August 20 2020

The Professor's House (1925)

By Willa Cather

Professor St Peter is facing what we'd call a midlife crisis toddy.  Though successful and happily married, he is dissatisfied.  His family has moved to a grand, new house -- but he can't give up his shabby attic study in the old house and continues to rent the house retreating to the place he feels most comfortable.

His two daughters are married, he seems to like both sons in law, enjoys his younger daughter Kitty, but struggles with his older daughter Rosamunde.  Prof St Peter's most successful student Tom Outland, had died as a soldier in WWI, but Tom plays a major role in the story.  We learn he had been engaged to Rosamunde, and that he created a successful product, the proceeds of which were willed to Rosamunde, and we learn more of Tom as the story proceeds.  Though the writer leaves some questions unresolved (e.g., how St Peter will relate to his family going forward, whether Dr Crane will get any share in the Outland money, is Louie a gold-digger or a decent guy, etc).  Still, this is an interesting story, fun to read, and a product of its time.

August 18 2020

Cry, the Beloved Country (1946)

By Alan Paton

As a college freshman I saw "Lost in the Stars", the musical based on Cry, the Beloved Country, and the mournful cries of "Absolom, my son, my son..." still haunt me.  Now, half a century later, I have finally read this classic story of the lives of black nationals in Apartheid era South Africa.

Stephen Kumalo, an aging Anglican priest, serves an impoverished "native" African community in the Ndotsheni valley of South Africa.  Their only child, Absalom, had gone to Johannesburg to visit his cousin, but has not been heard from in ages.  As the story opens, Stephen is heading out to track down their son as well as Stephen's missing sister Gertrude.  He travels by train, bringing along his meager savings to finance the trip.  Stephen meets the kindly Rev Msimangu, with whom he has corresponded.  Msimangu helps him finds lodgings and they manage to locate Gertrude who, like a prodigal daughter, has been living off the sale of liquor and sleeping around.  Once Stephen brings Gertrude and her son to board with him, he and Msimangu start searching for Absalom, who seems to always be a step ahead, the men just missing him as he moves around the city.  Eventually, the mean learn that Absalom had been a student in a reformatory, but was released on good behavior and to support his pregnant girlfriend.  Meanwhile, Stephen is alarmed to hear that a prominent white civil rights activist has just been shot by a native.  His worst fears are then realized when he finally catches up with Absalom, who has confessed to the crime.  Stephen's sorrow and his dignity are heart-wrenching and, although Absalom is condemned to die, Stephen's life and the future of his village will become richly entwined with that of the dead man's family. 

This is a tender story of life for native South Africans under apartheid, a policy that would endure for nearly another 50 years.  As Rev Msimangu observes, "I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it." (p 71)

August 17 2020

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (2018)

By Elizabeth Rush

Climate change is affecting nearly every aspect of nature: from rising temperatures to wildlife endangerment to rising seas...  Nature writer Rush travels to sections of the Atlantic coast that have seen a rise in the water level, especially inundating vulnerable marshlands with tree- and plant-killing salt water.  (I learned a new word: rampike is the term given to these dying trees.)  Rush starts her tale in nearby Jacob's Point in Warren, RI, before moving north to the Maine coast, then to the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island.  Some of the people she interviews have roots to their communities going back centuries, such as a Pensacola, FL neighborhood settled by escaped slaves and the Isle de Jean Charles, home to Choctaw Indians for hundreds of years, but now shrunk by encroaching seas to just a tenth of its former size.

Many of these communities have neither the funds nor expertise to fix their problem, some of which are due not just to rising seas but to rampant development over former wetlands dating to the Swamp Act of 1850.  In Oakwood, Staten Island, nearly all of the residents agreed to sell their homes through a govt buyback program, and move to higher ground, giving the former marshland the chance to recede back to its natural state.  Rush also points to efforts around San Francisco Bay where wetland mitigation (after decades of salt mining) is having some success.  

While the story (rising seas and destroyed coastland) is alarming, Rush's interviews with local residents are interesting and heartfelt, and it is not without hope - but there is a sense that this is an emergency.  Rising is the Reading-Across-RI book for 2020 - and I hope the word gets out there!

August 14 2020

 

The Paris Architect (2013)

By Charles Belfoure

This novel is reminiscent of Anne Frank's diary of her family's years in hiding in Amsterdam and of Corrie Ten Boom's memoir of her family's efforts to keep their Jewish neighbors safe.  In 1942 Lucien Bernard is a French architect who is just trying to keep under the Gestapo radar in occupied Paris.  Hardly a member of the resistance, he is more interested in maintaining a playboy lifestyle than saving Jews.  But work is scarce, and he is intrigued by an offer to design a hiding place for a wealthy Jew.  Knowing that any effort to help Jews could cost him his life, Lucien is persuaded only when the offer is accompanied by a much more lucrative offer to design a munitions plant outside Paris for the Germans, a move that could label him as a collaborator.

Lucien thrives in his double life, enjoying a growing friendship with Captain Herzog, the urbane German counterpart of his French employer, but getting more commissions to hide Jewish leaders.  At each location, Lucien surveys each room, finally deciding on the least obvious location for a hiding place.  At one point, he is asked to take in Pierre, a 12-year-old Jewish orphan.  Against his better judgment, Lucien acquiesces and his life is changed as he becomes a devoted father to Pierre.  Eventually, however, an architectural intern begins to suspect Lucien, and his position becomes ever more dangerous.

This book is not for the fainthearted, featuring some terrifying scenes.  But it was a page-turner, and I was not surprised to learn that the author is an architect by profession, and has published a number of other architect thrillers, as well as architectural histories.

August 3 2020

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz (2020)
By Erik Larson

As always, Erik Larson highlights not only events but personalities and relationships in his fascinating documentary of the Battle of Britain, and mainly about the leader who was faced with daily agonizing decisions amid new horrors of war.  From the unlikely British evacuation at Dunkirk to America's finally coming aboard as a full ally, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is truly the right man at the right time in history.  Initially one of the few leaders (in the UK and on the continent) to face up to Hitler, Churchill leads his people as they face near nightly bombing raids and ever alarming events abroad.

Among the case of characters is the very effective Max Beaverbrook (in charge of production of aircraft and a fierce ally of Churchill's), war minister "Pug" Ismay, John Colville (one of Churchill's secretaries, whose notes are an important source of personal information for this book), and two American representatives of FDR: sickly (but sharp) Harry Hopkins and dashing Averill Harriman, who keep the president up to date on the war efforts and try to convince FDR to join the allied cause.

Churchill's family, especially Clementine, daughter Mary (those diary also provides important material) and daughter-in-law Pamela - who are mostly present at the PM's three residences : 10 Downing St, Checquers (PM retreat), and Ditchley (country getaway and home of Lord and Lady Tree) - play supporting roles, with Mary (whose diary relates much of her 17-year-old's crushes and concerns) coming aboard as a war officer manning an actual gun in southern England.  English citizens were invited to keep personal diaries of the war, and Larson also draws on several of these, giving his account a fresh and personal feel.

Larson also brings the German leaders alive, particularly the vain Herman Goerring and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, as well as a German ace pilot trying to do his job in a horrible war.

My respect for Winston Churchill continues to grow.  He is portrayed as having odd personal habits (he was a late riser and an early drinker) but he was surely the man of the hour.   If not for Churchill, most of Europe might be fascist or Nazi today.

August 1 2020

Fatal Majesty: The Drama of Mary Queen of Scots (1998)

By Reay Tannahill

This lengthy (618 pp) well-researched story traces the life of Mary Queen of Scots from her arrival in Edinburgh in 1561 (at age 18) to her death in 1587, but concentrates on her years in Scotland, which ended in 1568, with her arrest          in England.  Many is the only legitimate child of King James V, and was betrothed as a child to Francois the French Dauphine.  Raised in France, she marries Francois, only to lose him 6 months later to an early death at age 16.  When Mary's mother (acting as regent) dies in Scotland, Mary returns to claim her throne, and it is at this point that the story opens.

Initially welcomed by enthusiastic subjects, Mary alienated may by her practice of her Catholic faith.  sensing she must marry again, and produce an hear, she opts for someone to whom she is physically attracted (Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, several years her junior) rather a political alliance or a man with wisdom nd connections.  the marriage is a disaster, with Henry drinking and chasing after other women - although the union does produce an hear.  Mary's advisers can see Darnley is a problem - he keeps insisting Mary make him the king matrimonial (giving him the right to rule equally with her or - in the case of her early death - to rule in her place) but Mary is wise enough to resist.  One advisor in particular (Earl of Bothwell) wants Darnley out of the ay, and orchestrates Darnley's murder, annuls his own marriage, and convinces Mary to marry him.  But Bothwell does not last long, either, implicated in Darnley's murder and causing speculation that Mary was a party to the  murder of her 2nd husband, an assertion which this author's research does not support.

Other figures are at work against Mary, including the pious Kohn Knox and Mary's own half-brother, James Stewart - eventually they will form a plot to implicate Mary against her cousin Elizabeth I of England, where she has recently sought protection (in 1568).  While her young son is king with the aid of a succession of regents, Mary languishes in various remote English castles under house arrest, until her execution in 1587.  While the charges were trumped up, Mary was a tragic figure, an unwise ruler who rarely chose to follow the best advice.

Although the book is a novel, the author is faithful to the historical record, creating dialogue but not actual persons or events.  We meet Mary's closest friends, her "four Maries" who have served as her ladies in waiting since their childhoods, and her faithful secretary of state, William Maitland, Lord Lethington, who marries "Marie" Fleming.  Mary's most important contribution was producing an heir, James VI, who would becomes James I of England, following the last Tudor monarch Elizabeth I and uniting the two countries.

The author paints a picture of an uncivilized, almost medieval Scotland, lacking in culture and amenities - a far cry from Mary's beloved France - and that Mary was a fish out of water, suffering several personal losses and unprepared for the realities of a wild and unfamiliar country.  Though I knew how the sage would end, the story was nevertheless fascinating, tragic, and perhaps not so far-fetched.