Friday, March 15, 2024

Pretty baubles, but not much else

 As a lifetime member of the Clean Plate Club, it bothers me to leave a book unfinished but I'm afraid that despite John Gardner's interesting introduction I am abandoning Kikuo Itaya's Tengu Child.

Kikuo Itaya (1898-1978) was the son of a nationally famous Japanese ceramicist, and although was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, he entered Waseda University to study Japanese literature. On graduation in 1923 he was hired to teach at Kaisei Gakuen, one of Tokyo's most prestigious private schools for boys. He taught there until he retired in 1977. The story collection Tangu Child is his only book.

John Gardner (1933-1982) was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic, and university professor. He's best know for his 1971 novel Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf myth from the monster's point of view. Gardner and Nokuko Tsukui are credited with translating the stories in Tengu Child.

Gardner's introduction argues that much fiction, Western and Japanese, "claims to show us, more clearly than life ordinarily does, how and why things happen: shows us how a chain of events takes shape, the motives and values of the characters involved, the effects of physical inertia when characters seek to impose their will on the world—in short, it helps us to understand reality-as-process."

In contrast, "a Buddhist writer like Kikuo Itaya . . . tends to use storytelling as a facade: the deeper impulse of the fiction is what I shall called meditational . . . .  As we muse on the stories of Kikuo Itaya, lured in by the graceful surface—the apparently coherent but sometimes puzzling line of action—we gradually realized that here . . . nearly everything is symbolic."

And that, I think, is my problem with the stories. While I believe a fictional character may be both convincingly realistic and symbolic (think Leopold Bloom in Ulysses), Itaya's characters feel entirely symbolic. In the stories I read, the action takes place pre-1600, i.e. before the shogunate. Setting the action in the remote past does not for me make it more persuasive or engaging. 

Prince Genji and the other characters in The Tale of Genji are very different in their lives, goals, and motivations from anyone I've ever met. Nonetheless, I'm willing to believe that Murasaki was trying to evoke plausible characters. Exceptional perhaps, but plausible. She was not trying to create symbols on which the reader is to meditate.

If I cannot enjoy or understand a character's thoughts and actions as at least remotely credible, it's unlikely I will make the effort to probe for a, or the, the deeper meaning. I found the handful of stories I read in Tengu Child to be lovely objects, but they told me nothing about life, reality, or Japanese culture.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Confronting life, death, and one of God's messengers

Nick Farlowe, who narrates his story in P.J. Murphy’s novel Yesterday’s Shadow, is sixteen years old in 1999. He lives in Cambridge, England, with his father, a fork-lift operator, and his mother, who commutes to London for her office job. He’s a high school student, does his homework faithfully, reads science fiction, plays war games with his buddies, and often cowers in his bed at night listening to his father punch out his mother. Until the night in Chapter 1 when Nick comes downstairs and gets into it. His father knocks him down, splitting his lip. That’s finally enough for his mother. She files for divorce and Nick’s father disappears.


That and a school fight are the most dramatic incidents in Yesterday’s Shadow. The novel is a well-written and interesting account of this pivotal year in Nick’s life. I found the evocation of white, middle-class, teen-age angst in England at the end of the century mostly convincing. Nick and his three buddies, however, seem to spend much less time obsessing over girls than my friends and I did at that age.


Nick does think about religion. His mother is a tepid Church of England adherent, and one senses that Nick wants to believe in something greater than what he knows. He connects with an old man, Peter, who is a Christian zealot. Readers who are believing Christians (as opposed to social Christians) will find Peter’s efforts to influence Nick’s belief’s positive.


Readers who are neither Christian nor believers will find Peter’s views extreme. For example, he preaches that “leading a good life is not enough. We will [all] be condemned as sinners on the Day of Judgement.” Nick at sixteen is not sophisticated enough to see the flaw in thinking that “If someone believed in something that strongly, it had to have some truth to it.” 

Yesterday’s Shadow is thought-provoking and well-written. Anyone who has been sixteen and struggled with the big questions—Why am I here? What is true? What is real?—will sympathize with, and possibly identify with, Nick’s journey. 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

An interesting push to the mystery envelope

Roughly half the members of my library mystery book club hated The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentile. The others either liked it a lot or they thought it is an interesting exercise. I didn't care for the mystery, which I thought was absurd, but thought the book’s structure was imaginative.

The book starts with a letter to "Hannah Tigone," a mystery writer, from "Leo," a fan of Hannah's and another writer who offers to be a sounding board "if you require one" as Hannah drafts her new novel. It's not clear that they have ever met, but he know her work and has corresponded with her in the past.  

The next chapter, told in the first person, takes place in the reading room of the Boston Public Library where the narrator, Winifred (Freddie), another writer, is at a table with three young people (under 30): Cain, Whit, and Marigold. There is a scream and ultimately someone finds the body of a young woman in a nearby room. 

In subsequent chapters we learn about Freddie, Cain, Whit, and Marigold, their relationships and connections to one another and to others in the story and something about the dead girl. Every chapter os followed by Leo's comment on and critique of the developing story. In other words, The Woman in the Library operates and two levels simultaneously: the creation of a mystery story and commentary on the story and the characters in it. Adding to the complexity, Gentile names another character, an acquaintance of Freddie's, "Leo." This Leo is not the Leo writing letters to "Hannah," about her new mystery in which the character Freddie is narrating the story. All clear?

Gentile is an Australian writer who had published ten mysteries featuring an artist and gentleman of leisure and set in 1930s Australia. She says that in thanks to her American readers for their support she wanted to set a book in the States but had a problem. She hadn't been to America in years and never been to Boston. However, she had a friend in Boston and he was writing his own novel. She wrote him to ask, "Can I pick your brain while you're there so that I can get the elements of place right for this novel?" Important because as she says, "crime fiction traditionally has a very strong sense of place."

The friend sent her maps, menus, photographs, weather reports, and when there was a a murder two blocks from where he was living, he sent her detailed information about the crime with pictures of the scene.

It was not a giant leap therefore to start the book with the (fictional) author’s friend sending her a letter offering to help her with the new mystery she plans to write. Gentill says, “I love traditional mystery. I love the conversations I can have about politics, and race, and prejudice within the framework of a traditional murder mystery. Part of that is because people know what to expect with the way the plot goes. You can actually load them up with other themes and other ideas, because it doesn't take a lot of effort to follow the plot.

“But after several years of writing in that genre, I feel the need to push the envelope and to write something that's truly novel. I suppose that's where . . .  The Woman in the Library came from. It's my need to actually do something in a way that nobody else has done before. Now, you can't be sure that that is that nobody else has ever written a book like this before, but I haven't read them. 

“I did want to actually twist not just the plot, but the structure of the novel itself. I also quite love removing that fourth wall and talking directly to the reader. So what metafiction is is the ability to say to the reader, ‘Let's talk about the fact that this is a story.’” Let's.


Friday, February 16, 2024

For an introduction to James McBride, try this

James McBride is the National Book Award-winning author of The Good Lord Bird and the current best-selling novel, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

Five-Carat Soul is a collection of seven stories, two of them long enough and complex enough to be divided into chapters. The subjects range from what sound like lightly fictionalized memoir (The Five Carat Soul Bottom Bone Band in which the narrator is a young teen) to fantasy (Mr. P & the Wind, in which the narrator is an elderly lion in a zoo).

McBride who is Black writes convincingly from the point of view of a white, Jewish toy dealer; a lion; a teen-age boy; and an unidentified observer of President Lincoln's "long, solitary walks to the War Department in the dead of night," one of two stories set during the Civil War.

I have the impression that one of McBride's interests is to dramatize history from a Black point of view. "The Good Lord Bird" tells the story of John Brown's last years and ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry from the POV of a young Black boy who is impressed into Brown's band and plans. 

Perhaps the most powerful story in "Five-Caret Soul"—the one I found most moving—is The Christmas Dance, which hinges on an all-Black infantry division, the 92nd, fighting in Italy in WWII. The history is actual, the characters believable, the story structure fascinating. 

The stories make a neat introduction to McBride's writing.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

How do you show a current reality?

I am always interested in what other people think of books, movies, TV shows, politics, religion, and more. I often look at the one-star book reviews on Amazon of books I've thoroughly enjoyed to see if a negative opinion should change or modify my positive one.

As I said in my last blog post I was fascinated by Gaia Vince's Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time. I found it a rich, and thought-provoking summary of much recent research into human evolution. And I do agree with the reader who wrote that "Gaia’s wordy prose was frustrating at times. I consistently had to reread sentences. Made the 280ish actual pages a bit of a slow read. But there was a lot of good information to be had."

That's why I was interested in the reader who gave the book one star, writing, "The book is infused with the authors opinion in almost every paragraph occasionally interspaced with scientific data (studies) to 'prove' the author correct. Absolutely no problem with using this approach until.... The author inserts their political viewpoint. The viewpoint is presented in a declarative sentence, "of course I'm right" the author makes you feel. At this point you begin to view the book as not a rigorous scientific work but an op-ed piece. You might as well read the editorial pages of the WSJ or the NYT. It's like Ann Coulter wrote a science textbook. This is the only book in a long time I just stopped reading. Wish I could get my money back."

I'm not sure I understand the criticism. I had no sense that Vince has a political viewpoint that she inserts at all, let alone into multiple paragraphs. Given the river of studies that pour out of worldwide research labs and the number of journals that publish them, it would be humanly impossible to synthesize and incorporate them all in a single book (although that may be what AI will do in the future). Meanwhile, Vince—like any author—has to select and organize her material, and I believe there's a difference between selecting and organizing to convey a current reality—Vince's agenda—and selecting and organizing to promote a point of view.

I'm also not sure how a responsible science writer inserts a political viewpoint. There's bad science and good science, but is there conservative science or liberal science? And if you read a book like Transcendence through a lens of conservative or liberal politics aren't you missing the point? I believe you are. And I feel for readers who are so blinded by political bias, whatever it is, that they cannot see the value, whatever it is, in front their noses.

Friday, January 19, 2024

How people are the same, different, and got here

Gaia Vince's book Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time is fascinating for several reasons. She has synthesized dozens of modern anthropological, sociological, psychological, and environmental studies of populations around the world to write an interesting book of how people are the same and different.

Because I have a vested interest in language and have done (and am doing) my best to add Japanese and Italian to my native English, I was particularly interested in Vince's section on language. Current research suggests that "bilingual people seem to have different neural pathways for their two languages, and both are active when either language is used."

Apparently our brains have evolved for multilingualism which may have been the norm in the deep past. I know that in Japan and Italy there are local dialects so distinctive—another way to say they are another language—they are incomprehensible to an outsider. A speaker must also speak and understand standard Japanese or Italian to function in the larger society.

Multilingualism affects the brain and the sense of self. Ask me in English what my favorite food is and I tend to answer steak or spaghetti. Ask me in Japanese and I automatically think of unagi or tonkatsu. That you gain a new personality with every language you speak is a profound one and is supported by some clever research studies. For example:

"In the 1960s, one of the pioneers of psycholinguists, Susan Ervin-Tripp, asked Japanese-English bilingual women to finish sentences, and found great differences, depending on the language. For instance, 'When my wishes conflict with my family . . .' was completed in Japanese as 'it is a time of great unhappiness'; but in English as, 'I do what I want.' From this Ervin-Tripp concluded that human thought takes place within language mindsets, and that bilinguals have different mindsets for each language—an extraordinary idea but one that has been borne out by subsequent studies."

This fragment may suggest how rich and thought-provoking Transcendence can be. And while it is a book I would not ordinarily have picked off the shelf, I am glad I did. I believe it has opened my mind to a wealth of new—for me—thoughts and ideas.

Saturday, January 13, 2024

The start of a two-man Innocence Project

Michael Connelly has published 38 novels. "Ideas come to me in dreams and wake me up. Sometimes, I'll get up in the middle of the night and write them down. I always have a laptop next to my bed. It helps that I don't need a lot of sleep." 

Connelly is best known for his Harry Bosch series, which stars a LAPD detective, now retired after forty years and plagued by a form of bone cancer. He also has a Renèe Ballard series, the first of his female characters to lead her own series and based on a real-life detective he's known for more than fifteen years. And he has the Micky Haller (aka "the Lincoln Lawyer") series; Micky is Harry's half brother and, until the most recent book, Resurrection Walk, they have been on opposite sides. Harry has been trying to put the bad guys in prison; Micky has been trying to keep the unjustly accused out.

In Resurrection Walk Harry is working for Micky as his driver and investigator. While working the other side of the law bothers Harry, he's taken the arrangement so that he is under Micky's medical insurance and is able to participate in a clinical trial that may cure or put his cancer into remission. 

The previous Bosch mystery ended with Harry siccing Micky on the state for convicting an innocent man. By the time this one opens, Micky has obtained the guy's freedom and because of the publicity is knee-deep in letters from prisons in three states from prisoners who want Micky to work his magic for them. He has hired Harry to screen the letters to see if there are any likely candidates for release. 

One of the many elements that makes Connelly such an extraordinary writer is that you do not have to have read any of his earlier novels to understand and enjoy Resurrection Walk. The story grows out of the earlier book but it also stands by itself. Interestingly, it is the first book in which the point of view shifts from Harry's third-person chapters as he investigates to Micky's first-person chapters in court. 

One of the letters Micky has received is from a female prisoner who took a plea bargain to a murder she now claims she did not commit. It raises questions, and Harry and Micky set off after, not just the truth, but for a case that will withstand the state's best efforts to show the woman was always guilty. With the elements of police procedure and courtroom drama, Resurrection Walk has elements to please fans of both.

I have not read every one of Connelly's novels, and taste is subjective anyway, but I believe he gets better with every book. Part of it may be because "Michael does an enormous amount if ressearch to make sure he gets things right," says Asya Muchnick, his editor at Little, Brown. "He holds himself to a high standard. As a reader you feel like you can trust him/" His manager Heather Rizzo adds, "He's tireless. He makes a point of having a lot of breakfasts with cops and detectives, and he listens to everyone at the table, and it comes out in his writing."

At the end of Resurrection Walk Micky has spent a night in jail that has given him time to evaluate his life. He's discovered that helping the incarcerated innocent is in some important ways more rewarding than by using the law to help the possibly guilty evade conviction. I'm looking forward to following Micky and Harry through their next case.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

I'm among the top 3% Italian learners on Duolingo

In preparation for a two-week vacation in Italy in 2001, I began learning Italian in my mid-60s. I fell in love with the country and the language and have continued to study Italian since.

For a long time a group of five of us met with a tutor once a week, a woman who was a serious teacher who was patient and helpful. I've also spent two week-long language-learning sessions in Bologna. I am certainly not fluent as I am reminded every time we watch an Italian movie or mystery series. But in Italy I am able to make myself understood, ask directions (and understand the answer), reserve a hotel room, order a meal.

The Covid pandemic finally killed our Italian group, which had shrunk to three anyway. I wanted to continue studying if only for the intellectual stimulation and hope that one day I will be able to read if not easily at least falteringly. Somehow I stumbled across Duolingo.

According to Wikipedia the idea for Duolingo originated in 2009 by Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn and his Swisborn post-grduate student Severin Hacker. "A driving motivation was von Ahn's upbringing in Guatemala, where he saw how expensive it was for people in his community to learn English. Hacker . . . believed that 'free education will really change the world' and wanted to provide an accessible means for doing so."

Although Duolingo can be free, I subscribe for $90 a year and am not pestered by ads. The program gives learners a variety of exercises to reinforce what we've learned. These include vocabulary quizzes, translations from Italian to English and English to Italian using an assortment of words provided, repetitions of spoken Italian, writing dictated Italian, translating into Italian without aids, and more. 

I like the program because the principle is to teach the language the way a child learns: Introduce words and show how to use them without much grammar explanation, although some grammar is available. I like it because it keeps track of your daily performance and I am obsessive enough that now I've got a streak going I want to keep it going. And once a year, you can check your achievement.

Am I learning more Italian? Yes. Am I becoming more fluent? Probably not. Will I someday be able to read an Italian story? We'll see.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

I take it back; this dog's a keeper

To say I was not looking forward to the choice for the mystery book club's monthly meeting would be an understatement. The story told entirely by a dog? Come on. I know mystery writers—and publishers—are desperate for something fresh, original. But a dog? So it was with some trepidation I began It's a Wonderful Woof by Spencer Quinn, the twelfth book in the "Chet & Bernie" series.

It just goes to show how mistaken one can be (me, in this case). Chet, the dog, is a delightful character and a better narrator than some people I know.

Spencer Quinn is the pen name of Peter Abrahams (and not to be confused with the South African author Peter Abrahams). Abrahams has been publishing fiction since 1980; the first Chet & Bernie mystery was published in 2008. Two have appeared since It's a Wonderful Woof (2021) and the fifteenth is due out in 2024.

He says that a book reviewer commented that dogs often appeared in his novels, and one night at dinner his wife said, "You should do something with dogs." He says, "I had dogs in other books I'd written but you never saw anything from their point of view. So I probably knew within 30 seconds the three pillars that hold the Chet and Bernie series up."

First, a dog narrator. Second, a traditional private eye story told by the detective's sidekick. Third, "the dog narrator would not be a talking dog. He would not be a human wrapped in a dog suit. He wouldn't know about Mozart. He would be as canine as I could make him." On the evidence of It's a Wonderful Woof, he's done a remarkable job.

Chet flunked out of K9 school on the last day; nonetheless he's a trained police dog. He knows that Bernie Little, who heads The Little Detective Agency, is the most wonderful human being on earth. He knows they live in an Arizona city but that's about it. His senses of smell and hearing are superior to human. He believes in marking what needs to be marked. He's afraid of snakes. He understands that "grabbing perps by the pant leg is how we close our cases." He cannot count beyond two, but he's always willing to learn sonething new. 

For example: Bernie is about to unlock a health club locker when he pauses. "'Anything iffy inside?' he said. Iffy was what again? 'Like a bomb for instance?' So iffy meant bombs? You learn so much in this business. A lovely breeze started up nearby, clearing the air of just about everything, even the poop smells. It didn't take me long to realize it was my tail, getting into the mix as it sometimes did. Bernie stuck the key in the lock and opened the door . . . ." Just a PI doing his job with his loyal partner.

While the mystery may not be the most imaginative, Chet's voice is striking enough to make It's a Wonderful Woof a superior mystery.


Tuesday, December 19, 2023

My latest published story


One of the highlights of 2023 was the publication of my short story "LST 742" in "Line of Advance Literary Journal."

To illustrate this post, I searched for pictures of LSTs and was surprised to find not just a generic LST photo, but this of the ship on which I traveled. I thought I'd invented the number. It makes you wonder about the line between fiction and reality.