NICHOLAS NICKLEBY

 It took me over a month to read this novel or should I say study this novel. Charles Dickens is either the greatest writer of all time or the greatest magazine editor that ever lived. I slowly read (and studied) 20 pages or so a day with some breaks spending time with my acrylic painting hobby. It’s not that I eschewed my daily chore, but one has to understand with Dickens you must go at a snail’s pace or chance missing his meaning. I’ll let you read the first paragraph of page 183, chapter 18, “There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering, which, having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them, are disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but who pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to rouse it.” Now, if you read that at a normal pace, you will not understand what he just wrote. You must reread much of his novel before reading on or risk discerning his thoughts. Coupled with seemingly hundreds of characters (it was actually 40+) knowing that one of these early minor or major characters (some were comically abhorrent) will surely appear near the end of the story to completely vex you because you didn’t pay proper attention to him/her. Most of Dickens’s novels were originally monthly or weekly serial publications before being published into book form. The adventures of Nicholas Nickleby was Dickens’s third novel, written while still writing Oliver Twist. Poverty was always the main theme in his novels, Dickens himself witnessed his father being sent to Debtor’s Prison causing the twelve-year-old Charles to bounce from place to place which led Dickens to believe “the rigors of life were unfairly borne by the poor.” (Wikipedia). “Masses of the illiterate poor would individually pay a halfpenny to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up and inspiring a new class of reader.” (Wikipedia). Alright, enough about Dickens, what’s the story about? I’m glad you asked.

BTW, before I give you a brief rundown of the story, I want to apprise you of how Dickens tells a story (at least in my 1944 illustrated copy). He writes a little blurb about what’s going to happen in italics before the chapter starts, such as, in chapter XII, he previews it with, “Whereby the reader will be enabled to trace the further course of Miss Fanny Squeer’s love and to ascertain whether it ran smoothly or otherwise.” Anyway, I thought those little interpolations before each chapter were refreshing. Before I tell you about the story, I need to give you an example of the author’s amazing descriptive ability (I promise my synopsis is coming shortly). On page 383, chapter XXXV, our protagonist, Nicholas Nickleby meets Mr. Charles Cheeryble, twin brother of Ned, “He was a sturdy old fellow in a broad-skirted blue coat, made pretty large, to fit easily, and with no particular waist; his bulky legs clothed in drab breeches and high gaiters, and his head protected by a low-crowned broad-brimmed white hat, such as a wealthy grazier might wear. He wore his coat buttoned, and his dimpled double-chin rested in the folds of a white neckerchief-not one of your stiff-starched apoplectic cravats, but a good, easy, old-fashioned white neckcloth that a man might go to bed in and be none the worse for. But what principally attracted the attention of Nicholas, was the old gentleman’s eye,-never was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry, happy eye, as that. And there he stood, looking a little upward, with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat, and the other playing with his old-fashioned gold watch-chain: his head thrown a little on one side, and his hat a little more on one side of his head (but that was evidently accidental; not his ordinary way of wearing it), with such a pleasant smile playing about his mouth, and such a comical expression of mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-heartedness, and good-humor, lighting up his jolly old face, that Nicholas would have been content to have stood there, and looked at him until evening, and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that there was a thing as a soured mind or a crabbed countenance to be met within the whole wide world.” Wow, now you know why many people think Dickens was paid by the word (not true). Notice the heavy use of adjectives and long sentences. 

Nicholas Nickleby’s father lost everything in the stock market and dies thereafter. Mrs. Nickleby, Nicholas, and his sister, Kate, go to London to seek rescue from the wealthy and devious, Uncle Ralph Nickleby, their only relative. Ralph grudgingly puts them up in an abandoned house he owns after the Nicklebys had a short stay at kindly miniature painting artist, Mrs. LaCreevy’s home. Nineteen-year-old Nicholas asks for help in finding employment. Ralph hates Nicholas and gets him a low-paying job as a teaching assistant to the repulsive Wackford Squeers, who runs the school Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire. Squeers and his wife are mean to the boys who live there. Squeers keeps most of the money the parents give him and he beats and starves the boys regularly. He especially picks on a boy named Smike. (are Dickens character names special or what?). One day while Squeers is beating up Smike for nothing, Nicholas loses his composure and pummels Mr. Squeers. Nicholas flees with Smike to London not knowing what Squeers is going to tell his uncle. Mrs. Squeers says, “I hate him worse than poison.” Meanwhile, Ralph gets Kate a low-paying job at Madame Mantalini’s fashionable milliner shop. She is initially liked by her boss, Miss Knag until the customers want to deal with Kate only because of her good looks. Now Miss Knag hates Kate and schemes to get rid of her. Newman Noggs, who clerks for Ralph Nickleby, takes Young Nicholas under his wing and provides shelter for Nicholas at the Kenwigs’ home while he’s on the run from Squeers. He also finds Nicholas a new job teaching the four young Kenwigs children French. (Nicholas changes his last name to Johnson).  Noggs, once successful himself, is now a drunk who despises his boss, Ralph. In the meantime, Ralph asks Kate to host a dinner party at his house for clients of nobility and wealth. He just wants a pretty face around to enhance his business prospects and it works as everybody there tries to get close to Kate. This rattles a country girl like Kate and she bursts into tears and runs out of the room pursued by the dominating Sir Mulberry Hawk and his friend, Lord Fredrick Verisopht. Uncle finally gets a coach for Kate and she leaves in tears.

I’m going to end my review of the story now because it’s about ready to take off like a runaway train and I want you to enjoy all the ensuing happenings. There are many adventures and miss adventures for the Nicklebys and their conglomeration of good and bad characters yet to be touched on, you have had only a taste of this marvelous novel. It’s a tough read not just only because of the 711 pages, but because of Dickens’s grandiose writing style which was prevalent during his times. Also, occasional bouts of Mr. John Browdie speaking with an accent, such as, “And she wur coaxin’, and coaxin’, and wheedlin’ a’ the blessed wa’. Wa’at didst thou let yon chap mak’ oop tiv’ee for? Says I. ‘I deedn’t John, says she, a squeedgin my arm. ‘You deedn’t ?’ says I. ‘Noa,’ says she, a squeedgin of me agean.” Boy, Hemingway sure simplified things in the 1920s. All kidding aside, Nicholas Nickleby is an important read and should be savored like a fine wine.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: On June 8th, 1870, Charles Dickens suffered a stroke and died at his home. He was only 58 years old. He was working on an unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Dan Simmons (a great writer) wrote a wonderful novel, Drood, in 2009. It is hypnotizing story about Dickens narrated by his real-life friend and author, Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White).

Amazon writes, “Drood explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author’s last years and may provide the key to Dickens’s final unfinished work.”

If you have time (you should make room), Drood and The Woman in White are two of my all-time favorite novels (surely in the top ten). Both novels are over 700 pages each but worth reading.

THE SUN ALSO RISES

 

Do you remember the line in Don McLean’s 1971 song American Pie...the day the music died? Well, when Ernest Hemingway published his first novel The Sun Also Rises in 1926...it was the day descriptive writing died. Other than F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, Hemingway’s style changed the way authors wrote from descriptive to non-descriptive. Paris in the 1920s was home for The Lost Generation, a group of American expatriates along with some European writers and artists who, led by Gertrude Stein, rejected the  American way of writing and painting (Picasso was a member of the group). The group was young and rebellious. Besides Hemingway, the group included American writers, John Dos Passos, Hart Crane, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, and Irish novelist James Joyce. And did they drink! They were seen daily in the Ritz, Cafe de la Paix, the Rotonde, La Closerie des Lilas, the Bois, and all the other prime restaurants and bars in Paris. I’m only bringing this up because this style of living is inspired throughout his first novel. Also, I have to admit that I love reading about that era (see my 2/17/2017 review of Everybody Behaves Badly). Anyway, I wanted to give you the flavor of the times in order for you to enjoy the novel to the nines. BTW, besides writing, drinking, and dining, the group also loved boxing and bullfighting.

The story itself is a microcosm of the Lost Generation with a Cormac McCarthy approved five main characters: The narrator, Jake Barnes (obviously Ernest Hemingway), Lady Brett Ashley, Mike Campbell, Robert Cohn, and Bill Gorton along with an interesting sidebar character, Count Mippipopolous. On a fishing trip to Spain, Bill said to Jake, “You’re an expatriate. You’ve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.” Jake answered with, “It sounds like a swell life...When do I work?” Bill says, “You don’t work. One group claims women support you, Another group claims you’re impotent.” After the fishing trip, Jake and Bill head to Pamplona for the running of the bulls (history tells us that Hemingway did participate) and bullfight watching. There they finally meet their late-arriving friends, Brett, Mike, and Robert at the Hotel Montoya. “Where the hell have you been? Asked Jake. Brett blames Robert for all the delays. On the way to the corrals, they passed a wine shop with a sign in the window: Good wine 30 centimos a liter. “That’s where we’ll go when funds get low,” Brett said. Throughout the novel, it becomes apparent (that) their wine funds will never be low. You wonder how these heavy drinkers were able to produce novels considered literary masterpieces. You have to remember when you are reading this novel Hemingway was only writing about activities that he was actually participating in. They really wined and dined deliberately every day. Like Jake said, “It sounds like a swell life.” Haha.

Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (The Old Man And The Sea), although I find his style easy to follow...it's somewhat bland. Where Hemingway’s character might say, “I see a red rose.”, a descriptive writer like Robert Louis Stevenson (which I prefer) might write, “I see a long-stemmed cardinal red rose with dew-covered petals and sharp prickles.” That’s all I’m saying...reviewers are writers too, haha. F. Scott Fitzgerald befriended Ernest Hemingway and the modernist Lost Generation, but never changed his descriptive style. I did enjoy Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises but struggled to find any plot. Yet Hemingway’s story of Cuban fisherman Santiago in The Old Man And The Sea (his last novel) actually displayed some descriptive writing and a plot. Go figure. BTW, wasn't Spencer Tracy fabulous in the movie version? Bung-o! 

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I know that The Sun Also Rises was Hemingway’s first novel, but all of his life pleasures are displayed in his novel. Some facts about Hemingway’s life:

1. He was an ambulance driver in the Italian front during WWI where he was wounded.

2. As a journalist, he covered The Spanish Civil War.

3. He was a foreign correspondent during WWII.

4. In 1954 he had two successive plane crashes in Africa that caused the start of his physical deterioration.

5. In 1961 Hemingway deliberately shot himself with his favorite double-barreled shotgun in Idaho. His wife initially told the press that it was accidental. 

6. Many people believe that Hemmingway had CTE from all his concussions which would explain the suicide...a major reason for the NFL player's rash of suicides.

ADDRESS UNKNOWN

 

In 1938 Kathrine Kressmann Taylor wrote a classic novel (really a 79-page short story), Address Unknown, that unfortunately still resonates in today's world. It’s an epistolary book built around the letters betwixt the years 1932 and 1934 between the partners of Schulse-Eisenstein Galleries of San Francisco, Martin Schulse (a non-Jew) and Max Eisenstein. They run a successful art gallery business. Apparently, they both originally lived in Germany. Martin Schulse has decided to move back to Germany and expand their art business in Europe. As you read this story the contents of the letters get scarier and scarier as Adolph Hitler rises in power. The author wrote the story to alert the non-believing American people at the time:

“I wanted to write about what the Nazis were doing and show the American public what happened to real, living people swept up in a warped ideology.”

Max’s first letter to Martin in Germany is filled with jealousy:

My Dear Martin, Back in Germany! How I envy you! Although I have not seen it since my school days, the spell of Unter den Linden is still strong upon me-the breadth of intellectual freedom, the discussions, the music, the light-hearted comradeship. And now the old junker spirit, the Prussian arrogance and militarism are gone.” Ahaha, wait, the good old days of German arrogance are right around the corner. Max is living the life of luxury in Germany. He bought a thirty-room bargain in ten acres of park and he now employs ten servants for the same wages as the two he had in his San Francisco home. His boys have three ponies and a tutor. Life is good. 

As the letters progress, Martin writes to Max:

“You have heard of course of the new events in Germany, and you will want to know how it appears to us here on the inside. I tell you truly, Max, I think Hitler is good for Germany, but I am not sure...The man is like an electric shock, strong as only a great orator and a zealot can be, but  I ask myself, is he quite sane?”

Now that you know what this treasure of a novel is about, grab your own copy to see what happens. You can read the entire book sitting in your easy chair in a few hours!

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I know it was a short review but if I went any further you wouldn’t have to read it. Haha. To my remembrance, I have only read three other epistolary novels, two I’ve reviewed, one I read before I started reviewing books:

World War Z by Max Brooks (see my review of 2/18/2011) is a novel full of interviews with the survivors of the zombie war. Clever idea, but I liked the movie better.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (see my review of 2/1/2013). A novel that goes one step further and gets into different ergodic levels. Very, Very strange novel, it tests your compos mentis.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. The story of a woman learning that her family’s past is connected to an inconceivable evil. The scariest book I’ve ever read... bar none.

the LINCOLN HIGHWAY

 

There are storytellers and tale-tellers and then there is Amor Towles, a Cormac McCarthy disciple if ever I saw one. Having read his A Gentleman in Moscow (see my review of 12/31/17) I knew what to expect...superb prose and a captivating story. The amount of main characters is a readable five with two sidebar characters. It doesn’t get any better than that. No need to note the innumerable and exotic names cataloged in most novels, because this novel only has a total of seven. How about Emmett, Billy, Woolly, Duchess, and Sally as your main characters? And Ulysses and Pastor John as your side characters? Do you think you can remember them? You bet your sweet bippy you can! That’s what I’m talking about. And in this novel (ala Cormac McCarthy) he sheds the quotation marks. He uses dashes in lieu of. Here’s a typical example: 

  - How long has this highway been around? asked Duchess.  

  - It was invented by Mr. Carl G. Fisher in 1912.

  - Invented?

  - Yes, said Billy. Invented. 

It’s surprisingly easy to follow and for some reason seems to flow better...more natural. Amor’s previous two novels have sold over four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Have I found my new best writer? You can bet your sweet patootie! HaHa. No, I’m not disparaging my two all-time favorites...Mark Twain (see my review of Tom Sawyer on 11/7/2017 and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on 11/8/2012) and Charles Dickens, but they’ve passed on. I'm talking about today's authors. And don’t call me a misogynist because I also love Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries ( see my review of Dumb Witness on 4/28/17 and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe on 5/16/2013). So what's Amor's story about? Well, once upon a time…Haha.

The Warden from The Salina Kansas Juvenile Work Farm was driving Emmett Watson (18) home to Morgen, Nebraska after Emmett’s term was cut short because of his father’s death. His brother Billy (8) was waiting for him at the family farm along with Mr. Ranson, a neighbor, and a banker waiting to serve notice of non-payment of the mortgage. Emmett and Billy were given two weeks to clear out. After the banker left, the boys found Emmett’s 1948 Studebaker in the barn with $3000 in the trunk. This was all their father had left in the world. The boys decided that they would head to California to find their mother, who walked out on the family eight years ago. Billy had found a metal box with nine postcards addressed to the boys from their mother traveling down the Lincoln Highway. The last card showed a large, classical building rising above a fountain in a park in San Francisco. The boys were disturbed that their father never showed them the postcards that were addressed to them. So, it was Horace Greeley’s “Go west young man” for Emmett and Billy. 

The boy's California plan hit a snag when who walked in the barn to surprise them? None other than Duchess and Woolly, two escapees from the juvenile farm Emmitt just left!  Emmett was dumbfounded:

 - But How…?

 - We hitched a ride with the warden. While he was signing you out, we slipped into the trunk of his car.

It seems that Woolly’s grandfather died and left him a trust fund of $150,000 in the Adirondacks. They want Emmett to take them to New York and they will split the money three ways. This is the point where this story peels off like a dragster, but your taste of the first 41 pages of a 576-page blockbuster has ended. I will not divulge anymore, grab a copy and enjoy. BTW, I loved the way Amor put his novel together. Each chapter was narrated by a different character. That gave each person (even the minor ones) an opportunity to state his/her view as the story unraveled. Well done, Amor, and kudos to you for your wonderful sidebar stories throughout the novel. Wow, a rare review where I didn't criticize the author….oh well.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: This has nothing to do with the above novel, but has anybody noticed a large amount of useless or neophyte (in some cases) amount of Memoirs written this year? I'm Somewhat allergic to them ever since I almost blew my brains out reading Henry Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval and The Memoirs of Richard Nixon in the same year! Yikes!  

Do we need the life story of Dorina Medley? Haven’t we had our fill of Real Housewives …?

How about a memoir of a biographer? Eric Metaxas’s Fish out of Water will surely get you counting sheep.

How about Hunter Biden’s Beautiful Things? What’s beautiful about his cocaine habit or his Ukrainian corruption? 

Now I’m sure Will Smith is a fine gentleman, but shouldn’t he age a bit more before writing his memoir, Will? Wouldn’t you rather read the memoirs of Morgan Freeman? If you do...good news. Kathleen Tracey wrote a biography in 2006 about Freeman, but no memoir.

And lastly...the ultimate sleeping pill, the memoirs of Indian actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Unfinished! Well, I’m finished.  

Rambling Comments #7: Hoopla And Libby, Your Public Library Online

This is a guest post by Deron O:

Imagine looking at your bookshelves and suddenly seeing them burst through the walls and stretch off into infinity. That’s Hoopla and Libby. They’re invaluable extensions of your local public library, allowing you to access e-books, audio books, music, tv shows and movies online for free through their apps and websites. I typically use them on my iPad. They are an endless treasure trove.

A few months ago, I had just finished reading my old paperback of Frank Herbert’s The Children of Dune and thought I’d rewatch its SyFy adaptation. The only place I could find it for streaming was on Hoopla. Hoopla? I had never heard of it before. After doing a bit of reading, I learned that Hoopla is a service linked to public libraries that allows one to download what you’d normally find at a library. To sign up, you just need a library card. I visited my library’s website and obtained a temporary card online. Within half an hour, I was watching Children of Dune on my iPad.

I then started poking around Hoopla. To my surprise, they have an extensive collection of comics and graphic novels. I love comics but hadn’t read much over the past twenty years given their cost and space they take up. Many are available on Hoopla as compilations, but there are current single issues too. I’ve burned through a lot of the classics: Infinity Gauntlet, Batman: Hush, Eternals, The Incal, X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga and others. I’ve read thousands of pages of comics in the past few months.

While on my library’s website, I noticed Libby. Just like Hoopla, you sign up with your library card. Through Libby, I read my first e-book: Enola Holmes: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady. I wasn’t sure how I would like reading a book on an iPad, so I picked this book mainly because of its novella length and easy reading. It was a success. I’ve since read another e-book and have a Stephen King book on hold.

On Hoopla, e-books and audio books can be checked out for 21 days, music for seven days and movies and tv shows for three days. E-books and audio books can be checked out for 21 days on Libby.

There’s a limit to the number of items you can check out from these services. I am restricted to nineteen items per month on Hoopla, which has been more than enough. Libby has a different method where I can have up to ten items checked out at any one time. Those numbers are set by your library, so yours may be different. Also, at least for Hoopla, there is a limit to the total number of items that can be checked out in any one day by all subscribers connected to your library. Many times I’ve tried to check out a comic late in the day only to be denied because the daily limit had been reached. It resets at midnight.

On Libby, only a certain number of copies exist for borrowing that is set by your library. For example, the Enola Holmes book I chose was the second of the series because the first one’s only copy had already been checked out. You can put a book on hold, and when it is available, you’ll receive an alert explaining that you have a limited time during which you can now borrow it. I put the first book on hold and was alerted of its availability a few days later. Hoopla has no limitations.

Not every author or all the works of any one author are available. However, the content is vast enough that you could easily find something to read. I did see that two books reviewed recently on this site, The Hour of the Witch and The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music, are available on Libby.

These services have broadened my selection and taste in books, choosing ones I would not ordinarily have. I am currently enjoying Star Wars, Ms. Marvel, and Sweet Tooth from which the acclaimed Netflix series was adapted; none of which I would have read had I not found them on Hoopla. E-books were never an option for me, preferring only physical books, but not anymore.

Check out Hoopla and Libby. They are the best thing I’ve found on the internet in years. Hopefully, you’ll have as good an experience as I did and become more appreciative of your local public library.

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.