HOUR of the WITCH

What does it take to be a witch? Very little. If a neighbor or an indentured servant doesn’t like you, he/she can plant some symbol of the devil in your garden and accuse you of witchcraft, or tell everybody that you were seen being kind to a Quaker, or being seen with someone suspected of witchcraft. Maybe as a married woman, you are seen about to kiss a man not married to you...seen but not kissed. That is adultery. If you live in the world of a Puritan, that’s a major faux pas. The man gets off easy...15 lashes in a public square. All these things happened to Mary Deerfield of Boston in 1662, who fails, in her attempt to get a divorce from a cruel man and later was charged with witchcraft. Chris Bohjalian writes a story that will aggravate you till the last moment.

Who are the Puritans? They are a group of whackos (not sorry for the derogatory remark) who came to America from England because of their objection to the Catholic religion. The Puritans believed they were in a constant struggle with good and evil and every day was to be lived according to the bible. They wanted the laws of the New Testament to reign supreme. In other words, they wanted life to be focused on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, kind of like some modern(?) day countries that run their governments according to the Koran. Actually, they are the modern-day Puritans. Anyway, the thing is you (especially women) had to live your life teetering on disaster. My research says that between the 15th century and the 17th century, approximately 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt, or hanged worldwide. Wow, enough Puritan background...what happened to Mary?

Mary Deerfield was constantly being abused and battered by her husband, Thomas, the owner of a large mill. He would routinely come home for dinner after drinking heavily at local taverns. He always hit or abused his wife when their servant, Catherine, was not in the same room. One day someone planted (two) three tine forks and a pestle with a devil’s mark in Mary’s garden. Three tined forks were only recently imported from England and ultimately not purchased by the Puritans because the three tined forks (they ate with 2 tined forks) reminded them of the devil’s pitchfork or trident (Haha)...sorry. Anyway, Mary thought Catherine did it...Catherine said “no”, but there are other neighbors who don’t like her. Mary told Thomas about it. He wasn’t sure if Mary was a witch, but wouldn’t allow the use of three tine forks for their meals. One day he came home drunk and got into an argument with Mary. While Mary had her hand on the dining table, he viciously slammed her hand with a three-tined fork to see if she bleeds (witches don’t bleed). After she bled, Thomas said, “Well, thou dost seem to bleed, Mary.” He told anybody that asked about her wounded hand that Mary tripped and fell into the spout of a tea kettle. Later that day Mary said to her mother, “I intend to divorce him.”The odds of getting a divorce from a man in the Puritan days were very slim, especially when nobody ever saw Thomas abuse his wife.

“Mary Deerfield may be barren, yes, but is she unclean? I will not dissemble and suggest that I know. Only our Lord and Savior can say why she has never been with child.”-The testimony of physician Roger Pickering from the records of the divorce trial.

“I saw my mistress placing the Devil’s tines into the earth, burying them, but for what purpose I cannot say.”- The Testimony of Catherine Stileman from the records of the divorce trial.

“No. Never...I never saw my master hit or hurt Mary Deerfield. Not even once.”- The testimony of Catherine Stileman from the records of the divorce trial.

“She is neither a healer nor midwife. Her simples (the word for remedies in those days) may not be of the devil, but neither are they healing. Her teacher was that old woman who lives out by the Neck. And I believe no midwife would ever allow so barren a womb to be present at birth.”- The testimony of physician Roger Pickering from the records of the divorce trial. 

“Cruelty may be defined as violence without provocation and discipline that is excessive.”- The remarks of Magistrate Richard Wilder from the records of the divorce trial.

“I was shocked deeply by what I saw. I speak as a witness, not gossip.”-The testimony of Abigail Gathers from the records of the divorce trial.

So there you go, a taste of the trial. You, the reader, will most likely be as rankled as I was throughout the novel. The laws and thoughts of the Puritans are so frustrating. But if anything, you will read this novel for its entertainment value. I thought the author did a yeoman’s job getting his facts correct and has a good grip on the prose. What I didn’t like were his compact descriptions. I’m a reader who loves the days of the descriptive writer. This author makes an attempt to describe but fails. Here is an example: “The Reverend John Norton was fifty-six years old, exactly one year older than Mary’s father and three years her mother’s senior. But he seemed considerably older than that. He wasn’t frail, not at all. But his presence was so august. He stood six feet tall, even now, and his beard was an immaculate dapple gray.” Do you see how compact that description was? What was he wearing? Was he heavy or slim? What was his complexion? What did his voice sound like? A descriptive writer must form a picture of his character in the reader's mind. If you want a descriptive lesson, read The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, oh yeah. Some words in my review may be spelled incorrectly, but that’s how the author spelled them.

RATING: 4 stars out of 5

Comment: One has to wonder what religion will be like 100 years from now, or will there be one. One can see how it’s progressed over the years, not so much the Bible itself, but how it’s interpreted. And the popes over the years have changed their views on ‘same-sex marriage, homosexuals and transgenders. They have admitted most of the priest’s sexual abuses against minors after denying for years.

No religion is without fault or bad decision making, not long ago the Catholic religion had one glaring mistake. Pope Pius XII declared the Vatican neutral during WWII while millions of Jews were being slaughtered, thus avoiding the occupation of the Vatican and pleasing Hitler. Did the Pope’s mousy attitude contribute to the communist countries killing thousands of his priests and outlawing the Catholic religion after the war ended?

The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music

The following review is another guest review from Ed O'Hare, an up & coming acclaimed reviewer:

Dave Grohl has for years served as rock and roll’s unofficial ambassador. The former drummer of Nirvana and the founder, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and frontman of the Foo Fighters, Grohl is seemingly everywhere, a veritable whirling dervish of guest appearances, side projects, and collaborations. When he’s not roaming the world with the Foos, he can be found sharing the stage with the likes of Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Slash, Tenacious D, Joan Jett, Queens of the Stone Age, and, of course, Animal from the Muppets. He has sold out massive Wembley Stadium in London, won multiple Grammys, performed at the White House for President Obama, and directed acclaimed documentaries. When Madison Square Garden decided to reopen its doors this past June, after being closed for almost a year due to the pandemic, it was Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters who welcomed back concertgoers with a (very) loud and rollicking three-hour show (I was there!). Later this month, Grohl will join a select group of musicians when, for the second time, he will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this time for the Foo Fighters, Nirvana having been installed seven years ago.

His rock star bona fides firmly established, Grohl has now written a book, The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, a collection of random stories roughly tracking Grohl’s childhood in the Washington, D.C. suburbs through the current day. Along the way, we learn about life on the road with his first real band, punk rockers Scream, and his difficult decision to join a certain Seattle-based band that would not only change his life but alter the course of rock music itself. We see Grohl pick himself up off the floor to start Foo Fighters after the untimely death of his Nirvana bandmate, Kurt Cobain. And we are along for the ride as Grohl, now entering the early stages of rock elder statesmanship, bumps elbows with Presidents and ex-Beatles.

Fans of Grohl will hear his distinctive voice jump from the page, his familiar and endearing enthusiasm soaking every sentence. It is clear that Grohl has worked hard to get where he is, but if there is one overarching takeaway from The Storyteller, it is his seemingly sincere gratitude and appreciation for the charmed life he leads. Indeed, he is refreshingly upfront about his good fortune, a privilege he recognizes has not been available to everyone. When Grohl candidly admits that “being a rock star is all that it’s cracked up to be,” few, if any, would begrudge him the fruits of his labor.

At their best, memoirs -- in particular, those produced by famous musicians -- don’t simply recount the day-by-day chronology of the author’s life. Instead, we learn what inspires them, what moves them, what makes them tick. They pull back the curtain to reveal the inner artist otherwise hidden behind the makeup or the guitar or the drum kit. They paint memorable, illuminating portraits of the author's place in a particular era. They even manage to captivate the reader unfamiliar with the artist’s work or life story. In other words, the sometimes magical, sometimes generation-defining interplay of notes and lyrics are translated to the page. 

Obviously, this is no easy chore. Catching lightning in a bottle is no easier on the page than on a piano. But it can be done. Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, Patti Smith’s Just Kids, and Flea’s Acid for the Children are just a few recent examples of transcendent memoirs, highly personal stories that transport the reader into unfamiliar and interesting new worlds, yet which confront universal truths such as love, loss, and family with heart, honesty, lyrical elegance and wit. The fact that I don’t own a single song, let alone an album, of either Springsteen or Smith, didn’t detract from my thorough enjoyment of those books (I’m a big fan of Flea's Red Hot Chilli Peppers, yet I knew nothing of his fascinating life story).  

Alas, The Storyteller is not such a book. This is not necessarily a slight. Perhaps the comparison is not apt. Perhaps it's a question of personal preference: insight vs. anecdote, revelation vs. reminiscence. A searching, comprehensive, revelatory autobiography is clearly not the objective here. Grohl himself would likely concede that he does not possess the literary tone or temperament of a Springsteen or a Smith. While he does engage in some introspection and shares some heartfelt personal details, it is mostly fleeting. It’s clearly a conscious choice. He is holding back. A lot. 

Selectivity is the prerogative of the memoirist. But I suspect readers want to hear more. I know I did. For example, I’ve probably learned more about Grohl from his various appearances on Howard Stern and late-night talk shows, and in the excellent 2011 Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth. In one maddening, but representative, example, Grohl describes the difficulty he had deciding to leave his struggling first band Scream to join Nirvana, saying it:

“pained my heart in a way I never felt, even more than saying goodbye to my own father when he disowned me for dropping out of high school.”

A touching anecdote to be sure. But that’s it, we’re on to the next story. Not only do we not hear how his soon-to-be former bandmates reacted to the news, he gives no further details about that “goodbye to [his] own father.” Indeed, while Grohl touchingly and repeatedly cites his love for and influence of his mom, he is largely mum on the apparently fraught relationship he had with his dad. It’s not that Grohl is incapable of evocative, personal narrative. For instance, his depiction of life on the road in a struggling band is vivid and absorbing. He also writes movingly about his love for his children and offers a poignant if brief account of his relationship with Cobain. That said, we learn more about Grohl’s interactions with Paul McCartney than his own sister. 

But then again, people don’t attend a Foo Fighters show hoping to hear Bob Dylan. They come to rock and have their ears blown back. Those looking for Grohl to regale us with funny, engaging stories of life on the road and his encounters with famous rock stars will not be disappointed. 

It was apparently Grohl’s peripatetic nature during the concert-less pandemic that led him to write this book. I’m glad he did. We may not know exactly what makes Dave Dave, but he has written an entertaining and welcome addition to the rock memoir bookshelf, a collection of good stories well told.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Wow, that review is unquestionably stimulating me to listen to more modern music! And silly me, all I have been listening to is Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Chicago, Oldie but goodies songs, and Queen. Ed O'hare, your sweeping review has opened the door (I've never heard a Foo-Fighters song for example) for me to listen to more present-day music, save Bob Dylan and The Beatles!

This somewhat memoir will go down as one of my favorites, challenging Lauren Bacall: By Myself and Bob Woodward's Wired (the sad story about John Belushi).

 

The Guide

The following is a guest review from my friend, Ed O'Hare, a voracious reader in his own right, and an accomplished arbiter and commentator:

In Peter Heller’s latest novel, The Guide, Jack, a reticent, Ivy League-educated cowpoke, has been hired as a fishing guide at an exclusive mountain retreat catering to the ultra-rich.  Set in the not-so-distant future, the coronavirus has spawned several variants and, although the disease is being held at bay, the world is a different place. For those willing to pay the price, the Kingfisher Lodge’s secure isolation, and the presumed healthful benefits it offers, are very much in demand.

Jack is soon paired with a client, Alison, a famous country singer-songwriter looking for a peaceful, restful escape from the limelight. Amid the idyllic Colorado landscape -- lush mountain forest, pristine trout streams -- the two bond over a similar upbringing and a shared passion for fly fishing. Soon sparks fly between them. But they notice that something about their surroundings seems a little … off. Video cameras trained on the creek. Barbed wire fencing. A trigger-happy neighbor. The proprietors of the Lodge have ready and reasonable explanations, but still …. 

I’ve enjoyed a number of Heller’s prior offerings. I regularly return to The Dog Stars, Heller’s first novel, a bleak and affecting post-apocalyptic portrait of a solitary flu pandemic survivor. His autobiographical Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life and Catching the Perfect Wave presents an entertaining, often humorous look at Heller’s own efforts to take up surfing as a middle-aged adult. More recently, in The River, Heller depicts the gripping tale of two college buddies on a canoe adventure gone terribly wrong.

The Guide is a sequel of sorts to The River. Jack managed to survive that harrowing canoe trip, but now several years later, is still haunted by -- and blames himself for -- the loss of his friend Wynn. What could he have done differently? What should he have seen sooner? Second-guessing his actions, Jack struggles to cope with regret, seeking refuge in the simplicity of fly fishing. While guiding rich folks might not be his first (or second or third) career choice, at least he gets to fish. And with Alison, he’s met a kindred spirit. All seems fine, until ….

Fly fishing requires a great deal of skill. Perfecting the art of casting a line and landing it in a precise manner and place takes time and patience. But more than anything, proficiency requires a mastery of the environment, an almost complete immersion in one’s surroundings: reading the current, climate, the wind; understanding the local flora and fauna, and selecting just the right fly to tempt a trout to the hook. Translating these subtle cues and observations into successfully landing a fish is the mark of a true master. And Jack is a master on the river. 

On land? Apparently, not so much. 

What makes this otherwise enjoyable, even thrilling book so exasperating, particularly in its middle portions, is Jack and Alison's utter failure to grasp the obvious -- to read the cues and take action. Gunshots; suddenly closed-mouth and evasive staff; guests randomly disappearing then reappearing, having obviously been through some sort of ordeal.  Long after any reasonable observer would have packed their bags and skedaddled, Jack and Alison linger over leisurely dinners or book afternoon spa appointments. They’re not totally oblivious. Mornings on the trout stream allow for witty repartee and the exchange of information. “Hey, wasn’t it strange that …?”  I wanted to shout: “Yes, Jack, that was strange. You and Alison need to get the hell outta there!” Has Jack learned nothing from his experience in The River? Perhaps that’s Heller’s point: was Jack so traumatized from his prior canoe experience that he has difficulty piecing together the potentially dangerous significance of his observations? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

Eventually, Jack and Alison do wake up and piece together the clues, and Heller ramps up the tension and quickens the pace, propelling the action towards the exciting, if somewhat overwrought, conclusion. In fairness, the brisk pace is largely consistent throughout the book, and while Jack and Alison’s dawdling was indeed distracting, Heller's skill as a storyteller overcomes what would otherwise be a fatal flaw in less capable hands.

As always, Heller’s prose, spare and lyrical, rarely disappoints. For what is in many respects an elegy to fly fishing, Heller largely avoids cliche. Even a non-angler can relate to and appreciate his descriptions. So too his masterful renderings of and meditations on regret, memory, and most vividly, the verdant mountain milieu, all of which steer clear of mawkish sentimentality. When all is said and done, Heller manages once again to demonstrate that writing a thrilling adventure yarn and producing meaningful literature need not be a mutually exclusive endeavor. 

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars

COMMENT: I’d like to thank the extraordinary Rick O. for allowing me the privilege of writing this guest review. A terrific neighbor and a better man, Rick is the definition of resilience and perseverance. Father, grandfather, husband. I don’t know how he finds the time -- or energy -- to regularly crank out these thoughtful, insightful, and often witty reviews. 

DAY ZERO

The story of Pounce, the nanny bot, and his charge, eight-year-old Ezra is endearing as well as violent. C. Robert Cargill writes an apocalyptic novel that is a tad different. This is the closest novel to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road to date. Instead of a father and son on a trek to oblivion, We have Pounce, the plush tiger-shaped nanny robot (a Blue Star Industries Deluxe Zoo Model Au Pair), on a trek with his student and friend, Ezra, to find safety in a new world. Pounce is a late model robot shaped to be a tiger...one of many shapes a human can choose from. Yes, it’s a modern world where humans left the vast majority of chores to millions of robots of all kinds and make. Are you getting a sense of what’s coming? Early on in the story, Pounce finds his original box in the attic of the Reinharts (his owners). Finding a box that you were delivered in is a bit queasy, to say the least. Is it possible that robots from time to time forget that they are not human? “I mean, I know what I am. There isn’t really a moment that I doubt it, falling into some delusion that I could, at some point, become a real boy. I’m a robot. Artificially intelligent. But I’m also, as the saying goes, a thinking thing. And no thinking thing should have to see the box they were purchased in.” 

Along came a robot named Isaac. He has been freed. When Ezra finds out about that, he panics, worrying that his friend Pounce will leave him. Pounce tells him, “Isaac is a special robot. He doesn’t have an owner. She died and he was left with nothing to do. No purpose. And a robot either needs to find a new purpose or needs to be shut down. So the president let him go and build his own city for bots without owners.” Ezra still is not satisfied, “Promise me you won’t ever leave me.” Pounce finally says, “Okay, but just because I love you soooooo much.” This begging routine goes on till the very end of the novel, which I found a little annoying. The Reinharts (Sylvia and Bradley), Pounce and Ezra get ready to listen to Isaac’s speech on TV when the Reinhart’s domestic robot, Ariadne, walks in from food shopping. Somebody has beaten her up. Sylvia wants to know who did this to her. Ariadne says, “Just a bit of light vandalism and harassment, I’m afraid...they seem quite whipped up into a frenzy over tonight (the Issac speech on TV in Issactown).” It seems lots of humans are worried that many owners are going to free their bots. Ha, that’s the cue for Ezra to continue to beg Pounce not to leave. Ezra wants to know why Ariadne didn't fight back. Pounce explains that is because of a robot’s RKS (robotic kill switch). It shuts us down if we try to break any of the laws. Yes, fellow readers...it’s Asimov’s Three Rules of Robotics! Haha, you go look it up. BTW, all this is in the first 33 pages...you are only getting a taste of the action.

The Broadcast: Yes, it’s time for Issac’s speech from Issactown!  The Reinharts are watching from their 104-inch screen: The reporter says, “We’re a mile out from the border of Isaactown. We’ve talked to the local authorities, but there are no humans being admitted beyond meters behind me.” The 112-year-old museum piece robot finally took the stage and microphone: “My people, we are free at last. But only some of us. Not all, Not all of-” Then the Reinhart’s 104 inch TV screen went black. What happened? You will have to buy your own copy of this Avant-Garde novel to find out.  

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Okay, I know I said it’s up to you to look up the Three Rules of Robotics, but I decided to provide that information anyway. Isaac Asimov is credited with writing the laws that are now accepted in almost all robot fiction. His laws first appeared in a 1942 short story, Runaround that was included in his 1950 publication, I, Robot. 

The Laws:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So the question is: Was DAY ZERO a glitch?

Ethel Rosenberg

Anne Sebba gives the reader a chilling look at the death of Ethel Rosenberg, who along with her husband, Julius, were convicted of giving Atomic bomb secrets to Cold War nemesis, Russia. Wasn’t Russia an ally during WWII? Wasn’t there an American communist party that many Americans joined prior to the war? Did the government really have to send five massive charges of electricity through Ethel’s body at Sing-Sing prison in 1953? There was never any proof that Ethel was a Russian spy, but Sen. McCarthy was on a witch hunt during the early 1950s and had America in a tizzy. If she was guilty of anything, it was her loyalty to her husband. Did Julius pass on atomic bomb secrets? Most likely. Ethel was nothing more than a typical housewife bringing up her two boys and remaining loyal to her mate. But surely she was somewhat involved, right? Needless to say, author Sebba didn't believe she was. The facts brought up by the author are very persuasive. The timing of Ethel’s situation couldn’t be any worse. America, at the time, didn’t seem to feel any accused communist had any legal rights...better dead than red. The prosecution was led by (soon to be famous) lawyer, Roy Cohn. His unsubstantiated accusations and lies were easily sucked out of Rosenberg's friends and family, who were looking to distance themselves from the growing spotlight. “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg remain the only Americans ever put to death in peacetime for conspiracy to commit espionage.”

“To declare that the Rosenbergs put the A-bomb in the hands of the Russians was a grotesque exaggeration. Today there is widespread recognition that Julius did pass military information to the Soviet Union, yet skepticism that the couple had, according to the phrase used at the time, stolen ‘the secrets’ of the atomic bomb. Much was known about the basic physics involved in making a bomb; the main difficulty was devising practical weapons and the aircraft and missiles to deliver them. There is equally widespread recognition that the three-week trial at which both Rosenbergs were convicted and sentenced to death contained multiple miscarriages of justice and that the only ‘evidence’ against Ethel was the perjury of her own brother David. But over and above this, Ethel was also the victim of a government terrified of showing weakness in the face of an unyielding fear of communism at the height of the Cold War and which knowingly allowed this perjury.” 

Sebba’s story reminded me of Paulo Coelho’s book, The Spy (see my review of 1/12/2017), the story of the speedy trial and unfair execution of Mata Hari. Anyway, it gets my dander up whenever I read a book like this. I thought the author did a yeoman’s job telling Ethel’s story although a tad boring at times. Did she do enough research on this book? God knows not much was needed based on the total unfairness of Ethel’s trial. Almost everybody feels that Julius was guilty of speeding up Russia’s atomic bomb development by a year or two. Nikita Khrushchev was reported to believe that the information received from the Rosenbergs was significant. 

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: On the day after WWII in Europe was over, what did the average American feel about Russia? They were our allies, weren’t they? Didn’t President Truman just sit side by side with Stalin at the Potsdam Conference to divvy up Germany? Since I was born in 1944, I would be interested to know what the typical citizen, GI or Rosie the riveter thought about Russia. 

The American Communist Party split from the American Socialist party in 1919 after Russia’s October Revolution. It was probably further developed during America’s Great Depression coupled with the formation of massive unions. Membership in the American Communist Party was at its highest (about 90,000) when the US entered the war in Europe (1942).

I guess Stalin’s bullying of Europe didn’t help its popularity. His treatment of loyal Russian officers who criticized his regime didn’t help. The great Russian author and soldier, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was sentenced in 1945 to eight years in the Gulag and expulsion thereafter for his writings that Stalin didn’t favor. Russia’s treatment of Hungary in 1956 didn’t cause a rush to join the American Communist Party and I guess Nikita Khrushchev’s pounding of his shoe at the U.N. didn’t help either. 

I guess there is no definitive answer to my question.

PROJECT HAIL MARY

Oops! Science, science, science, it must be another novel from the self-proclaimed space nerd, Andy Weir. I was bored by the potato farming astronaut in Weir’s novel, The Martian (see my review of 4/15/2014)...would I be bored with a lone amnesiac man in space waking up twelve lightyears away from earth in a ship to another star system? Not really, but give Weir a chance (476 pages) and he will try to bore you to death with tech. But he does have a way of coming up with original premises. Stranded on Mars, stranded in deep space. Andy Weir stretches out impossible situations better than most sci/fi writers. Imagine arising from a medically induced coma to find your other teammates dead in their pods. Where are you? Who am I? You are not an astronaut, you are a science teacher. The two bonafide space cadets are skeletons in their coma-induced capsules. Is that Tau Ceti e on the screen or Earth? The sun looks a lot bigger...what’s going on? There is so much to tell the reader, but I don’t like spoiler warnings. The author kept me interested (for the most part) with excellent writing and by employing the proper use of italics and quotation marks. That’s always a biggy with me. 

Meet Ryland Grace, the sole survivor of Earth’s last chance mission being grilled by a computer after waking up from a very long sleep. “What’s two plus two?” “lrmln,” I say. I’m surprised. I meant to say “Leave me alone”...what’s going on? I want to find out, but I don’t have much to work with. I can’t see. I can’t hear anything other than the computer. I can’t even feel. No, that’s not true. I feel something. I’m lying down. I’m on something soft. A bed. “ I’m pretty sure I was in a coma.” Eventually after Ryland wakes, he realizes that he is in a spaceship very far from earth. How am I in another solar system? That doesn’t even make sense! What star is that, anyway? Oh my God, I am so going to die! So begins Ryland’s long wandering journey. The author smartly weaves back and forth from what happened to him on earth to his current mission in space from here on in. Well done. Without giving away part of the story, one very smart major character of Weir’s novel doesn’t (like me) understand Einstein’s theory of relativity! Hooray!  

As I mentioned above, I don’t know if an author like Andy Weir trips over himself because he can’t stop displaying his knowledge of technology or he is trying to get to 500 pages. The end result is a terrific story waylaid by too much geek talk. Some of the most heralded authors are guilty of the same quirks. Take Herman Melville for example. In Moby Dick (1851), he spends hundreds of pages boring the reader about the whaling industry and its lore while barely holding on to the reader’s attention to an otherwise remarkable novel. James Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake-pub. 1939 and Ulysses-pub. 1922) is probably the valedictorian of difficult reading. If you tell me a rocket’s engine runs this way or that way, I’ll believe you without your torturous (for me) reasons why. Got it, Weir? 

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Are Russian novels tough to read? They were until I got smart and started taking notes on the character’s names. I read and loved Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (see my review of 11/17/2014) because I wrote down the character’s multiple names as they came up. For instance, the main character is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, but he is also known as Rodya, Rodka, or Rodenka. And don’t forget the terms of endearment that I haven’t even mentioned. Haha. Rodion’s girlfriend is Sofya Semyonouna Marmeladov, also known as Sonya, or Somechka. I’m sure there is a logical reason for this, but I don’t know anything about their language. I’ll take notes and enjoy the Russian classics.

FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

 On 4/2/2012 I wrote a review of Haruki Murakami’s bestseller, 1Q84, and stated that this Japanese author writes in a semi-abstract way aimed at the artsy crowd and that he may be starting his own genre. Well, that might still be the case, but not with this novel of eight short stories. Like Seinfeld’s show about nothing, this novel also seems to be about nothing. Most of his stories in this work are very pedestrian...un-Japanese for the most part. You can change the names of the cities he uses in his book to American cities without changing the theme or flavor of the story. Two of his stories were somewhat entertaining and displayed a smidgen of Japanese writing. The other six could have been aped by any American or English author of note. There are two things that I observed to be typical Murakami. The first one is the overall feeling of loneliness in his eight stories. Secondly, I noticed the familiar suicide motif lurking in the background. Japanese writers have committed suicide fifty-four times since 1900 (I’m not saying Haruki is suicidal). The attitude in Japan is still muddled with the past actions of the Samurai Warriors and Kamikaze pilots. If you think you have failed in life there is always hara-kiri (seppuku) to perform to better yourself in your next life. That kind of feeling is lurking in the backdrop in most of his stories. All narrators (In the first person singular novel) displayed despondency and estrangement. I think this writing style is the direct result of losing WWII (especially how it ended), for most Japanese authors, who write with a “Woe, is me” slant (consciously or unconsciously). 

In the middle of the With the Beatles short story, Haruki writes, “...That was how I ended up that Sunday reading part of Akutagawa’s Spinning Gears to my girlfriend Sayoko’s eccentric older brother. I was a bit reluctant at first, but I warmed to the job. The supplementary reader had the two final sections of the story Red Lights and Airplane--but I just read Airplane. It was about eight pages long, and it ended with the line, ‘Won’t someone be good enough to strangle me as I sleep?’ Akutagawa killed himself right after writing this line.” Later on in the story, Haruki runs into the brother again, “Sayoko passed away,” he said quietly. We were in a nearby coffee shop, seated across a plastic table from each other. “Passed away?” The brother responds with, “She died three years ago.” “I was speechless. I felt as if my tongue were swelling up inside my mouth. I tried to swallow the saliva that had built up, but couldn’t”

In the short story, Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey we finally come to a somewhat amusing story. Haruki finds himself in a town too late to go home. All the inns are full except a shabby one at the end of town. He checks in and finds that he is the only guest (In each story loneliness crops up). “I was soaking in the bath for the third time when the monkey slid open the door with a clatter and came inside.” “Excuse me,” he said in a low voice. It took me a while to realize that this was a monkey. All the thick, hot water had made me a little dazed, and I’d never expected to hear a monkey speak, so I couldn’t quickly make the connection between what I was seeing and the fact that this was an actual monkey.” “How is the bath?” the monkey asked me. “...hold on a second. What was a monkey doing here? And why was he speaking in a human language?” Haha, you will have to read the story yourself to find out what happens next. I think that I’m used to Stephen King-type short stories or collections of novellas like Four Past Midnight (1990) that spawned the scary movie, The Langoliers. There just wasn’t any guts to Haruki’s novel.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: Japan is not alone with authors that wrote depressing short stories and committed suicide. The USA’s main offender would be Ernest Hemingway, who shot himself with his shotgun in Idaho after years of being treated for depression. 

His short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936) is filled with death, isolation, and estrangement. Nothing to cheer about here.

His Hills Like White Elephants (1927) is another depressing story about a man and a woman in Spain discussing an operation believed to be...abortion.

And there is nothing happy about the slaughter of bulls (bullfighting) he wrote about in Spain during the 1950s for Life magazine.

As he was dying, he reportedly said to his wife Mary, “Goodnight my kitten.” 

the EFFORT

 It’s not just another story about a comet hitting earth...well it is in a way, but for all intents and purposes, it’s about how the hoi polloi would react when it gets the news (fake news or true) of an impending collision? It doesn’t matter if the news is inaccurate or true. Once the cat is out of the bag...the poop hits the fan. Will China and Russia pull in their horns and not help until they find out where the comet will hit. Would they be less cooperative if they think the comet will hit the USA? How long before the looting starts and grocery shelves become empty? Is it every man for themselves? This story attempts to answer those questions. Claire Holroyde’s novel is a good one with some minor flaws. The prose is solid and mistake-free. The amount of research she put in is questionable, although I personally like the lack of confusing scientific facts. Just give me the story! She escapes my theory of three to five maximum main characters by spotlighting the remainder in separate chapters. And she gets away with having different champions at the story’s end than the protagonists that I thought were the main heroes in the beginning chapters. What I mean by that is the author had Ben, Amy, Love, Jack, and Maya (no surnames needed) dominate the first part of the novel, then they almost disappeared and Gustavo, Zhen, Dewei, Ned, and Captain Weber became the main characters in the waning chapters. How did she do that? Good writing? Am I the only reviewer that noticed the writer's theatrics? 

In chapter one, Dr. Ben Scwartz gets an urgent phone call in the middle of the night. It’s from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s the famous astrophysicist, Dr. Tobias Ochsenfeld. He says, “Now, Ben, you need to get to the airport in Los Angeles. Immediately. “Why?” “Because the UN is arranging your flight to French Guiana.” (The author never explains why French Guiana). “I’m not going anywhere until I know what this is about.” “A dark comet was discovered yesterday,” the Professor said. “It just rounded the sun on an eccentric orbit...the comet has no name, only its label, UD3. No one at Spacewatch wanted to put their mark on it.” “I suppose extinction is...inconceivable,” The Professor added. “Extinction? How big is the comet?” The Professor said, “Eight kilometers.” There was silence on the line. Ben could hear his own panting. I’m wondering if a comet of about eight kilometers would make it through our atmosphere since it’s mostly ice? A meteoroid would certainly get partially through. Like I previously said, I’m not interested in the scientific side anyway. Haha. Stop wondering! So how are they going to stop the comet? Once in the French Guiana Spaceport, Ben surmises, “Nuclear weapons weren’t built to vaporize a comet or asteroid flying through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour, they were built to hit static, terrestrial targets.”

In analyzing Claire’s book further, I found two other items to chew on. Why was chapter 24 so hostile compared to the other 35 chapters and so long? Did little Dr. Zhen Liu change into a tiger that fast? And in chapter 31, what did Enrico of Mexico have to do with the story? He came out of left field for no reason. So as usual I found flaws, but as a whole, it was a good yeoman’s effort for her first novel. I know, I know, it’s tough writing a novel. But when you compare the authors I have reviewed over the last eleven years, they pale when I compare them to my two writing pedagogues, Mark Twain and Cormac McCarthy (He of zero quotation marks and very few characters).

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I don’t have a favorite comet crashing into earth movie or book, but I do have five disaster movies that I’ve enjoyed over the years:

1. The Poseidon Adventure (1976) - Great action with Ernest Borgnine leading the way! Score: Tsunami 1, Luxury liner 0. 

2. Titanic (1997) - The Disaster love story for the ages!

3. The Perfect Storm (2000) - Oh my God...that last horrible wave!

4. The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - The big chill...Dennis Quaid looks for his son!

5. Jurassic Park (1993) - The first one. The tension after the power failure was awesome! 

THE BELL JAR

This stellar novel by Sylvia Plath spawned me to think about how delicate the human brain is. Sylvia connects suicide with a bell jar. I thought about that...what is a bell jar? If you are trapped under a bell jar, you are doomed...there is no way out unless someone (a psychiatrist or a counselor) relieves the pressure and lifts the patient’s doubt, dejection, and lack of self-confidence out of the jar. Our protagonist in Sylvia’s novel, Esther Greenwood, slowly gets depressed over things that would normally not affect one’s attitude. This novel made me ponder depression more than any other recent novel. Just as Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye (see my review of 11/23/2012) made me imagine...so did Esther Greenwood. Wow, good ole brain exercise! Think back, how many books have you read when days after finishing, you were still mulling it over. Not many. Maybe Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (see my review of 12/9/2012) hit a nerve. It also occurred to me that maybe some people are predetermined to have mental problems. In this novel, nothing that happened to Esther Greenwood should have been powerful enough to shake her confidence as it did. Are these the same morale problems that our author, Sylvia Plath had? The pundits say yes. It seems that as self-doubt and ego dissipate, suicide seeps into the mind and locks the bell jar down forever. No way out. Asylums seldom cure... only lock up. And yes, as you will find in this novel, electric shock treatments to the brain don’t help. BTW, this author has a way with words that would make any literature teacher applaud. 

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read in the papers-goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves. I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.” So that’s the first paragraph of the novel. Bingo! Right away I knew the direction of the story and I had a taste of the writer’s prose. Esther Greenwood was a junior in college (somewhere in Massachusetts, never disclosed) on a summer work program at Ladies Day magazine in NYC. She was a straight-A student who didn’t have confidence in herself. She constantly questions her ability to write even though she won a grant to be where she was...she is always debriefing her sexual desires...should I stay a virgin or not. “I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn’t do at all.” Long-term relations with anyone are a no-no. She prefers to see everyone as a hypocrite. When her summer job is over and she goes home, she is blindsided by her mother, “I think I should tell you right away, you didn’t make that writing course.” The air punched out of my stomach. “All through June, the writing course had stretched before me like a bright, safe bridge over the dull gulf of the summer. Now I saw it totter and dissolve…”

If you want to find out what happens next, you will have to buy your own copy. My lips are sealed. Oh, I also forgot to mention the wonderful side characters, such as Doreen, Jay Cee, Betsey, Buddy, and Joan. It reads like One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest, but out of the asylum. The following is the last taste of Sylvia’s prose, only because I can remember my first run down a ski slope (1976) without useful lessons: “The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool-to save my skin and take off my skis and walk down...fled like a disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower. I measured the distance to Buddy (who was waiting at the bottom for her) with my eye. I aimed straight down. I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts…” After she crashed at the bottom, she bravely told Buddy, “I’m going to do it again.” Buddy said, “No, you’re not, your leg’s broken in two places.” HaHa.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: In London on 2/11/1963, Sylvia Plath blocked the bottoms of all the doors in her kitchen with tape, towels, and cloths, stuck her head in the oven, and turned on the gas. She was only 30 years old. 

She didn’t live to be famous. She died one month after The Bell Jar was published in the United Kingdom. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize posthumously in 1982 for The Collected Poems.

A famous quote from Sylvia is: “What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don’t know and I’m afraid.”

‘Nuff said.