildly independent daughter who obsesses over the lump in her nose. Ruben notes his role in Corbindale where he, his wife and daughter are the only Jews. Realizing how harshly they will be judged, he and his wife interact very carefully in the community.
The laugh out loud stars right away. On p. 2 Blum describes his discipline is “taxation studies” a field he “discovered” since other specialties were crowded. He researches “Antiquity’s development of customs, duties and tariffs all the way back to the Rosetta Stone and even the Bible, both of which… are substantially just tax documents”. He goes on about his research and publications such that it sounds almost real. (On p. 76 Blum quotes a letter, couched in academic parlance, from a “Lecturer in Assyriology, Aryanology and Indo-European Linguistics and Philology”.)
Anyone familiar with office politics in academia will love how Dr. Morse “never developed a deep European bench” and conversations on how the budget will drive curricular (hiring) decisions. Then, there is the conversation where Rubin is told he was selected to host a “Jewish historian” who is an applicant for a budget compromised position.
If you are laughing out loud at the family scenes you will fall over when the Netanyahu’s arrive. While their final events are too way out, the subtle and overt satire will shock you, when you realize the middle child will serve as Israel’s Prime Minister for 15 years.
In the end, Cohen says his inspiration for this was a conversation with Harold Bl00m, who did interview the senior Netanyahu. Cohen produces a letter from Bloom's daughter who has no comment for the book, but was said to be present at the time time when her father hosted the real Netanyaho family.. It is hard to tell if the letter is real or continues the satire.
If you are a fan of Roth, Malamud and/or Bellow you will not want to miss this. If you enjoy a good satire, you will like it especially if you are steeped in academia or 1950's Jewish American culture. If you are steeped in Israeli politics, it probably depends what your politics are....more
This biography is thorough, interpretive and page turning. It digests enormous research on the Ignalls-Wilder family and the history of and US policy This biography is thorough, interpretive and page turning. It digests enormous research on the Ignalls-Wilder family and the history of and US policy regarding the areas in which they traveled. It shows how the Homesteading Act and homesteading itself, climate/ecology, and cultural and official attitudes towards poverty buffeted this family.
You learn the real story of Charles and Caroline Ignalls which their daughter heavily air brushed in her very popular “Little House..” books. Author Caroline Fraser recounts the pitfalls of homesteading: drought, grasshoppers, house, barn and prairie fires, intimidation by Indians and having no sons. The Ignall's fell prey to them all of them. You see the Ignall's family moving from place to place as they freeze, nearly starve to death and lose everything several times.
Laura most likely idealized her childhood in these books to honor her parents. Her attitude towards poverty was shame, and the truth was conveniently inappropriate for children’s reading. You see the straight line from Charles and Caroline to Laura. Like her brave, resourceful, tireless parents, Laura is thrifty, multi-talented, proud and never gives up. The line from Laura and Almanzo to their daughter, Rose, is not so clear.
In her earliest years, Rose Wilder had a taste of her parents’ trials. She was moved from place to place as her parents followed friends and relatives from South Dakota to Florida eventually settling at age 8 in Missouri. Two events may hang over her life: did she as a toddler set the fire that caused her parents to lose their house? Was she blamed for the loss of the money (later found) set aside to purchase the next homestead dream? These may be the events that shaped her erratic life, her suicidal tenancies, her adoption of young men and her extreme right wing politics.
Fraser presents the entanglement of what appears to be a long suffering mother and her adult disrespectful daughter. Rose used her money and fame to support her parents and hoist her mother’s writing career (Laura had been writing for farm journals). But did Rose really support her parents? A case can be made that every dollar she gave them came back to her when she squandered her advances and royalties. Also, how much did the daughter write or edit her mother’s work (for which the daughter claims credit)?
When I read this series as a child, I was amazed to learn the author had just died. It dramatized for me the short amount of time from covered wagons to cars. Reading this book shows further compression. Rose Wilder Lane’s last adopted son, Roger MacBride, inherited the copyrights (parlayed into the TV show which further repackaged the truth about the Wilders) and at age 35 was (perhaps the first) Koch sponsored candidate for President on the Libertarian ticket (running against Ford and Carter).
Caroline Fraser has done a tremendous job. This book should be of interest to writers and historians and anyone interested in the realities of prairie life 1870-1900. Beware to Little House fans who want to keep their fantasies alive....more
As the narrator, Phillip Carver, tells his family’s story, the author Peter Taylor shows the waning way of life of genteel society in Nashville and MeAs the narrator, Phillip Carver, tells his family’s story, the author Peter Taylor shows the waning way of life of genteel society in Nashville and Memphis. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987.
The narrator’s father was born perhaps a generation, maybe two, after slavery on one of the family estates outside of Memphis. The pages on this birth, alone, qualify for the Pulitzer. After Vanderbilt (not Princeton) football and law degree, a partnership takes him to Nashville. He marries appropriate to his station.
The story revolves around this father. He is now a widowed octogenarian planning to marry a much younger woman, jeopardizing this children’s inheritance. The irony hangs, but is unmentioned, that the father’s actions in different ways ended the marriage plans of each of his four children, 3 of whom, now in their 50’s are still single, and one is deceased.
His son, the narrator, now an established rare book dealer and living in Manhattan, shows how much of his father’s control was based on his bearing, appearance, will and the social standing of his landowning family. He contrasts the Nashville style with the Memphis style. He shows how his father’s friendships with younger men who looked up to him re-enforced his aura, and likely, his self-image.
Silently, and in the background, the family’s staff (only a few are called by name) who are from the family estate, most likely the descendants of the homestead’s slaves, fix meals, move household goods and drive the family.
This is a short book, and almost every sentence matters.
I highly recommend it for readers who like character studies and portrayals of place and time....more
Viet Thanh Nguyen tells the story of the Vietnam War through a narrator who is a North Vietnamese spy a “sympathizer”. The Sympathizer was educated in Viet Thanh Nguyen tells the story of the Vietnam War through a narrator who is a North Vietnamese spy a “sympathizer”. The Sympathizer was educated in the US. His command of English, complete with nuance and cultural references can make him seem like an American and helps him greatly in his clandestine role.
The Sympathizer's father was French, a priest in rural Vietnam. His mother was a 13 or 14 year old parishioner at the time of his birth.He has attained the rank of Captain in the South Vietnamese Army and is planted in the work life and home of a General. The General depends on him and treats him like a son, with restraint, since there is a class difference and the Sympathizer is of mixed race.
Most of the story takes place after the US withdrawal but there are flashbacks to the Sympathizer’s childhood and the war. You see the post-war life of those who fled: How they made the trip; how they left refugee camps and the kind of jobs they found; how parents worried about Americanized children; and how some could not give up their country. There are takes on Hollywood’s take on the war, how politicians stirred things up, how spies kept their cover, how naive Americans spoke about the Viet Cong, or the South, for that matter; how many refugees lost their purpose and fell for signs of hope, and on how people suffered through life in re-education camps.
The narrator has a keen eye, and turn of phrase. What he sees and what he says show the sadness of the war from the general who talks of bombing a rice field so the farmers can see how they need US protection, to the famous director who is hires Filipinos to portray the Vietnamese, to the Sympathizer’s guilt to the doublespeak of the re-education camps which are surrounded by an agent orange devastated landscape.
To add to the sadness, in the “Acknowledgements” the author cites the documentary sources on which he based the major episodes.
Some sections are overly long, particularly the miserable one in the re-education camp, but the text has many layers throughout.
I see why this has gained so many honors and so much recognition.
The author has described the war in Vietnam. ...more
When I became aware of Susan Faludi’s book about her estranged father, I placed a library reserve within minutes.
For years I wondered who Susan FaludiWhen I became aware of Susan Faludi’s book about her estranged father, I placed a library reserve within minutes.
For years I wondered who Susan Faludi was. “Backlash” burst on the scene out of the blue. Faludi observed, documented and explained the often blatant, sometimes nuanced and sometimes silent forces that were undermining women as they were just starting to achieve. So while I chose this book to see if/how her family informed her writing, I got much more.
Through the biography of her brave, demanding, elusive, opinionated, talented and imposing father you get the story of Hungary before and after World War II. It is a story of a Jewish family that had wealth but not love. It is a story of the child they had and how he survived and never filled the hole they left. It is the story of an attempt to find equilibrium after years of life threatening uncertainty.
Her father was born István Friedman in 1927 in Hungary and died there as Stefánie Faludi in 2015. He ran, hid and outsmarted the Arrow Cross and Nazi overlords of Hungary in his youth. His survival skills and his skills in photography and film got him from Hungary to Denmark to Brazil and eventually to the NYC suburbs.
While his decision in his youth to become Steven Faludi is practical and clear; his decision in his 70’s to become Stefánie is not. Susan Faludi shares her experience in trying to understand her father as she, herself, learns about his life, both with and without his cooperation.
Some of my curiosity that brought me to this book has been partially filled in a way that gives more food for thought. Faludi remembers a hyper-masculine father (a mountain climber who violently defied restraining orders in divorce) and in 2004 sees him fussing over hair and clothing. As Stephanie, he does not recognize the forces that caused so much suffering to him, his family and his community.
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Hungary, the Holocaust, post traumatic stress or identity. ...more
In 1776 when Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” he owned over 200 slaves. Later, as a widower and US Minister to France, he began his In 1776 when Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal” he owned over 200 slaves. Later, as a widower and US Minister to France, he began his relationship with Sally Hemings, his wife’s half-sister, who was enslaved by him. With his wife he had 2 children who lived to adulthood and with Hemings he had 6 children, 4 who lived to adulthood. Members of the two families lived together at Monticello at various times over many years. How did he feel about his families and these contradictions?
In this book, Annette Gordon-Reed extends her research on the Hemings family, and along with Peter Onuf discusses the factors that went into Jefferson’s character: his early life, his relationship with the other patriots, his time in Paris and experience in governing. They draw heavily of his own writings, particularly “Notes on the State of Virginia”. They weigh his public and private lives from letters and narratives of those who knew him.
Jefferson saw himself a “patriarch” a father/leader. He similarly viewed each family in a republic, free under its own patriarch, each state and finally the country as one family with a patriarch at its head. Other planters did not live on hill tops: hauling water and the long upward access were impractical, but at Monticello he was free to pursue his happiness. That this pursuit depended on the work of those with limited or no choices: women (whom he saw as natural helpmates to men) and slaves (whom he felt would be freed from their unjust condition by later generations) was not acknowledged by him.
The authors work is far beyond the Jefferson-Hemings relationship, but I could not help but focus on it as key to understanding Jefferson. While a social person with refined tastes, he regularly retreated to a very private life. Was the need for privacy a way to control what people knew of him as a slave owner and partner to a woman who was his slave? Did he pay his slaves in Paris because knew the opinion of slavery held by those he respected? Why is it that none of the many guests at Monticello (a few of whom saw children who looked like Jefferson) reported any engagement with his children? Did Jefferson not free Sally Hemings in his will because it would call attention to their relationship? The authors describe Jefferson’s manners and the way he steered conversations; was he avoiding unpleasant notices of his situation? His appreciation of the opera, the symphony and folk music of Scotland, Ireland and Virginia is well documented, but did he hide an appreciation for the music of those living closest to him? Did he leave incomplete, and perhaps obfuscated, records in order to hide his private life?
There was a huge backlash in the 1970’s when Fawn Brodie introduced the Sally Hemings to the general public. It’s taken two generations, DNA testing and black and female scholars crossing the glass ceiling to have a book like this received with minimal reaction of it as an attack on Jefferson. I recommend it for those with some background on Jefferson (this is not a bio) and an interest in the issue of slavery....more
I'm an administrator in a language school. Every year I see hundreds of people struggling, just as Jhumpa Lahiri describes, with a new language. Most I'm an administrator in a language school. Every year I see hundreds of people struggling, just as Jhumpa Lahiri describes, with a new language. Most our students come from abroad to immerse themselves in English, but many are US citizens, serious about learning (last year alone) Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog, Thai or Urdu.
Lahiri writes of the process: the tutors, the notebooks, the many prepositions and tenses, making mistakes, misinterpreting and more. Although a serious and passionate student progress was not linear, nor always forward. After 20 years of struggling, she moved... she moved her entire family ... to Italy, and there came the breakthrough.
The author's language journey is unusual. She is a gifted and prize winning author (in English), and very familiar with the texture and structure of language. Her native tongue is arguably English, although Bengali was her actual first language. Her decision to learn Italian resulted from a trip to Florence; Why? She cannot explain it, but she accepts that Italian fluency is her passionate goal.
Learning a language means learning a culture. It is a whole new way of thinking. It can be exhausting and exhilarating. Lahiri bears her soul on its very personal elements.
Lahiri wrote this book in Italian which appears on the left page with the English translation (by Ann Goldman, translator of Elena Ferrante, Primo Levi and Giacomo Leopardi to name a few) on the right. The translation is straightforward making it possible for those with a rudimentary knowledge of Italian to test their skills. Through the translation, you can see charm in the level of nuance attained by a high level second language learner.
Lahiri plans to write more in Italian (which would never be a marketer's choice) and I hope we, the English reading public, will not have to wait for their translations to appear.
This book is not for everyone. Those who have, as adults, studied a language (not for college credit, but to use it) or have friends or family in the process, particularly if Italian is either L1 or L2 (as we refer to languages in my profession) will appreciate this book....more
If you are a general reader and want to read one book on the origin of ISIS, look no further.
In telling the story through individuals the book contraIf you are a general reader and want to read one book on the origin of ISIS, look no further.
In telling the story through individuals the book contrasts to others like ISIS: The State of Terror or Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect that are more thorough and focus more on politics and policies. Joby Warrick’s approach, focusing on the key personnel, holds your attention throughout. This book is heavy on the founder, Abu Musab Zarqawi and its beginnings as part of Al Qaeda, where the others focus more on the group as “ISIS” filling the power vacuum in Syria.
Zarqawi is shown through the lens of Jordan’s security agency, Mukhabarat, and Nada Bakos his “targeter” for the US. You see him imprisoned for crimes and terrorist activities. He is interrogated, often, by Mukhabarat. The chaos in Iraq was a perfect opportunity for him but his first operations were directed at Jordan (the Embassy in Iraq, the foiled bombing of Mukhabarat, the wedding in Amman) and the UN. While there were leadership changes, you come to understand the significance of the 2015 capture of Jordan’s pilot.
Jordan’s King Abdullah is shown to have great courage and foresight. He has kept his country free of training camps and “Arab Springs”. He and Mukhabarat not only helped to foil the Millennium Plot, you read of how they stopped a large bombing plan for Amman and how they interrogate effectively. You also appreciate the work of Gen. Stanley McCrystal.
There is a lot on ISIS as a Sunni organization showing how its hatred of the Shia equals that of its hatred of the infidel. The relationship of this group and al Qaeda is clearly shown through excerpts of letters from its highest leadership.
Besides Zarqawi and King Abdullah, there are good portraits of Abu Mohammad Maqdisi (Islamic scholar who tutored Zarqawi in prison), Robert Ford (State Dept. employee who served for at time as Ambassador to Syria), and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (current ISIS leader) and others such as Zaydan a tribal leader. Warrick doesn’t drop them, he follows them through each phase up to the present.
The Epilogue offers some hope. It covers the reaction to the torture, specifically, the burning of the body of the Jordanian pilot, Murah al-Kasasbeh. It outraged even the Wahabi: “Burning is an abominable crime rejected by Islamic law”; “Only god punishes by fire.” At al-Azhar in Cairo the grand imam expelled clerics who advocated violence. Egyptian’s president General, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was applauded by al-Azhar’s clerics when he called for a rethinking of “ideas… sanctified over the course of centuries to the point that challenging them becomes very difficult” and called on the grand imam to “revolutionize our religion” (pp. 311-312).
The book begins with a who’s who list, but the text is so clear, you don’t need it. There are photos of most key players. The index worked for me, but again, text is so clear, I hardly needed it.
This book is a real find for a lay person. Stripped of the details of treaties, conferences and position papers and loaded with human interest you see this organization and how it grew....more
Laurence Wright tells of his growing awareness of the world as he experienced the major events of the late 20th century. His family had moved from Okl Laurence Wright tells of his growing awareness of the world as he experienced the major events of the late 20th century. His family had moved from Oklahoma to Dallas where this book begins and ends. He is embarrassingly honest about his early views and awkwardness.
Wright remembers the dull Dallas of the 50s, a city of few minorities and strong right wing opinions. LBJ was spat upon and JFK was greeted to Dallas by ads accusing him of treason. It was the home of General Edwin Walker who was influential in the John Birch Society, but more famous for Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination attempt. Remembering people and events of his youth, Wright sees Texas, with Dallas in particular, as a part of a regional block, which through “new money” rivals the social and political prominence of the “Eastern Establishment”.
The Kennedy assassination looms as Wright describes the guilt feelings of the Kennedy-hating establishment of Dallas and the collective shame for having citizens such as Oswald and Jack Ruby. The conspiracies are touched on and personalized when Wright meets a former employee of Ruby’s in New Orleans (Oswald’s home town), Marilyn “Delilah” Walle, who 8 months later was shot and killed by a man to whom she had been married for one month ((see: Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination#24, she could have testified about Oswald's visit(s)to Ruby’s club)).
Never using the word “generation gap”, Wright shows how it played out in his family. His parents are part of the “new” America who had sacrificed to win a war against a real and definable evil and afterward saw their lives improve. They believed in Richard Nixon particularly in contrast to the “Old Establishment” represented by the Kennedy's. Through this bedrock faith in the nation that Nixon represented, they supported the Vietnam War even at the potential cost of their son.
He writes of traveling in Europe and reading the French philosophers and finding America wanting. He visits socialist countries. In telling his experience of the draft he shows how middle class whites were able to skirt service, leaving the burden to minorities and the poor. Wright too easily receives conscientious objector status and went to Egypt for his CO service. There is a lot of reflection on race and the Civil Rights movement. He never mentions the women’s movement. Expanding roles for women are mentioned as though they just happened. He tells how he changed when at 30 he decides to have children, which he formerly shunned due to his dismal view of politics and the future of the world's environment.
Wright re-recreates the Watergate era when Americans were riveted to the black and white daily TV drama. Through his parents, Wright shows the effect of the Watergate hearings on Nixon’s “silent majority”. He writes of southern pride with the subsequent election of Jimmy Carter and gives some detail on Georgia politics of the time.
The book ends in 1984 Republican Convention in Dallas, where Ronald Reagan, representative of the “new”, “non-eastern establishment” is confirmed as the new power in the nation. Here, Wright connects with delegate Eldridge Cleaver, whose book Soul on Ice once spoke to him and where General Walker had been busted for lewd behavior and had sold his home to the Hari Krishna's.
Like Wright, I’m a baby boomer and the book is the story of our shared history (inclusive of living a time in Cairo). Being from the northeast and female, I have a different take on the “new” vs. the “old” establishment, place more importance on the women’s movement and havw never heard anyone admire Charles Manson; none of this detracts from revisiting this time with Wright. I’d like to see Wright bring this up to date, with a book on Aging with America, or similar theme....more
Looking for the recent book on Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart, I reserved this book (at the public library) by mistake. Seeing thatLooking for the recent book on Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart, I reserved this book (at the public library) by mistake. Seeing that it did have a chapter on these two curious “celebrities”, I took it anyway. The chapter on the "Lee cousins" as well as those that cover Walker Railey and Madalyn Murray O’Hair are fascinating. The quality of prose and content does not continue; the other three chapters on Anton LeVey, Will Campbell and Matthew Fox seemed to ramble.
One advantage of reading these 1990’s contemporary portraits is that through internet searches you can learn that Swaggart and Fox are still preaching as was Campbell until his death. While the strangled Mrs. Railey died in 2012 her probable assailant, Mr. Railey, has managed to stay under the online radar. LeVey’s and O’Hair’s lives ended, not long after this book’s publication. LeVey” died “normally”; O’Hair in a strange murder/abduction.
I think this book suffers in format. Each of these complex personalities has a short piece, while each really requires a full scale biography. I think it also suffers because Wright has only a loose idea of its purpose. It isn’t clear why these particular people are selected nor what Wright is trying to say about sainthood and sinning through them.
You can see the beginning of Wright as the great writer/journalist he has become....more
Nobel Prize winning John Steinbeck and his photographer friend visit Moscow, the Ukraine, (what was then) Stalingrad, and Georgia in 1947. They stick Nobel Prize winning John Steinbeck and his photographer friend visit Moscow, the Ukraine, (what was then) Stalingrad, and Georgia in 1947. They stick to their mission which is to find out about everyday people: “What do people wear there? What do they serve for dinner? Do they have parties? ….” They did not find out about how they make love or how they die (also in the mission). They are not interested in important people, politics or 5 year plans.
Destruction and the remnants of war are all around. In Moscow, there is an event where people congregate to inspect the military equipment the Germans left behind. In Stalingrad people are living in the rubble. They see German POWs at work rebuilding cities. Steinbeck notes the differences in cities that have been bombed or sieged in battle.
At a Ukraine collective farm, they eat a hearty breakfast and observe the team work in the fields. With so many men lost or wounded in war, the women shoulder this burden. It is hard to believe their cheerfulness as described by Steinbeck. There is simple entertainment in the evening and beautiful places to swim. Georgia has been relatively unscathed by the war and Georgians have adopted Ukrainian orphans.
They are feted as important guests everywhere. The meetings of writers’ groups sound deadly as 20 page manuscripts are read aloud ...and then the translation is read! There is a so much food and drinking, the authors are frequently sick/hung over. Steinbeck gets so he can’t handle vodka.
Airports are frustrating. The episode in leaving Georgia is only funny when the story is told... must have been awful to live through.
While Stalin’s portraits abound this seems to be an extreme bureaucracy and more than a police state. People speak to them freely and no one takes them aside to complain about the government. Outside of Moscow, besides being with their translator/guide/minder, there is no hint of their being watched. All the photos show well fed people, often well dressed and usually happy, but these were probably self-censored since Capa got all his photos back.
On the minus side, the prose, like most of the 1950’s travel literature, is stilted. For a short book, too much space is devoted to the strained relations between the writer and the photographer, and the two of them with their Russian minder. While the pictures are not labeled, they are placed appropriately. Sometimes it is hard to know what you are looking at. For instance the photo on p. 34 must be of Lenin Hills, but the vista hardly looks like Moscow which the Hills are said to overlook; the photo on p. 43 appears to be a fashion show or maybe a quality control examination of clothing. Other photos, such as the 4 portraits on 78-79 would be better in an art gallery than a travel book.
This book fills an important niche because so little exists on daily life in Russia just after the devastation of WW2. Like many plans, the idea originated in a bar by two artists with nothing to do, but unlike most bar-hatched ideas, this one was followed up on. ...more
I read this shortly after it came out. I was young and its content was daring. I re-read it this week with a lot more maturity and while I still laughI read this shortly after it came out. I was young and its content was daring. I re-read it this week with a lot more maturity and while I still laughed out loud, I had more understanding of the sadness behind the humor.
Earlier this year I re-read The Bell Jar which is a coming of age story for a female of this era (and also describes depression). I expect that Esther's story is accessible to those who did not experience the 1950's/60's.
"Portnoy" works well as a satire about Jewish American life with a focus on males coming of age at this time in the NYC area. Unlike the "Bell Jar" which holds up, I wonder how generation Xers and millennials would relate to Portnoy's story....more
When I first saw this title, I presumed it was about women who chose to disguise as men to avoid the degradation heaped upon women. No. This phenomenoWhen I first saw this title, I presumed it was about women who chose to disguise as men to avoid the degradation heaped upon women. No. This phenomenon, called bacha posh, is family strategy. In Afghanistan, not having boys is not only humiliating, it is a threat to the family's survival. Daughters will leave for their in-law's home. The son(s) and their new bride(s) will stay with the parents and take care of them. With women unable to work, lead or provide, the family's future depends on male progeny. Son-less families are shunned and discriminated against even before their future poverty begins.
Swedish Pulitzer Prize winner Jenny Nordberg tracks down the bacha posh families and shows the varied circumstances that go into this decision. One is poverty; a six daughter household needs money and relative will hire a boy so they all agree upon solution, dress the girl as a boy. As in the US, a politician needs picture book family (and without a boy a female politician would never be deemed fit for office). In another situation, a (son-less) first wife may have killed two of the second wife's male children so the older girl was dressed as a boy to be with a newborn male every moment. There is a wealthy family with a history of bacha posh with girls fighting invaders in each generation. In each circumstance cited the family rose in prestige due to the bacha posh and in most there was a smooth conversion to womanhood following puberty.
Nordberg digs deeper into the family dynamics. She shows the lives and emotions of the bacha posh, the effect on the parent's marriage, the relationships with siblings and the issues of coming of age. The families have very different situations, but all are stressed since limiting the options for women has limited their families. These powerful narratives show beyond this phenomena, the difficulties of living in a restrictive culture and a war zone.
Literature relating other work in Afghanistan (over 1000 NGOs are or have been working there) is cited to show the disconnect of the needs of the Afghan women and those "doing good" who have missed not only the bacha posh, but the real need for women - that of a functioning legal system. Human rights advocates and foreign aid workers deny and/or minimize the bacha bosh phenomenon.
Nordberg has found this custom to be common across history in societies where women have few options. She notes that while it was prevalent in Albania it fell quickly. The Afghanistan, war, poverty and flight of the educated people has entrenched the situation where women have no rights. As long as this remains, and the bacha poch stay underground (this requires complicity with extended family, teachers, etc.), and no outright persecution takes place, it should continue.
Of the millions of articles and billions of words that have been written about Afghanistan, should it be amazing that this has not been covered before; but, unfortunately, it is not. Is it a sign how little westerners know about the people with whom they are living side by side. It is interesting to me that the two most complete portraits of Afghan families that I know of (the other being the The Bookseller of Kabul) are by female Scandinavian writers....more
Pulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright describes the late 1980’s Panama awash in drugs and US dollars (military and CIA). He grafts a personaliPulitzer Prize winning author Lawrence Wright describes the late 1980’s Panama awash in drugs and US dollars (military and CIA). He grafts a personality on to the stone (pineapple to some) faced Dictator Manuel “Tony” Noriega as he holds power.
Tony as portrayed understands his predicament, and he is cynically prepared to do anything to stay in power. He must stay in power, because, ugly and deformed, he would never be respected without it. One sub-plot is that he is in love and thinks that money and power is all that holds the free spirited Carmen to him.
There is a parallel story to Tony’s and this is that of the nuncio who has been warned by the Vatican to stay out of politics. This is impossible because the nuncio has an idealist young priest on his staff and Tony wants to make contact. There are cameos for Oliver North and Pablo Escobar and a host of colorful characters like the deluded Roberto Diaz Herrera and brash General Honeycutt.
The thoughts of Tony and the dialog throughout had me turning pages.
I checked Wikipedia to see how much of this was true. I saw that Noreiga was interested in the occult and eastern religions as the author shows and that in jail he “found Jesus”. As I write this he is still alive in a Panama jail (he served his US time) and is suing Activision for its depiction of him in a videogame.
If you are a purist regarding historical fiction, this is not for you, but if you want a fast paced novel loaded with irony based on true events you will love it.
The big take away from this book is that there have been many studies and mounds of data but not much has been resolved on the mysteries of twins. WhaThe big take away from this book is that there have been many studies and mounds of data but not much has been resolved on the mysteries of twins. What correlates winds up challenged by the next study and politics hangs over this particular nature vs. nurture debate.
Wright presents many anecdotes (alludes to data that is not shown) of the twins raised apart. These point to genes as a determining factor in many things about their lives. Does this mean that all the efforts of parents, teachers and communities mean nothing? Is a life determined by genes?
Since this book is from 1998, I read it along with a well linked Wikipedia article. While there are now more tools for twin researchers, it's hard for the layman to spot what progress has been made. For instance, Wright states that it was not known when twinning actually occurs; the Wikipedia article, to a lay person, seems to give the how and when.
The most interesting part was the new to me concept of the vanishing twin. In 1998, the estimate was that 1 in 13 single births began as twins. The remains of the second embryo might be found in the placenta or as an implant in the surviving embryo or just disappear. According to Wikipedia, the number is now estimated as 1 in 8.
I would like to see an up to date edition of this book, with the actual data of the most significant studies....more
The result of David Kertzer’s research is that there is no longer reason to wonder about the Vatican’s position regarding Mussolini and the rise of FaThe result of David Kertzer’s research is that there is no longer reason to wonder about the Vatican’s position regarding Mussolini and the rise of Fascism. This well documented narrative tells how a very limited, backward looking, authoritarian Pope gave inches and then feet and miles in order, as he saw it, to protect the church.
There is plenty to show Pope Pius as an enabler to Mussolini. It begins his withdrawal of support for the Center Catholic Party which hobbled Mussolini’s strongest opposition and left its former members vulnerable. While anti-clerical Fascist thugs beat up priests, Pius complained to Mussolini about how women dress. The Pope condemned the Nazi takeover of Austria and the character of the Vienna’s archbishop who signed all of Hitler’s decrees (as Pope Pius had essentially done for Mussolini) only to soften his public comments and try to take them back. The Vatican was silent in the run up to the Racial Laws, and when they were on the horizon, the Pope tried to negotiate the weakest of all exceptions. It is emblematic that before his great speech where he would finally condemn Fascism, he died; years later, the speech was revealed to be as tepid as all that preceded it.
The Pope’s supporters might point to the Lateran Accords as an achievement, but Kertzer shows how this compromised the Church’s integrity and ended its high ground. Pius XI’s worst legacy may have been the elevation of those who would bend to his will. This led to the election of his successor, Eugenio Pacelli, sycophant to the end, who took the name Pius XII. This election thrilled Fascists and Nazis alike.
While it is not the focus of this book, King Victor Emmanuel similarly fails the Italian people. He signs every bill Mussolini gives him. When the Racial Laws go into effect, worried about his health, he has his Nazi son-in-law from Germany plead an exception for the his physician.
The author spent 7 years sifting through documents. I was surprised at the anti-Semitic statements in church newsletters and clerical speeches that surely had been available prior to the 2006 opening of the Vatican’s pre-war archives. The Author’s Note on the resources indicates how much information is there to mine. Hopefully someone will write on Mussolini’s surveillance system, organizational behavior in the Vatican and the rise of Pius XII for the general reader.
Kertzer has accomplished his goal (p. 411) of writing a book not only for experts, but also those who know little of this history. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this period....more
This year my "Reading Challenge" is to re-read 10 books to see how they hold up to my memory. There is quite a bit in this book that I forgot over 15 This year my "Reading Challenge" is to re-read 10 books to see how they hold up to my memory. There is quite a bit in this book that I forgot over 15 years.
If you asked me last week, I'd have told you it was about the use of rhetorical devices and how this style of oratory harkens back to the Greek tradition. I would not have remembered nor told you it shows how Lincoln recast the meaning of the war and fixed the Declaration of Independence as subordinate to Constitution (as noted in the title); nor would I have remembered how Wills shows the influence of the transcendentalists on Lincoln's thinking; nor would I have remembered much about the choice of venue.
Wills defines the founding generation's preference for Roman (a republic, fearful of the masses) imagery to the late nineteenth century's preference for Greek (a democracy with more suffrage) imagery. He shows the development of Lincoln's mood and thought through previous speeches and bits of Lincoln's poetry and a discussion of the (later) second Inaugural Address. There is quite a bit on the 19th century American experience of death (using the word "Victorian" only as an adjective for authors) and the cemetery movement.
I remembered that by not naming a person, the battlefield being dedicated or the battle fought there, "the North" or "the South" or any place, or even the Declaration of Independence which the oratory is about, he makes the piece timeless. By using nouns instead of referent pronouns he creates stirring images. By using of balance he makes it poetic. I did not remember how the war was recast in that "the great task before us" is not emancipation, but the perpetuation of self-government.
It's funny how the memory works. There are a few poems that Lincoln wrote and I did not remember any of them. Most of them are forgettable, but the poem on pp. 92-93 where Lincoln lays out his beliefs on race should not have been.
The contrast with oratory of its day is shown in the Appendix III in the speech delivered that same day by Pennsylvania Governor Everett. Also in Appendix III is an example of the Greek funeral oratory from which the style is derived.
Were I to have rated this book last week, I'd have given it 5 stars. While it is an important book and Wills brings a lot together, today I see it as a 4 star book. While the book is short and it is not pithy. The pieces on psychobiography and the section on the transcendental influence ramble....more
This year I am re-reading some favorite books to see how they match my memory. I read this one more than 30 years ago when I was living in Gettysburg.This year I am re-reading some favorite books to see how they match my memory. I read this one more than 30 years ago when I was living in Gettysburg.
Last week, I would have said that this was a story of the officers. It was who they were, how they thought and felt. After the re-read I see an equally powerful theme as the story of how the Confederate Army lost the battle (and the war) due to the chivalrous ideals of its general and a smaller but important theme as the conflicting reasons for fighting.
Lee disdained defensive warfare (i.e. digging trenches was unsoldierly). He relied on a Napoleonic offense (as in the poem: the “Charge of the Light Brigade”). He would not use spies (i.e. private contractors) and relied on his commanders to serve as scouts. The reader sees the culmination of this philosophy through the eyes of General Longstreet, who, over three blistering hot days, watches, and cannot stop, the devastation to come.
The author shows how some saw the war as an extension of the Revolution. A British southern sympathizer sees the plantation aristocracy as being right at home in England… they would love Queen Victoria, he thinks. Colonel Chamberlain of the Maine Volunteers sees the vast country open for free men, no kings, queens or aristocracy. One of Chamberlain’s soldiers, the Irishman, Kilrain, speculates that if the war is lost there will be three competing countries, north, south and the west with no peace in the future. Tom Chamberlain (a citizen soldier and brother to the colonel) observes that, despite all the “political fast talking” … “if there weren’t slaves there never have been no war”.
The description of the battle is stirring: how it looked, felt, and sounded as the two armies faced each other; the futility of General Armistead’s breach of the wall; the litter of spent bodies, body parts and horses and the contemplation of General Longstreet and Colonel Chamberlain before and after it. Ironically, the horror is recounted in beautiful prose.
I remembered this book as the best fiction I had read. Since that time, many more books and distance from the Battlefield (which I once saw every day) it is still up there, maybe not the top, but still very high. It is gripping, thought provoking and remains a must read for both Civil War buffs and serious historians.
Many years after leaving Gettysburg (and not long ago), I learned that Pickett’s Charge, where two white armies fought over slavery, took place on the land owned by a free Black man. In a town where people debated the number of blue and gray casualties in the peach orchard, discussed the position of the bodies at Devils Den (before they were moved to stage photographs) and other arcane bits of what happened in 1863, this never came up. ...more
In the first part of the book the reader gets not only a biography but a description of life in post-Revolutionary America up to the Civil War. ThrougIn the first part of the book the reader gets not only a biography but a description of life in post-Revolutionary America up to the Civil War. Through the life of Henry Beecher we get a look at how Calvinism of the period infused a pious household and how the Great Awakening played out in that clerical family.
The author's presentation of the country's social and intellectual changes through the life of Henry Beecher is a fascinating read. We see how the times forced the severe Lyman's move to Boston. The anti-Catholicism he preaches comes back to haunt him when his church burns and liquor bottles burst in its basement. The incident graphically illustrates that a clerical collar no longer brings deference and why.
Applegate provides exceptional and very readable documentation of how Henry was schooled in his father's narrow mindedness and taught the opposite of self esteem. The author says Beecher had great parental love, but as one of 12 children, but how many minutes in a week could have been bestowed on this young and seemingly unexceptional child, particularly upon the arrival of a morose stepmother producing her own offspring? (Among Henry's siblings there are 2 suicides.) Childhoods such as Henry's provide the empathy common to many who advocate for those in trouble as well as produce untidy lives. Henry, longing to please his stern father, developed people skills, perhaps by observing his sermons, his opinion morphing and his control of others. You can extrapolate that Henry's talent for getting people to love/follow/support (politically and financially) him was an adaptation necessary to his psyche. The author credits it as essential to the anti-slavery movement.
We follow Henry's pathetic 7 year courtship of the even more emotionally deprived Eunice to a hardscrabble life in Indiana where the author documents the consequences of any anti-slavery whiff. Henry is discovered for promotions to Indianapolis, pop. 3,000 and then to NYC where SoHo is still a suburb. We see how pro-slavery fanaticism of the South and appeasement of the northern politicians outraged the general public in the North. It made anti-slavery more generally more acceptable in the North and in particular Henry's circles. Henry knew how to articulate it, and how far his audience was able to go with him on it. We see Henry as a man of this times and a product of them too.
There's a different tone when it gets to the consequences of Beecher's untidy life. This part is like a different book. It's mostly a report on the moves of the accusers and defenders and descriptions of hearings and trials. There is little analysis or historical context. Yes, we see Mark Twain, the woman's suffrage movement and hear of Grant's scandals, but they are the backdrop and not wound into the story.
The book is a great work of scholarship throughout. The pre-Civil War and War parts deserve 6 or 7 stars, for weaving Henry's saga into the times. The 100 or so pages at the end, which show thorough research, do not have the analysis equal to the previous standard. I would have liked to see the allegations and trial parts significantly cut and the resulting space devoted to the social and political context of the times. For this reason, I gave 4 stars and not 5....more
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