Tag: 19th century

Day 281: Gilead

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Cover for GileadBest Book of the Week!
Gilead is the novel that precedes Marilynne Robinson’s Home, although it is set in the same time frame and covers some of the same territory. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

John Ames is an elderly Congregationalist minister in 1956 who believes he is dying. He has a much younger wife and young son, a surprising blessing in his old age. The novel is in the form of a diary addressed to his son in the expectation that he will not live long enough to personally pass on his family history and advice.

Ames lives in Gilead, a small Iowa town on the prairie near the border with Kansas. The town was founded by abolitionists during the Free State wars in Kansas as a refuge for slaves and fighters the likes of John Brown. Ames’ grandfather, also a minister of the warrior-for-God ilk, had visions of God and once preached a sermon in a bloody shirt with a gun in his belt. With that upbringing, his son was naturally a pacifist, who left the church for awhile after that sermon to worship with the Quakers. One of Ames’ most powerful memories is of the journey he made with his father to Kansas, in terrible conditions, to retrieve the body of his grandfather, who had returned there.

Although Gilead is certainly about the history of the town–the wars, the Depression, the Dust Bowl years–it is more about the relationship between fathers and sons, both from the secular and religious points of view. Not only does it explore the relationships within Ames’ own family, but it also looks at that between Ames and the son of his best friend the Presbyterian minister–Ames’ surrogate son–John Ames Boughton.

The story of John Ames Boughton is the one more thoroughly explored in the sequel Home, although interestingly enough, Gilead tells Boughton’s story more explicitly, while Home, narrated by Boughton’s sister Glory, only hints at some of the facts.

The novel, a celebration of life and faith, is beautifully written and full of ideas to ponder. That being said, as I do not particularly have a religious background or bent, I did not fully understand some of the narrator’s ideas and preoccupations. I found Home, although told from the point of view of the same goodness and piety, a more accessible novel than Gilead.

Day 274: Red Water

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Cover for Red WaterBest Book of the Week!
I read this book on the recommendation of friend Dave Palmer. Thanks, Dave!

In Red Water Judith Freeman has accomplished something difficult–created characters whose beliefs I have no sympathy for, and who I’m not sure I even like, and made me want to read about them.

The novel is about the aftermath of the Mountain Meadows massacre of 1857, when 120 Arkansas emigrants on their way to California were slaughtered in southwestern Utah. This event is one for which the Church of Latter-Day Saints has never to this day admitted responsibility. In particular, this novel is about John D. Lee, the Mormon bishop who was eventually hanged for his part in the event, from the points of view of three of his wives.

Red Water begins with Lee’s execution in 1877, as Emma Lee looks back at her conversion to the religion in England, journey to Utah, and acceptance of Lee as a husband. Although he is twice her age and she will be his eighth wife, he is charismatic and commanding, and she marries for love.

Once she arrives in southwestern Utah, a barren and harsh landscape, she begins to hear things that disturb her. The initial version she is told of the massacre is that the settlers were slaughtered by Indians. But Lee has their stock in with his, and the settlement has a room stuffed with men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, some of it badly stained. Other versions of the story come out, ones that point the finger partially, or wholly, at the Mormon men, some alleging her husband was a leader. But Emma feels she must trust her husband.

Emma finds she has other hardships. She is not Lee’s eighth but seventeenth wife, although the other nine have left him. There is jealousy among some of the remaining wives. Lee’s families are so far-flung that Emma often goes days without seeing him. The land is bleak and unforgiving, and the work is hard. But Emma decides to face every hardship cheerfully.

Ann is Lee’s child bride, married to him at the age of 13 shortly after his marriage to Emma. Her narrative begins after Lee’s death as well, when she has long been separated from the family. On a pursuit of a horse thief from Idaho to southern Utah, she finds herself back in Lee’s old territory and reflects upon her life with him.

Ann marries Lee to keep her mother, who has lost faith and criticized the Mormons, under Lee’s protection. Despite their age difference, she is also attracted to him. After an initial rough start with Emma, the two became the closest of friends.

However, by the time Brigham Young sends Lee away from the southern settlements that he helped found and banishes him from the order as a scapegoat for the massacre, Ann has made some disillusioning discoveries and decides that Lee’s driving forces are greed and the pursuit of power. She leaves the family to wander on her own, often dressed as a boy.

Once Lee is thrown off by the Mormons, Emma and Rachel keep faith with him, but only Rachel willingly shares his prison. Her narrative is the last. As an old, bitter woman, she fights to survive in a remote area of northern Arizona where Lee has sent her.

This novel is fascinating for the details of the characters’ beliefs and the hard lives that they must live in settling these wild parts of the country. I also find fascinating the ability of men to rationalize as the will of god whatever foul or greedy things they want to do. Freeman’s portrayal of her characters, however, is amazingly unjudgmental and perceptive.

On a side note, for those who are interested in this subject, an excellent nonfiction source about modern fundamentalists, whose beliefs and rationalizations are strikingly similar to those depicted in this novel, is Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.

Day 272: Moby Dick or, The Whale

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Cover for Moby DickThose who know me well will be surprised to see me reviewing this book, because one of my stories is of my horror, when first trying to read it, to find an entire chapter about one rope. At that point, Moby Dick became the first book I ever stopped reading. However, I got interested in trying it again by listening to the Moby Dick Big Read. I listened to the beginning chapters and finally picked up a copy to finish it.

The plot, of course, is about the sailor Ishmael, who decides to go whaling for the first time, the people he meets, and his experiences–and about the obsession of his captain, Ahab, to kill the whale that took his leg.

Moby Dick is not for everyone. The novel is not simply an adventure tale about whaling but also a dissertation on whaling history, a series of philosophical essays, an explication on types of whales, on the different parts of a whale, on pieces of whaling equipment (hence, the chapter on the rope), even a musing on the color white.

The novel also has a sort of schizophrenic narration, starting out as first-person limited from the point of view of Ishmael, but then at other times taking the point of view of Ahab. The writing style rips back and forth from simple story telling to a kind of heightened, bombastic oratory. Characters do not so much speak as give speeches.

The novel is immense, but it is meant to be immense–the way Melville saw America and its possibilities. I have over the years read different interpretations of this work (the whale as a symbol of evil, etc.), but one that strikes a chord with me is that it is a reflection on some of the American political ideas of the time, particularly Manifest Destiny. While seeming to admire the grandiosity of such ideas, Melville is, with one whaling story, also warning of their possible effects and ramifications.

I can see why some academics have devoted their careers to this work, because it can be endlessly examined and interpreted. I finished reading it this time, but I can frankly admit that it is still a bit too much for me and is probably better suited for someone who is more contemplative in his or her reading.

Day 271: The Abyssinian Proof

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Cover for The Abyssinian ProofIn 19th century Istanbul, the magistrate Kamil Pasha  is assigned to find out who is stealing valuable relics throughout the city and selling them to London. He is instructed to find the relics and bring them back to where they belong. One of the relics is contained in a reliquary that has been guarded since the last days of the Byzantine Empire by a sect of Abyssinian descent called the Melisites. The relic is called the Proof of God.

Kamil is an upright and dedicated civil servant. While he is investigating, he learns about the history and beliefs of an odd group of people, the descendents of Abyssinian slaves who live in an abandoned cistern and are part of the city’s underworld.

In pursuit of the relic thieves and in investigation of some apparently related murders, we follow Kamil through the subterranean passages under Istanbul.

Kamil is also attracted to Elia, a refugee artist who lives in his sister’s house. Elia has suffered terribly, though, and is not really prepared to pursue more than friendship.

As with Barbara Nadel’s more modern Turkish mysteries, I find novels set in this exotic locale interesting, and the history presented in The Abyssinian Proof is fascinating. Sometimes, I wish that Kamil Pasha wasn’t quite such a serious man, however.

Day 264: The Ballad of Tom Dooley

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Cover for The Ballad of Tom DooleySharyn McCrumb has written several series of light mysteries, some better than others. I have usually enjoyed her “ballad” series–atmospheric, sometimes ghostly mysteries set in Appalachia and each named after a traditional folk ballad. The Ballad of Tom Dooley, despite a background of historical research (because this folk ballad is based on a true case), is not her best, however.

According to McCrumb’s notes at the end of the novel, she got interested in the story after researching it for an article and decided that the prevailing theories of the crime are not satisfying. So, she reconstructed her theory of the crime in this book. As such, it is not so much a mystery as an explication.

Most people vaguely know the story, that Tom Dooley (actually Dula) met Laura Foster “on the mountain/stabbed her with [his] knife.” Another defendant, Ann Melton, was let go. But McCrumb says most people in Wilkes County, where the crime occurred, will tell you Ann did it. To McCrumb, knowing that Ann was Tom’s long-time married lover, Tom being guilty didn’t make sense.

The novel is narrated by two characters who were actually involved in the incident: Pauline Foster, who was Ann Melton’s cousin and servant girl; and Zebulon Vance, the ex-governor and senator of pre-Civil War North Carolina who defended Tom. Pauline is an interesting character–McCrumb depicts her as a sociopath who manipulates the others and wants revenge for Ann’s slights.

The biggest fault in the novel is the narration of Zebulon Vance. At first, I thought McCrumb’s intent was to depict him as a maundering old bore, possibly even senile, as his section is so repetitive and adds so little to the narrative. It is mostly about himself and has little to do with the story. But then I read that Vance’s career was one reason McCrumb wanted to do the story. Instead of adding to it, it detracts from and drags against the impetus of the plot.

The fact is that none of the characters are likable people, and the crime isn’t particularly interesting. From the author of some haunting stories, this novel is a disappointment. If McCrumb wanted to write about Vance, she may have done better to write a biography.

Day 262: River of Smoke

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Cover for River of SmokeA month or two ago I reviewed Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh’s riveting first book in his Ibis trilogy. I have been waiting since then for a good opportunity to post my review of River of Smoke, the second book in the trilogy.

The various passengers and crew members of the Ibis have been separated and now several of them travel toward China on three different ships. Paulette Lambert has been taken on the Redruth by Filcher Penrose, a nursery man for a major botanical garden who hopes to exchange New World plants for those of China. He has hired Paulette, whose father was a renowned botanist, to help take care of the plants.

En route to China with a shipment of opium, the merchant Bahram Moddie, Ah Fat’s father, takes on the disgraced Raja Neel as a munshi, or clerk. Neel travels on the Anahita to Canton in Bahram’s entourage under the name of Anil Kumar.

The Ibis, now containing the owner Benjamin Burnham, is also on the way to Canton.

In Macao, Paulette meets a friend from her childhood, Robin Chinnery, the unacknowledged illegitimate son of a famous painter. As a woman, Paulette is not allowed into Canton. She can only go as far as Hong Kong, then a desolate, almost uninhabited island, where she searches for plants. But Robin goes on to Canton with a mission to try to find out for her and Penrose who painted a picture of a golden camellia and possibly to trade for such a plant.

Robin is in town during the unsettled days before the beginning of the Opium Wars, when the Chinese Emperor is trying to halt the opium trade into China, while the opium traders are purposefully trying to instigate war so that they can call for the intervention of the British navy. Robin’s entertaining letters to Paulette keep us informed about the political debate as he is befriended by Charles King, the only merchant of stature who believes China is in the right.

Bahram Moddie, a well-meaning man who loves Canton on sight, has unfortunately invested his entire fortune in this shipment of opium. He is caught between his conscience and his need to be successful as the Chinese government tries to keep the foreign ships at bay.

As rich in language and storytelling as the first book, this novel is completely engrossing, showing the American and British opium dealers as the venal, hypocritical men they are, with their self-serving arguments about Free Trade and their arrogant disdain for their Chinese hosts. I’m afraid it may be two or three years of waiting before I can read the final book in the trilogy.

Day 260: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

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Cover for Team of RivalsBest Book of the Week!

Doris Kearns Goodwin begins her examination of Lincoln’s administration by remarking that because so much has been written about him, everything might be thought to have been said. However, by examining his career in terms of the team he put together to run the country, she found much more to write about.

This team consisted of his rivals in politics. Edwin Stanton, who treated Lincoln with contempt on their first meeting and who Lincoln made Secretary of War, was griefstricken at Lincoln’s death. Salmon P. Chase, eternally Lincoln’s rival for the presidency and a frequent undercutter, was an extremely competent Secretary of the Treasury. William H. Seward, the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination that Lincoln won, was at first inclined to underestimate Lincoln but became his closest friend and advisor as Secretary of State. Edward Bates, the Attorney General, was a homebody who was not sure he wanted a public life and at first looked upon Lincoln as well-meaning but incompetent, but ended up thinking he was very nearly perfect.

Team of Rivals begins on the day of the Republican convention of 1860, in which, of the rivals who had some expectation of winning the nomination of the party, Lincoln would seem to have the least. Seward was the odds-on favorite, but he had made many enemies in the party. Chase’s overwhelming ambition for the presidency lead him on several occasions to ignore the warning signs that he would not be the nominee. Bates was willing to act if nominated but made no extraordinary efforts because he preferred his home life.

Goodwin’s narrative then turns farther into the past to trace the men’s respective careers. In this examination she shows how Lincoln cleverly set himself up to be everyone’s second choice for the Republican nomination.

The book follows Lincoln’s nomination, campaign, and stunning victory, but the bulk of it concerns the compelling story of how he put together a cabinet containing these men, who were not only rivals for the office but who were from different regions of the country and who had different views on the important issues of the day. He then managed to work with these men and run the country during one of its most difficult times. It was frequently rumored that Seward actually held the power, but Goodwin shows us that Lincoln was always in charge.

Through an examination of the diaries of the men, letters, and other sources, Goodwin provides us with the fascinating details of political machinations, the conduct of the war, the fights among the generals, the alliances and friendships, and the story of how several men, who began with no esteem of Lincoln at all, grew to respect and love him.

Goodwin’s book is one of the most absorbing history books I have read. Although it is long and takes awhile to read, it explains each issue in completely lucid terms and interesting detail. The most important thing I got from the book was a fuller understanding of Lincoln’s greatness, his humor, kindness, and magnanimity–and what a disaster for the country his death was.

Day 257: Galore

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Cover for GaloreA whale comes ashore at the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, Newfoundland, in the early 19th century. The people, who have been starving all winter, come out to scavenge what they can of the meat. When Devine’s Widow, an old Irish “wise woman,” cuts open the belly of the whale, a man falls out, pale as an albino, mute, but still alive. Although he stinks like a fish, the Devine clan gives him room in a shed and calls him Judah. Nevertheless, he is treated with dread and superstition until he goes out fishing one day with Colum Devine and they take a huge load of fish in waters that have been barren that season.

The Devines have been at odds with the powerful King-Me Sellers since he proposed marriage to a young Irish bondswoman years ago and she refused him rudely, then went off to marry Devine, practically the first young man she met. Their relationship was not improved years later when King-Me’s daughter Lizzy married Colum Devine.

When King-Me’s spite turns against Judah, the only way the Devines can save him is by marrying him to Mary Trephyna Devine, Colum and Lizzy’s daughter and King-Me’s granddaughter.

Michael Crummey’s multigenerational novel captures the relationships between these two families along with the history of the town, with all its eccentric characters, ghost stories, myths, and tall tales. The novel is fascinating, unusual, and beautifully written. I don’t usually enjoy magical realism, but in this novel it is handled so well that I accepted it and was engrossed in the story. Galore is probably unlike any novel you are going to read, although in its focus on a sea-going people and its occasional feel of a sea tale, it reminds me a bit of We, the Drowned  by Carsten Jensen.

Day 241: True Grit

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Cover for True GritBest Book of the Week!
After the Coen brothers version of True Grit came out a couple of years ago, I became curious about the book. If you have seen that version of the movie, it is almost identical to the book and is much more faithful to it than the version from 1969 starring John Wayne.

For those who are not familiar with the plot, 14-year-old Mattie Ross travels into Indian Territory intending to track down her father’s murderer, Tom Chaney, a hired man who killed Mr. Ross for his extra horse. She looks for the U.S. marshall with the most grit and is pointed to the drunken Rooster Cogburn, who is reluctant to take on the job. She also meets a Texas Ranger named LaBeouf who is after Chaney for the murder of a Texas judge. Mattie is determined that the villain will hang for the murder of her father.

What makes True Grit unusual is the portrait of Mattie through her own words. She is indeed a unique character in fiction, scrappy, opinionated, tight with her money, not to be cheated, not to be turned from her self-imposed task, and tough as nails. Her narration drags us into the story and won’t let us go until it is over. This will be a quick read, because you won’t be able to put the book down.

The characters also speak in a stylized way using old-fashioned dialect that seems oddly formal and elaborate to our ears. It is expertly reproduced in the more recent movie.

If I can combine a book review and movie reviews, I have to say, “Sorry, John Wayne fans.” The Coen brothers movie starring Jeff Bridges is much better. I rented the 1969 version shortly after seeing the other movie and was surprised to see the contrast. Not only has the 1969 version been bowdlerized a bit, but the difference lies principally in the atmosphere created and the acting. The older movie is shot in standard western territory, probably in the hills of California, while the newer one is shot in a bleak landscape that makes us feel the danger and solitude.

As far as acting is concerned, Glenn Campbell as LaBeouf is pathetic as an actor, stiff and awkward. LaBeouf in the more recent version is played by Matt Damon, and I didn’t even recognize him for quite some time, so much does he submerge himself in his role. Although years ago I thought Kim Darby was good as Mattie, Hailee Steinfeld, acting at a younger age, is amazing. The older movie also minimizes but still fails to carry off the unusual style of dialog, coming off as stilted, whereas the newer movie embraces it.

Day 237: Neverland: J.M. Barrie, the du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan

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Cover for NeverlandDuring the past year I read Margaret Forsters’ biography of Daphne du Maurier, and I find that Neverland makes a fascinating contrast with it. Piers Dudgeon traces the history of the du Maurier family and speculates how their relationships with J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, adversely affected them. Several members of the family were indeed disturbed, but the question is, how much, if anything, did that have to do with Barrie?

Dudgeon paints Barrie as a sociopath without exactly calling him one. Barrie grew up unloved by his hypochondriac mother, who took to her bed with the death at fourteen of her favorite son David. Barrie was six at the time and was never able to attract much of her attention, even resorting to dressing up as his brother and imitating him to try to get her to love him. This behavior is indeed bizarre, but Dudgeon makes the first leap by alleging that Barrie must have somehow caused his brother’s death to have been so neglected.

The early life of George du Maurier is not similarly examined (George being Daphne du Maurier’s grandfather); instead, Dudgeon zeroes in on du Maurier’s experiences as a young bohemian in Paris. Du Maurier is best known as the author of Trilby, a novel in which Svengali takes over the life of a young woman by means of hypnosis and eventually ruins her. This novel is based at least in part on the experiments of du Maurier and a group of friends during which they repeatedly hypnotized a young artist’s model. Du Maurier apparently regretted this episode in later life, although he did not give up “mesmerism,” and what he called “dreaming true” (self-hypnosis) until he married, and he later returned to his experiments.

Dudgeon uses this background to weave the theory that Barrie–who admired du Maurier’s first book, Peter Ibbetson, a story about a man who can escape the bounds of space and time by “dreaming true”–was somehow rejected by du Maurier and took his revenge by purposefully befriending and dominating members of du Maurier’s family, causing changes in their behavior. There is actually no proof that du Maurier and Barrie ever met, although Barrie certainly befriended Sylvia Llewellyn Davies, George’s daughter, and her children. It is also clear that he “stole” her children. Both Sylvia and her husband Arthur died when the boys were quite young, and Barrie copied the letter that Sylvia wrote during her last illness requesting the children’s nanny and her sister Jenny to take charge of the children, changing “Jenny” to “Jimmy,” and thereby co-opting the children. Oddly, none of the du Mauriers seems to have objected to that, to which Dudgeon ascribes more sinister goings-on. Of those boys, only one seemed not to be at all disturbed by their upbringing with Barrie.

Modern minds will think sexual abuse, of which there are indeed some indications, but Dudgeon thinks Satanism, if that’s not an exaggeration. And here we get to Peter Pan, who was not intended to be everyone’s picture of innocent, irresponsible boyhood, but who Barrie intended to be a villain, a Pan or “demon boy” figure, a pixie who stole other people’s children, who hated mothers, and who killed without compunction. Barrie was good at hiding the antisocial nature of his work behind saccharine sentiments, but this depiction is indeed what he intended, and Dudgeon of course sees Peter Pan as a self portrait of Barrie.

Dudgeon presents a great deal of information about the various fates of the Llewellyn Davies boys, but he spends his final chapters on Daphne du Maurier, their cousin. Margaret Forster’s view is that du Maurier’s tendencies toward homosexuality (borne out by some affairs and statements by du Maurier herself) and possible affair with her own father colored her life and affected her relationships with her husband and children–that and an appalling degree of selfishness. But Dudgeon doesn’t think she was homosexual at all. He believes that she and her father Gerald, a well-known actor who appeared in several Barrie plays, were so overshadowed by Barrie that her “demon boy” self came out in adolescence and dominated most of her life, until she suffered a breakdown in her 50’s.

I am not criticizing this book for lack of interest–it is indeed engrossing. But Dudgeon hangs a great deal too much of his tale on the assumption that most of Barrie’s and both the du Mauriers’ writings were autobiographical in some way. Even if they were, many of the quoted passages can be interpreted in more than one way. Barrie’s submersion of the children into a fantasy life certainly doesn’t seem to have been good for them, and as I said before, there is some indication in his own writings of the possibility of child sexual abuse, but I don’t know what else can be said with authority.