When I reviewed Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far from a Madding Crowd (see my review of 1/26/2015), I asked the question, “Can anybody write better prose…” Well, Willa Cather’s 1913 novel comes close. Here are some samples: The crazy Norwegian, Ivar, who lived like a hobbit in the Nebraska hillside, is described as, “He was a queerly shaped old man, with a thick, powerful body set on short bow-legs. His shaggy white hair, falling in a thick mane about his ruddy cheeks, made him look older than he was.” How about a boy swinging his scythe (that’s how they cut the grass in those days) in a graveyard, “He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight as a young pine tree, with a handsome head, and stormy gray eyes, deeply set under a serious brow. The space between his two front teeth, which were unusually far apart..” or, “Milly was fifteen, fat and jolly and pompadoured, with creamy complexion, square white teeth, and a short upper lip.” or, two woman, Marie and Alexandra, talking to each other outdoors on a sunny day, “They made a pretty picture in the strong sunlight, the leafy pattern surrounding them like a net; the Swedish woman so white and gold, kindly and amused, but armored in calm, and the alert brown one, her full lips parted, points of yellow light dancing in her eyes as she laughed and chattered.” Okay, so now you know Willa could write.
Thomas Hardy’s above mentioned novel and Willa Cather’s novel share a similar plot. Both protagonists inherit a farm, Thomas Hardy’s Bathsheba from her uncle in the late 1800s England, and Alexandra from her father in turn of the 20th century Nebraska. The Nebraska area was populated with many recent immigrants; mostly Swedish, Norwegian, German, Bohemian and French trying their hand as first time farmers. Droughts and poor soil resulted in crop failure for most of them. Our heroine, Alexandra Bergson (about 12 years old at the time) promises her dying dad that she will not lose the farm, and, in fact, will find ways to make it highly successful. Her two older brothers, Lou and Oscar, want to give up and leave the area. Alexandra’s younger brother, Emil is on her side. Alexandra talks the boys into mortgaging the farm to buy up more land in hopes that the land will eventually become valuable...making them wealthy landowners. As the years and tears go by, Alexandra has made a success of the farm. Alexandra gives Lou and Oscar their own land and sends Emil to college. Life is good, but Alexandra is lonely. Her sorta boyfriend, Carl Linstrum, had to move with his family many years ago to St. Louis, because his father got a job in a cigar factory. Carl, now 35 years old, returns to visit Alexandra, but Lou and Oscar see him as a charlatan wanting to weasel Alexandra out of her money. Is it true? Or is it really Lou and Oscar who want her land?
Willa Cather treats the two romances in the novel almost as sidebar events. I never saw them coming until just before they developed. The courting of Alexandra by Carl almost never happened since he moved away so long ago and was on his way to Alaska to gold pan when he decided to visit Alexandra. He was fifteen years old when he left with his family to St. Louis and now he was thirty five. He only wanted to stay overnight, but Alexandra stretched-out his stay for months. The neighbors started talking and the two older boys objected to his continued sojourn. They eventually forced him out of town. Will Carl and Alexandra be reunited in the future? The second romance between Alexandra’s youngest son, Emil, and Marie Shabata (nee Tovesky) was purely on the sly since Marie was married. I didn’t anticipate the results of the romances... were they going to be tragic, hopeful, or a combination thereof? Throughout the novel, Willa Cather had a way of hiding things from the reader... then she would turn the crank on the jack-in-the-box and something unexpected would pop out. This is not your typical cowboys and indians novel like the ones that were typically being written by authors like Zane Grey or Owen Wister. Did Willa Cather title her novel after Walt Whitman’s poem, Pioneers! O Pioneers! (yes, she did), first published in 1865 in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass? Yes, it was the days of Horace Greeley’s Go West Young Man, let the Manifest Destiny start.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: From the introduction and notes by Chris Kraus:
Considered one of the great figures of early-twentieth-century American literature, Willa Cather derived her inspiration from the American Midwest, which she considered her home. Never married, she cherished her many friendships, some of which she had maintained since childhood. Her intimate coterie of women writers and artists motivated Cather to produce some of her best work. Sarah Orne Jewett, a successful author from Maine whom Cather had met during her McClure’s years, inspired her to devote herself full-time to creating literature and to write about her childhood, which she did in several novels of the prairies; one of the best known is O Pioneers! (1913), whose title comes from a poem by Walt Whitman. A critic of the rise of materialism, Cather addressed the social impact of the developing industrial age in A Lost Lady (1923) which was made into a film starring Barbara Stanwyck. For One of Ours (1922), a novel about World War I, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.
On April / 24 /1947 Willa Cather dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in her Madison Avenue apartment in New York City. She is buried in New Hampshire. She was 74 years old.
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Monday, September 17, 2018
Hillbilly Elegy
This is a long dissertation on what it’s like to be a poor white living in a Rust Belt town in Appalachian Kentucky. This somewhat boring (although funny and sad at times) memoir by J. D. Vance shifts back and forth from his family’s original homestead in Breathitt County, Kentucky to the move north to Middletown, Ohio, where they will try to improve their family’s social position. But as you will find out...that’s not an easy task. The average person calls the people of Scots-Irish descent hillbillies, rednecks or white trash. And the name calling is mostly justified. By author J. D. Vance’s own admission, “We do not like outsiders or people who are different from us, whether the difference lies in how they look, how they act, or, most important, how they talk. To understand me, you must understand that I am a Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart.”
First of all, I should have told you that this entire book is narrated by J. D. Vance. Tediously, he will tell the reader how he rose above his childhood, did a tour with the U.S. Marine Corps, graduated college at Ohio State and later graduated with a law degree from Yale University. After all these accomplishments, he will remind the reader that he is still a hillbilly and proud of it! And he doesn’t sugar coat his youth. “The fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups - some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are - suggest something else is going on. Indeed it is.” They have too many problems for me to enumerate in this review...go get your own copy. Further on, Vance says, “It’s about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.” This Vance guy talks like a lawyer (Haha).
Vance further states that one hillbilly problem is: “Too many young men immune to hard work.” Author Vance, himself, wasn’t immune to work, but his poor upbringing was his albatross. Living at many different addresses (since his mother was married five times) coupled with his mom’s drug addiction didn’t give Vance a firm base to start life. Luckily, he had grandparents that he could go to for solace and housing in between mom’s bouts with drugs. He lovingly calls them papaw and mamaw throughout the book. During that part of his life, he says,”I earned my first bloody nose at five and my first black eye at six. Each of these fights began after someone insulted my mother. Mother jokes were never allowed, and grandmother jokes earned the harshest punishment that my little fist could administer.” The hillbilly rule is that it’s okay to start a fight...only if a man insults your family. This last rule was unspoken but clear.”
Family arguments usually depended on who Vance’s mom was married to at the time, “Mom and Bob’s (husband number ?) problems were my first introduction to marital conflict resolution. Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if a fight gets a little too intense, it’s okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn’t hit first; always express your feelings in a way that’s insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don’t tell your spouse where to find you…” Is that priceless advise or what? Vance talking (in general) about hillbillies, “Why didn’t our neighbor leave that abusive man. Why did she spend money on drugs? Why couldn’t she see that her behavior was destroying her daughter? Why were all of these things happening not just to our neighbor but to my mom? It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America.”
The fact that J. D. Vance admits (in the above statement) that the book to understand the plight of the hillbilly hasn’t been written yet is the reason why I really got nothing out of reading this book. Listen, I know that it topped the New York Times bestseller list for a long time (8/2016 - 1/2017) and that there are over 11,500 reviews on Amazon, but there’s nothing to learn from reading this book. Vance sums up hillbilly life: “Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. In stability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.” That’s the answer?? He further says, “How much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions, and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our parents who have failed their children? How much is mom’s life her own fault? Where does blame stop and Sympathy begin?”
I will leave you with a funny parable Mamaw told a young Vance: A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me”. A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man’s home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me.” A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof-his entire home flooded-a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: “You promised that you’d help me so long as I was faithful.” God replied, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault.” God helps those who help themselves. This was the wisdom of the Book of Mamaw.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: I really wanted to give this book three and a half stars, but Amazon only accepts whole numbers and this book was better than a three...thus the four star rating.
I’m really not a memoir reader. I just knew this book was a big seller and decided to read it without doing any homework on it’s subject matter.
The only memoirs I liked were: Lauren Bacall by Myself (published in 1978) and WIRED: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward in 1984 (which really wasn’t a memoir).
And if I’m having trouble sleeping, all I have to do is start reading Jon Meacham’s 2008 book American Lion, the story of our 7th president, Andrew Jackson. I’m falling asleep just thinking about it...zzzz.
First of all, I should have told you that this entire book is narrated by J. D. Vance. Tediously, he will tell the reader how he rose above his childhood, did a tour with the U.S. Marine Corps, graduated college at Ohio State and later graduated with a law degree from Yale University. After all these accomplishments, he will remind the reader that he is still a hillbilly and proud of it! And he doesn’t sugar coat his youth. “The fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups - some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are - suggest something else is going on. Indeed it is.” They have too many problems for me to enumerate in this review...go get your own copy. Further on, Vance says, “It’s about reacting to bad circumstances in the worst way possible. It’s about a culture that increasingly encourages social decay instead of counteracting it.” This Vance guy talks like a lawyer (Haha).
Vance further states that one hillbilly problem is: “Too many young men immune to hard work.” Author Vance, himself, wasn’t immune to work, but his poor upbringing was his albatross. Living at many different addresses (since his mother was married five times) coupled with his mom’s drug addiction didn’t give Vance a firm base to start life. Luckily, he had grandparents that he could go to for solace and housing in between mom’s bouts with drugs. He lovingly calls them papaw and mamaw throughout the book. During that part of his life, he says,”I earned my first bloody nose at five and my first black eye at six. Each of these fights began after someone insulted my mother. Mother jokes were never allowed, and grandmother jokes earned the harshest punishment that my little fist could administer.” The hillbilly rule is that it’s okay to start a fight...only if a man insults your family. This last rule was unspoken but clear.”
Family arguments usually depended on who Vance’s mom was married to at the time, “Mom and Bob’s (husband number ?) problems were my first introduction to marital conflict resolution. Here were the takeaways: Never speak at a reasonable volume when screaming will do; if a fight gets a little too intense, it’s okay to slap and punch, so long as the man doesn’t hit first; always express your feelings in a way that’s insulting and hurtful to your partner; if all else fails, take the kids and the dog to a local motel, and don’t tell your spouse where to find you…” Is that priceless advise or what? Vance talking (in general) about hillbillies, “Why didn’t our neighbor leave that abusive man. Why did she spend money on drugs? Why couldn’t she see that her behavior was destroying her daughter? Why were all of these things happening not just to our neighbor but to my mom? It would be years before I learned that no single book, or expert, or field could fully explain the problems of hillbillies in modern America.”
The fact that J. D. Vance admits (in the above statement) that the book to understand the plight of the hillbilly hasn’t been written yet is the reason why I really got nothing out of reading this book. Listen, I know that it topped the New York Times bestseller list for a long time (8/2016 - 1/2017) and that there are over 11,500 reviews on Amazon, but there’s nothing to learn from reading this book. Vance sums up hillbilly life: “Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. In stability begets instability. Welcome to family life for the American hillbilly.” That’s the answer?? He further says, “How much of our lives, good and bad, should we credit to our personal decisions, and how much is just the inheritance of our culture, our families, and our parents who have failed their children? How much is mom’s life her own fault? Where does blame stop and Sympathy begin?”
I will leave you with a funny parable Mamaw told a young Vance: A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to his door offering a ride to higher ground. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me”. A few hours later, as the waters engulfed the first floor of the man’s home, a boat passed by, and the captain offered to take the man to safety. The man declined, saying, “God will take care of me.” A few hours after that, as the man waited on his roof-his entire home flooded-a helicopter flew by, and the pilot offered transportation to dry land. Again the man declined, telling the pilot that God would care for him. Soon thereafter, the waters overcame the man, and he stood before God in heaven, he protested his fate: “You promised that you’d help me so long as I was faithful.” God replied, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. Your death is your own fault.” God helps those who help themselves. This was the wisdom of the Book of Mamaw.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: I really wanted to give this book three and a half stars, but Amazon only accepts whole numbers and this book was better than a three...thus the four star rating.
I’m really not a memoir reader. I just knew this book was a big seller and decided to read it without doing any homework on it’s subject matter.
The only memoirs I liked were: Lauren Bacall by Myself (published in 1978) and WIRED: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward in 1984 (which really wasn’t a memoir).
And if I’m having trouble sleeping, all I have to do is start reading Jon Meacham’s 2008 book American Lion, the story of our 7th president, Andrew Jackson. I’m falling asleep just thinking about it...zzzz.
Monday, September 10, 2018
Preface
It’s been a little over three years since my last Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O was published. Well get ready, because Volume three is out. It features one hundred forty eight reviews, two Rambling Comments, one promotion, a short story by Rick O (I Remember? A Short Story) and one Christmas remembrance (Memory of a Bygone Christmas) by review contributor Pat Koelmel. I had a lot of fun doing these reviews and enjoyed the numerous emails the authors sent me after seeing my review of their book. Almost all of the writers agreed with my comments with a few exceptions. I pointed out their strengths, weaknesses, and tried to compare their book with another writer’s similar book. Kind of like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of literature (I didn’t find anything ugly). I would like to thank contributors Deron O, Kai O and Pat Koelmel for their energetic guest reviews. In my previous review book, I listed the top ten books that I read during that time period. Well, let’s do this time period (8/27/2015 to 9/10/2018), but this time I’ll also include the first line of my review of the their books:
Number one- Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier. Sometimes I wonder why I’m wasting my time reading contemporary novelists when I can read classic authors such as Daphne Du Maurier (1907-1989), who wrote this 1936 romantic suspense novel.
Number two- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. “Shiver me timbers”, this novel was a treasure.
Number three-The Virginian by Owen Wister. Is this 1902 story by Owen Wister the blueprint cowboy (the author designates them as cow-boys or cow-punchers) novel for thousands of novels and movies yet to come?
Number four- God’s Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. Erskine Caldwell’s 1933 novel God’s little Acre is Southern Gothic at its best.
Number five- The Girl Before by JP Delaney. This is the best psychogenic thriller I’ve read in a long time.
Number six- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Betty Smith’s entertaining 1943 novel is reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ novels of the mid 1800s.
Number seven- A Gentleman in Moscow. What a wonderful novel. What marvelous prose.
Number eight-The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. The author, A. J. Finn, has weaved a Alfred Hitchcockian type tale that reminds me of the 1954 movie, Rear Window.
Number nine- The Fireman by Joe Hill. This novel was literally on fire for 747 pages.
Number ten- Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M. M. Blume. Mon Dieu, Lesley M. M. Blume has written more than an historical novel revolving around Ernest Hemingway’s writing of The Sun Also Rises (1926).
The front cover photo is Rick O at his favorite vacation spot, Waikiki beach, Hawaii. Photo taken by Derek O. The back cover is Rick O and his grandchildren, Kalena O, Kaleo O and Kai O at Masa Sushi Restaurant in NJ. Photo was also taken by Derek O.
Number one- Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier. Sometimes I wonder why I’m wasting my time reading contemporary novelists when I can read classic authors such as Daphne Du Maurier (1907-1989), who wrote this 1936 romantic suspense novel.
Number two- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. “Shiver me timbers”, this novel was a treasure.
Number three-The Virginian by Owen Wister. Is this 1902 story by Owen Wister the blueprint cowboy (the author designates them as cow-boys or cow-punchers) novel for thousands of novels and movies yet to come?
Number four- God’s Little Acre by Erskine Caldwell. Erskine Caldwell’s 1933 novel God’s little Acre is Southern Gothic at its best.
Number five- The Girl Before by JP Delaney. This is the best psychogenic thriller I’ve read in a long time.
Number six- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Betty Smith’s entertaining 1943 novel is reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ novels of the mid 1800s.
Number seven- A Gentleman in Moscow. What a wonderful novel. What marvelous prose.
Number eight-The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn. The author, A. J. Finn, has weaved a Alfred Hitchcockian type tale that reminds me of the 1954 movie, Rear Window.
Number nine- The Fireman by Joe Hill. This novel was literally on fire for 747 pages.
Number ten- Everybody Behaves Badly by Lesley M. M. Blume. Mon Dieu, Lesley M. M. Blume has written more than an historical novel revolving around Ernest Hemingway’s writing of The Sun Also Rises (1926).
The front cover photo is Rick O at his favorite vacation spot, Waikiki beach, Hawaii. Photo taken by Derek O. The back cover is Rick O and his grandchildren, Kalena O, Kaleo O and Kai O at Masa Sushi Restaurant in NJ. Photo was also taken by Derek O.
Tuesday, September 4, 2018
this ISLAND EARTH
What would you do if you ordered condensers from your regular supplier (Continental) and instead received superior condensers from another supplier that you didn’t order from? Meet engineer Cal Meacham from Ryberg Instrument Corp. Cal tested the new parts and they were phenomenal. They came from a company named Electronic Service-Unit 16 with no return address or phone number. Cal told purchasing agent Joe Wilson to order a gross more. When the gross was shipped to Ryberg they were only billed 30 cents apiece! Joe tells Cal that Continental doesn’t know anything about the order. Once again, they came from Electronic Service-Unit 16, but this time the order came with a catalog that listed and showed parts that Cal and Joe never heard of. On top of that, the pages weren’t even paper. “Joe, this stuff isn’t even paper.” Cal’s fingers merely slipped away. “That’s as tough as sheet iron!” The catalog lists catherimine tubes among other strange parts. Joe arched his eyebrows. “Ever hear of a catherimine tube? One with an endiom complex of plus four, which guarantees it to be the best of its kind on the market?” Cal says, “What kind of gibberish is that?” Cal turned the pages until “He came to a inner dividing cover at the centre of the catalogue. For the first time, the center cover announced, Electronic Service-Unit 16 offers a complete line of interocitor components. In the following pages you will find complete descriptions of components which reflect the most modern engineering advances know to interocitor engineers.” What’s a interocitor and who are these people that sent the catalogue? Welcome to the world of Raymond F. Jones, who wrote this 1952 sci-fi classic (later a 1955 movie).
On page eleven Cal finds out that a neighboring plant has also been receiving unknown parts...this time from Electronic Service-unit 8. That plant’s purchasing agent ordered special gears from a different company, but got two perfectly smooth wheels from Unit-8 instead. He said that, “He was about ready to hit the ceiling when he discovered that one wheel rolled against the other would drive it. So I mounted them on shafts and put a motor on one and a pony brake on the other. Believe it or not those things would transfer any horsepower I could use. And I had up to three hundred and fifty. There was perfect transfer without measurable slippage or backlash. The craziest thing you ever saw.” Cal decides to order all the parts necessary to build an interocitor. Almost two weeks go by. Then suddenly fourteen crates arrive. “They stood seven feet tall and were no smaller than four by five feet in cross section.” There are no instructions. Cal needs to use all his past knowledge of engineering and the pictures in the catalog to try to put this together. If he does succeed in putting it together, how does he turn it on? What does it do? Cal is stunned when Joe tells him that the bill for all those crates (4,896 parts) was only twenty-eight hundred dollars. On page twenty-five, after many trials and tribulations, Cal finishes assembling the interocitor. It’s some kind of communicator with a TV- like screen attached to it. He plays around with it and finally gets a fuzzy image on the screen. A masculine voice suddenly says, “Turn up the intensifier knob.” After Cal adjusted the knob, the image came in. Cal said, “Who are you? What have I built? The man (who has a high forehead and white hair) on the screen said, “We’d about given you up, but you’ve passed. And rather well, too.”
The strange man says, “You have passed the test!” Cal says, “What do you mean? I have made no application to work with your-your employers.” A faint trace of a smile crossed the man’s face. “No. No one does that. We pick our own applicants and test them, quite without their awareness that they are being tested. You are to be congratulated on your showing.” The man convinces Cal to come to work for them. Cal couldn’t think of any reason not to go. “There were few that he could muster up. None, actually. He was alone, without family or obligations. He had no particular professional ties to prevent him for leaving.” The man says on page twenty-eight, “Our plane will land on your airfield at six p.m. It will remain fifteen minutes. It will take off without you if you are not in it by that time. You will know it by its color. A black ship with a single horizontal orange stripe.” This is where I will stop my review so you can enjoy the meaty part of the story uninhibited. This sci-fi novel could have easily been read in one day. But then I wouldn’t have had this pleasurable feeling that I’ve had for the past three days. You have to savor this novel like a fine wine.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: Raymond F. Jones’ sci-fi novel was made into a movie in 1955. It starred Jeff Morrow as Exeter (his name in the novel was Jorgasnovara), Rex Reason as Cal and Faith Domergue as Ruth. The movie finished 74th in gross earnings that year. Oddly enough it opened as a double bill with Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy! Oh, the good old days. I remember when you went to the movies you saw two movies, several cartoons, and the world news all in one sitting. You were armed with popcorn, soda and a candy of some sorts (that’s the only part that’s the same as today). And maybe later...a food fight.
The movie was remade for TV in 1992, but I didn’t find much info on it. It starred Gloria Estefan and Kenny Loggins (two singers).
The 1952 novel and the 1955 movie had many differences, especially the ending.
On page eleven Cal finds out that a neighboring plant has also been receiving unknown parts...this time from Electronic Service-unit 8. That plant’s purchasing agent ordered special gears from a different company, but got two perfectly smooth wheels from Unit-8 instead. He said that, “He was about ready to hit the ceiling when he discovered that one wheel rolled against the other would drive it. So I mounted them on shafts and put a motor on one and a pony brake on the other. Believe it or not those things would transfer any horsepower I could use. And I had up to three hundred and fifty. There was perfect transfer without measurable slippage or backlash. The craziest thing you ever saw.” Cal decides to order all the parts necessary to build an interocitor. Almost two weeks go by. Then suddenly fourteen crates arrive. “They stood seven feet tall and were no smaller than four by five feet in cross section.” There are no instructions. Cal needs to use all his past knowledge of engineering and the pictures in the catalog to try to put this together. If he does succeed in putting it together, how does he turn it on? What does it do? Cal is stunned when Joe tells him that the bill for all those crates (4,896 parts) was only twenty-eight hundred dollars. On page twenty-five, after many trials and tribulations, Cal finishes assembling the interocitor. It’s some kind of communicator with a TV- like screen attached to it. He plays around with it and finally gets a fuzzy image on the screen. A masculine voice suddenly says, “Turn up the intensifier knob.” After Cal adjusted the knob, the image came in. Cal said, “Who are you? What have I built? The man (who has a high forehead and white hair) on the screen said, “We’d about given you up, but you’ve passed. And rather well, too.”
The strange man says, “You have passed the test!” Cal says, “What do you mean? I have made no application to work with your-your employers.” A faint trace of a smile crossed the man’s face. “No. No one does that. We pick our own applicants and test them, quite without their awareness that they are being tested. You are to be congratulated on your showing.” The man convinces Cal to come to work for them. Cal couldn’t think of any reason not to go. “There were few that he could muster up. None, actually. He was alone, without family or obligations. He had no particular professional ties to prevent him for leaving.” The man says on page twenty-eight, “Our plane will land on your airfield at six p.m. It will remain fifteen minutes. It will take off without you if you are not in it by that time. You will know it by its color. A black ship with a single horizontal orange stripe.” This is where I will stop my review so you can enjoy the meaty part of the story uninhibited. This sci-fi novel could have easily been read in one day. But then I wouldn’t have had this pleasurable feeling that I’ve had for the past three days. You have to savor this novel like a fine wine.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: Raymond F. Jones’ sci-fi novel was made into a movie in 1955. It starred Jeff Morrow as Exeter (his name in the novel was Jorgasnovara), Rex Reason as Cal and Faith Domergue as Ruth. The movie finished 74th in gross earnings that year. Oddly enough it opened as a double bill with Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy! Oh, the good old days. I remember when you went to the movies you saw two movies, several cartoons, and the world news all in one sitting. You were armed with popcorn, soda and a candy of some sorts (that’s the only part that’s the same as today). And maybe later...a food fight.
The movie was remade for TV in 1992, but I didn’t find much info on it. It starred Gloria Estefan and Kenny Loggins (two singers).
The 1952 novel and the 1955 movie had many differences, especially the ending.
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