What I've learned from Vinyl Junkies thus far

I love Brett Milano's writing for starters. He has a new book about the music of Boston (sure Aerosmith comes to mind right away but Mission of Burma and Dresden Dolls-sure dark cabaret is kind of majorly over but still-didn't.) Here is his website.

This book is dangerous to read. I feel myself tipping on the precipice of collecting vinyl when they describe the gatefolds, the smell, the physical act of putting the needle on the record (which uh....I don't find Freudian, Brett.)

Here's his description from chapter one of the first vinyl recording that blew him away, Prokofiev's The Scythian Suite, listened to in a collector's home:

So now it's time to pull out the heavy artillery, as they prepare to give me the Scythian....but not just any copy. This is the 1957 recording by Antal Dorati and the London Symphony Orchestra on the Mercury label-one of the first stereo recordings ever issued. The legend "Mercury Living Presence" blazes proudly across the cover; the same design is still there on the current compact-disc edition. But we're looking to get close to the master tape and deep into the music, and the preferred path is that original 1957 pressing, made while the master tape was likely still throbbing. 

According to one collector:

"My trip is about using the music," he explains. "I don't believe in the idea of ownership-hey, we're all gonna die someday so you don't own that record, you just get to use it for a while. There is no joy in ownership, the joy comes when you play the record."

Of course, for some collectors, the joy really really is in ownership. If a mint record is played, it's no longer "mint" and the physical act of playing it can damage it-the big downside of vinyl. 

Record collecting itself has changed shape in recent decades. During the '70's, it was necessary for any serious music fan to be something of a collector, since so many important albums-by the likes of John Coltrane, the Velvet Underground, and even the Beach Boys-were either out of print or available in truncated, shoddily packaged or badly mastered editions (the Beach Boys albums with songs taken off them, or the first Velvets with the banana skin permanently pressed on, rank with the dregs of the era.)

--------

"A record is that object that you can hold and watch and learn from," notes Miriam Linna, who's made a few of those objects herself....."Look at the label, it's got all that information that somebody wanted to give you. There's the names of the people who wrote the song, the names of who published it, and maybe where the record comes from-if you don't find that one, it's just another mystery to solve."

----

From Roger Manning, formerly of the band Jellyfish:

"What really got me was the smell of the records I grew up with-maybe it was the pressing plant they used, for some reason records on the Casablanca label had a smell that blew our minds-when you smell that, it brings you right back to childhood. So we wanted to find a way to make our records smell that way, but of course nobody at our label knew what the hell we were talking about." 

I haven't thought of this in many years but I can remember sniffing the 45 of "I was Made for Loving You" and thinking it smelled intriguing and that's not a Kiss does disco joke.

Here's the sciencey part, from a guy who's the director of the Washington Psychiatric Center:

The need to collect stems from a serotonin deficiency. Serotonin is the enzyme that controls worries; with too little of the former you get too much of the latter. "It's a form of addiction, if you want to call it that. The current thinking in neuroscience is that people with serotonin deficiencies are much more driven to compulsions, including the compulsion to collect. Various life events may disturb you and prompt that compulsion."

In the Cut research

So, In the Cut. While the movie is doltish and embarrassing to watch (for all the wrong reasons), the book is kind of good.

Some random things I looked up--

The narrator-do they ever mention her name?-mentions that Pauline is wearing a Japanese Happi coat. They are traditionally worn only for festivals in Japan, however you can buy them online (beware, the website has an annoying midi file) for wearing anytime and I admit, I kinda want one. Here's a sample image:

Good excuse to learn some NYC geography. The narrator lives on Washington Square Park. This puts her in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, near NYU. Although Moore makes the area sound seedy, the Wiki article says the crime rate is very low (although maybe someone from the Mayor's office writes for Wikipedia.) Does this mean no bars with 13 year olds with fake id's? (one of the credulity straining parts of the book. Surely no bar in a major American city is that brazen.)

Our nameless narrator mentions that the tenor of the neighborhood grows more boho below 14th street. Here is one of the better maps I found from a cursory search:

There's also a good Manhattan neighborhood map here.

Maybe I need to look through seedier listings but out of curiosity, I searched apartments in the Village and the cheapest I found (a studio) was $1695 a month.

Some basic Manhattan geography: the Hudson River and New Jersey are to the west. The East River, Queens and Brooklyn are to the east. Brooklyn is to the southeast and Staten Island is due south. It's the most densely populated of NYC's five boroughs although the borough with the largest population is Brooklyn, with Queens a close second. Only Manhattan is in New York County (actually each borough is in its own county.) When New Yorkers speak of going to the city, they generally mean going to Manhattan.

From Greenwich Village, you can take the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River to scenic Jersey City. One of the many routes into the island that earns commuters the moniker "Bridge and Tunnel people."

what I've looked up thus far for The Winter Queen

I love how this book opens:

On Monday the thirteenth of May in the year 1876, between the hours of two and three in the afternoon...numerous individuals in Moscow's Alexander Gardens...

Poetic, no. But perfect in its geo/temporal data. It's Moscow, 1876. The rule of Romanov Tsar Alexander II (he would be assassinated in 1881 after decades of various attempts on his life. He was famous for freeing the serfs but was a bastard to Poland and the Baltic States. However, he encouraged Finnish autonomy and language so they like him there. The poor son of a bitch died after escaping a bombing attempt on his carriage. A second bomber threw a bomb at his feet. There was a third bomber waiting in the crowd. They really wanted him dead, in little pieces.) He was followed by only two more Tsars: Alexander III and then Nicholas II.

The book opens at any rate with a suspicious suicide in the Alexander Gardens in Moscow. This was one of Moscow's first public parks. It was built from 1819-1823 in commemoration of the defeat of Napoleon at the request (or, probably I should say "request") of Alexander I, the uncle of the ill-fated Alexander II. The Gardens are adjacent to Red Square and the western wall of the Kremlin.

Here is the gate that commemorates victory in the Napoleonic Wars:

It was built on the site of a the former riverbed of the Neglinnaya River (the flow was diverted underground.)

Enjoy this Wikimap of the layout.

The book references a "Table of Ranks" at the back to show the standing of the protagonist, Collegiate Registrar Erast Fandorin, rank 14, as compared with others. It's a convoluted system established by Peter the Great in 1722. Among other things, it correlates military ranks with the civilian equivalents.

Many streets in Moscow are mentioned so, once again, I would have liked a map to be available. Fandorin travels up Mokhovaya Street a number of times. Here is what it would have looked like then:

It literally means "Moss Street" and was named for a market. It is still a major thoroughfare in Moscow. It's part of the ring road that circles the Kremlin area.

I believe the university he mentions visiting is Moscow State, purported to be the oldest university in Russia. Here is what it would have looked like about a century before:

I think the "yellow building" that Fandorin goes to is what is now called, factually, the Old Building. It was built in 1783. Here's what it looks like now:

Old, yellow. Those Russians get right to the point. Today, the journalism faculty and Oriental studies are located there.

Interestingly, after the October Revolution in 1917, anyone could be admitted (well, technically) and tuition fees were abolished in 1919. Now all you had to do was avoid studying or teaching the wrong thing and being sent to Vorkuta.

This site has an archive of historical maps. Here is one of 19th century Moskva.

Near the end, the book mentions there is trouble in the Balkans that is distracting the leadership. I think they are referring to the Balkan/Turkish crisis. The Balkans, including Greece, were under Ottoman rule at the time. The Slavs all hated each other but they hated the Turks more so they banded together in the Bulgarian Uprising in April of 1876 where Turkish troops killed up to 15,000 people (it's controversial-apparently the troops weren't regular Turkish army.) It was nasty business at any rate-people taking refuge in churches and being burned alive- and things snowball, the world gets wind of the Bulgarian massacre, the Russians are still pissed about the Crimean War, Slav nationalism flares up and by June Serbia and Montenegro have declared war on the Turks.

The Russians proposed a peace agreement in 1877 called the London Convention (Austria-Hungary are involved too) but the Turks rejected it. Now the Russians declare war. The bottom line is the Turks, being neither the first nor last to do so, severely underestimate the Russians and finally in 1878 peace is declared with some intervention from the British as the fear of Pan-Slavic fervor spreads through the rest of Europe. At the Congress of Berlin, the Balkans get re-diced with Bulgaria split into 3 pieces and Austria granted the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. All of this pisses Russia off because they want the Balkans for themselves. A Second Balkan Crisis will follow in 1885 and, of course, there will be more.

Incidentally, this conflict also led to the Red Cross/Red Crescent split which continues today.

At the end of the book, before everything goes to hell for Erast, he is awarded the order of St. Vladimir. Naturally, there is a website dedicated to Russian medals. Here is an example of what it looked like:

It was awarded for life-saving acts or famine relief (it was also awarded for military valor during the Crimean War.) There are different degrees of the order which can be seen in the Wikipedia article.

Some great lines from After Dark

This was my first Haruki Murukami. I've known about his him for a while, chiefly because of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I've been interested in him more since PRI's The World ran a story about the extreme devotion of his fans. Some even write him letters asking him for advice. This confuses him but he answers them.

I liked this book, especially any scene that involves Mari, a 19 year old student who speaks Chinese. She's a strangely passive choice for a narrator but she works and I love the conversations she gets into with Takahashi (a young jazz musician who clearly likes her), Kaoru (the manager of a love hotel called Alphaville-Godard references are intentional-who seeks Mari's help with a beaten Chinese prostitute and illegal immigrant) and Korogi (a worker at the hotel on the run from vague but sinister villains.) The story also follows Mari's sister who is in some kind of metaphysical sleep and-possibly?-is having her soul sucked out through her (unplugged) television and it seems to be going to the office of the businessman who beat the prostitute. Yeah, that part was not very clear to me at all. Mari's sister is a model named Eri.

The thing about Mari is that she's so impassive in her interactions with others, it's easy to mistake her as disdainful, particularly in her first interaction with Takahashi-by the way, if everything in the novel was as strangely compelling as his conversation with her about Denny's menu, the book would have been a home run. She's just not disdainful though, she's just...I'm not sure. Weighed down by worries: why do others want to interact with her, are they trying to get to her pretty sister, why won't her sister wake up, how is she going to summon the courage to leave on her exchange program to China next week.

I really liked the way the intimacy of the late night/early morning hours sparked the deep metaphysical conversations between near or utter strangers. I fear the meaning of the book might be largely beyond me but part of it seems to be the intimacy engendered by the dark. Something about memory. Uhm, I don't think I totally got it but I liked it even if I'm not yet ready to embrace the cult of Murukami.

Some lines I liked:

Korugi stands there holding the remote control.

"You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking, 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction-they're all just fuel."

Korugi nods to herself. Then she goes on:

"You know, I think if I didn't have that fuel, if I didn't have these memory drawers inside me, I would've snapped a long time ago. I would've curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. I would have curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. It's because I can pull the memories out of the drawers when I have to-the important ones and the useless ones-that I can go on living this nightmare of a life. I might think I can't take it anymore, that I can't go on anymore, but one way or another I get past that." 

Takahashi leaves a convenience store at 5:24 am (part of the literary device is the precise marking of time between midnight and 7am):

The new day is almost here, but the old one is still dragging its heavy skirts. Just as ocean water and river water struggle against each other at a river mouth, the old time and the new time clash and blend. Takahashi is unable to tell for sure which side-which world-contains his center of gravity.

It's funny how you can watch a movie or read a book and know that it's intended for you to care about what is happening, but you just don't (I'm thinking about the movie "Crazy Heart" which I just watched this weekend.) And on the other hand, there's this understated goodbye between Takahashi and Mari is so melancholy and touching to me:

"I don't really want to go," Mari says.

"To China?"

"Uh-huh."

"Why not?"

"Cause I'm scared."

"That's only natural," he says. "You're going to a strange, far-off place all by yourself."

"I know."

"You'll be fine, though," he says. "I know ou. And I'll be waiting for you here....You're very pretty, did you know that?"

Mari looks up at Takahasi. Then she withdraws her hand from his and puts it into the pocket of her varsity jacket. her eyes drop to her feet. She is checking to make sure her yellow sneakers are still clean.

"Thanks. But I want to go home now."

"I'll write to you," he says. "A super-long letter , like in an old-fashioned novel."

"Okay," Mari says.

She goes in through the ticket gate, walks to the platform, and disappears into a waiting express train. Takahasi watches her go. Soon the departure signal sounds, the doors close, and the trains pulls away from the platform. When he loses sight of the train, Takahashi picks his instrument case up from the floor, slings the strap over his shoulder, and heads for his own station, whistling softly. The number of people moving through the station gradually increases.

6:40am:

The lavish morning light washes every corner of the world at no charge. Two young sisters sleep peacefully, their bodies pressed together in one small bed. We are probably the only ones who know that.

Final thoughts on Madame Bovary, + first and last

I am glad to have read this book as it has such cultural weight and is such a reference point. I kind of got Emma Bovary references before (some unhappy 19th century French chick who had affairs and killed herself) but I'll really get them now. Yes, she was all of those things but she was also kind of a shitty person. She's vain, adulterous, materialistic, a shitty parent and possibly bipolar. Actually, that last part doesn't make her shitty, per se, and kind of explains the other behaviors. Anyways, as I said on Goodreads perish the thought this slutty, whiny cow is a feminist icon. And while the book was entertaining (the town of Yonville and its citizens were definitely more fleshed out than I expected them to be), I was glad to turn the last page on it for sure.

Her husband was a nice guy but was undeniably a dullard-and thanks to Dennis' clarification, he wasn't a doctor but a public health officer which clears up some scenes like Homais and Bovary having to call the doctor when something went wrong. I also could understand why the operation on Hippolyte was so outrageous-he should never have been doing it. Per the linked article above, a public health officer receives somewhat less training than an LPN.

The story takes place in and around Rouen, where Flaubert lived with his mother for much of his adult life. He never married but he did have a mistress for several years who apparently was pissed at him for some personal details he used in Bovary. Flaubert himself came to resent the book in later years as he felt it overshadowed his other writing. He's buried in Rouen. Fun fact: the 19 year old Joan of Arc was burned at the stake there in 1431 (the area was under English control at the time.) It's also the location of the Cathedral that inspired Monet's series of paintings. It's the church where Leon and Emma meet and Emma attempts to break up with him (instead, it's implied he bangs her like a Salvation Army drum as they take a carriage ride through town. Classy!)

Oh well. Before I mention first and last, here is what Dennis' literature professor friend (and Bridge partner had to say on the subject:

I think you restate what I said pretty accurately, though I also said something about the compelling characters, the depth and plausibility of Flaubert's psychological realism. The difficulty of adequately answering your question about why Madame B is considered a great novel, of course, is that it involves the larger question of what constitutes greatness in any novel, and that question immediately invites platitudes for answers. If we turn to novels for the pleasures of escaping our own cultural confines by entering into a radically different culture and reality, then Madame B is a great novel because it so plausibly represents its world, provincial France in the mid nineteenth century. If we turn to novels to gain access to another human mind in ways that exceed our own imaginative grasp of real human minds (even our own), then Flaubert's psychological realism is great because it so powerfully presents the illusion of full access to psychological depths. If we want more fully to understand the interweaving of mind and culture, Flaubert provides such a compelling paradigm that the word Bovarisme enters the French (and English) language to describe the achievement. If we want to experience the tragedy of balked yearning, of what Browning calls the "infinite passion and the pain of finite hearts that yearn," it can be argued that Flaubert's stark realism offers us access to these emotions in ways unsurpassed even by Sophocles or Shakespeare. 

First:

We were in Study Hall when the Headmaster entered, followed by a new boy dressed in regular clothes and a school servant carrying a large desk.

Last:

He has just been awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

(That refers to the apothecary Homais of course, not Charles Bovary who dropped dead basically because he married some skeeze.)

What I've looked up thus far for The Redbreast

The writing isn't beautiful but it's competent story-telling after a slow beginning (lots of dangling threads to drop.)

A big part of the story is Norway's role in WWII. Norway of course was occupied by the Nazis during the War but that's about all I know since reading The Moon is Down doesn't count.

The Nazis occupied Norway from April 9, 1940 to May 8, 1945. The Norwegian version of the Nazi party was Nasjonal Samling. The book mentions Norwegians who fought on the Nazi side which was news to me. Wikipedia says:

"Furthermore, about 15,000 Norwegians volunteered for combat duty on the Nazi side; of the 6,000 sent into action as part of the Germanic SS, most were sent to the Eastern front."

Which matches what's in the book. 

The head of the Nasjonal Samling was the now infamous Vidkun Quisling, probably another name whose descendants all rushed to change like Hitler and Vichy. He was executed in October of 1945 and has the distinction of being hated by the Nazis and everyone else.

Milorg was the main of the Norwegian Resistance.

There is a lot of talk in the book about the Waffen SS, which I frankly had barely heard of.  The Waffen was the military wing of the Schutzstaffel and was separate from the army, per Hitler's wishes so he could have his own personal police/army after the war was over. Originally composed of only the master race types, they eventually allowed foreigners to join which is how Norwegians came to serve in it. Waffen was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg which some people say is unfair. They were just military, not like the rest of the SS. I really have no idea what the answer is but SS veterans were denied pension until they sued the West German government in the 1960's.

The Norwegian Parliament is called the Storting ("great thing.")

Oslo has the distinction of being one of the largest world capitals by land area and has abundant green spaces.

Things I've looked up for The Paris Wife

First, I love the language and I'm really savoring reading this book but I need to pick up the pace. I have stacks of reading waiting, not to mention Madame Bovary for book club. I have lots of chanson and bal musette music set aside to put me in the mood though, no worries.

I didn't know a lot about Hadley Hemingway, other than she was quite an influence on Ernest. I didn't realize she was 8 years older than him and they married when he was only 21. Despite her fame (even before I started on this book, she was the only spouse of his I could name, although that's probably because of A Moveable Feast), they were only married from 1921-1926. Here is a picture of the both of them with their son John in 1926:

He looked old even when he was young.

According to Wikipedia, she remarried Paul Mowrer, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, in 1934. Hemingway gave her all of the proceeds from The Sun Also Rises in the divorce (she also was paid for the movie rights.) She only saw Hemingway once more, on vacation in Wyoming. She outlived Hemingway by nearly 18 years, dying in January of 1979. It's all very sad considering how in love they once were and the circumstances of Hem's death. By many accounts, he regretted dumping Hadley for women who were more trendy.

Hadley mentions shopping at Les Halles marketplace (not sparing any details about the rats in the alleyways and the stench of rotting food-also, when you bought a chicken there, it was a whole feathered dead chicken.)  Les Halles was torn down in 1971 and relocated to the suburbs. There is now a huge underground mall on the site. There weren't many pictures I could find, but here's one of the market from 1954:

What I've looked up for The Sign of Four

The previous ACD novel that I got from the library had fabulous footnotes. This copy has none but it's a gift so not to look a gift Doyle in the mouth because I'd be looking things up anyways.

So, Thaddeus Sholto is a sickly guy who has information for Holmes and Watson's client, Mary Morstan, about the disappearance of her father years ago when he returned to London from service in India. Sholto mentions he is destined with his health to be a valetudinarian which interestingly can mean either an invalid or a hypochondriac.

Evidently, there was a large collection of Far East valuables that Morstan and Sholto Senior were supposed to divvy up but Morstan died unexpectedly and Sholto concealed it. Too long to get into the story but he set aside a chaplet to give to Mary but he was a greedy prick so he didn't want it given to her until he died. Thaddeus sent her one pearl at a time. You can gather from the context it's some sort of necklace. More specifcally, these are prayer beads like, but not necessarily, a rosary.

Thaddeus says at one point "Le mauvais gout mene au creme" which means, "Bad taste leads to crime." It's a quote from Stendhal.

It's mentioned that Thaddeus has an astrakhan collar. Curious about what exactly that looks like?

Sholto mentions his collection of paintings by Corot, Salvator Rosa and Bouguereau. I was only vaguely familiar with Corot. Rosa (1615-1673) was an Italian Baroque painter and printmaker.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) was a French Classicist painter. He seems to have painted quite a variety of subjects: mythology, pietas, contemporary scenes. Apparently, he was mad popular during his lifestyle was but was derided by Degas and company for being too slick.

I really enjoy the Dutch Realism influence he shows. See here:

Tete L'Etude l'Oiseau

The Wave

There is a quote from Goethe between Holmes and Watson that I was going to include but in the end, I'm  because evidently it was a misquote and it's long and full of crazy teutonic diacritics.

More great lines from Downtown Owl

There's a certain enjoyable meandering quality to this book that reminds me of Cannery Row. It's not that book of course. Not even Steinbeck could re-write Cannery Row. (see: Sweet Thursday.) But the anecdotal decoupage is reminiscent and gives me the same feeling like I could read it forever although a small town in North Dakota is obviously not quite on the same level of fantasy destination.

Several interesting stories, like the one about Horace getting fleeced by a con man he met at his wife's funeral. He was fleeced 4 months after the funeral for all of his wife's insurance money on some crazy betting scheme that was predicated on NFL games being fixed.

Or the conversations between Julia and Vance Druid. I loved the one about his musical tastes (Bruce Springsteen "seems like an asshole." Cheap Trick "dressed like circus freaks." ELO are "like a combination of the dullest parts of the Beatles and the gayest parts of Led Zeppelin.") He only likes the Rolling Stones. And one song by Steely Dan ("Deacon Blues" excellent choice) but they seem boring.

That was a good chapter but here's an excerpt of one where Julia, Ted and Naomi are cruising through town. There's lots of drunk driving in this book. Ted tells a story about a girl he hung out with in college that kissed one of his friends at a party and killed their three-way friendship (the story is more complicated but that's the skeletal version.) Julia has done a face plant in the back seat and Ted and Naomi keep talking:

"Do you ever wish that Sarah Greenberg would have kissed you instead of Tiger Lyons?"

"Never. I used to, but I haven't for years."

They drove another hundred yards in silence.

"Ted?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes I would like to kiss you."

They drove another hundred feet.

"Naomi."

"Yes?"

"You need to pay closer attention to the stories people tell you about themselves."

They were almost back in Owl. Nothing was different.

Horace's wife Alma died in the early 70's. She developed a rare disorder (fatal familial insomnia which is apparently a real thing) and was unable to sleep. Like ever again. And she began to hallucinate after about 30 days. Here is Horace talking with Alma:

Alma paused. She looked at Horace's chest and squinted her eyes.

"Why is this happening?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, unconsciously inferring that this had been an existential query about why his wife had contracted a hyper-rare sleep disorder that wasn't even supposed to exist. In truth, Alma was asking why both of their bodies were suddenly becoming translucent. But under these specific circumstances, that is probably the same question.

Mitch spends the first half of the book being tormented by his teacher and coach, Mr. Laidlaw. I like this exchange between Julie and Laidlaw that efficiently lays out the gap between what teachers think of students versus what students think teachers think of them:

Mitch Hrlicks walked by with Nineteen Eighty-Four in his left hand, trying to ignore both of the authority figures who were watching him. His hair was out of control. There were bags under both his eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Vanna," said Laidlaw. "Are you going to be an elf this year?"

"Probably not," said Mitch. "No." 

"You would make a fine elf, Vanna," said Laidlaw. "You could be Sleepy."

"Sleepy was a dwarf," said Mitch.

"So what? Don't you think elves have names?"

Mitch slouched toward Bethlehem.

"I don't understand that kid," said Julia. "He seems nice enough, but he always looks depressed."

"Mitch is a good kid," said Laidlaw. "He's a really good kid, relatively speaking. But he has no sense of humor. That's his problem."

Of course, perhaps it better illustrates how some old people fail to realize they are coming across as assholes to everyone under 20.

What I looked up thus far for The Coroner's Lunch

The book takes place in October of 1976. This means the Pathet Lao takeover is about a year in. Although considered the equivalent of the Viet Minh or Khmer Rouge, they never seemed to be as bad or, at least, they never made the news if they were. They certainly were bad news for the Hmong, who had collaborated with us. The numbers aren't clear but thousands fled the country following Communist takeover by crossing the Mekong into Thailand-the town on the Thai side by the way is Sri Chaing Mai which is evidently the spring roll capital. There are refugees scattered all over-in the States, in Australia, in Thailand (where they've been having troubles recently.) There have been efforts to both improve US-Laos relations and repatriate the Hmong but the results are mixed. According to Wikipedia, the Hmong were called Montagnards by the French because they lived in highland areas but they shouldn't be confused the the Vietnamese Degar, who were also called Montagnards.

Pathet Lao just means "Lao Country."

The Laotian Civil War lasted from 1953-1975. This means it pretty much had been going on ever since the French officially withdrew after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The battle was actually very close to the Laos border:

After 1953, the history gets too complicated to summarize well but there's more here. There were various coups and corruption caused by an influx of US aid. We of course were freaked out by the creeping Communist umbrella. According to the article. Laos is the most bombed nation in the history of war.

The article says the LPRP (Lao People's Revolutionary Party) is still in control but they have been enacting economic reforms since 1986. They are a poor country with lots of debt. The Lonely Planet once again assures me this is an great, cheap and low crime place to travel.

Comrade Kahm tells Siri that he knows the cause of his wife's sudden death: her addiction to lahp, a raw meat dish. Apparently, it can also be served cooked. Which is good news for Laotians. Lahp seems to just mean "minced." You can even have tofu lahp. Here's the recipe.

She actually died from cyanide poisoning, the almond smell being the standard dead giveaway. I'd read various mystery novels for years where someone sniffed the cadaver's breath for an almond smell but it was only recently that I learned why that smell was connected to cyanide.

The almonds we eat are Prunus dulcis, the ones that produce cyanide in significant quantities are Prunus amara. Turning the original poisonous version into the key ingredient for Almond Joy is the result of a simple human-induced genetic mutation. Plants produce cyanide as a defense mechanism. Some other common foods that contain cyanide (reduced to safe amounts such as selective breeding) are lima beans, soy, spinach and cassava. There are people in Africa whose diets, principally due to war and famine, consist mainly of cassava who suffer from a low-grade form of cyanide poisoning called konzo. 

In passing, Siri mentions the Anusawari Arch. I wanted to go into a little more detail because it's quite striking and because the back story is funny.

First here it is:

It looks old but it was built between 1957-1968 and is a monument to those who died in the battle for independence from France. It's also known as Patuxai or "Victory Gate." Evidently, it was built with American money and cement that was intended for an airstrip. Oops. Well, at least it's pretty. It is sometimes known as "the vertical runway" for that reason.

It's mentioned a few times about people being sent to Vieng Xai (or Viengsai) for re-education. This was the stronghold of the Pathet Lao during the insurgency and where the took shelter in the cave system during the US bombing. It's supposed to be a very lovely place. Here and here is some more information about traveling there.

The title passage for Little Altars

I was surprised by how much I loved The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when I read it several years ago. I'm finally getting around to reading the prequel, Little Altars Everywhere. The humid Louisiana setting and-I don't know what to call it-Gothic optimism make it a perfect early summer book. I noticed on Goodreads today I am reading two different books with pink covers. Jeez, my reading list is turning into some southern belle's wedding shower.

Here is the sequence from the book that gives it its title, taken from a dream Siddha had about an outcast girl she picked on at girl scout camp to fit in:

We are swinging high, flying way up, higher than in real life. And when I look down, I see all the ordinary stuff-our brick house, the porch, the toolshed, the back windows, the oil-drum barbecue pit, the clothesline, the chinaberry tree. But they are all lit up from inside so their everyday selves have holy sparks in them, and if people could only see those sparks, they'd go and kneel in front of them and pray and just feel good. Somehow the whole world looks like little altars everywhere. And every time Edythe and me fly up into the air and then dive down to earth, it's like we're bowing our heads at those altars and we are praying and playing all at the same time.

Final thoughts on Speak

Well, that's the good thing about YA. Not a lot of exposition, you can just whip right through it.

I ended up quite liking this book but if I try to explain why, I sound like an Afterschool Special and then Helen Hunt will come crashing through a 2 story window hopped up on PCP that her boyfriend made in the school lab (what the hell am I talking about? Here.)

So, the main character gets raped at a Senior Party over the summer and she can't get over it (the fact that she has less than stellar friends and parents didn't help.) As you can guess from the title, she clams up the moment she calls the police shortly after the attack (which causes them to bust the party, some of her schoolmates to get arrested and thus making Melinda the most unpopular incoming Freshman) and spends the rest of the book fighting for reasons not to talk. I think it's important that the novel shows her recovering. I didn't even mind the big showdown with her rapist at the end. Since this is YA literature and literature has the power to change minds and especially young minds, it was important to see Melinda finding her voice and her rapist experiencing consequences even if they aren't elaborated upon.

A few more scenes I liked:

Melinda takes a sick day at home and imagines this daytime TV exchange:

Was I raped?

Oprah: "Let's explore that. You said no. He covered your mouth with his hand....Honey, you were raped. What a horrible, horrible thing for you to live through. Didn't you ever think of telling anyone? You can't keep this inside forever. Can someone get her a tissue?"

Sally: "I want this boy held responsible...I want you to listen to me, listen to me, listen to me. It was not your fault. This boy was an animal."

Jerry: "Was it love? No. Was it lust? No. Was it tenderness, sweetness, the First Time they talk about in magazines? No, no, no, no! Speak up Meatilda, ah, Melinda, I can't hear you!"

And this conversation with David Petrakis who is consoling her after Mr. Neck gives her a D on her extra credit report on the Suffragettes because she engineered it so she wouldn't have to deliver it orally:

David: "But you got it wrong. The suffragettes were all about speaking up, screaming for their rights. You can't speak up for your right to be silent. That's letting the bad guys win. If the suffragettes did that, women wouldn't be able to vote yet."

First thoughts on Speak

So, it's a YA novel which means you have to approach it with a different mentality. Not a lot of dense prose or weighty philosophy to ponder. But at best, it should really make the reader feel like they felt at that age, no matter how ephemerally.

The main reason I read this book, other than the fact that so many people I know on Goodreads have read it and I'm always curious about current novels that make their way onto school reading lists, is that I read an editorial written by some upstanding goose-stepping citizen for a Missouri newspaper explaining that it should be banned because the book is pornography.

It's just tedious to rant about this fool who finds rape so titillating so instead, here are a few lines I liked. They are, as you can see, distinctly unporny:

(I just have to childishly add the dude's name was Wesley Scroggins. Is that a To Catch a Predator-ready name or what? Also, I hope his testicles fall off after being crushed by the paw of the demi-urge of free thought. Ok, I am childish. But seriously, I also hope it hurts a lot.)

I sneak into my closet after school because I can't face the idea of riding home on a busful of sweaty, smiling teeth sucking up my oxygen.

[Melinda reflects on a meeting in the Principal's office with her tragically clueless parents to discuss her falling grades]
Do they chose to be so dense? Were they born that way? I have no friends. I have nothing. I say nothing. I am nothing. I wonder how long it takes to ride a bus to Arizona.


When we get off the bus on Valentine's Day, a girl with white-blond hair bursts into tears. "I love you, Anjela!" is spray-painted into the snowbank along the parking lot. I don't know if Angela is crying because she is happy or because her heart's desire can't spell.

[On the same day, she finds a Valentine's Day card on her locker and dreads opening it but finally does thinking it might have come from her lab partner. Instead, it's from Heather her only sort of friend who has dumped her because Melinda is killing her social standing]

My locker. The card is still there, a white patch of hope with my name on it. I tear it off and open it. Something falls to my feet. The card has a picture of two cutesy teddy bears sharing a pot of honey. I open it. "Thanks for understanding. You're the sweetest!" It is signed with a purple pen. "Good Luck!!! Heather." I bend down to find what dropped from the card. It was the friendship necklace I had given Heather in a fit of insanity around Christmas.

[her rapist goes to the same school as her which makes things worse. Here she runs into him on the way to school in a parking lot and he taunts her.]
BunnyRabbit bolts, leaving fast tracks in the snow. Getaway getaway getaway. Why didn't I run like this before when I was a one-piece talking girl?


[she also passes out in biology class dissecting a frog]:
The nurse calls my mom because I need stitches. The doctor stares into the back of my eyes with a bright light. Can she read the thoughts hidden there? If she can, what will she do? call the cops? Send me to the nuthouse? Do I want her to? I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it, of silencing the memory, is to make it go away. It won't. I'll need brain surgery to cut it out of my head. Maybe I should wait until David Petrakis is a doctor, let him do it. 

 

Final thoughts on Sweet Thursday and first and last

Aw nuts. I started out liking this and actually I didn't dislike it but once it degenerated into a story to find Doc a woman and the woman that was picked for him since her introduction in chapter 4 was too young, coarse and dumb for him, the story began to sag. I couldn't quite buy the raffle party that was a surprise would-be wedding either, not even in the fantastical universe of Cannery Row.

Doc and Fauna would have been a match worthy of each other. She's older than him. I'm not certain by how much. Steinbeck preferred a 21 year old hooker instead.

What I liked: Old Jingleballicks, the candy bar stealing Seer, Fauna and her astrological charts that she uses as an excuse to give people advice, all of the characters from Cannery Row. Hazel fretting that he would be President of the United States. The concept of Doc having the top, middle and bottom voices. All the literary allusions ("Whom the Gods destroy, they first make nuts" is a chapter heading. Mack unexpectely spouting Shakespeare.)

I also liked the satire of the Bear Flag cook Joe Elegant and his novel (with the great, pretentious title "The Pi of Oedipus") which Steinbeck uses to get in a dig at one his critics, Anthony West. Joe is shown in one seen writing a letter that starts out "My dear Anthony West, it was sweet of you..." West wrote a particularly negative review of East of Eden for the New Yorker which prompted Steinbeck to wonder to a friend in a letter why West feared the book so much (the footnotes also cattily and correctly point out that Steinbeck had the last laugh.)

Poor Steinbeck wanted so much to give Doc a happy ending though and I certainly can't begrudge him that. It was also the last novel he wrote about California so it was full of bittersweet farewells. I reminded me of the ending of Grease a bit (so corny I'm kind of embarrassed to admit it's one of my favorite movie endings of all time. We go together like Rama Lama Lama, eh whatever. RIP Jeff Conaway.) Old Jingleballicks turned Doc into a foundation so his work could be financed by him finally instead of Jingle stealing Doc's lab equipment and mooching booze. The boys rigged a raffle to buy him an expensive microscope-and also to get him the deed to their house which it turned out Lee Chong had secretly deeded to them when he sold the grocery. And, sigh, Doc and the not that interesting but could have been worse Suzy drive off into the sunset together.

I'm curious about the movie but I'm not sure I want to subject myself to it, seeing as how the Steinbeck estate famously didn't like it (and from what I know of it, it's more Thursday than Row.) At least they fired Raquel Welch from the part of Suzy before filming began.

First line:

When the war came to Monterey and to Cannery Row everybody fought it more or less, in one way or another. When hostilities ceased everyone had his wounds.

Last line:

Mack said, "Vice is a monster so frightful of mien, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." He put his arm around Hazel's shoulder. "I think you'd of made a hell of a president," he said.

I love that Mack gets the last word.

Sweet Steinbeck

I returned to the well of my FAVORITE AUTHOR OF ALL TIME (hyperbole warranted), John Steinbeck, this week to read his lesser known sequel to Cannery Row (favorite book of all time) called Sweet Thursday. And maybe now that I'm reading it, I will quit mistakenly calling it "Sweet Tuesday" like Bryan accused me of doing the other day. We have strange arguments where I work.

The back story of the book is so tragic that even reading the happy parts almost make me cry. Steinbeck's best friend was a marine biologist named Ed Ricketts who in his way was a very influential guy in the field of Pacific marine taxonomy and conservation. There are a number of marine species named after him and even a few named after Steinbeck, who joined Doc in a collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez. The character of Doc in Cannery Row was based on Ricketts (he also inspired Jim Casey in The Grapes of Wrath and Slim in Of Mice and Men among others.) Cannery Row is essentially a roman a clef about Doc and life in Monterey. It was written in 1945. It also brought Ricketts a flood of tourists and unwanted fame.

In 1948, Ricketts died a horrible tragic death when he was hit by a train at a railroad crossing that, ironically, was dangerous because of a cannery warehouse that was built there which partially blocked the view(Ricketts had been a vocal opponent of the overfishing that caused the Monterey canning industry to collapse soon after the War.) By all accounts, Steinbeck was never the same.

Here's a link to an NPR story about Ricketts.

Anyways, Sweet Thursday was written in 1954 and Steinbeck said it would be his last book with a Ricketts character in it. He said it was life as he imagined it would have gone for Ricketts had he lived. Doc is certainly not exactly like Ricketts, who was married a few times as opposed to Doc's eternal romantic bachelorhood, nursed a stepdaughter through a fatal illness and was prone to a few suicidal depressions whereas Doc's melancholy and disconnection are only hinted at.

This is also the only Steinbeck book with chapter titles. As Mack says in the prologue:

"Suppose there's chapter one, chapter two, chapter three. That's all right, as far as it goes, but I'd like to have a couple of words at the top so it tells me what the chapter's going to be about. Sometimes maybe I want to go back, and chapter five don't mean nothing to me. If there was a just a couple of words I'd know that was the chapter I wanted to go back to."

And here's an early exchange between Mac and Doc, who has returned to Monterey after finally being discharged from the army a few years after the War ended. It's really heartbreaking when you know the backstory:

"Everything's changed, Doc, everything."
Doc looked around his moldy laboratory, and he shivered. "Maybe I'm changed too," he said.
"Hell, Doc, you can't change. Why, what could we depend on! Doc, if you change a lot of people are going to cash in their chips. Why, we was all just waiting around for you to get back so we could go on being normal."
...
"I'll try," said Doc, "but I have no confidence in it. I'm afraid I've changed."

Some have speculated, probably with reason, the Doc in this book is really in some ways more Steinbeck than Ricketts.

I've avoided reading this book for a while, partly because I've heard it doesn't measure up to its predecessor. But also, maybe like Steinbeck I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Ed Ricketts.

I get asked sometimes to explain why I love John Steinbeck so much. I love his deceptively simple writing and his belief in social justice. I love him for writing The Grapes of Wrath when he took such a beating for it-funny he's so celebrated as a tourist attraction now in California where they once burned his books. But most of all, he loved me first. He so obviously loves humanity that how can I not return that affection?

Great line from A Nail in the Heart

So, I've been reading this mystery by an American PR exec about Thailand, A Nail in the Heart based on a recommendation from Fantastic Fiction. I've been a little obssessed about Thailand since Bangkok 8. Alas, maybe I'd like this book better if I hadn't read Burdett's book first. The characters are a little wooden, although I do like Poke's cop friend Arthit. I like how the main character isn't too annoyingly righteous: he leaves a child porn-producing Australian's murderer unpunished and sells a woman who was a torturer for the Khmer Rouge to her victims. I didn't dislike Poke's girlfriend, former bar girl Rose who is trying to go legit with a maid business, and his would-be adopted daughter and former street orphan Miaow but I didn't feel like I really knew them so I just found them vaguely pleasant. I did like the tidbit about how Rose tore a tiny hole in her cigarette pack to worm her smokes out. It's a habit she learned in the bars so other people wouldn't hit her up for cigarettes. It's the small details that tip the balance.

Most of the writing is competent, if not that memorable. I did like this sequence near the end, a conversation between the American-born Poke and Arthit:

"You know what a cynic is?"

"Yes, Arthit. A cynic is a disappointed romantic."

"A cynic is somone who's been on the train too long."

"The train," Rafferty says, and waits for it.

"I've always wondered why people travel by train," Arthit says. "Trains invariably pass through the shabbiest, most wretched parts of cities. To someone who lived his entire life on a train, the world would seem to be long stretches of emptiness occasionally interrupted by patches of ugliness. Once in a while, you need to get off the train and see what the world's really like."

....

"All right, Arthit. You don't have to hammer it into my skull."

"Oh, I don't know." he slaps Rafferty's empty bottle against his palm. "Westerners seem to have difficulty with metaphors. I've often wondered whether it has something to do with the frontal lobe. your heads are shaped so oddly."

"Tell it to Isaac Newton."

There are two separate child porn plots in the story which was a lot of human nastiness to digest. But, it's a reality of Southeast Asia. I had a lot of trouble swallowing the denouement between Poke and the second kid he takes in, Superman, who was a friend of Miaow's when they were both street kids. Superman starts to trust him and then runs away because he finds explicit pictures of himself on a cd in Poke's laptop. Let me back up here:  In the course of looking for the missing Australian pervert, Poke finds a tower of CD's full of pictures he has taken of children. Bad pictures. And Superman is in the collection. Poke takes them home and puts them in his safe. He is in contact with an adoption agent who thinks he has found a school that will take Superman in but the agent wants some of the pictures to show them as..I dunno, evidence he has been abused? Why would anyone legitimately NEED to see those? And, even if I possessed such pictures and bought all of the above, I certainly wouldn't email them to someone. How would you ever explain that if the law came knocking? Especially in Southeast Asia where the judicial system can be questionable, let's say, and the prisons are the worst places on earth. And, really, gross.

Then again, Hallinan has lived in Thailand for years so he knows more than I do. But I do not buy this plot point which causes Superman (who comes home and goes to play Tetris and finds the CD still in the drive and rightly freaks out) to trash Poke's house and run off. Now he is convinced he must save his friend Miaow from him. Set up for the next book I suppose.

What I did like was the Buddhist ceremony to release Madame Wing's spirit at the end of the book, easily my favorite scene. It makes me curious to read two Western authors now speak in Thai Buddhist terms about hungry ghosts, aura and karmas. Do they get seduced or convinced by that world philosophy by living there or does it just make for good literary tropes?

Final thoughts on The Gods Will Have Blood, + first and last

I really wasn't sure I'd like this book and while I adore the taste of its publisher, Penguin Books, I have trouble reading their books, or rather, summoning the interest in reading them. Cheap paper and tiny, not particularly attractive fonts. My friend Thom remarked the paper quality was like an old Harlequin novel (which is true because I was quite the connoisseur of trash romances back around the age of 13.) I forgot all about the aesthetics once I started reading, which maybe is Penguin's devious master plan.

Of course, I floved the book which managed somehow to be both philosophically and emotionally engaging. Brotteaux's character, this sweet old man who makes marionettes for a living, just broke my heart. That scene of him carrying his dolls in the rain because the vendor wouldn't buy them (the authorities claimed they were caricatures of Robespierre) was so sad.

You couldn't help feeling sorry for that silly, frivolous woman Rochemaure who both got Gamelin his job and whose indiscretion got Brotteaux arrested. And her incriminating letter being handed over by Elodie's ex-boyfriend Henry who also was involved the the overthrow of the Jacobins. What was the message here? There were villains on both sides and some just got lucky? 

I'm a little confused by the Orestes references and I feel like I'm missing something obvious. I get that Evariste is committing symbolic patricide but Orestes murdered his mother (and Clytemnestra got a bum rap. I'd be pissed too if my husband sacrificed my daughter for favorable winds.) And why the comparisons between Elodie and Electra? He even calls her "sister" at one point. Maybe re-reading Euripides would clear this up. Also, Brotteaux makes me want to read Lucretius.

It's interesting to contrast the deaths of Brotteaux and Gamelin, who died in such similar circumstances riding in the tumbril to the guillotine. But while Brotteaux's is so moving, with Gamelin you feel relieved, at best. You can't even feel sorry for the poor schmuck because he rides to his death still thinking he was a great man and regretting he didn't kill more traitors. By 6 months later, Elodie is shacked up with his best friend Desmahis (this poor girl really needs to have better taste in men.)

The message of the perils of dogmatism are still as relevant as ever, unfortunately. 

First line:

Very early one morning, Evariste Gamelin-artist, pupil of David, member of the Section du Pont-Neuf, formerly Section Henry IV-was to be seen approaching the ancient church of the Barnabites, which had served for three years, since the 21st May, 1790, as the meeting place for the general assembly of the section.

Last line:

The last burnt-out logs were glowing in the fireplace. Elodie let her happy, tired head fall back again upon her pillow.

Timeline for The Gods Will Have Blood

Here is a timeline of the French Revolution to aide in enjoyment of Anatole France's The Gods Will Have Blood. Mainly taken from Wikipedia.


·         1774: Louis XVI’s coronation
·         1789: Robespierre is elected to the Estates-General at the age of 30 and moves to Versailles.
·         July 14, 1789: Bastille Day
·         August 26, 1789: National Constituent Assembly publishes Declaration of the Rights of Man (proposed by Lafayette)
·         October 5-6, 1789: Women’s March/October Revolution. The Royal Family is forced out of Versailles by an angry mob. They move to the Tuileries, escorted by Lafayette.
·         July 12, 1790: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy makes all clergy employees of the state. By November, all clergy must swear an oath of loyalty to this. The Pope does not like it.
·         July 17, 1791: Champ de Mars Massacre. A crowd gathers to protest the National Assembly’s decision to create a constitutional monarchy. Between 12 and 50 people are killed by royalist troops under command of Lafayette.
·         August 27, 1791: Declaration of Pillnitz. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Frederick William II of Prussia call on European powers to intervene if Louis XVI’s life is endangered.
·         September 13-14, 1791: Louis XVI formally accepts constitution
·         September 30, 1791: Dissolution of National Constituent Assembly
·         October 1, 1791: Legislative Assembly meets for the first time with many young and inexperienced members.
·         March, 1792: Guillotine adopted as means of execution
·         April 20, 1792: France declares war on Austria.
·         April 25, 1792: First use of guillotine.
·         April 28, 1792: France invades Belgium (Austrian Netherlands)
·         July 30, 1792: Austria and Prussia begin invasion of France.
·         August 10, 1792: Paris Commune uprising. Royal family arrested. End of the Bourbon monarchy in France until the 1814 restoration.
·         August 19, 1792: Lafayette flees France, surrenders to Austria
·         August 22, 1792: royalist riots in Brittany, La Vendée and Dauphiné.
·         September, 1792: half of the Paris prison population is massacred. Many are clergy. Marie Antoinette’s close friend the Princess de Lamballe is torn apart by an angry mob.
·         September 22, 1792: first day of the Revolutionary Calendar (Napoleon will officially abolish in 1806)
·         1793: The first Bourbon king, Henry IV’s, tomb is ransacked and his corpse is decapitated (it was reinterred with his body this year.)
·         January 21, 1793: execution of Louis XVI
·         March 11, 1793: establishment of Revolutionary Tribunal, the court that try political offenders during the Reign of Terror.
·         April 6, 1793: Committee of Public Safety established. This will be France’s de facto government during the Reign of Terror
·         June 10, 1793: Jacobins gain control of the Committee of Public Safety
·         July 13, 1793: Marat assassinated
·         July 17, 1793: Charlotte Corday executed
·         July 27, 1793: Robespierre, a Jacobin, is elected to Committee of Public Safety
·         September 5, 1793: Reign of Terror begins
·         October 16, 1793: Marie Antoinette executed
·         October 21, 1793: a law is passed that allows execution of priests and their supporters on sight
·         October 31, 1793: 21 former Girondist leaders executed
·         March 24, 1794: Jacques Hebert, the editor of the radical left newspaper La Pere Duchesne, is executed for criticizing Robespierre for being too moderate
·         April  5, 1794: Georges Danton executed
·         May 7, 1794: Robespierre launches his new religion, The Cult of the Supreme Being
·         May 8, 1794: Antoine Lavoisier executed
·         July 27-28, 1794: The Thermidorian Reaction. Robespierre is arrested and guillotined without trial, along with other members of the Committee of Public Safety. Ironically, the end of the committee makes the public more safe. The Reign of Terror officially ends.
·         1799: Napoleon becomes First Consul of France
·         May 18, 1804: Napoleon crowned Emperor of France
·         April 6, 1814: Bourbon Restoration of Louis XVIII (Louis XVI’s younger brother)
·         March 20, 1815: Beginning of Napoleon’s 100 Days; Louis XVIII flees France
·         June, 1815: following defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon surrenders and is exiled from France for the second time to St. Helena where he will die in 1821. Louis XVIII returns to the throne.