MarshaReads.com

She Has Her Mother’s Laugh

She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity

By Carl Zimmer

Published 2018

Read: July 2019

This large (672 pages) book is quite a treasure. Zimmer, a Yale graduate with a BA in English, has been writing about science since 1989. He’s written 13 books including two text books: The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution (first edition 2009, second edition 2013), the first textbook on evolution written for non-science majors, and Evolution: Making Sense of Life (coauthored with evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen) (first edition 2012; second edition 2015; third edition to be published in 2019), a textbook for science majors. He’s written countless articles about a range of science topics and is author of a weekly column Matter for the New York Times. This particular book has received a large number of awards and honors from various literary organizations and this reader understands why.

Carl Zimmer manages to help us understand how vast the concept of heredity really is and he then makes this huge field interesting and approachable. He starts with a historical perspective about why we originally cared about heredity (who is the father, who gets the inheritance), proceeds through the concepts of bloodlines and genetics, confronts the messy eugenics movements over the ages, explores the power and problems associated purchasing your genetic information with products like Ancestry.com, and confronts us with significant concepts regarding babies’ DNA becoming part of mom and perhaps her future offspring. This is just a small sampling the huge number of concepts that are part of the concept of heredity. He teaches about basic biology, miosis, genetics, and the new gene-editing technology, CRISPR, among many other biological, evolutionary, human developmental concepts in understandable, digestible, and engaging ways. He uses real-life stories—his own and others—to enable understanding of the concepts and challenge the reader to understand the complexity of heredity.

My sole criticism of the book is that the chapter titles are meaningful to Carl Zimmer, and the phrase does eventually comes up during the chapter, but the Table of Contents and chapter titles are completely useless if you’re interesting in efficiently trying to re-explore concepts in them. The index provides some help in this regard.

While a major volume to digest, it’s well worth the effort. This reader was fortunate to be introduced to the book through a book discussion group at a local library. Certainly having a deadline for the conversation provided some motivation to continue reading, but the book is very extraordinary so it was easy to meet that book discussion preparation goal. Discussing this book with others was highly useful as each reader latched onto different concepts differently and sharing the experience of reading this book and what was learned was frankly quite thrilling.

A Woman is No Man

A Woman is No Man

By Etaf Rum

Published 2019

Read Sept 2019

In 1990, in Palestine, Isra’s family receives a suitor, Adam and his mother, Fareeda. Adam’s family had migrated from a refugee camp in Palestine to Brooklyn, NY in 1976. Fareeda brought her son, Adam, to their homeland in 1990 to find a good Arab wife for him. Within a few weeks Isra (17) has been married to Adam (30) and moved into to his parents’ home in Brooklyn. Seven years later, Fareeda and her husband are left to raise Deya and her three sisters after their parent were killed in a car accident. In 2008, Fareeda is focused on finding a suitor for Deya who is torn between loyalty to her family and Arab culture and her desire to have a life beyond being an obedient wife and mother.

Rum tells this story through Deya chapters in 2008-9, Isra chapters progressing through the 1990’s, and Fareeda chapters in both time periods as well as some flashbacks to her earlier years. Through these three perspectives we learn about how three women have struggled with the culture Fareeda is so committed to maintaining even though they now live in America: 1) the only path for a woman is marriage; 2) a wife’s role is to have children, preferably sons, clean, cook and obey her husband and her husband’s parents; 3) the role of the man is to provide for his family and keep his wife and daughters safe, pure, and obedient, beating them if necessary; 4) the role of sons is to support his father in providing for the family while supporting his own and to obey his parents. This lead to the situation that a girl must be married off quickly to both to relieve the father’s financial burden and to ensure she is considered pure and desirable for marriage. Fareeda’s marriage was fully arranged—she met her husband the day they were married. By Isra’s time, the suitor and potential bride did meet before they were married but both sets of parents had authority over the decision. For Deya and Fareeda’s own daughter, Sarah, the mothers sought out potential arrangements but the suitor and potential bride had some involvement in the decision. However, both suitor and potential bride knew they had no choice but to marry someone suitable to their parents so their say was still limited.

Deya she is anxious to go to college before marrying and to marry for love, not by arrangement. She was only seven when her parents died but she knows her mother was very sad and was regularly beaten by her husband. She wants to avoid that fate and wants to know more about her mother to understand the whys behind the situation. Her grandmother wants her to forget the past and agree to a suitor as quickly as possible—most of Deya’s Islamic girls-only school classmates have already made contracts with suitors or are even already married. She even tells Deya that Isra’s problem was that she was possessed by jinn.

I leave the rest of the story for you to discover but will indicate aspects Rum asks us to consider. What barriers must be overcome by an individual, family, or a community to enable their culture to change and allow new roles and responsibilities for both women and men and how to accomplish this? While the story of Isra is clearly heart-breaking, Rum gives us some view of Adam’s situation as well—a man who wants to be an imam but is forced by his family (through the requirement of obedience to his parents) to tend his father’s business, set up his own business, set up a business for his brother, pay for his other brother’s college education and father sons and not the four daughters he and Isra have. Neither Isra nor Adam appears to have much choice in their individual or collective life path nor has either been given any tools which they can use to make their lives or the lives of their children satisfying. Role modelling of their parents hasn’t been helpful but loyalty to family and their culture has been thoroughly taught and learned.

Throughout history, nearly regardless of location in the world, women and men have been initially rooted in a role and responsibility system that makes unmarried daughters a burden to the father and sons an asset to the family both as sources of financial support and a path for keeping wealth in the family. Slowly this system has been cracked in many places and the roles and responsibilities of partners within families is much less rigid and choices are can be made by the partners, not solely dictated by past practices and customs. This reader proposes this trend has allowed for a general lifting of well being for all parties. Unfortunately some cultures retain the oppressive gender roles and responsibilities system, the members of which are literally moving to new locations through immigration as a result of oppression created by man (war waged at the country or “tribe” level) or climate change (i.e. drought). America and other countries receiving immigrants are faced with the dilemma of wanting immigrants to assimilate into their society (whether or not they will allow them to become citizens (!)) and recognizing, to some extent, that immigrants shouldn’t be completely stripped of their culture as a result. How then to handle the situation of Fareeda’s family whose culture includes wife beating as acceptable? How then to challenge the value of loyalty to family when that family’s culture teaches and advocates practices unacceptable to other parts of society.

Rum’s story suggests that the individual plays the critical role. Individuals can muster their strength to challenge. Individuals can mentor, help, support other individuals in their fight to challenge and break ground for themselves or their children. This too is a universal truth—individuals helped individual slaves find a path to free states, individuals help other battered women find safety, individuals help other alcoholics break free of their disease. Individuals have responsibility to find strength for themselves and then have a responsibility to help others. Then individuals can become a movement.

Read this book to become aware of a culture that remains present in our own country and in other places. Become aware of the challenges these individuals face. Become an individual open to “the other story”. Grow.

The Devil’s Cave

The Devil’s Cave

By Martin Walker

Published 2012

Read Sept 2019

This reader received this book from her travel companion when we were about to embark on a biking trip in France. What a delightful present! This is a fun to read book for someone who enjoys criminal investigation stories. I fully agree with the Washingtonian’s praise published in the edition read by this reader: “An affordable way to have an adventure in the French countryside this summer…Strikes a captivating balance between suspense and delight.”

This reader looks forward to more enjoyable reads from this author.

Female Persuassion

The Female Persuasion

By Meg Wolitzer

Published 2018

Read Sept 2019

This reader has mixed feelings about this book.

We meet Greer during the first weekend of her college career. She is disappointed and angry with her parents that she had to accept a full scholarship at a lower tier liberal arts college instead of attending Yale. She couldn’t attend Yale, although she was accepted there, because Greer didn’t get any financial support from Yale due to incomplete a financial aid application provided them by her parents. At a party that first Friday night, she is inappropriately touched by a young man at a frat party. Eventually there is a hearing at the college about this and other similar incidents and the young man is given essentially a soft slap on the wrist. Greer is angry but feels impotent. Fortunately her new activist friend, Zee, takes her to a campus lecture by Faith Frank, a 60-something editor of a feminist magazine, Bloomer. Greer and Zee run into Faith in the women’s room after the lecture and Greer leaves with her business card and substantial enthusiasm for the feminist concepts she heard at the lecture.

After graduation, Greer lands an interview for a job at Bloomer. Unfortunately Bloomer closes the day of her interview, but she is later contacted by Faith Frank for a job with her new foundation that is being financially backed by a venture capitalist (with whom Faith had a one-night stand some 40 years previously). Greer joins with enthusiasm and Faith Frank becomes a mentor. Over time the foundation’s work directly impacting women decreases and its work producing slick conferences with high ticket prices increases. Eventually Greer learns of a controversy associated with a recent conference, confronts Faith, and quits the foundation. In that encounter, Faith reminds Greer that Greer also had an ethical lapse when she first joined the foundation—Greer told Faith about, but never passed onto Faith, a letter from her friend, Zee, requesting consideration for a position.

In the meantime, boyfriend Cory, following graduation from Princeton, where he had a full-ride scholarship, has joined a high-end consulting firm and is living somewhat decadently with other similarly aged consultants at the company’s Malaysian site. His plans to make a lot of money fast to fund a start-up with some friends are interrupted when his family suffers a significant tragedy. He returns home to care for his mother. Greer initially shares his pain but becomes confused as he continues stays to help his mom and seems to have given up on his career aspirations.

After graduation, college friend Zee joins a program that provides a few weeks of training to become a teacher in charter schools that have contracted with them to supply teacher. She quickly becomes overwhelmed by the challenges she faces as an underqualified teacher in the charter school with high aspirations but little capabilities. She leaves this position and gets training for and becomes a crisis counselor. During this period, Zee comes out as gay and finds a life partner. She learns that Greer did not pass on her letter to Faith but the friends eventually reconcile.

Greer is the only one of the three that seems to have a fairly easy path to success. Despite the poor financial aid application, she still gets a full-ride scholarship to the second (third?) tier school. Faith Frank takes her into a nice paying foundation job and provides her mentorship and sponsorship. After quitting the foundation, she manages to write a feminist book, Outdoor Voices that provides her with enough money to buy a brownstone home in Brooklyn and renovate it (if she hadn’t decided to divert the renovation money to her parents and Cory’s mom). She reconnects with Cory and has a baby by the time she’s touring to promote the book.

So why does this reader have mixed feelings about this book?

On the one hand, Wolitzer describes well, and with great detail, the experiences of the three young people as they deal with the challenges of their college days. She does similarly well with the post-graduation stories for Cory and Zee and raises the question of what constitutes an acceptable career trajectory. Is Cory wasting his intelligence by caring for his mother, cleaning houses, and working at a local computer store or are family needs more important? On the other hand, this reader didn’t feels Greer’s path had the same credibility.

While the omnipotent narrator presents substantial detail about the feelings of Greer, Cory, and Zee, that narrator is fairly quiet when it comes to Faith Frank. There is a section devoted to providing Faith Frank’s history, but it’s fairly brief compared to words devoted to the younger characters but does give us some unnecessary (to this reader) details of her short affair with the man who will eventually fund her foundation. We see Faith’s actions at the foundation through Greer’s eyes but little from Faith’s view. She’s been a rock star in the feminist world based on her book Female Persuassion. She’s been the head of a magazine, Bloomer, that, while now closed, existed for 20+ years. She continued to be a successful speaker, charging up new women to speak up. But how does she feel about her new role and platform? It’s not clear.

The most confusing aspect of the book for this reader was the lack of clarity about what feminism means now-its objectives, for whom, and who should be working for it. Faith Frank’s conferences are priced such that their participants have substantial bank accounts who like to hear about power from movie stars while eating fancy food. We don’t know how she really feels about her current work. Why? We know all the others’ characters feelings about many things. Greer’s book Outside Voices seems to sending the message that it’s all about speaking up. This message is being sent by a woman who wrote speeches for other women based on stories she obtained from them, even when it wasn’t true. Certainly mentoring and supporting younger women is important as is gaining your voice to be able to speak up. But what else? This reader is not sure that either Faith or Greer know the answer to this question either.

White Rage

White Rage: the Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide

By Carol Anderson

Published 2015

Read July 2019

Carol Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Her academic prowess as a historian is exemplified in this concise but thorough review of the continuous barrage of barriers white Americans have placed in the path of progress of their brethren black Americans. This was a difficult book for this (white) reader to read, not because of her exceptionally clear writing, but rather because her work makes clear how much this reader didn’t know about the history of the United States. She starts her work during the Civil War and continues through the Obanna administration. While this reader had some familiarity with Jim Crow laws, methods to prevent blacks from voting (various techniques utilized over the decades), red-lining, unstated Jim Crow in the north, using the “drug wars” to incarcerate blacks at an unimaginable, Anderson describes the systematic aspects of these attacks clearly and concisely. Among new learnings for this reader include the meeting Abraham Lincoln had with leaders in which it was proposed that all black Americans agree to leave the United States and make a homeland in Panama and the liberty his successor, Johnson, gave southern leaders to trod upon blacks in order to keep them happy. These learnings are the tips of the iceberg of what Anderson has to teach.

This book is one that should be widely read so that our understanding of the history of the United States is more accurate and so that our understanding of the on-going struggle for equality has been horribly difficult and still is.

War and War and Tolstoy

War and Peace

By Leo Tolstoy

Published serially 1865-1867; in book form 1869

Read May-July 2019

I listened to the 2007 Naxos AudioBooks version of the English translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, read by Neville Jason, while referring to the Kindle version of the 1942 Oxford University Press Inner Sanctum Edition of the same translation. The hardcopy of the Inner Sanctum Edition included a 12 page leaflet providing maps, a list of characters, both arranged in order of their appearance and in family groups, and a list of dates of principal historical events; this material was also included in the published hardcopy. This edition also included Aylmer Maude’s preface, a brief biography of Tolstoy, and an introduction written by Clifton Fadiman which comments on the parallel between Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and Hitler’s invasion in 1941-42. While the Kindle version doesn’t include the leaflet, it does include all other aspects of the Inner Sanctum Edition and is certainly easier to transport and store than the original hardcopy version.

Neville Jason’s reading is fabulous. His reading allowed very easy assimilation of the various forms of the names of the numerous characters. As the book progresses, and in the entire Epilogue Two, Tolstoy gives the reader various, sometimes lengthy, philosophical essays on his views of particular battles, the overall war with respect to causes of initiation, progression, and ending, Napoleon and Alexander, the documentation of war in history books, and the art of writing history itself, among others. This reader anticipates these essays could have felt a bit tedious when reading “via eyes” but Neville Jason’s reading enabled this reader’s full engagement and a sense of Tolstoy earnestly speaking directly to this reader.

Apparently Tolstoy chose the title “War and Peace” to replace the title (“1805”) originally used as the work was published serially. Certainly the full work covers the period extending to 1820, with focus on the Napoleonic-Russian War of 1805 and the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812 so “1805” was an insufficient title. The discussion of Peace is limited, however, unless he uses this term to cover the fictional story of five Russian families and numerous minor characters. Or perhaps he used the term “Peace” to describe the period before the involvement of Russia in the 1805 war and the period between that war and Napoleon’s invasion. In any case, he doesn’t overtly discuss “Peace” but he certainly discusses “War” as noted above.

The book created controversy when it was published as the critics and public found it difficult to classify the book—not history, not a “normal” novel. This reader sees the book as a form of historical fiction. There are many (apparently some 160) real persons in the book, some only referenced and others actively involved in the story. Tolstoy provides five fictional Russian families and numerous minor characters to engage the reader with a sense of the society of the time, to provide multiple stories of potential marriage matches, and to provide characters’ experiences in entering the service, in battle, and in the service of the army. But unlike “normal” historical fiction, Tolstoy weighs in often with his personal take on various topics as noted above.

This reader invested unusually heavily in this book, purchasing both the two volumes of audiobook and the Kindle book. The other investment, which seemed somewhat daunting at the beginning, was that the audiobook version requires 62 hours of listening. But now that this reader is finished with listening, this reader frankly misses Neville Jason’s voice describing the various trials and tribulations of the five Russian families (which won’t be divulged here as you will want to discover yourselves) and providing this reader Tolstoy’s view on the various topics previously mentioned. The only disappointment was in Epilogue 1 when Tolstoy’s view was divulged of the only purpose of women (to be married and raise children). But this reader must give him a small pass here as this vast saga of families and the course of Russian history is so completely engaging. This reader did utilize some other sources to comprehend better aspects of Russian and Napoleonic history that may have been familiar to his earliest readers. Since this reader’s primary identity is “learner”, this book delivered well more than 62 hours of learning. The Kindle version indicates average reading time of 32 hours. This reader fully recommend investing savoring this book; Neville Jason’s version is time very well spent.

A Look at the Contemplative Life

In This House of Brede

By Rummer Godden

Published 1969

Read July 2019

Godden gives us a loving look at about twenty years in the life of an English Benedictine Abbey. A primary character is Philippa Talbot who in her 40’s leaves a successful career to join the Abbey in about 1954. Fairly shortly after her arrival Abbess Dame Hester Cunningham Proctor dies which provides Godden a useful device to introduce both the process of naming a new Abbess and to introduce us to a number of characters that are fully developed over the course of the book. Elspeth Scallon enters the Novitiate and becomes Sister Cecilia just as Abbess Proctor dies providing Godden the opportunity to follow her journey on the path to becoming a fully vowed nun and contrasting her path, Phillipa’s and the path of other Noviatates.

Overall Godden progresses the story of the characters and the overall community from Philippa’s arrival forward, but she takes many opportunities to discuss various aspects of the Benedictine contemplative community including structure of the day, organization of the community, various specific feasts and special events, and challenges facing the community. In most cases she gives perspectives on the topic from many of the characters which allows her to develop the specific characters, to provide an in-depth view of the topic, and to give a look at the changes potentially or actually introduced as new Noviate arrive and as Pope John initiates the Vatican II Council.

Godden provides us an in-depth view of the workings of the Abbey and helps the reader understand what draws one to join, what the path to full vows entails, and what keeps the nuns actively engaged in their chosen life for decades. Fortunately Godden provides as well stories of novices that don’t remain part of the community and the numerous challenges that individual members of the community face across their lives in the Abbey. Godden provides a short glimpse of the community’s reaction to the Vatican II Council and its impact without passing any sort of judgement about it.

While not a book this reader might have selected for herself (again the value of being in a book discussion group that provides such opportunities!), this reader does feel enriched having read this thoughtful, lovely and loving, but not at all saccharine, look at this type of religious life and the way it was conducted during this period.

Blue Nights

Blue Nights

By Joan Didion

Published 2011

Read June 2019

A wonderful aspect of being in a book discussion group is reading things you might not otherwise read. One discussion group to which this reader belongs occasionally has its monthly meeting discussion books chosen by the reader based on some sort of assignment. The assignment that brought me to this book was “A book with either “blue” or “blew” in the title.” So this reader put “blue*” into the search engine for the library consortium, to which the sponsoring library is a member, to see what the search would reveal. As expected—A LOT of potential possibilities books. As this reader worked through the descriptions of a variety of books, the title of this book first provided a source of pause. Blue is this reader’s favorite color and is a delightful favorite as the sky provides a whole palette of blues to enjoy. The period of twilight dissolving completely into night provides a specific blue palette that is especially remarkable. The author’s name for this book was Joan Didion, an author this reader read years ago and enjoyed much for her remarkable language although not a single specific book title read could be recalled. No worries. The book was requested and delivered.

Upon opening the book, the first paragraph totally engaged this reader with her description of blue nights—apparent in New York (City) (where she now lives) but not in subtropical California (where she lived for much of the time described in the book). “You pass a window, you walk to Central Park, you find yourself swimming in the color blue: the actual light is blue, and over the course of an hour or so this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as it darkens and fades, approximates finally the blue of the glass on a clear day at Chartres, or that of the Cerenkov radiation thrown off by the fuel rods in the pools of nuclear reactors.” Although this reader has not been to Chartres nor seen radiation thrown off by the fuel rods in the pools of nuclear reactors, this reader knows that blue. She continues “During the blue nights you think the end of day will never come. As the blue nights draw to a close (and they will, and they do) you experience an actual chill, an apprehension of illness, at the moment you first notice: the blue light is going, the days are already shortening, the summer is gone.”

Thus Didion sets the stage for this book. Although some references and critics describe the book as an account of the death of her daughter, at age 39 and only twenty months after the abrupt death of her husband of a heart attack, there frankly isn’t really an account of her daughter’s death. Rather there are short descriptions of aspects of her life with her daughter—getting a call for her adoption, the party celebrating her official adoption, taking her on various work trips, and others. She recounts several times hearing a group of doctors on rounds indicate the vent her daughter is on is no longer able to provide the patient sufficient oxygen There are descriptions of fears she experienced during her daughter’s life (generally the ones all parents fear regarding injuries, losing them in a crowd, etc), fears she now experiences that are much more difficult (why didn’t she understand what her daughter might had been saying at various times, why didn’t she realize that her daughter would have the abandonment fears that adopted children often experience, etc), and the fear that she will lose her memories of her. . As well Didion discusses her concerns about aging which she now realizes is now occurring: the loss of physical capabilities, the increasing neuropathies that hamper her senses and impair her mobility, and especially her cognitive capabilities that are apparent in the act of writing: “What if the absence of style that I welcomed at one point—the directness that I encouraged, even cultivated—what if this absence of style has now taken on a pernicious life of its own? What if my new inability to summon the right word, the apt thought, the connection that enables the words to make sense, the rhythm, the music itself— What if this new inability is systemic? What if I can never again locate the words that work?” “I encouraged the very difficulty I was having laying words on the page. I saw it as evidence of a new directness. I see it differently now. I see it now as frailty. I see it now as the very frailty Quintana feared.”

The book describes Didion’s raw thoughts and fears, some which are newly understood but had always there, some newly exposed and only evident when one reaches that certain point of the blue night. Don’t read this book to learn about Quintana’s death. Read this book to hear a wonderfully articulate author describe what she is experiencing as both a result of losing a daughter and as a result of realizing her summer is ending.

Anna K, Audiobooks, and Discussion

Anna Karenina

By Leo Tolstoy

Published serially 1873-1877

Published in book form 1878

This reader is publishing this essay on a book read several years ago because it was a great example for this reader about the experience of listening to the book vs reading “with your eyes”. Tolstoy’s “first novel” and very great work is a large one—850+ pages or so. Dispersed within the story of two marriages—the crumbling of Anna/Alexey Karenin’s marriage and creation and maturation of Kostya Levin/Kitty Shcherbatsky’s marriage—Tolstoy has long extensive sections on hunting, harvesting grain, serfdom, political discussions at a dinner party, sending soldiers to a war of unclear purpose, and several others. This reader may have struggled through these sections if reading the hardcopy (or Kindle!) version of the novel, but was enriched by them when they were being read by a good reader and the reader was walking, exercising, driving, gardening, cleaning, or many other types of activities that allowed concentration on both the book and the task. I heartily recommend this form of reading to enable immersion in books.

Tolstoy provides an interesting look at Russian society shortly before the freeing of the serfs, with particular emphasis on the arrangement and state of marriage in upper society with respect to the public and personal expectations of marriage. Anna is in an arranged marriage that “saves” her from a situation of no wealth and no obvious family with which to live. However the marriage is not personally fulfilling to her, and perhaps not to her husband. While perfectly acceptable to have discreet affairs to “fill the gap” of an unsatisfying marriage, Anna chooses a different path with her Vronsky. Tolstoy uses this story to develop his thesis that an eternal error men makes is in “imagining that happiness consists in the realization of their desires”. However, the maturation of Kostya Levin and Kitty Shcherbatsky’s marriage may contradict this thesis. However they chose their marriage following a courtship focused on love (as possible within the constraints of society) and live in the country, generally unblemished by the trends and pressures of society.

Obviously there is much Tolstoy covers in 850+ pages which is not discussed here. Listen to the book to find out the rest. One last remark, however, regards the volume of books published while Anna and Vronsky are exiled to his country estate and the volume of books published now. Anna and Vronsky read essentially everything that was being published at the time in French or Russian—history, science, fiction, poetry, etc. It would be impossible to read even a small percentage of everything published now even when a person’s life is devoted to nothing but reading. This reader benefits from book clubs which provide a great selection of books for the discussion season—either by the learned facilitator compiling the list for the season (and one providing “off-season suggestions) or through suggestions from well-read members which is winnowed down to a list for the season. Usually the lists contain books this reader would never otherwise read but are enriching in usually many ways.

Bottom lines: 1) Engage with audiobooks to expand your reading experience (and probably your reading volume) and 2) Seek out and join book discussion groups that can help find books worth your limited time to read and that can provide a great experience in digesting these books in ways you can’t by yourself alone.

David: Warrior and Musician

The Secret Chord

By Geraldine Brooks

Published 2015

Read April 2019

Depending on your religious upbringing, your current spiritual practice, the movies you’ve seen, and the books you’ve read, your awareness of the story of the biblical David may be limited to the story of the young shepherd David slaying the giant Goliath or may be more expansive with various levels of detail about his rise to become the King of Israel, his musical abilities, the poetry ascribed to him, and his relationship with Bathsheba who becomes the mother of David’s successor, Solomon. Geraldine Brooks gives us a fictionalized version of the biblical David story. The term “biblical David” being used as very limited evidence outside of the bible gives details of his life. However, David is a figure discussed extensively in the Old Testament so there are many stories about him available there.

Brooks pulls no punches with the picture she paints of David. He is shown as a man driven to create a united kingdom of Israel, willing to kill and conquer “as much as needed” to accomplish this goal. While out of the favor of King Saul, who he succeeds, he was a maundering bandit who killed to get supplies when needed. She presents the interaction with Bathesba as a rape by David because he could, not a seduction by Bathesba of David. David has her husband killed when he finds out she carries his child and he fails at tricking the husband into sleeping with his wife while on active duty thus preventing a means to cover his “tracks”. He had multiple wives, common at the time, some for political reasons, others to generate heirs, and his treatment of them was sometimes very far from kind. His relationship with Jonathan, son of Saul, is not one that may be expected and one that impacts his marriage with Sauls daughter. Brooks moderates the picture somewhat. David asks Nathan, his sayer/prophet, to write his history, warts and all, and Nathan certainly finds and tells us the warts indicated above. This sets up the structure of Nathan as narrator as scribe of the story. In the last section of the book, after the kingdom is considered “whole”, other aspects of David are told. David writes much music and poetry to the near exclusion of managing the political wrangling between his various sons and lieutenants. During this time Nathan is allowed by David to be a very close mentor to his son and ultimate heir, Solomon, who Nathan prophesizes will build the temple that David won’t be allowed given his past sins.

Brooks’ story of David may or may not align with readers’ views or understanding of David. This reader anticipate it’s not her goal to provide the “truth” about David but rather to present a fictionalized possible picture of him and his time. This reader appreciate that while Brooks does use dialog to present the story at times, she relies on Nathan to be the narrator and doesn’t tell us what David is thinking. We see David through Brooks’ Nathan’s intepretation of David.

Much of the book deals with persistent warring between various tribes and between David’s army and all who stand in his way of creating a unified kingdom. It was interesting that David apparently presumes his reason for conquering the city that will become the City of David justifies his action—it will provide a capital city which was not originally part of either of the two lands he is uniting. The unification is good; a “neutral” capital will seal the unification. Death, destruction, subjugation are all justified for the good of creating this united kingdom which will worship the true single Word. War pursued for religious purposes is clearly nothing new (David’s story occurred ~1000BC) and, unfortunately, humans have continued to battle for religious reasons to this day…..