MarshaReads.com

Historical Fiction in the Middle East

Dreamers of the Day

By Mary Doria Russell

Published 2008

Read July 2017

I saw this book on display in my local library. I previously had read Russell’s first two novels, The Sparrow and Children of God so picked this up to see what it was about. She has an engaging starting line “My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.” As I have been doing a little studying of Churchill this summer and since understanding a bit about the origins of the modern political geography, I checked out this historical fiction book to see what it would reveal.

The story is told by a spinster schoolteacher from Ohio. She loses to the Great Influenza of 1919 her entire family, including sister and brother-in-law who had done missionary work in Cario, Egypt, and long-widowed and domineering mother who left her a small inheritance. Agnes decides to these funds to book passage to Egypt in 1921 and walk where her sister and brother-in-law had walked. She booked a room at the Semiramis Hotel in Cairo, conveniently at the same time the “Cairo Conference” was to be held at that hotel. While being denied her reservation there as they would not accept her pet dachshund as a guest she begins her encounters with Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, who were important figures at this Middle East Conference called by young Churchill to discuss the Middle East problems of the time, as well as a fictional German spy who befriends Agnes and takes care of her dog while she enjoys her interesting times with the historical figures he’s interested it tracking a bit.

Russell does a nice job of balancing the historical figures and fictional characters. Agnes’ sister’s connections get Agnes into various actual scenes with the historical figures including Winston Churchill’s painting the pyramids and the demonstration that met Churchill and the delegation when it arrived in Jerusalem, which T.E . Lawrence quells. Russell has done her homework on the conference well and gives some information about the outcome of the conference, which set into motion creation of Iraq, the eventual creation of a Jewish state, and lots of turmoil that continues until today. There is enough information about this to whet the appetite for more reading of the history. Russell maintains nice focus on her fictional character, Agnes, and the story of her journey to become her own woman, no longer under the domineering influence of her mother and pulls off this story in an interesting and reasonably believable manner.

Twain and The Eclipse

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

By Mark Twain

Published 1889

Read September 2016

Since we’ve just (Aug 2017) experienced a dramatic eclipse of the sun by the moon, I thought it was time to write a brief post about Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. Please enjoy the image provided by a friend which shows the eclipse as we saw it locally with the help of leaves to cast multiple images of it on a deck surface.

When my book club decided to read this book, I was frankly not really looking forward to the experience. I was familiar with the premise (although I realized not the whole story) and immediately recalled the eclipse segment from the Warner Brother’s “A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court”. Why was this “a classic” and why were we reading it?

However, to my delight, I enjoyed listening to this book so much I listened again immediately after finishing it the first time. The part with which I was familiar—Hank, a Connecticut Yankee in Twain’s time of the 1880’s, wakes up after a nap to find himself on the outskirts of Camelot. He avoids being hanged as an intruder by conjuring up an eclipse of the sun (having remembered the date/time of a conveniently timed eclipse) and, after being proclaimed “The Boss” by the King, sets out to modernize Camelot with various technologies from the future. An aspect I learned from listening— Twain totally skewers the romantic notion of Camelot and associated chivalry in a wonderfully ironic manner. It’s well worth listening to this book as the language used by the Camelot dwellers is fabulously done and extremely entertaining when read aloud. Hank’s wonder at the craziness of dress and customs is also quite amusing. A favorite scene of mine recounts Hank’s incredulity that knights leave for a quest taking no food with them. (But of course, there are no pockets in the armor that could hold even a sandwich and he even has to carry his smoking tobacco in his helmet.) Also, a fair number of critters can get into the armor when you sleep on the ground and it’s not so easy to get them to leave….

A second aspect I learned from listening was the inability of Hank to really move the people into a more modern way of thinking and being—it would take literally centuries to get past some really awful practices (including prisoners in the dudgeon passing on to the new owner and no one remembering why they were even imprisoned). Twain clearly had no love for the Catholic Church and shows its ability to block progress when they shut Hank down through The Interdict and associated crusade against Hank and his 54 brave soldiers.

I now fully advocate that this book is definitely “a classic”. It remains relevant when read over a hundred years after its publication. It is extremely humorous in a biting kind of way. Very importantly, regardless of the age, it reminds us that technology alone is insufficient for mankind’s forward movement towards a truly just and harmonious civilization.

In this book, the eclipse enabled Hank to take a leadership role in trying to move the people of Camelot forward. Fortunately the eclipse we experienced yesterday helped bring together the people of the US for at least a short time. Wouldn’t it be great the eclipse can mark a new time of cooperation that can last more than a short 2 minutes?…..

Miss Jean

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

By Muriel Spark

Published serially in The New Yorker 1961

Published in book form 1961

Read August 2017

I am likely not alone in immediately thinking of Maggie Smith and Rod McKuen’s Oscar-nominated song “Jean” when I hear the title “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” despite having never read the book nor seen the 1969 movie until this summer (2017). I have now corrected both lapses and can report that both the book and movie are worthy of individual or paired consideration.

The short novel makes extensive use of flash-forward as well as some flash-back. Through these devices we learn the story of the “Brodie set” as they become called, starting in 1931 at age ten and having their first year of Junior School with Miss Jean Brodie, their subsequent years as they progress through the Marcia Blaine School, a conservative girls’ school in Edinburgh, Scotland, while continuing a close special relationship with Miss Brodie through their tenure, and for some of the characters, a bit about their lives after school. The story also traces the story of Miss Jean Brodie—her unorthodox teaching approach, her fight with Miss Macky, the headmistress, to stay there vs leaving for a more “appropriate” school for Miss Brodie’s method, the renunciation of her love for Mr. Lloyd, the married art teacher (and his love for her), her love affair with Mr. Lowther, the singing master, and her eventual betrayal and dismissal from Marcia Blaine for her fascist views.

Narration, giving us only the girls’ perspectives, alternates with occasional dialog providing the reader’s only opportunity to hear Miss Brodie’s voice. As such, we only know Miss Jean Brodie through her comments to her girls. She is quite insistent she is “in her prime” and that she is totally committed to “her girls”. She loves the art teacher and even shares a kiss but avoids more interactions because he is married. She carries on a love affair with the singing master seemingly to heal her heart. She also has some views, desires, and takes some actions that are less easy to understand—her appreciation of fascist rulers, her clear desire that Rose be her proxy as lover of Mr. Lloyd, and her strong suggestions to a new student that she run away to fight for Franco in Spain. We can’t know what propels her to have fascist leanings or why she would find a love affair between Rose and Mr. Lloyd something for which to wish. We do, however, learn that her effect on Sandy was far from what she intended. Not only is Sandy the Brodie set member with whom Mr. Lloyd has an affair, Sandy also chooses to put a stop to Miss Brodie.

It was interesting to view the movie to see how the structure of the novel would be handled. The story is told in a more “straight-line” approach. The “Brodie set” is reduced in number by blending some of their stories together. Sandy remains a distinct and pivotal character. The betrayal is handled differently and Miss Brodie actually interacts with her betrayer providing a useful climax for the movie.

I think this would be a great book for a book discussion—there are so many unanswered questions about the characters and the setting of the story—1930’s Edinburgh—enabling many rich discussions.

Tess the Pure

Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully presented by Thomas Hardy

Published 1891 (serialized in The Graphic); 1892 (book form)

Read: Sept 2016; May 2017

This book shows up as # 26 on the Big Read, a survey conducted by the BBC in 2003 to identify the nation’s 200 best loved novels of all times. It has certainly captured a place in my heart as a best loved novel. I’ve read it twice and anticipate I will again sometime in the future. Why this reaction?

Caution—spoiler alert—I will reveal aspects of the plot you may not wish to learn here but which do help me describe my loving view of this book.

Tess is an absolutely marvelous character. She survives one blow after another with unrelenting courage and grace. She is sent by her family to seek favor from rich Mrs d’Urberville, whom her lazy father learns is a distant relative. Her mother dresses her up for the journey in a way to attract the attention of Alec, Mrs. d’Urberville’s son. Attracted he is to Tess. She fend off his unwanted attention for several months but he seduces/rapes Tess with no offer of marriage. She returns to her village after making clear to him she does not care for him, was blinded by him and realizes how wicked he is. She bears his child and baptizes him herself just before he dies as an infant. Tess chooses to leave the family to start anew at a dairy farm some distance from her home. She meets Clare, a son of a rector and who is learning the dairy trade, and comes to love him deeply but chastely. She puts off marriage proposals from him repeatedly because of her past but eventually gives into his pleas to be his wife. Her new husband rejects her ferociously during dinner on the night of their wedding because she tells him of the situation with Alec –just after he admits he is not a virgin himself. Rejected by Clare, who takes off for Brazil, and again all alone, she takes a series of farm positions to support herself and eventually returns home to take care directly of her family when she learns her mother is ill and her father abruptly dies instead. She repeatedly rejects Alec over the course of the novel as she encounters him, telling him she does not love him and loves another. She eventually decides Clare will never return to her and gives into to Alec’s offer to take care of her and her family only when her mother and siblings are literally out on the street with no means to acquire a roof over their head. Of course Clare finally comes to his senses, too late, and finds Tess, unfortunately living as Alec’s mistress. Tess’s one act of vengeance against Alec provides Tess and Clare a few weeks of bliss until she is captured by authorities to stand trial for her crime and we all lose Tess.

We so want Tess to find happiness so due her. I anticipate I’m not alone in reading the novel for the second time hoping this during the second read even though I know it won’t happen. I also anticipate I’ll read the book again with this same hope.

But is this just another romantic novel? Why such devotion to it from myself and others? I suggest there are a number of reasons

First, Hardy clearly loves Tess. Hardy describes her as a Pure Woman which is a very apt description. She stays Pure of heart throughout. She rises above the models her parents provide her and continually seeks to live purely with limited wants for herself. She seeks to repair damage to her family’s income by going to the cousins d’Urberville, after an accident that happens while she is trying to literally feed the family (while her parents lay home in bed with hang-overs) results in loss of their horse, a key component of her father’s meager haggling trade. She doesn’t take the path suggested by her mother to trick Alec into marriage nor to keep quiet about her past to Clare. She repeatedly reject’s Alec’s pursuit of her, even after he learns she bore his son, because she does not love him and believes him a bad person. She remains true to Clare and never asks for anything from her parents or his parent despite her increasingly desperate position as she is eking out a living as a farm hand versus using Clare’s money he gives her when he leaves. She in fact sends a sizable fraction of Clare’s money to her family to pay for a new roof for their rented house. She continuously did the right thing. Only when she has exhausted all efforts to find shelter for her mother and siblings and she has lost all hope of seeing Clare again does she acquiesce to Alec’s pursuit. Her only act of vengeance is to clear the barrier to Clare—the fact that her “husband” Alec remains living.

Second, Hardy reveals the impact of then current standards on women. Although Clare isn’t Pure, his wife must be. It’s not clear whether Tess’s impure relations with Alec continued after the initial seduction or not. Members of my book club were divided in their interpretations of Hardy’s ambiguous narration on this point. Was Clare’s rejection of Tess purely because of a single rape resulting in a born son or was it because she remained “married” to Alec—she indicates she remained “dazed” by him for a little while (three weeks passed between the seduction of which we’re made aware and her departure from the farm)– so she could never marry another? Regardless, it was clear that their marriage could not be consummated nor continued and they were both doomed to never marry again after taking their own vows. Clare even toys with the idea of taking one of the other milk maids, from the dairy at which he met Tess, as a mistress for his farm in Brazil. He rejects the notion when the girl indicates it would be impossible for her own great love of Clare to surpass the love Tess felt for him.

Third, Hardy paints us a picture of rural England at the time. The dairy farm at which Tess and Clare meet is idyllic – beautiful pastures, milk maids finding their assigned cows in the pasture to milk them, lovely starry nights and misty mornings during which Tess and Clare find each other. The situation is far less glamourous at the rougher farm Tess eventually stays for the contracted period when hired by the farm owner so she could afford shelter during the winter. Tess’s hard work at this dreadful place includes feeding a dangerous threshing machine which demands to be fed through the night so that it can move on to the next farm as quickly as possible. Hardy gives the impression both that manual farm work was difficult and provided a fairly desperate living for those bound to a farmer from season to season, and as well an impression that automation was going to disrupt the idyllic pastoral life of the English countryside. This theme remains relevant today. We view food production as a noble vocation and mourn the loss of the family farm while the reality of unreliable and small income from farms combined with the hard physical labor of farming, unattractive to US citizens, has led to an increasing fraction of farm labor being conducted by immigrants from Latin America. (And the cows are no longer grazing in the fields with milk-maids coming to them or bringing them in for their milking , but rather standing in barn stalls round the clock.)

So through the tragic story of a Pure Woman who we love as much as Hardy does, Hardy provides us a picture of England at the beginning of much change brought by the industrial revolution impacting both how livings are made and how lives are led. We see that life wasn’t simple and easy then and realize that it probably never was nor will be. However, it’s possible to live a Pure life amidst this difficulty and remain above the fray.

A Dark Reality from Atwood

The Heart Goes Last

By Margaret Atwood

Published 2015

Read 6/20/2017

This speculative fiction offering from Margaret Atwood was more difficult for me to stay with compared with other books she’s written. The premise wasn’t the troubling part. Stan and Charmaine lose their jobs (like pretty much everyone else) as the economy of the US shifts to the west coast and the economy and society collapse generally. They are reduced to living in their car and are constantly worried about being robbed, raped, and killed by roving gangs. This is a scenario that doesn’t seem unrealistic or surprising, unfortunately. They learn about the Positron Project and quite readily sign on board. They are in a cycle whereby they spend one month working in the town of Consilience and living in a nice townhouse. The next month they spend in prison, working in jobs there while living separated by gender, but safe. Then they cycle back to their townhouse and “town” jobs. The couple settles into this situation for a while and generally feels safe and satisfied. Premise established; not what?

Charmaine finds herself in a sexual affair with the man who occupies their house during Stan and Charmaine’s prison month and then Stan starts his own sexual fantasies about the woman who shares their house. The book then follows the various twists and turns of their situation and a number of unsavory and twisted people they encounter along including characters who have been subjected to some of the experiments of the bad-guy owners of the Positron Project. The plot feels forced (“what am I going to do with these bland, boring characters”) and is very heavily focused on various sexual fantasies and actions happening around the couple.

I made it to the end of the novel and was mildly pleased with how Stan and Charmaine are treated in the end. Some reviewers describe the book as a dark madcap comedy. Although I have regularly felt Atwood’s dark humor in her other books, this one was disappointing and I just wanted it to be over. I would, however, strongly recommend Atwood’s “The Year of the Flood” for a better example of her brilliance in taking the reader for a look at the possible not too distant future and keeping the reader willingly thinking and reading until the very end.

Mother and Daughter and Caring

One True Thing

By Anna Quindlen

Published 1994

Ellen Gulden is 24 and a Harvard graduate employed by a magazine in New York City when, during a visit home to see her brothers before they left for their next years in college, her father informs her that her mother has advanced cancer and will need her. Ellen resists and suggests they hire a nurse. But she leaves her NYC life behind and comes home to care for her mother. She tells us this is not because she loves her mother, but because she felt she had no choice. Kate Gulden was the mother who made everything from scratch, was on a first name basis with the hardware store employees, was on many community committees, and always designed and executed the best decorations for her assigned tree in the town square. Kate Gulden’s life as wife of English Professor George Gulden of Langhorne College, a small liberal arts school in the small town of Langhorne, was one Ellen knew would never be hers. But she agrees reluctantly to take care of Kate Gulden, in large part because it was another case of trying to achieve something her father demanded.

Quindlen tells the story of the months Ellen spends with her mother as the cancer slowly destroys her body, but not her spirit. The descriptions of cancer’s impact are quite vivid although not in a way that causes recoil but rather draws you closer to Kate Gulden, her daughter, and all who suffer from cancer and all who take care of cancer victims. The hospice nurse is carefully drawn and the compassion she brings to Kate, and indirectly Ellen, is clear whether or not Ellen can accept it.

Also during this period, Ellen learns much about and from her mother. In the early stage of the caregiving, Ellen has “the childhood I might have had, had I been a different sort of girl, my mother a different sort of woman, and both our needs to woo my father less overwhelming”. They start the Gulden Girls Book and Cook Club with only two members—mother and daughter. They read Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and Anna Karenina, all books Ellen has, of course, read. Ellen learns eventually her mother had already read them too.

Eventually the disease begins to take a huge toll on Kate including losing strength so that Ellen needs to help her with more and more movements and activities. The relationship between Kate and Ellen starts to shift more towards Kate as the child needing care and Ellen as the mother to provide it. Pain becomes an overwhelming aspect of Kate’s life and her need for and use of morphine increases.

During this time Ellen’s relationship with her father also takes a shift and she becomes less all-adoring and more critical of him. The biggest shift, however, occurs after her mother passes and it is determined that Kate’s death was due to a bolus of morphine well above and beyond what her morphine dispenser would allow. Ellen is arrested for murder of her mother, although she hadn’t given her the overdose, and her father doesn’t even post bail for her.

The second half of the book deals with Ellen’s life immediately after Kate’s death and how it is impacted by the murder investigation and court proceedings. I won’t spoil your reading by detailing how this goes. There is some discussion about the ethics of supporting and/or hastening the end of life in this kind of case but fortunately the author doesn’t peach a line on this.

One review of this book suggests the epilogue makes the ending too tidy. I somewhat agree with this view for the reason given—the author knows life, especially family relationships, grief, and loss, is untidy so a tidy ending is somewhat inconsistent with the rest of the book.

I very much appreciated the intelligent language of the book, its exploration of care giving and receiving care for such as devastating disease, and it exploration of the untidy nature of mother-daughter, father-daughter, mother-father, and mother-daughter-father relationships and how none of these relationships are static over time whether we want them to be or not. These aspects will enable the book to remain relevant for many decades (it’s already 23 years since publication). Only one scene would definitely be different if occurring in the day of cell phones vs telephone land lines but by clearly stating the story occurs in 1985, this isn’t an issue. I put this book on my “recommendation to others” list although not immediately for others whose life situation involves cancer and/or recent loss as a result of cancer.

History and Mystery: A Recommended Series

In This Grave Hour

By Jacqueline Winspear

Published 2017

Read May 10, 2017

I discovered Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear’s “psychologist and investigator” a few years ago when I read Pardonable Lies, the third in a series of historical fiction/mysteries. I’ve now read all thirteen books published to date (starting in 2003) in this series and look forward to more.

If you have encountered and viewed multiple seasons of BBC’s Foyle’s War, you will likely find this series of interest. The Maisie Dobbs series is set in England and starts in 1929, some years after Maisie returns from serving as a nurse in WWI. In This Grave Hour starts on Sunday September 3^rd, 1939 as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tells the nation Britain has declared war on Germany. Each book has an interesting mystery for Massie and her employee, Billy, to solve, often with a range of encounters with Scotland Yard, and occasionally other British agencies or their counterparts in other countries. Of equal importance to each book and, I anticipate, a draw for her fans, is a description of the setting of the story—Britain dealing with the aftermath of WWI and eventually entering another war.

The continuing story of Maisie’s life is important to her approach to her work and the particular mystery at hand, but its telling is not a focal point of any of the books. In fact, several years of her life including important events of marriage and loss of her husband and a pregnancy are handled in a few pages of a prologue of one of the books. What Winspear does provide voice to are Maisie’s doubts and fears as she struggles to overcome the demons haunting her as a result of experiences in WWI and personal loss it imposes and the later losses of husband and child. Maisie is painted as a strong and independent woman but one with much depth and many dimensions.

It’s not important to read the books in any particular order. Winspear brings you up to appropriate speed quickly and clearly. In various ways we are reminded briefly that Maisie Dobbs was born to a family in service and enters service herself when her mother dies. Lady Rowan Compton learns that Maisie reads in the manor’s library late at night after her work is done and the house is quiet. She decides to send Massie to university and engages Dr Maurice Blanche, a family friend and neighbor to be a mentor to Maisie. Maisie’s education is interrupted by World War I when she enlists as a nurse. After the war, she apprentices with Maurice, an investigator with strong connections to Scotland Yard. Lady Rowan provides Maisie some support while she gets her own business going Maisie remains close to her father who still supports Lady Rowan’s estate and to her school friend Priscilla, who is married to a wealthy WWI veteran who suffers with some war wounds. This part of the back story provides us a vector to view the interaction of the “upstairs” and “downstairs” and corresponding changes induced by the progression of British society.

In summary, each Maisie Dobbs novel stands alone well as an interesting mystery with strong historical fiction attributes. As a series they tell the story both of Maisie Dobbs and, of equal interest, of Britain as it moves from post-WWI into yet another war that threatens country, it people, and its culture.

What We’ve Been and Can Be Again

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We can Come Back

By Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Published: 2011

Read: May 7, 2017

We all know the US is facing significant challenges. Some think it seems somewhat adrift currently. These authors put together a useful look at the principals that made America great for two centuries, the challenges that face it now, the basic changes the US must make to correct course, and a possible way to start on that path. Their book is written for the layman but is filled with acknowledgements for the various sources they used to synthesize their points. It uses stories about individuals, companies, and countries to expand their points in a digestible and instructive, but not overly preaching manner.

The authors lay responsibility for our current state in the laps of both political parties and in the laps of all US citizens that elect them. They relate that the federal, state, and local governments’ inability to act fiscally responsible reflects the general attitude of the public they serve—“we want everything right now; we can’t afford it but we want it now anyway”. The authors are frankly more effective at delineating the issues the country faces than in providing specific prescriptions for “How We Can Come Back” but frankly getting a highly specific prescription to fix our problems is likely unrealistic. The authors vigorously do encourage us to understand our own history and the principals that have served us well to make us a magnet for dreamers everywhere and learn from them to get back on track. This is an appropriate plea and not an insignificant request. We didn’t think about consequences of all our actions that got us where we are when we took them. We DO need to stop and think about our past and we DO need to learn the lessons it can teach us.

The following summarizes some of the highlights of the five sections of the book that I want to remember and share to kick start that thinking process for myself and for readers of this article.

In Part I: The Diagnosis, the authors define four major challenges facing the US:

How to adapt to globalization
How to adjust to the IT revolution
How to cope with large national debt and soaring budget deficits stemming from the growing demands on government at every level and unwillingness to raise enough money through taxation to cover those demands
How to manage energy consumption and rising climate threats.

The authors also delineate five pillars of prosperity that led the US to two centuries of increases in living standards and that made the US the “world’s greatest magnet for dreamers everywhere”:

Public education
Building and modernizing infrastructure
Open door for immigration, adding low skilled but high aspiring immigrants and adding the best minds in the world
Support for basic research and development
Implementation of necessary regulations on and incentives for private economic activity to safeguard against financial collapse, environmental ruin, and to encourage capital flow to the US

Several formula builders are called out from our history. This list is a small sampling of the history recalled for us by the authors:

Alexander Hamilton: established a budget and tax system, a custom service, and a coast guard; developed plans for a peacetime army; and promoted the need for a strong and active although limited government
Thomas Jefferson: in addition to writing the Declaration of Independence and authoring the Virginia state statue for religious freedom, emphasized the importance of education by starting the University of Virginia
Abraham Lincoln: spurred the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society; during the course of the Civil war oversaw significant Acts of congress: Homestead Act of 1862 opening the west for settlement; Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 that connected the eastern and western parts of the country; Morrill Act of 1862 establishing the land grant college system; and in 1863 started the National Academy of Science to bring together the best researches to “investigate, examine, experiment, and report on any subject of science or art whenever called upon by any department of government”
Theodore Roosevelt: established a system of rules and regulations to prevent abuses and hold business accountable; it is also remarkable that in 1907 1, 285,349 people came to the US from other countries, the largest annual intake in American history to that point
Franklin Roosevelt: significant public investment in building infrastructure (dams, roads, parks, airports, power stations, schools, libraries, etc) and education as part of the New Deal; the Securities Act of 1933, called the “truth in securities” law; re-regulation of the banking system; introduction of Social Security and unemployment insurance programs. The authors suggest we recall that the free-market economy produces losers as well as winners and these programs provide some protection to the losers, thus stabilizing our overall system. The “brain wave” of immigrant scientists, writers, artists, musicians, historians, and intellectuals occurred during this time as Europeans were fleeing Nazi Germany (ie recall the US behave home to Albert Einstein).
Harry Truman: a 1944 act known as the GI Bill of Rights provided training to 7.8 million of 16 million WW II veterans by 1956. The National Science foundation was initiated in 1950
Dwight Eisenhower: initiated the Advance Research Projects Agency (later known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)) from which flowed the technology powering many of today’s tools (ie the internet, GPS, weather satellites among others). Eisenhower also won support for the creation of the interstate highway system. He also was a defender of the immigration and pushed for liberalization of restrictions on immigration.

In Part II: The Education Challenge, the authors discuss significant forces on jobs we must recognize, the current state of our preparedness to meet the challenges resulting from these forces, and what we need to do to correct course.

Globalization and the IT revolution are here whether we want them or not. “The genie is out of the bottle” and there is no going back. A huge impact of these is the loss of jobs in the US. The authors remind us that after the last three recessions (1991, 2001, and 2007), the time required (or projected) for jobs lost to come back to the peak prior to each recession has progressively increased. Jobs are being automated, digitized, and outsourced. The authors argue that “blue-collar” and “white-collar” are no longer the ways to describe jobs. Rather, they suggest there are two types of workers: creators and servers. Creators are driving productivity and servers service these creators. They caution” many servers will be replaced by machines, by computers, and by changes in how business operates”. They describe a model of 4 types of job holders: 1) “creative creators”, people who do non-routine work in a non-routine way—the best of the various creators. 2) “routine creators”, people who do non-routine work in a routine way—the average of the various creators. 3) “creative servers”, non-routine low-skilled workers who do their work in an inspired way—the extraordinary servers; 4) “routine servers” who do their work in a routine way, offering nothing extra. They caution that types 2) and 4) are the job holders most vulnerable to job loss. So the focus for individuals—and the educational system that prepares them—is to “be “present” all the time, in whatever we do, so that we can be either creative creators or creative servers.”

A good fraction of the book is focused on the current state of education in the US and how the US stacks up against the rest of the world. It’s not a pretty picture. US fourth grade students perform reasonably well in standardized international math and reading tests but US high school student perform in the middle or towards the bottom in standardized tests applied globally. Basically, the longer US students are in school, the worse they perform against international peers. The authors suggest students either attend bad and/or dangerous schools or they attend “nice” schools that aren’t very good either. The author’s prescription to address this: “We believe six things are necessary: better teachers and better principals; parents who are more involved in and demanding of their children’s education; politicians who push to raise educational standards, not dumb them down; neighbors who are ready to invest in schools even though their children do not attend them; business leaders committed to raising educational standards in their communities; and last but certainly not least—students who come to school prepared to learn, not to text”.

Part III is titled: The War on Math and Physics. In short, the US has pretended that routinely running budget deficits doesn’t matter and that human-driven global warming and corresponding climate change “is an invention of a global conspiracy of left-wing scientists and Al Gore”.

Ronald Reagan’s first term cut taxes substantially but deficits ballooned because the revenue base was reduced by 5% of GDP while domestic spending fell only 1% of GDP and defense spending soared. In response, Reagan enacted five “revenue enhancements” which took back about 40% of the lost revenue. Neither George H.W. Bush nor Bill Clinton wanted to raise taxes but they did to keep the deficit under control. Simultaneously they either did not add new spending programs that can be seen as “entitlements” or they reduced spending on ones that existed at the time. The outcome of their actions meant that America’s debt-to-GDP ratio improved, decreasing from 49% to 33%.

Unfortunately the administration of George W. Bush took us in a different direction. The new generation of Republicans were no longer concerned about controlling the deficits and believed that the economy would outgrow the deficit if “plied with enough tax cuts”. We entered wars without increasing revenue to pay for them (the first time ever in US history). Massive tax cuts combined with no spending cuts, an added a new spending/entitlement program—Medicare prescription drugs, and increased defense spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led to enormous deficits, funded by borrowing from other nations, especially China. Spending further increased under Obama to prevent collapse of the US (and global) economy just as he came into office.

Also unfortunately, state and local governments are generally in a poor situation as well as they continued to sign contracts with their workers to pay generous defined benefit pensions and associated retiree health care benefits and now find themselves unable to pay for the promised benefits.

And finally and unfortunately, the willingness of the public to accept that human-driven global warming is occurring and the impact will be massive climate and geography change is a hoax is spilling over into general disbelief of experts of all types if their message is inconsistent with “truths” found in unsubstantiated sources on the internet and in the media.

A very brief summary of the authors’ prescriptions:

Get serious about our problems
Accept that we will all have to sacrifice
- Raise revenues through various types of taxes
- Cut spending overall
- Shift spending by cutting some programs (ie Medicare and Social Security need to be reined in and likely reduced) and increasing spending in others—in particular education, infrastructure, and research and development
Start debating on how to generate more clean energy to slow climate change and stop debating whether to do so.

Part IV: Political Failure provides interesting insights on the evolution of US politics. In the 1950s and 1960s, both the Democratic and Republican parties were coalition of liberal and conservatives. In these days, cooperation and compromise existed within and across political parties. Opposition to the civil rights movement meant that Southern conservatives begin to defect to the Republican Party. Social conservatism within the Republican Party over issues including abortion, school prayer, feminism, and gay rights pushed some Northern Republicans into the Democratic Party. Centrist groups began to disappear while liberals and conservatives remained quite active in politics and became more impactful in their respective parties. Redistricting every 10 years has been subject to “gerrymandering” since its initiation (the descriptor was coined in 1812). Combining these effects means that the most extreme parts of each party are most likely to win primary elections and choices for voters in the general elections are between two extreme candidates. The center has essentially evaporated. Once elected, the extreme candidates face pressure to remain extreme or be removed by other extreme candidates within his or her own party leading to little moderation and compromise with the other party. Fund raising is non-stop—there is no time to just focus on governing. The “24 hour news cycle” means every word an elected government representative makes is scrutinized, analyzed, and discussed. This all makes for a pretty broken system.

The authors suggest that both Democratic Party has to move from a “you can’t touch Medicare, Social Security, and other similar programs” and the Republican Party has to accept that tax cuts alone will not solve our problems. The authors suggest some “shock therapy” is needed. Preferably the shock comes from within, not from a devastating circumstance such as an external foe, global economic crisis, or from Mother Nature. The authors hope that a serious independent presidential candidate can capture sufficient traction to help moderate the parties and influence the governance following an election, likely won by one of the two major parties. The authors teach about three times this has happened in the twentieth century.

George Wallace won 13.5% of the popular vote and five Deep South states in 1968. He ran against the civil rights laws passed between 1963 and 1965, for “law and order”, and as a populist hostile to the federal government and liberal establishment. The Nixon administration, although actually quite liberal by today’s standards, adopted some of these policies and attitudes including opposing compulsory busing of schoolchildren to desegregate schools.

Ross Perot won 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992. Bill Clinton won with 43% of the vote beating out the sitting president George H.W. Bush (who polled 37.5%). Perot focused on the federal budget deficit and raised the public’s awareness of it and concern with it. Clinton’s presidency did work to reduce the deficit.

Theodore Roosevelt ran as an independent candidate in 1912 to regain the presidency which he held from 1901 to 1909 as a Republican. He felt that the reform agenda he devised while president to support a successful transition of the nation from an agrarian society to and industrial one was not being pressed by his Republican successor, William Howard Taft. Woodrow Wilson won that election although Roosevelt won 27.5% of the popular vote and earned 88
Electoral College votes. Roosevelt’s ideas regarding regulation of business, a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday and a six-day week, unemployment, and old-age pensions were eventually enacted.

Running for president is expensive and both Perot and Roosevelt were primary sources of funding for their campaigns. The authors hope that successes of Howard Dean in 2004, Ron Paul and Barack Obama in 2008 to raise substantial funds from small individual contributions can propel forward a new independent candidate.

In response to the question “But does it have a happy ending?” the authors remained positive in their conclusions. By rediscovering our American history and the “5 pillars of prosperity” noted earlier, they believe the US can find its footing to remain a global leader. They propose that mproving our educational system, addressing glaring infrastructure needs, resolving the status of illegal immigrants and making it easier for new immigrants with needed talents and aspiration to come and stay in the US, and modernizing our regulations and incentives for business can and must be done and will make us successful.

Comments on the 2016 election:

As this book was published in 2011, it wasn’t possible for the authors to comment on the most recent election. It’s interesting that an outsider candidate was chosen by the Republican party and ran on principals that are in some cases opposite to some of the “5 pillars of prosperity”: anti-immigration and general relaxation of regulations on business. Additionally his promises were consistent with a continuation of “we can have it all and have it not cost us anything”, specifically lower taxes and better health care with less cost to individuals. At least he has promoted significant spending on the aging infrastructure, but with no increases in revenue to support it. An outsider candidate running for the Democratic nomination pushed the successful Democratic nominee to be even more extreme than she would have been otherwise including a “we can have it all and not cost anything” plank as well with low or no-cost education for all. The new president’s personality and approach combined with a continued attitude of “whatever that party is for we will block at all cost” doesn’t bode well for the US soon being on the path these authors promote. We have much to re-learn and little time to do it before we are a has-been nation with a standard of living that takes an even bigger dive that is happening now.

Classic Dandelions

Dandelion Wine

By Ray Bradbury

Published 1957

Read May 3, 2017

Ray Bradbury published this collection of short stories, some previously published, some not, in 1957 when he was 36. The book is set in 1928 in Green Town, IL. Bradbury acknowledges it is based loosely on his childhood town of Waukegon, IL and on his childhood, although by 1928 his family no longer lived in IL but rather LA.

I’ve classified this book “Classic”. It year of publication (1957) is my year of birth and I’ve read this book for the first time when I’m nearly 60. While the book is can be considered “Modern Fiction, I classified as “Classic” because I anticipate that people will read this book in another 50 years and have it resonate as strongly for them as it did for Bradbury when he wrote it and when I read it 60 years later.

The book describes the summer of 1928 for Douglas Spalding, 12, and his family and friends. In this summer, Douglas realizes “he is alive”. He recognizes he’s never appreciated anything in his environment as he is now—sights, sounds, smells, events, and relationships. Douglas recognizes that this summer will be like other summers, at least to some extent, but will be a summer unlike any other summer too. He decides to document in a “nickel pad” summer rituals that happen every year as well as special events and new events that may happen moving forward and encourages his younger brother, Tom (10) to help him recognize each so that his record can be complete.

Over the course of the summer significant things happen in the town and we see them through the omnipotent narrator and especially through Douglas. Technology is changing: The trolley makes its last trip through town and will be replaced by a bus system. The “green machine”, an electric runabout, owned by a pair of aging sisters is put away after forever after a near accident. Relationships are changing: Doug’s best friend, John, announces that he will be moving away and will be leaving that night. Great Granma dies, but not before she speaks with Doug and then his family while literally on her deathbed. The community loses members: Colonel Freeleigh, a civil war veteran and source of colorful oral history that Doug and his friends enjoy hearing, dies after spending his last days under strict nursing care. All of these events are timeless. Although we hear about them as they occur in 1928 in Greentown, IL, they are the kinds of events that we all experience at some time. Bradbury captures this timelessness with beautiful and descriptive language that is a treat.

Bradbury uses these events to point out Doug’s “coming alive” and how differently he is experiencing them now that he “is alive”. He drills this home when Douglas is very sick near the end of summer. His brother, Tom, describes to the local junk man that Doug has had an especially hard summer and that’s maybe why he’s suffering so now. The various trials that Tom recounts include such things as losing a precious aggie marble, having his catcher’s mitt stolen, and making a bad trade of his fossil stones and shell collection for a clay statue toy. But they don’t include the significant events noted above that Doug has experienced so differently than he has in the past that he is truly overwhelmed by it all, especially the recognition that he too will die someday.

This can be viewed as a book about a boy’s summer (and one critic at the time indicated that no summer is like this for any real boy). But this book speaks to us about our own evolving experiences with the realities and mysteries of life, with growing up, and with growing old. The chapter/story about Mrs. Bentley and her interactions with the neighborhood children is especially revealing in this regard. The children refuse to believe she was ever a girl but rather that she’s always been old. She tries to convince them that she too was once young including showing them things she’s save from her youth including a photograph. They remain unconvinced and she eventually agrees that 50 years ago she was the same age as she is now. This declaration allows her to release the precious saved memorabilia and validate her dead husband’s view of focusing on the present vs the past.

The book includes a number of remarkable stories. The chapter/story about old Miss Helen Loomis and young Mr Bill Forrester and the relationship they can’t have now but might have had if only the timing of their lives was different now (or later??) is another example of Bradbury’s ability use a short story to tell so much more than storyline. His “horror” story about Lavinia Nebb and her friends walk home from the movies the night of a recent serial killing draws us to the edge of our seats. The next chapter of the book tells us about the outcome and the boy’s reaction to it. After reading the chapter/story about Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Shoes, I will never put on a pair of sneakers again without wondering if they have the magic that Douglas’s pair had.

One of Bradbury’s early commercial successes of significance came when a publisher suggested Bradbury collect together some of his stories—they became The Martian Chronicles. When Bradbury put together a collection of stories about Green Town, IL, his publisher convinced him that it was too long so Dandelion Wine was published first (1957) and a follow-up, Farewell Summer, was eventually published in 2006.

Both Bradbury and his readers are lucky that he decided to be a writer at a young age and was able write daily essentially up to his death at age 91. His work has been published in many forms and formats (stories in magazines, collections in books, plays on the radio, TV, and as movies.) He received many awards over his life, including the National Medal of Arts in 2004, nominated by the National Endowment for the Arts and presented by then president George W Bush. Although he was credited by the New York Times for being “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream” (1), this book demonstrates his range and poetic capabilities.

Jonas, Gerald (June 6, 2012).“Ray Bradbury, Master of Science Fiction, Dies at 91”. The New York Times. Retrieved May 5, 2017

An English Classic–Detectives and Society

The Moonstone

By Wilkie Collins

Published: 1868

Read: 12/26/2016; Re-read 4/4/2017

The Moonstone was originally published in Charles Dicken’s “All the Year Round”, a weekly magazine, between Jan 4, 1868 and Aug 8, 1868. In July 1868 it was published in three hardback volumes and in revised form in 1871. Wilkie adapted it for the stage in 1877. It’s been the subject of several radio, movie, and television versions, the most recent in 2016. It earned a place on the Guardian’s 2003 list entitled “The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time” and its 2013 list “The 100 Best Novels Written in English”. Fortunately for this reader, a book club to which I belong selected it for part of its 2016-2017 season.

There has been some debate about whether or not The Moonstone invented the English detective novel so I expected to read a (very long) detective novel that wouldn’t provide much discussion material for our club. On the contrary, I found The Moonstone to be a really wonderful read. I actually pitied the original readers who had to wait for weekly installment and found myself “binge reading”. I listened to the book and looked for excuses (ie drive the long route vs the short way) to extend my listening time. When preparing for our book discussion I ended up re-reading (re-listening) to the whole book again and loved it just as much the second time through.

The Moonstone certainly has a mystery to solve—theft of a valuable gem, just gifted to a young woman from her deceased uncle who obtained it while in a battle in India, while the family’s English country home is filled with birthday well-wishers (providing lots of possible thieves). A famous detective is hired to investigate the crime after the local police muck things up a bit. The mystery is eventually solved after several plot lines involving financial issues, marriage proposals and engagement ruptures, and a suicide (among others…) play out.

The book form is interesting. Telling of the story of the loss and recovery of the Moonstone has been commissioned by Mr Franklin Blake, the cousin who was tasked with delivery of the gem to Rachel Verinder on her 18^th birthday. Blake requests several persons to record the parts of the story for which “our own personal experience extends, and no farther”. Thus sets up the progression of narrators and/or their letters: Gabriel Betteredge, long-time servant to the Verinder household and steward/butler at the time of the story; Miss Clack, niece of the late Sir John Verinder and evangelist; Matthew Bruff, Soliciter and long-time lawyer for the Verinder family; Franklin Blake, nephew of the late Sir John Verinder and cousin and suitor of Rachel Veridner; Ezra Jennings, assistant to the Mr Candy, doctor of the local community; Sergeant Cuff, the famous detective engaged by Lady Verinder to solve the mystery of the theft; a letter from Mr Candy; and an epilogue from Mr Murthwaite, an adventurer. With this device we hear the parts of the story with which each narrator has direct knowledge through their varied voices. Not only do we learn about the particulars of the case, we also learn much about the various layers of society—those “upstairs”, “downstairs”, and professionals serving the community.

The narratives from Gabriel Betteredge are quite delightful. He wanders a bit and apologizes for this tendency but this reader much enjoyed the wanderings as we learn about the family, servants, and happenings as well as get his views on various aspects of society. He has a wonderful and dry sense of humor and avid devotion to DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe as a guide to life. Wilkie was quite progressive in his thinking and uses Betteredge to convey some of his thinking about the relationship between the various strata of society.

All of the women in The Moonstone are strong and intelligent figures. Lady Verinder quickly engages her Solicitor upon her husband’s death and constructs a financial structure for her daughter to both support her but more importantly minimize the chance of falling victim to a “gold-digger”. The arrangement proves an important plot element. Rachel Verinder knows her mind and protects her secret about the theft even though this choice could block her recovery of the missing gem. Miss Clack, although a less sympathetic character, has quite strong convictions to which she stays true, working tirelessly to aid all around her to live pure lives and have a sure path to a greater glory after death. Three additional women, Roseann Spearman, a house servant with a mysterious past, Penelope Betteredge, house servant and daughter of Gabriel, and Lucy Yolland, a local girl with a handicap and friend of Roseann Spearman, play important roles in the story and are presented to us as courageous and strong.

The men in The Moonstone, especially those of the “upstairs” are portrayed as less noble. One character steals the Moonstone as part of war plunder, setting up the story we are told. Another character seeks to solve his money problems, caused in part by an inappropriate relationship with a lady, by seeking a marriage only to provide him quick access to capital. One character has a difficult disease which leads him to turn to opium for respite. Even Mr. Franklin Blake, ultimately a sort of hero of the story, is portrayed as one who has flitted about with limited financial prudence, even borrowing money from the servants. Only Gabriel Betteredge comes across as fully honest and true, and his moral compass interestingly comes from Robinson Crusoe.

I won’t be surprised if I choose to listen to this book again. It’s filled with great characters, great narration, a fun mystery, and an interesting look at English society in the mid 1800’s. I agree that it’s a book to put on a list of classics, regardless of how you define “classic”.