CATCH-22

This uproarious satirical novel by Joseph Heller prompted me to think of Robert Crichton’s The Secret Of Santa Vittoria, another novel blending WWII and comedy. Published in 1961, Catch-22 was the forerunner to Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel, Mash: A Novel About Three Army Doctors . It’s not about Army Doctor’s in Korea, but about Army Air Force pilots and bombardiers during WWII stationed on the small island of Pianosa, west of Italy. In order to understand the insanity of this story, the reader has to comprehend what Catch-22 is. In chapter five, Doc Daneeka explains to Yossarian and Orr, his roommate, why he can’t ground them due to insanity: “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. 'That's some catch, that catch-22,' he observed. 'It's the best there is, Doc Daneeka agreed.” This catch was why none of the bombing personnel were able to avoid flying mission after mission.

The main character is Captain Yossarian, a bombardier who is convinced he is going to die on a mission. In chapter two, he explains to fellow officer, Clevinger why: "'They're trying to kill me,' Yossarian told him calmly. 'No one's trying to kill you,' Clevinger cried. 'Then why are they shooting at me?' Yossarian asked. 'They're shooting at everyone,' Clevinger answered. 'They're trying to kill everyone.' 'And what difference does that make?'" Yossarian’s fear of dying on a bombing raid was exacerbated by his group commander, Colonel Cathcart. 

The colonel's lack of compassion was buoyed by his desire to be a general and, more importantly, to be featured in The Saturday Evening Post! If the Air Force wanted 40 missions before you could go home, the Colonel wanted 45; and anytime someone came close to the required number of missions, Colonel Cathcart would raise that number. The Colonel is only one of the complex characters in this novel.

I have many favorite characters and situations in this black comedy. The first is Lt. Milo Minderbinder, the mess hall officer. From day one, he wheels and deals like no other war time entrepreneur. He gets away with his shenanigans by telling everyone that they have a share in his enterprises. In chapter 22, he explains his egg business: ”...I make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg. Of course, I don't make the profit. The syndicate makes the profit. And everybody has a share.” He gets into so many businesses that he even deals with the Germans! In chapter 24, he takes a contract from the Germans to bomb his own base: “This time Milo had gone too far. Bombing his own men and planes was more than even the most phlegmatic observer could stomach, and it looked like the end for him...Milo was all washed up until he opened his books to the public and disclosed the tremendous profit he had made.” Then he says in the same chapter: “I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry." As the Milo character gets deeper into the book, it only gets more humorous.

My second favorite character is Major Major Major Major, the squadron commander, who looked like Henry Fonda! People who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was. In chapter nine, we learn: “With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway.” In chapter ten, we find that: “Major Major never sees anyone in his office while he's in his office.” But you can see him, if he is not in his office. If you try to barge into his tent, he goes out the window. I know it's confusing, but his first, middle and last name was Major, thus the four 'majors' when he got promoted to, you guessed it, Major. This book is a riot.

My third favorite is Major-------de Coverley, Major Major Major Major’s executive officer. Throughout the novel he has a blank for his first name. His function is uncertain at best. He basically pitches horseshoes all day, kidnaps Italian workers, and rents apartments for his men to use on rest leave. As soon as he hears of a city that the U.S. Army has captured, he’s on his way there, usually at the head of the procession in a Jeep. No one (friend or foe) knows who he is. But the reader knows that he is there just to rent apartments for his men. His picture appears in many publications, as if he is leading the conquering army. I’m telling you this book is a gas.

There are two subplots that are absolutely hysterical. The first involves the Chaplain’s hostile assistant, Cpl. Whitcomb. The corporal comes up with the following generic condolence letter: “Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.” This one was sent to Doc Daneeka’s wife, even though the Doc wasn’t dead. Col. Cathcart feels this letter will prove his concern for his men and finally get him in The Saturday Evening Post. He promotes Whitcomb to sergeant! The second subplot revolves around our hero, Yossarian. After Yossarian tells Lt. Nately’s whore that Nately was killed in action, She tries to kill Yossarian and she relentlessly pursues him chapter, after chapter. Nobody knows why she wants to slay him, but it is funny.

The reader will also meet: Chaplain Tappman, who is intimidated by everyone; Nurses Cramer and Duckett; Hungry Joe and his screaming nightmares; Chief White Halfoat, who knows he is going to die of pneumonia; Aarfy, the navigator; and Huple, the fifteen year old pilot, just to mention a few. How Joseph Heller kept track of all these characters is unbelievable. There is so much going on in this book that I had to take notes to remember who is who, and who did what. This is a great American classic and should be read by book lovers of all genres. The great American author Studs Terkel states in the "other voices" section of this book: “You will meet in this astonishing novel, certainly one of the most original in years, madmen of every rank: Major Major Major, on whose unwilling frame the gold leaf is pinned because of his unfortunate resemblance to Henry Fonda; Doc Daneeka, who is declared dead despite his high temperature; Hungry Joe and his fistfights with Huple’s cat; ex-pfc Wintergreen, who has more power than almost anybody.” Enough said?

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: That Joseph Heller was really a bombardier in WWII and flew 60 missions on the Italian front gave this novel credibility. How did the idea of the book commence? Well, according to Tracy Daugherty’s book, Just One Catch: The Passionate Life of Joseph Heller, it began this way: "But the most common account Heller gave of the hatching of Catch-22 varied little from what he said to The Paris Review in 1974: 'I was lying in bed in my four-room apartment on the West Side when suddenly this line came to me: ‘It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain, Someone fell madly in love with him.’ I didn’t have the name Yossarian. The chaplain wasn’t necessarily an army chaplain—he could have been a prison chaplain. But as soon as the opening sentence was available, the book began to evolve clearly in my mind—even most of the particulars… the tone, the form, many of the characters, including some I eventually couldn’t use. All of this took place within an hour and a half. It got me so excited that I did what the cliché says you’re supposed to do: I jumped out of bed and paced the floor.'” The book was born in 1953 and finished in 1961.

According to eNotes, our protagonist, Yossarian is a typical character in a Heller novel: “Heller's use of anachronism reflected the disordered nature of contemporary existence. His protagonists are antiheroes who search for meaning in their lives and struggle to avoid being overwhelmed by such institutions as the military, big business, government, and religion.” They go on to say, “Some critics claim that Heller's later work pales in comparison with Catch-22 and Something Happened, but others maintain that his canon viewed as a whole displays his continued evolution as a writer.”

Three of Heller’s works were turned into movies: Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Casino Royale (1967), and Catch-22 (1970). He died at the age 76 in East Hampton, NY in 1999.

The Lightning Thief

The following is a guest review of a Rick Riordan book by my most wonderful grandson, Kai Ohlarik:

This book is mainly about Zeus’s lightning bolt being stolen. He was sleeping one night when somebody stole his bolt, and Percy Jackson is on a quest to find it. Percy was forbidden to be born because his powers would be too powerful. His father was Poseidon, and he was born with his father’s power.

Percy, on his quest, finds himself battling many monsters, such as Medusa.  She was disguised as a statue maker. Percy gets into trouble with Ares, the God of War. Percy fights Procrustes, known as Crusty, disguised as a water bed salesman. In reality, all the beds were stretchers.

Annabeth helps Percy on his quest. She is very smart and a quick thinker. She is the daughter of Athena. Grover is a satyr, one-half goat and one-half human. Grover helps on the quest. Satyrs try to hunt down sons and daughters of the Gods all around the world. When they find them, they bring them to a special camp called Camp Half-Blood.

This is a really, really good book. What I liked was the Gods and the battles, and the ironic ending. I would definitely recommend this book to everybody that is looking for an action packed book.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Kai is nine years old and loves to read. If we have a budding author in the family, I would be thrilled! We just came back from Barnes & Noble with more books for Kai to read. Hopefully in the future, he will do more reviews for the 7 to 12 age group. While dashing between me and the T.V., as any normal nine year old would, I typed his review exactly as he verbalized it.

THERE is no OTHERWISE

The author sent me a copy of this short story to review:

Not for nothing, this pleasing short story reminded me of Jay and the Americans 1964 song Come a Little Bit Closer. All the elements are there, though the ending is somewhat different. My question to author Ardin Lalui is why did you stop the story at 44 pages? I was really getting into the content when it ended. It’s too bad because it seemed events were about to ignite. If you are not ready to write a full novel, try a novella like Stephen King’s The Mist . Not every author can write a 54 page masterpiece like Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or his 44 page classic Rip Van Winkle . Your story displays pending talent, and I look forward to your first novel. I also found the lack of quotation marks refreshing, while substituting them with dash marks somewhat original.

The story centers around three young men driving a pickup through Texas to the small town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. They all work at the Tobin Ranch as cowhands, but are treated like sons by the Tobins. They are depressed about Mrs.Tobin’s mortal illness and Mr. Tobin’s subsequent hard drinking and are looking for a good time to lift their spirits. In town, the men enter a drab bar named La Luna. On page sixteen, JP, the youngest of the three friends, looks around and says to himself, “...it was about the kind of place where nothing good would ever happen to them...” This is where I stop. You will have to read this winsome short story for yourself to find out what happens next.

Mr. Lalui does flash the reader his budding talent, and I would like to see more extensive work from him in the future. Despite being a short story where action often trumps character development, it’s surprising how much empathy this reviewer felt for the characters. There wasn’t much time for the author to give the reader a warm feeling about anything, but somehow he succeeded. Kudos to this promising Irish author, who writes westerns!

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Comment: It’s very difficult to rate a short story, such as this one, since it’s only 44 pages and is written by a new author. I gave it five stars because I thought he did a lot with those few pages. I’ve read quite a few new artists lately, and it seems to me that they are having a tough time getting their books published. So many of these nascent authors now rely on self-publishing. Are these large publishing houses afraid to take a chance on a newbie? Personally, I’m tired of reading these commercial writers, such as, James Patterson, Brad Meltzer, John Grisham, David Baldacci, or Nelson Demille. Yet, they are always on The New York Times bestseller list. Go figure! I would much rather read an old classic by a Dickens, or a Twain, or better yet, a new star, such as, Erik Larson, Candice Millard, or Ellen Marie Wiseman. Anyway, for what it is worth, that’s my opinion.

HOUSE OF LEAVES

This novel is not a sequel to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass . In fact, it’s not like anything I’ve ever read before. Welcome to the world of ergodic literature. This was my first foray into this genre, and I liked it. This genre requires the reader to make a real effort to read and interpret the text. There are different ergodic levels, such as Charlton Mellick III’s bizarro Cuddly Holocaust or Ayn Rand’s play Night of January 16th, a murder trial where the jury is picked out of the audience, and their verdict decides the outcome of the play. I’m not sure where Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel fits in the world of ergodicity, but I’ll give the next reader an idea of what’s in store for you: hundreds of footnotes (some real, most not), one to four texts on the same page; some pages blank, some with one or two words; some pages upside down, some obliquely angled; and, different narrators on the same page. And why is the word ‘house’ always in blue and ‘minotaur’ in red? I have to say that some of the footnotes are pure genius. The reader does eventually understand what’s going on, because the diverse narrators and variant footnotes are in distinctive fonts! Absolutely brilliant!

The postulation of this book is that it’s the true story of an old man’s dissertation of a documentary film called The Navidson Record. A blind old man named Zampano walks around his apartment complex every day followed by 80 cats. One day Zampano drops dead in his apartment facedown with deep claw marks alongside his body. Since there isn’t any trauma to the body, it is deemed a natural death. One of the sidebar characters, Lude, also lives in the building and calls his friend, Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlor employee, to tell him that there is an apartment available in his building. Johnny comes quickly to see the apartment and discovers a trunk full of notes and documents about a film called The Navidson Report. He takes the trunk home and starts reading, arranging, and editing Zampano’s papers even after he finds out that there is no such film. The story never reveals where the six to seven inch claw marks came from, or why the 80 cats disappeared after the old man’s death. This is a strange story. The reader doesn’t know what is real or fake throughout the 709 pages.

Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green, and their children, Daisy and Chad, move into a house on Ash Tree Lane in the Jamestown area of Virginia. Will is a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, and Karen is an ex-model. They are trying to see if they can save their common-law marriage. Will decides to mount cameras in every room and film the move to see how “everything turns out” in their relationship after getting a Guggenheim Fellowship and a media arts grant for the project. The family goes to Seattle, and when they come back, they discover that the house is slightly bigger on the inside than the outside. Then, a closet between their bedroom and the childrens' suddenly appears, and overnight, a large dark hallway emerges out of nowhere. What is going on? He seeks help from his friend Billy Reston and finally, from famed explorer and hunter Holloway Roberts and his crew. They explore the dark hallway three times without success. Meanwhile, usually on the same page, Johnny Truant is telling the story of Zampano’s notes on the Navidson film and his own life story at the same time.

As Navidson’s life gets byzantine within the arcane house, Johnny’s life becomes one drunken sexual escapade after another as he starts losing his mind over Zampano’s papers. We meet Thumper, the stripper, and many of Zampano’s ex-scribes, with which Johnny has sex. On their fourth exploration of the dark hallway in the house on Ash Tree lane, Holloway Roberts and his crew don’t return! Periodic growls are heard in the walls, sometimes close, sometimes far away. Johnny continues to lose his mind. As he thinks about the missing cats, he says to himself, “Something else has taken their place. Something I am unable to see. Waiting.” In the interim, Will tells his distressed wife, “They’ve been in there almost eight days with water for six. It’s three in the morning...” So Will, his brother Tom, and Billy Reston decide to go into the dark hallway and find Holloway and his crew. Meanwhile, Johnny thinks to himself, “My fear’s gotten worse...My teeth ache. My head aches. My stomach’s a mess.” Back at the house, things are bleak as the house has finally started to attack! If this paragraph seems confusing, well get used to it because that’s the motif of this newfangled but extraordinary novel. I’ve only given you a taste of what’s to come! Prepare to have your blood run cold.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Would I ever read another ergodic novel? I would say no, but that’s what I said about China Mieville’s weird fiction novel Kraken; and since then, I’ve read three more. So, I’ll see what strikes my interest in the future. What does Danielewski think of his 709 page novel? He says, “Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say. Of course those who write short books have even less to say.”
 
After reading this novel, it crossed my mind that this book should be studied and discussed for its newness and hidden meanings as many less worthy novels are. I found out that there was a Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal done by Scarano and Krause that stated “House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, is a novel first published in 2000 that has since developed notoriety in literary circles for its arguably unique experimentation with a multi-layered plot, varied visual typography, and multi-media format. Despite being widely read and influential over the past decade, little scholarly analysis has been done on House of Leaves. As House of Leaves could represent an entire new genre of literature, it is important that we understand its themes and the ways in which various writerly techniques function within the novel. In this paper, I analyze House of Leaves through an existential lens, specifically utilizing the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus to examine the psyche of one of the novel’s main characters, Johnny Truant. In addition to primary sources by Danielewski, Sartre and Camus, I employ a 2002 analysis of House of Leaves by Katherine N. Hayles to aid my research. I conclude that Johnny’s story, and House of Leaves as a whole, breaks down traditional notions of reality, but retains existential hope for individuals who are able to find a purpose in life, even if that “purpose” is necessarily subjective. My analysis presents an original take on House of Leaves, and contains wider implications for future novels that emulate its experimental style. Past analyses have focused on post-modern aspects of House of Leaves, but I analyze it through an existential lens. Beyond adding to the body of work on House of Leaves, my existential take on an otherwise post-modern text may prove influential to analyses of other “post-modern” novels in the future”.

With ergodic literature, there is no limit on how weird the writer can get. The name for this genre was coined by Espen J. Aarseth, author of Cybertext . Besides the novels I mentioned in the first paragraph, see Composition No. 1 by Marc Saporta. The novel comes with loose pages in a box! You as the reader decide on what order you want to read them. My last example is Milorad Pavic’s Landscape Painted with Tea . This novel is part modern day Odyssey and a crossword puzzle. Has anybody out there noticed how unusual all the authors' names are?

BONE RIVER

This is the story of a very stoic group of people living in the Washington Territory of the Pacific Northwest during the mid 1800s. Megan Chance spins a tale of mystery and intrigue that grips the reader and will not let go until you have read all 386 pages. Only a person who lives in the Northwest could describe the weather like Megan does. I have not felt this cold and wet reading a book since I read Dan Simmon’s The Terror. Megan’s descriptions of the foul weather actually made the book feel cold in my hands! The constant rain, flooding, and harvesting of the oyster beds accords the proper atmosphere for this arcane novel. Before I tell you about the story, I have to give Megan Chance kudos for the critique in descriptive writing. It’s ironic that this story is set in the 1850s, because that’s the time period for some of the greatest descriptive writers, such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickens. I’m not saying this book is a classic, but I think her writing style draws the reader into the story’s time period and location better than most modern authors.

In the prologue, a famed ethnologist is dying and makes his seventeen year old daughter Leonie promise to marry his protege, Junius, even though he is at least 25 years her senior. In the first chapter, we flash forward 20 years. Leonie, a housewife and drawer of relics, lives in her deceased father’s cabin with her now husband Junius, a oysterman and ethnologist. Also living there is her father’s long time associate, Lord Tom, a Chinook Indian. The day after a storm (and there are many!) Leonie finds a mummy in a basket partly uncovered on the bank of the river. Lord Tom and Junius help her dig it out. Who is this female mummy? Is she a precursor to the Indians, as her father had imagined? How did she get there, and how did she die? On page 20, Leonie thought, “I looked back down at the mummy. Junius, like my father, believed there had been an advanced culture here before the primitive indians had supplanted it...” Leonie then takes charge of the find and immediately starts having nightmares about an Indian woman running in the grass trying to tell Leonie something. What was the mummy trying to tell Leonie in her dreams? At this point, Daniel Russell, Junius’s son from a previous undissolved marriage shows up presumably as a reporter for a San Francisco newspaper doing a story about the mummy. Hostilities ensue between Daniel and Junius with Leonie caught in between.

At this juncture, an Indian medicine woman named Bibi (Lord Tom says she's a fake) shows up, tells Leonie of impending danger, and gives her a charmed bracelet to wear. Junius pressures Leonie to dissect the mummy so he can send the information to Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian Museum. Leonie delays the cutting, because she is still having undeciphered dreams. Leonie consults her dad’s journals and finds out that he was working on a unknown experiment. How did this relate to her and the mummy? The dreams get worse. She starts having feelings for Daniel. Where will all this lead to? On page 148, Leonie is still unsure that the mummy is ancient, even as she remembered her father saying, “Promise me you’ll fight such sensibilities. Logic, my dear. Logic is your only friend." She still can’t decide to cut open the mummy. Something's wrong! What is it? Why does she have this lust for her husband’s son? Then she finds her father’s cave bear tooth necklace in the mummy’s dress! What’s going on! Papa has been dead for twenty years! If you want to find out what happens next, I suggest that you grab a copy of this wonderful story and start turning pages.

Some of the sidebars that I enjoyed were the Indian legends and tales told by Lord Tom, the protector of Leonie. The sprinkling in of Chinook words and sayings were particularly entertaining, such as wake kloshe (bad luck), kani (it lives), mesachie tomawanos (bad spirit), and okustee (daughter). The 16th century’s plastica theory was another incidental link to this tale that was highly instructive. On page 308, her father wrote in his journal, “I wonder if perhaps God, like an artist sketching the same thing over and over again until he reaches perfection, must have created the various human groups in experiment, trying out his vision of man in lesser forms before he settled on the last and best”. Is this the unknown experiment her father was working on before he died? If so, how is the mummy involved?

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: The Chinook Indians, who play a supportive role in this novel, lived by a strict caste system during the time period of this novel. Upper class were the warriors and shaman, who were known to have slaves. The highest class was the Flathead Indians. Some children would have their heads squeezed under the pressure of two boards thus creating the flatness. They were considered to be superior over round heads. I don’t know if this system is still in vogue. Lord Tom touched on how the Chinooks came into being with Leonie, but here is a version of that legend: “Talapas (Creator) made the earth a nice place with animals and trees. Talapas asked Tsoona (Thunderbird) to carry special eggs to a mountain called Kaheese. He did as he was told, but Old Giantess didn't want the eggs to hatch so she began to break the eggs. The Spirit Bird came down from the sky and consumed her with fire. The remaining eggs hatched and became Chinook Indian”. The Chinook Indians are known to be, as most tribal indians, great storytellers. A quick informative book about the Chinook would be Chinook Indians by Suzanne Morgan Williams.

THE DOG STARS

This novel by Peter Heller has more of a survival/adventure flavor than other apocalyptic novels. There have been many plague driven post-apocalyptic novels written going all the way back to 1826 when famed Frankenstein author Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man, a story of a plague destroying mankind in the year 2100! How about another famed author, Jack London, publishing The Scarlet Plague in 1912. In 1954, Algis Budrys wrote Some Will Not Die, a plague story centered in Manhattan. Peter Heller’s novel is somehow different. I know that it is minor, but in this book, the population is dying from a super flu. Since the story takes place about 25 years from now, the world is also experiencing the effects of global warming. The waters are warmer (trout have died off), the rivers are receding, and droughts are more prevalent. All of these calamities are handled very subtlety. The author only hints at how all the events happened and instead concentrates on the survival of the four main characters and a dog named Jasper. The cause of the flu isn’t even mentioned until page 253, when Cima, a doctor, theorizes the “Mutation of a superbug, one of the ones they’d been watching for two decades. In the water supply etc. Combined with bird flu. We called it the Africanized bird flu, after the killer bees.” Global warming is hardly mentioned except when the reader finds out that elk, tigers, and elephants are apparently gone due to the change in the weather.

The hero of the story is Hig, a recent widower, a builder, and writer before all this happened. He lives in a hanger on an Erie, Colorado airport with his dog, Jasper, and a “shoot first, ask questions later” tough guy named Bangley. Hig flys his 1956 Cessna ("The Beast") around their perimeter patrolling for attacks from other humans. And, there are a lot of invasions and plenty of bloodshed. Hig likes to hunt and fish, but he is always in the peril of an ambush from intruders seeking food. The whole story takes place nine years after the flu wiped out most of America (Did the Arabs do it?). Hig had heard a call from an airport tower in Grand Junction three years previous, and now it haunts him into wanting to go on a flying adventure to see if there is civilization elsewhere. Bangley stays at the airport while Hig flies solo to Grand Junction. On the way, the reader meets the two other characters: Cima, a doctor and flu survivor, and her crusty father, Pops, a farmer and ex-U.S.Seal. This is where the story finally takes off and becomes entertaining. It took a long time to get to this point, but the rest of the book is clear sailing and finishes with an interesting climax.

The writing style of Peter Heller at first was a little annoying, but I got used to it half way through the novel. It seems to this reviewer that Heller has adapted the style of Cormac McCarthy, who according to enotes.com: “He said he always thought there was no reason for all of these marks to muck up the page. He also said that if you write well enough and clearly enough there is no reason for quotation marks.” Well said, but I still like the original style, and by the way, McCarthy’s isn’t always clear, is he? I do think that Heller’s choice of only four characters is reminiscent of McCarthy’s The Road. (I don’t know why I always bring up that book when I’m reviewing a post-apocalyptic novel, because I didn’t even like it!) But when a writer chooses to have only two to four characters, there is plenty of time to develop the characters with an abundance of empathy. The empathy part is one of my main gauges to determine whether I enjoyed the book, or not. I also thought Heller’s use of sidebar elements and characters was expertly done. For example, the docile group of Mennonites gave the author the chance to introduce a derivative malady (a new blood disease) into the plot. The element of guilt is very strong in this story. Hig is always wondering if killing is the right choice for survival in this new world. On page 245 he wonders, “Could I say that we murdered a young boy in the middle of the night? That we didn’t make him into dog food. That we murdered a young girl in broad daylight who was running after me with a kitchen knife probably wanting my help.” There are a lot of strong messages in this novel. This was Peter Heller’s first foray (a convenient word!) into fiction, and it was a good one.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: In one of the books of the New Testament, John has a revelation that the world will end with a victory of good over evil. Hence, the apocalypse theory. The Mayan’s 12/21/12 event didn’t happen, but many religions hang on to the possibility that it will happen. Is this the reason there are so many novels and movies about it? According to bibleprobe.com: “The Apostle John is the author of the Book of Revelation. He wrote it when he was about 92 years old, while a prisoner of Rome on the remote desert penal colony of Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea”. Can one focus on writing a “novel” at 92 years old as a prisoner? I don’t know, but it does cause some skepticism to learned men.

There have been many movies made about the apocalypse, including the following favorites: Mad Max, I Am Legend, Dr. Strangelove, and Planet of the Apes. Books? There are too many excellent ones to choose from or enumerate. When did these novels start? Well according to bestbooksrecommendations.com: “Noah’s Ark and the flood that wiped earth clean of evil mankind is a very early example of post-apocalyptic stories and writings. For the modern genre of 'End of the World' literature can be tracked back almost two hundred years to Mary Shelley’s The Last Man published in 1826. Even though some writers were able to imagine doomsday scenarios in Victorian times, the genre didn’t really take hold until after World War II. The atomic bombings of the cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan showed how civilization and civilized societies now had the ability to destroy each other and the world. The 1950s was a decade where the end of world was a common theme on the bestseller’s lists.”

The only difference in the latest novels compared to the older ones is the degree of seriousness we are giving to our planet’s survival. Most notable are the use of nuclear weapons and global warming. Hopefully. mankind will heed the warnings, and we will avoid an apocalyptic event and Godzilla! Just kidding!

The PLUM TREE

Ellen Marie Wiseman’s riveting debut novel allows the reader to peer into the life of a German teenager and her family in World War II torn Nazi Germany. The author states that the book was inspired by her own mother’s actual experiences in Germany and by the author’s numerous trips to the Fatherland visiting relatives. This is a dynamite novel about a German girl falling in love with a Jew. The novel reveals three engrossing forms of terror during the years 1938 through 1945. The first was the ravaging of the Jews and ordinary German citizens by the SS Troopers. One of the books Wiseman read pertaining to this was Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich by Alison Owings. The second torment experienced by the German families was the U.S. bombing campaign of German cities, backed up by The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945 by Jorg Friedrich. The third affliction in the story discloses how the non-Nazi German civilians were treated after the war’s end. This was verified by James Bacque’s Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950 . This was an eye-opening trifecta of maladies combined in one novel. This reviewer wonders what Wiseman will do for an encore?

The milieu for this novel is Hessental, Germany, an ordinary peaceful German village of mostly hard working poor families. The focus is on the Bolz family and their struggle to put food on the table. Our heroine, Christine, and her mutti (mother) work on the estate of the Bauermans, a rich Jewish family. Christine and Isaac Bauerman are in love and plan to announce that fact at a December party at the Bauermans. But before that can happen, Hitler prohibits Jews from employing Germans, radios are confiscated and replaced with propaganda channeled radios, Jews are banned from public buildings, and the mandatory greeting is decreed as “Heil Hitler”. On page 54, Christine and Isaac wonder, “Will we ever be allowed to be together, to live like everyone else, happily married, with a house and children, to enjoy the most basic human rights?” This is a very sad novel. Slowly but surely, the Jews of Hessental are shipped by train to Dachau. On page 150, Christine thinks she saw Isaac and his family on the Dachau train and thinks to herself, “He can’t be inside one of those boxcars, she thought. He’s too smart and too beautiful to be carted away like an animal. His father is a lawyer, his mother an aristocrat.” This where the story takes ”the brakes off” and rumbles through 387 pages of breathtaking drama!

For a fledgling author without any creative writing background, I thought her characterization was superlative. I had plenty of empathy for vater (father), oma (grandma), opa (grandpa), and even the reluctant Nazi, Lagerkommandant Grunstein of the Dachau Camp. The sprinkling of German words, titles, and names was expertly done, such as: scheissekopf  (shithead), gruppenfuhrer (group leader), sonderkommandos (work units of Nazi death camp prisoners), and blockfuhrer (a block leader in the death camps). At one point in this marvelous novel, Christine wonders why prisoners would be shot at a death camp: “Why would they shoot those men when they have an efficient method of extermination right here?” The flavor of the novel is exactly how Wiseman states it is on her website: “I love reading and writing about ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Fiction offers us a rare chance to slip into the lives of others, and to ask ourselves how we would react under challenging conditions, be it during WWII, the witch craze in Europe, or the Great Depression.” This is a love story, historical fiction, and a sad drama all rolled into one tumultous story. I highly recommend this first time novel by Ellen Marie Wiseman. I guarantee her second novel will not be rejected 72 times! 

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Whether you read this novel, William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or Diary of Anne Frank, the reader finds it hard to believe that Hitler could have been so cruel to a group of people who considered themselves loyal Germans and who were the leading contributors to the country’s economy. Hitler was truly mad. Historicalnovels.info states: “Adolf Hitler rose to power in the aftermath of World War I as Germany struggled under the economic burden of reparations imposed on them by the Versailles Treaty. A dynamic speaker, Hitler scapegoated various groups including German political leaders, liberals, capitalists and Jews for Germany's troubles. By 1933, his popularity resulted in his appointment as Chancellor, a position he used to undermine the existing government and become dictator.”

Hitler published Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1925, giving the world the first taste of his building hatred towards the Jews. Wikipedia states; “Mein Kampf has also been studied as a work on political theory. For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world's twin evils: Communism and Judaism. The new territory that Germany needed to obtain would properly nurture the "historic destiny" of the German people; this goal, which Hitler referred to as Lebensraum (living space), explains why Hitler aggressively expanded Germany eastward, specifically the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland, before he launched his attack against Russia. In Mein Kampf Hitler openly states that the future of Germany "has to lie in the acquisition of land in the East at the expense of Russia.” Unfortunately, the German working-class had to pay for Hitler’s hostilities by being bombed into oblivion by the U.S. and the British R.A.F.

SLOW APOCALYPSE

One of my favorite writers, John Varley, writes a “been there, done that” book. What I mean is that there are only so many ways you can pen a apocalypse/survival novel. Is this novel similar to William R. Forstchen’s One Second After and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road ? You betcha! After the disaster, do refugees flee the big cities? Yes! Do people run amok seeking food and shelter? Yes! Do we have a societal breakdown with gangs pillaging the land? Yes! Finally, does the reader follow a group of people who become the champions of the story? You bet your sweet bippy! So you might ask, “What’s different?" Well how about adding a 9.3 to 9.8 magnitude earthquake in the Los Angeles area, and top that off with a massive fire a few days later. Look, I’m not saying that I didn’t like the book, but writers are running out of ways to tell this story. This is the tenth novel that I’ve read by this author, so I think I’ve earned my say. John, stay away from these kind of stories! If you want to write another, then ape Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain . At least in that novel, the focus was on the cure of the problem (the strain mutates to a benign form with a final surprise). I’ll give the author a pass, because the writing was terrific, and the characterization was top-notch.

The novel begins with screenwriter Dave Marshall interviewing Ex-Colonel Lionel Warner (USMC, ret.) about the possibility of a new movie. The Colonel tells him that a disgruntled bacterial scientist has deployed a bacteria in Saudi Arabia that freezes oil thus rendering it useless. The scientist is seeking revenge for 9/11. Marshall doesn’t know if the Colonel is telling him the truth or not. After Marshall leaves the hotel interview, mysterious police arrive at the hotel, and Marshall observes the Colonel being shot and ejected from the eleventh floor window! Now what is Dave Marshall going to do? He has to believe he's been told the truth, so he cashes in his credit cards and buys survival supplies. He calls in his fellow writing staff (the posse) and tells them what happened. Do they believe him? Some do, and others are skeptical, while his wife Karen leaves him, and his daughter Addison is unsure. Later, the news reports that oil wells throughout the world are on fire! My God, the bacteria has gone airborne and is affecting every oil field. As Staffer’s Book Reviews states: “Like anything created in a government lab things don’t go as planned, and oil across the world begins to harden, in many cases with explosive results”. Next, the L.A. oil fields blow up, and the L.A. tar pits explode causing massive damage in urban Los Angeles. Now his writer friends and his wife Karen are starting to trust his story. The posse, led by Dave Marshall and Bob Winston, decides to head to Oregon for safety; but then, a monumental earthquake delays them. Finally, just as the Marshalls are ready to depart for the second time to the Winstons to form a caravan out of the L.A./Hollywood area, a conflagration starts in Hollywood. Now the Marshalls are on the run in their packed Escalade, dodging bullets from gangs and the advancing flames. Readers: this all happens in the beginning of the book; I’m not giving away the story.

From here onward, the great trek to safety begins. This is where this novel becomes analogous to Lucifer's Hammer, The Stand, and On the Beach. How many of these kinds of novels can one read? Somewhere out there is an author writing the ultimate apocalypse novel with a completely fresh take on the revelation that John hears involving the battle of good over evil with God appearing at the books end. Now that's a story! There are certain truisms we learn in these types of books. The first is on page 77 when Dave Marshall realizes that “Millions of Americans were discovering that what they did for a living was no longer something anyone would pay them to do”. The second truism is on page 185 when Dave says, “The big question was, say you’ve made a shelter just big enough for your family. The alarm goes off, the bombs are on the way. You seal up your shelter...and the neighbors come knocking. Do you let them in?” The third thing Dave thought about was “What did you talk about after civilization had crumbled? Dave tried to recall what they had talked about before the oil went bad, it was already getting hard to do”. Though this book was similar to lots of novels I’ve read, it was still illuminating and humanizing. I don’t want to abash the reader who hasn’t read these types of books, but read this novel with a grain of salt.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: On John Varley’s official website, he states: “Slow Apocalypse is NOT like anything I've written before. I am so pleased to see my old friend George RR Martin raking in the dough; this is my attempt to reach a larger audience, like he has, beyond all you lovely people. It is my hope that my long-time readers will enjoy it, too.” John, I have to tell you I loved your trilogy of Titan, Wizard, and Demon much better. I also thought that Mammoth was the best novel John Varley ever wrote. According to Wikipedia, John isn’t happy with his Millennium experience in Hollywood. He states: ”We had the first meeting on Millennium in 1979. I ended up writing it six times. There were four different directors, and each time a new director came in I went over the whole thing with him and rewrote it. Each new director had his own ideas, and sometimes you'd gain something from that, but each time something's always lost in the process, so that by the time it went in front of the cameras, a lot of the vision was lost." Sciencefiction-Lit.Com states the following about Varley’s characters: “Single handedly Varley has trashed the long history of the SF heroic figure - and good riddance in my opinion. His bad guys are usually likable and sympathetic, his good guys are often pathetic and desperate, basically like so many people we actually know in real life. And the women... I defy anyone to find me an author, in any genre, who writes women as well as Varley. Hell, with sex changes in his books, a good percentage of his characters start in one sex and end in another and through each change you can tell. It's subtle, but it's there. That is true understanding of the sexual differences and similarities.” I’m a big fan of John Varley!

the CATCHER in the RYE

J.D. Salinger published this reputed American classic in 1951, which was probably the most censored book in high schools and libraries until the mid 1980s. I’m unsure why it’s considered a classic other than the fact that professors and publishers like looking for hidden meanings in each chapter. I’m not saying that I didn’t like the novel because I did enjoy it, but mainly because, I think, Salinger’s descriptions and language usage of the late 1940s was terrific. I forgot about the word “crumby”, meaning inadequate, or “phony”, meaning pretentious. The narrator and protagonist of the novel, Holden Caulfield (a seventeen year old boy) uses those words a lot. And how about “flitty” or referring to people as “old” this or that? The writing is very strong, but the story is moderate at best to this reviewer. I don’t see myself debating hidden meanings with anybody. I’m assuming it was censored in schools because of sexual allusions, the morality codes of the 1940s and 50s, family values, and some coarse language (very mild compared to today’s language). I'm very puzzled by the title of the book. What’s up with the title of the book? Shmoop states: “What's up indeed. The first mention we get of this mysterious catcher in this mysterious rye is when Holden overhears a little kid singing, 'If a body catch a body coming through the rye.' Momentarily, it makes him feel not so depressed, in part because Holden is a fan of little children, and the only things better than little children are little children who are singing.” Apparently misconstruing Robert Burns’s 1796 poem, Holden sees himself as the catcher in the rye catching the children as they fall off a cliff. Who knows? Salinger was a kind of recluse and didn’t give many interviews.

The book starts with Holden Caulfield in a hospital in Southern California narrating the story of his previous December’s adventures in Pennsylvania and N.Y.C. The reader doesn’t know whether it’s a mental or physical hospital. Maybe that is one of the debatable points of this book. Anyway, he is being expelled from Pencey Prep in Pennsylvania. The reader gets the feeling that this isn’t the first school that he’s been thrown out of. He doesn’t seem to see why learning is important, doesn’t get along with his teachers or roommates, and doesn’t seem to respect his very successful parents. And what does his "red hunting hat" symbolize? He heads to N.Y.C. several days before his parents will receive the expulsion letter from Pencey Prep. There, he books a cheap hotel and pines about his life. He likes to drink, smoke, and make an ass of himself. He contacts a previous girlfriend, Sally, and makes a mess of things. He constantly thinks about calling Jane, another old flame, but never does. He contacts his sister Phoebe and an old teacher Mr. Antolini. The crux of the story is what happens on his adventures in N.Y.C, and the big debate with literary scrappers is: What’s up with his mental health, and what does his movements mean? As far as this reader is concerned - who cares, just read and enjoy!

I wonder after reading this book if this Holden Caulfield character is really J.D. Salinger as a young man. I had the same feeling when reading John Irving’s In One Person . Anyway, you literary debaters, I think if you re-read page 170 you will find out how Holden Caulfield really feels about school and life: “You ought to go to a boy’s school sometime. Try it sometime,” I said. “It’s full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques”. Metaphorically speaking, I think Holden was drowning in boredom. Anyway, enough thoughts about Holden Caulfield’s mental state that is being puppeteered by the cloistered J.D. Salinger! Just grab a copy and form your own opinions.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: After Salinger’s death, The New Yorker magazine said on 2/8/10: Salinger was an expansive romantic, an observer of the details of the world, and of New York in particular; no book has ever captured a city better than “The Catcher in the Rye” captured New York in the forties. Has any writer ever had a better ear for American talk? (One thinks of the man occupying the seat behind Holden Caulfield at Radio City Music Hall, who, watching the Rockettes, keeps saying to his wife, “You know what that is? That’s precision.”) A self-enclosed writer doesn’t listen, and Salinger was a peerless listener: page after page of pure talk flowed out of him, moving and true and, above all, funny. He was a humorist with a heart before he was a mystic with a vision, or, rather, the vision flowed from the humor. That was the final almost-moral of “Zooey,” the almost-final Salinger story to appear in these pages: Seymour’s Fat Lady, who gives art its audience, is all of us."

On 1/16/12, two years after Salinger’s death, Salon.com’s Kenneth Slawenski wrote: “When it came to his work, J.D. Salinger was the ultimate control freak. He strove for absolute perfection in his writing and sought complete power over its presentation. He ordered his photo be removed from the dust jacket of “The Catcher in the Rye,” fought with numerous publishers over his book’s content and presentation, and his disdain for editing was legendary. When a copy editor at the New Yorker dared to remove a single comma from one of his stories, Salinger snapped. “There was hell to pay,” recalled William Maxwell, and the comma was quickly reinstated. Recently uncovered letters demonstrate how the author repeatedly refused any film adaptation of his classic novel. He felt no actor could properly fill the role of Holden Caulfield, although he quipped to Ernest Hemingway that he might be persuaded to play the part himself.” Readers, J.D. Salinger was and still is a legendary writer.