5 favorites from my 2018 reading list

The dreaded question: "So, what are you reading?"

The panicked response: [totally blank mind, even if I put down a book just minutes before]

The workaround: Mentioning one of my favorite authors of detective fiction (Louise Penny, Michael Connelly, Donna Leon).

The somewhat more effective solution: Keeping a list of books read; reviewing it before social engagements where the dreaded question might be asked.

So for each of the last 22 years, I've kept such a list. At the end of each year, I look at the list, cringe at my lowbrow tastes, and marvel at how few of the books were memorable. In fact, some of the titles always look so unfamiliar that I have to google them to make sure there's no mistake.

But some books are outstanding, and here are my favorites of 2018 ... apart from those already mentioned detective series by Penny, Connelly, and Leon. And also Alexander McCall Smith, Martin Walker, Ian Rankin, Laura Lippman, Ann Cleeves, Peter Lovesey... 

As I look at my favorites, I realize that each one--in spite of their stories of pain, suffering, and downright evil--is ultimately hopeful.

Two favorite novels:

Stephen McCauley, My Ex-Life, 2018

A comedy of manners that is not Jane Austen, though I also adore Jane. Funny, wistful, compassionate.










Octavia E. Butler, Kindred, 2004

Two parallel stories, maybe 150 years apart, with some of the same characters. Suspend disbelief: it's worth it.








Three favorite books of nonfiction:

Kate Bowler, Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, 2018

An excellent memoir by a youngish professor of religion who is living with stage 4 cancer. The book was published in February; she wrote this op-ed piece in the New York Times last week.

Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, 2010

A classic. Big. Full of stories. So interesting you might not notice how much you're learning.

Michelle Obama, Becoming, 2018

Fascinating on so many levels, and not only because she's America's most admired woman this year. And hey, this is President Obama's favorite book of 2018!







Enjoy! There are still 362 reading days in 2019. 

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by Isabel Wilkerson - a book well-intentioned white people should read

I just finished reading a powerful book: Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns. Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, profiles three African Americans born in the South in the second decade of the 20th century. All three moved away: one to New York, one to Chicago, one to Los Angeles. The men died in the 1990s. The woman died in 2004. Unless you are very young, they all lived during your own lifetime. Unless you are a person of color, their experiences may startle you.

I am 70 years old. I was in third grade when Rosa Parks kept her seat in the bus, had just finished high school when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, was a college student when race riots broke out all across America, and had just gotten married when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was appalled by racism without realizing I had spent my life in an extremely white bubble whose privileges were built on a racist past.

As a well-educated white woman, I wanted black people to be able to ride in the front of the bus and eat at lunch counters, of course; but I was completely unaware of the daily hardships, insults, and real dangers that provoked the civil rights movement, in both North and South. And I certainly didn't know the extent to which racism continues to exist.

Nearly five years ago I moved from a county that is 5% African American to a county that is 29% African American. I live walking distance from a city that is 63% African American. From new friends, I have learned something that should have been obvious all along: that as a white woman, I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be a woman of color. Things that happen to my black friends do not happen to me. It's been easy for me to assume they don't happen at all, or at least happen extremely rarely. I had no idea.

I've tried to educate myself by listening, watching, and reading. The more I learn, the more I realize I need to learn. Humility is painful: I will never know what it's like to be black in America. I do know, however, that I learned a lot from The Warmth of Other Suns. It's not a history book, though from it I learned parts of history that were somehow not covered in my undergrad history major. It's not a sociology book, though I couldn't miss seeing how the protagonists' social context affected their lives. It's not a political argument, though politicians show up in its pages from time to time. The book is a carefully researched story of three lives, told mostly in their own words. And it's not fiction.

THE JEWELS OF PARADISE by Donna Leon

After writing 21 detective novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, it's not surprising that author Donna Leon needed a break.

Still, having read all 21 of the Brunetti books, I was expecting Jewels of Paradise to be book 22 in the series. It is not, and I was disappointed.

Disappointed because by now the characters - the lovable detective from Venice; his wife, Paola, and their two young adult children; his sidekick, Sgt. Vianello; his insufferable boss, Vice-Questore Patti; and the indomitable Signorina Elettra - all seem as familiar as Facebook friends, and I wanted to stay involved in their lives.

But my nostalgia is no reason to keep Ms. Leon from expanding her horizons. I was more disappointed because Leon's new book simply didn't hold my interest.

A lot of the book has to do with biographical material concerning Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), churchman, diplomat, and nearly forgotten composer. (Hint: Leon's plot will be easier to follow if you read the Wikipedia article first. Want to hear some of his music? Cecilia Bartoli has a new album, Mission, devoted to his work [you can listen to the NPR program about it here].)

But don't come to this book thinking it's historical fiction. It's closer to historical research as done by a high-school student - and there's no afterword telling us which parts of the story are historical and which invented.

The main character, Caterina, does not seem to have much of a life outside the library. We learn even less about the other characters (though her sister, Cristina the Religious, might be worth a book of her own someday, or at least a bit part in a Brunetti novel).

The plot is thin. Somehow two 300-year-old trunks have been found, and two cousins each claim inheritance rights. Caterina, a musicologist, is charged with reading all the documents in the trunks and figuring out which, if either, has claim to the material.

There aren't many scary parts. At one point, you think scariness is developing, but (spoiler alert) it doesn't.

There isn't even much good food - but I suppose without Guido's ever-cooking scholar-wife, Paola, in the kitchen, there wouldn't be.

And when all is said and done, I know what was in those trunks, but I'm still wondering who the trunks belonged to, and how they came to Venice, and what Opus Dei had to do with the whole situation. Maybe my mind was wandering when all that was explained ...

Why I kept reading: (1) I'm loyal to Donna Leon. Up till now, she's been one of my favorite detective story authors. (2) I appreciate her wry observations about Italian culture and the Catholic Church. (3) I kept thinking the plot would heat up.

If you are a diehard Donna Leon fan like me, you should read it too - and please let me know what you think. I confess that I began skimming the historical parts; maybe I missed something important. If you have not yet become a Leon addict, however, don't start here.

LES MISÉRABLES

Les Misérables - the film - opened yesterday, and David and I were in back row center (my favorite seats) for the six o'clock showing. This was not because we are big fans of Les Miz. David had neither read it nor seen it, and though I saw the stage musical twice in London (the second time because my boss, with whom I was traveling, insisted), I wasn't crazy about it. But hey, it was Christmas Day, we needed to do something while digesting dinner, and it would have been too ironic to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace by going to see Jack Reacher.

Our teenaged granddaughters wanted to know what we thought of Les Miz. Though we made a game attempt, a 2-hour-and-37-minute film is hard to review in text messages, so here are my extended observations.

The story. Quite faithful to Victor Hugo's sprawling novel (1779 pages in one French edition, and no, I haven't read it), this is a set-up, if not for the Oscars, at least for Christianity Today's annual list of most redeeming films. It won't be a spoiler for you to know that the hero, Jean Valjean, is a repentant thief who spends his life selflessly helping people. This is a story that reeks of moral uplift. And that's good: in an age that celebrates ruthless individualism, it is both shocking and inspiring to watch this reminder of the power of forgiveness and self-sacrifice.

The problem with the story. Despite his repeated willingness - if inability - to die for others, Valjean (like his creator, Hugo) supports an armed band of young insurrectionists who hope to overthrow the government. If you believe that peace is created by angry men who shoot the people with whom they disagree, you will find no inconsistency in this aspect of the story.

The historical background. Do read at least a couple of Wikipedia articles before going to see the movie. The one on the June Rebellion is a good place to start. Later you might want to read Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, if you haven't already, or watch Oliver, the musical that reportedly inspired the French librettist of Les Miz. Oliver Twist was published 24 years before Les Misérables (it takes awhile to write 1779 pages), but the two books deal with the same general time period, and the lives of the poor were just as miserable in England as in France. It helps to realize that there's not much exaggeration in Les Miz, except of course that the poor were unlikely to be as gorgeous as Anne Hathaway.

The opera. Be aware that Les Miz is not just a musical. It's grand opera: "a genre of 19th-century opera ... characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events." The characters are much more likely to sing than to speak. There are recitatives and arias, rousing choruses, and even a sextet where the conflicting characters lay out their differences in counterpoint and set the audience up for the dénouement.

So what did I think of Les Miz? I liked the lavish spectacle. I thoroughly enjoyed the rowdy song "Master of the House" featuring Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter. In fact, I enjoyed every scene featuring the evil duo. The sextet and chorus, "One Day More," is quite glorious. David, old romantic that he is, liked "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables."

The other 2 hours and 20 minutes, however, often left me thinking, in the oft repeated words of archvillain Javert, "Shoot me now."

At one point I whispered to David, "There are only two things I don't like about this opera: the words and the music." Apart from a few stellar numbers, the music ranges from insipid to tedious. One or two leitmotifs are endlessly repeated. Worse, a lot of the recitatives are simply drawn-out scales. If you can't come up with actual music, I wanted to scream, just let the characters talk, for Pete's sake.

The words are even worse. When I was a teenager, a particularly bad amateur poet came often to our church and read his supposedly inspirational poetry at us. I kept awake by playing a game: after he declaimed one line, I tried to guess the word he would use to make the next line rhyme. It was amazingly easy. I recommend, dear granddaughters, that you play this game while watching Les Miz. 

The librettist dips into his large sack of easy masculine rhymes (be/me, done/run, know/go, chill/kill) and scatters them prodigally about. He is particularly taken with the near-rhyme Jean Valjean with "on" and "gone." Never does he play with words like Alan Jay Lerner in, say,  Camelot ("You'll never find a virtue / Unstatussing my quo / Or making my Beelzebubble burst ...") or Stephen Sondheim in West Side Story ("I like the isle of Manhattan, / Smoke on your pipe and put that in!") Except for the bawdy tavern song, all the songs in Les Miz are so earnest, so sentimental, so predictable.

Still, as of this writing, 63% of the top critics (surveyed by Rotten Tomatoes) liked the movie, as did 72% of critics in general and 86% of the audience. That's not shabby. You may like it too, and I won't think less of you for it. Just don't put yourself through it three times. Nobody needs to be that misérable.

CALL THE MIDWIFE by Jennifer Worth

"Call the Midwife," a BBC miniseries about intrepid nuns and nurses in London's East End in the 1950s, was the UK's most popular TV show in 2012, with even more viewers than last year's wildly popular "Downton Abbey."

I had not heard of the TV show three weeks ago when, browsing in a Chicago bookstore, I noticed Jennifer Worth's memoir by the same name. Always on the lookout for cheerful stories, I jotted down its title so I'd remember to look for it at my public library.

The book did not disappoint.

In 1965, my parents and I spent a summer in Bracknell, a middle-class suburb about 35 miles west of central London. Some 10 years earlier, Jennifer Worth had been working as a midwife in the London Docklands, about 6 miles east of central London. Only 10 years and 40 miles separated my comfortable (even though it lacked central heating and had altogether too much cabbage) world from the world Jennifer served:

I often wondered how these women managed, with a family of up to thirteen or fourteen children in a small house, containing only two or three bedrooms. Some families of that size lived in the tenements, which often consisted of only two rooms and a tiny kitchen.... Washing machines were virtually unknown and tumble driers had not been invented.... Most houses had running cold water and a flushing lavatory in the yard outside.

It was an area of bombed-out ruins from World War II air raids. "Knifings were common. Street fights were common. Pub fights and brawls were an everyday event. In the small, overcrowded houses, domestic violence was expected." Certain streets were well known as centers of prostitution.

So why am I calling this book cheerful?

Because Jennifer tells so many stories about people who work hard, who love one another, who survive against incredible odds, who welcome new life, who do their best.

Because even her heart-breaking stories--the teen-aged Irish prostitute, the weird old crone who hangs around when babies are due--reveal sensitive humanity under the off-putting exteriors.

Because her nuns, from bawdy Sister Evangelina to spacey Sister Monica Joan, are a hoot.

Because she's so good at describing all her characters, most notably Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Brown ("just call me Chummy"), drolly played by Miranda Hart in the TV series.

Because she included a 13-page appendix "On the difficulties of writing the Cockney dialect."

Because Jennifer's storytelling shows her living by the philosophy she says she learned from a dying nun: Accept life, the world, Spirit, God, call it what you will, and all else will follow.
_______________________________

 "Call the Midwife" is being shown on PBS stations Sunday evenings from September 30 to November 4, 2012. If you've missed some episodes, you can get them online until December 3. Here's a link to Episode 1.

The foreign policy debate, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, and four candidates

Albrecht Dürer, ca 1497-98
The Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse

Tonight's debate between President Obama and Governor Romney is about foreign policy. This may be the most important topic of the entire [interminable] election season, both to America's future and to the future of the whole world.

If our leaders get foreign policy wrong, we may suffer more than a severe recession. Think world economic collapse. Rampant terrorism. All-out nuclear destruction. Conquest, war, famine, death (the four horsemen of Revelation 6).

Unfortunately, tonight's debate is likely to have fewer viewers than the first two presidential debates: it will be competing against Monday night football. We Americans have priorities.

And, as writers for Forbes magazine recently pointed out, learning foreign languages--perhaps the most important tool for understanding other cultures--is not high on our priority list. Though demand for foreign language learning is increasing, "schools at every level are balancing their budgets and offsetting reductions in government allocations by cutting their offerings and/or eliminating foreign language requirements."

In 2001, before the latest round of language cuts took place, only about one in four Americans could carry on a conversation in a second language (Gallup poll). Half of these were native Spanish speakers. By contrast, "just over half of Europeans (54%) are able to hold a conversation in at least one additional language, a quarter (25%) are able to speak at least two additional languages and one in ten (10%) are conversant in at least three" (Europabarometer survey, 2012).

President Obama agrees about the importance of speaking foreign languages and has apologized for not speaking any himself (though he apparently knows some Indonesian from his childhood).

Governor Romney claims to speak French. After listening to him read a speech at the Salt Lake City Olympics, I'm guessing that he's far from fluent without a script.

Vice-President Biden and Congressman Ryan, as far as I know, speak no foreign languages at all.

OK then, what about the foreign affairs knowledge and experience of these men who want to lead the world?

President Obama lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971, between the ages of 6 and 10; for part of that time he attended local schools. His undergraduate major at Columbia University was political science with a subspecialty in international relations. Between 1981 and 2006 he traveled to Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Kenya (three times), and Europe.

Governor Romney lived in France from 1966 to 1968, between the ages of 19 and 21, working as a Mormon missionary. I was unable to find evidence of other overseas trips before this summer's tour of Europe and Israel--a trip that may have contributed to the fact that "the reputation of the US in Europe risks sinking back to Bush-era levels of unpopularity if Mitt Romney becomes president, according to new international polling published on Tuesday" (The Guardian, September 11).

Vice-President Biden was for many years a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and chaired that committee three times. Over the years Biden has met with dozens of heads of state. The Council on Foreign Relations summarized his positions and achievements (up until 2008) here.

As far as I can tell, Congressman Ryan has had no particular education or experience in foreign policy.

Not so long ago the United States had an administration that understood so little about the world, they really believed they could overthrow the Iraqi regime without giving Iran a license to do their worst--and they really thought that if they did this, Iraqis would fall to their knees in gratitude. We don't need another administration with that kind of dangerous naïveté.

Today the New Yorker magazine, in a long and thoughtful article dated October 29, endorsed President Obama. Here is what they said about Governor Romney's approach to foreign policy:

Holding foreign bank accounts is not a substitute for experience in foreign policy. In that area, he has outsourced his views to mediocre, ideologically driven advisers like Dan Senor and John Bolton. He speaks in Cold War jingoism. On a brief foray abroad this summer, he managed, in rapid order, to insult the British, to pander crudely to Benjamin Netanyahu in order to win the votes and contributions of his conservative Jewish and Evangelical supporters, and to dodge ordinary questions from the press in Poland. On the thorniest of foreign-policy problems—from Pakistan to Syria—his campaign has offered no alternatives except a set of tough-guy slogans and an oft-repeated faith in “American exceptionalism.”

I am posting this four hours before tonight's debate begins. I sincerely hope both candidates show broad knowledge and deep wisdom about questions of foreign policy, because one of them is going to win this election. I also hope that voters have enough wisdom and understanding to be able to tell when they are speaking truth and when they are blowing smoke.

A lot depends on the winner's understanding of and ability to work with other nations. A lot.

P.S. None of the four candidates served in the military. None of Governor Romney's five sons served in the military. One of Vice-President Biden's sons joined the National Guard and has done a one-year tour of duty in Iraq.

Our nonpartisan American runaway train

Art by Stephen Slade Tien
via Wikimedia Commons

I freely admit what you already know: I am a wonk. So when the book I'm reading, The Moral Measure of the Economy, laid out a bunch of fearsome statistics going up to 2005, I was compelled to update them. I'm not going to bore you with all the stats. I'd just like you to notice one thing that seemed odd to me. Maybe you can tell me what's going on.

We all know that the gap between rich and poor is getting wider. What I didn't know was that, whatever the forces may be that are driving rich and poor apart, they don't seem to be related to one party or the other.

Here's what the book says:

In 1985, the average income of the top 5 percent of families was 13.5 times as much as the average income of the bottom 20 percent. In 2004, the top 5 percent made almost 21 times as much as the bottom 20 percent.

So I looked up the Census Bureau table that gives this information (it's here; go to Table F-3 and click "All Races" for the Excel file), and I calculated the ratio for each year since 1966, and I made this chart. The short silver bars at the bottom represent the average income of the bottom 20%. The long green bars represent the average income of the top 5%. See the gap widen ...

Here's what seems odd to me:

• From 1966 to 1981, the ratio is pretty stable: seven years of stable Democrats, nine years of stable Republicans.
• In 1982 the gap starts to increase. It gets steadily larger through eleven Republican years.
• In 1993 the gap suddenly jumps from 1:16 to nearly 1:20. From then on, through ten Democratic years and eight Republican years, it never goes below 1:18. Since 2000, it has always been nearly 1:20 or higher.

Something is causing our nation to become more and more unequal (in opportunity as well as in income, as Joseph Stiglitz points out in The Price of Inequality: you can read an excerpt here). Whatever it is, neither Democrats nor Republicans have effectively dealt with it.

Economics is a complicated science: 

     - is our rising inequality a failure of understanding? 

Tax hikes, even for the rich, are hard to get through Congress: 

     - is it a failure of will?

The princes of Wall Street, Wal-Mart, and multinational corporations are doing just fine: 

     - is it a triumph for their lobbyists, who spend more and more every year?

And if we find it distressing, who are we supposed to vote for, anyway?

52 years later, is the church threatened or threatening?

In 1960 when John F. Kennedy became the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, a lot of people panicked. The ironically named "Citizens for Religious Freedom," a group of some 150 evangelical and mainline Protestant leaders, issued a manifesto declaring that, in the words of the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, "Our American culture is at stake." With a Catholic at the helm, they feared, the pope would call the cards.

Fifty-two years ago today, Kennedy gave a memorable speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Telling the group of Protestant ministers that he believed in an America where "no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials," he promised that

whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject — I will make my decision in accordance with ... what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.

The speech probably gave him the edge he needed to win the presidency.

Fifty-two years later, six of the nine Supreme Court justices, 28% of the members of Congress, and both vice-presidential candidates are Catholics. Not everyone is happy with recent Catholic-supported efforts to limit access to abortion and contraception, but nobody seriously suggests that the pope is ruling America. In fact, it's the Catholic bishops who are panicking. "Across America, our right to live out our faith is being threatened," they warned parishioners in a recent bulletin insert.

Church and state have had a rocky relationship at least since the fourth century CE, when the emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and gave the keynote address at the Nicene Council. Should religious lobbying groups help to make public policy? Should public policy exempt religious groups from otherwise universal requirements? Yes, and yes, says the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. No, and no, says Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

The answers are not always clear. An enormous amount of spin (from all sides) has muddied the waters. If you are at all concerned that, in America today,

• the state has too much power over religion, or
• the church has too much influence on the state, or
• church and state are altogether too cozy with one another--

I recommend reading two short articles on this anniversary of the Houston speech.

First, read the speech itself. It is beautiful literature. Historically significant. As relevant today as in 1960. Still powerfully moving.

Then take Emily C. Health's perceptive quiz, "How to Determine If Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions."

Mme Neff's Salon

"La Lecture de Molière" by Jean-François de Troy 

In the early 1600s certain French people, disgusted with the crudeness of Henri IV's court, began meeting in private homes to discuss art and literature. They called their groups salons, after the room in which the larger gatherings took place, or ruelles, after the space between bed and wall in which the smaller ones met.

By the 1700s salons had expanded their areas of interest to politics, philosophy, and religion. In theory, at least, they were places where anything could be discussed as long as participants were polite, civil, and well behaved.

Most salons were hosted by women, who provided invitations, food and a place to meet. The guest list was subversive: it included women as well as men, bourgeois along with aristocrats. Prominent intellectuals and artists spoke freely of their vision for liberté, égalité, and fraternité--dangerous ideas in an age of absolute monarchy.

In the early 2000s certain American people, disgusted with the crudeness of the current and seemingly eternal political campaign, decided to drop out of the political process altogether. They are doing their best to ignore politically motivated ads, commercials, and phone calls. According to a recent USA Today poll, some 90 million of us will not vote in the November election.

I sympathize. The constant name-calling and mud-slinging, whether paid for by super-PACs or freely offered by friends, is depressing. Hesitant to say anything political on Facebook or here on my blogs, I've stopped saying much at all. Since I've used Facebook updates to promote my blogs, I feared my friends would weary of me if I posted such updates too frequently. Some of them no doubt roll their eyes if I post them at all.

"In the salon of Mme Geoffrin in 1755" by Lemonnier, c1814

And then I had an idea. I'd like to discuss politics--and philosophy, religion, art, literature, food, wine, travel, language, dogs, and many other topics--with people who also want to discuss these things, and who share the salons' ideals of politeness, civility, and good behavior. It's a bonus if these people disagree with me: then I might learn something. Alas, nowadays a physical salon isn't too practical. My rooms are not as large as Mme Geoffrin's.

So I set up a Facebook page, "Mme Neff's Salon," that is supposedly accessible whether or not you're on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, and if you LIKE the page, you will get updates in your news feed whenever I post to Lively Dust or The Neff Review. Then, if you wish, you can join a discussion, or initiate one.

Now I feel free to go back to writing. If you want to hear from me, please LIKE the page. If you change your mind, you can easily UNLIKE it later. But whatever else you do, even if you resort to earplugs and blinders to keep out the shouting and turmoil from now until November 6, please vote.

A GOOD MAN by Mark K. Shriver

In June my husband, who gets lots of review copies unbidden, asked me if I wanted to read Mark Shriver's memoir about his father, Sargent Shriver, who passed away in 2011 at age 95. "Since you're a fan of all things Kennedy," he said, "I thought you might want to see it." I didn't.

True, a high point in my adolescent life was standing in back of St. Matthew's Cathedral one December morning in 1963 waiting for mass to begin when suddenly a very tall, very disheveled, very pregnant Eunice Kennedy Shriver pushed past me, wearing smudged red lipstick and a full-length fur coat. But sons are not necessarily good biographers, and anyway, I had a stack of mysteries awaiting my attention.

But then in July a Facebook friend pointed me to Reeve Lindbergh's review of A Good Man in the Washington Post, suggesting that this was a book I might want to read. Lindbergh--herself the daughter of two famous parents, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh--called it "a moving and thoughtful book." Maybe I'll read this after all, I said to myself. And then a week or two later, my friend Estelle sent me a copy of the book as an early birthday present, telling me she thought I'd connect with it on many levels. I must be supposed to read this one, I thought.

Estelle was right. This is a delightful book for lovers of Camelot--those of us who lived through the suddenly shattered dream of the Kennedy administration. Mark Shriver never saw his uncle Jack--as it happens, Mark was the baby bump under Mrs. Shriver's fur coat at that mass nearly 50 years ago, exactly one month after President Kennedy's assassination--and he was only four when his uncle Bobby was shot. But he grew up with a father who founded the Peace Corps and ran for vice-president, a mother who founded the Special Olympics, four rambunctious siblings, and twenty-some cousins, most of whom were unusually energetic and competitive. Mark's childhood home often hosted the rich and the famous, and he recognizes the privilege of growing up well connected. At the same time, he is refreshingly candid about the self-doubts such an environment fostered.

The book, though, isn't about Mark. It's about Sarge, the good man of the title, the father he adored. And Mark's portrayal of Sarge's goodness is what I liked best about the book (and what Estelle knew I'd most appreciate). See, my father was a good man too. Shriver was an extroverted, energetic, Catholic politician while my dad was an introverted, often tired, Protestant professor; but at core the two men were surprisingly similar. Both were quietly but unalterably faithful Christians. Both adored their wives and children. Both, though they worked hard and accomplished much, put their families ahead of their jobs. Neither one tooted his own horn, and neither one was bothered when others moved past him into the limelight or up the career ladder. Both men were brilliant, and, sadly, both spent their final years moving into the oblivion of Alzheimer's Disease.

Mark tells a story about his father that made me gasp in recognition. The two men were in the car together. Sarge "was having one of those lucid moments that make you ... forget for a minute or two that this is all really happening." Mark seized the moment to ask his father a blunt question.

"Dad," I said, "you are losing your mind. You know that. How does that make you feel? How are you doing with that?"

"I'm doing the best I can with what God has given me," he said.

Sixteen years ago I wrote an article for U.S. Catholic magazine about my father's decline and death from Alzheimer's. Here are some lines from that article:

"Are you afraid of dying?" I asked my father several months before he died.

"Dying?" he said, considering. "No, not of dying. I live an abbreviated life."

I asked him what he meant. "A little taken away here. A little taken away there," he explained patiently, as if to a student needing help. "I do the best I can with what's left."

Sargent Shriver was born in 1915; my father, in 1910. Their age cohort is sometimes called the Greatest Generation. Both men were great. Both were exceptionally good. And I believe both had found the secret of happiness.
______________________________________
A Good Man is also available as a CD audiobook (unabridged) and as an audible.com download (abridged). To listen to a five-minute excerpt read by Mark Shriver, click here.

DRIFT by Rachel Maddow

This is not a book review. It is a plug. If you are an American, you should read Drift.

At first glance, Drift did not call my name. Its subtitle, The Unmooring of American Military Power, sounded wonky (by the U.S. definition): more than I wanted to know about a topic that didn't grab me. I picked up the book anyway, and by page 2, I was hooked. Maddow leaped nimbly over my highest bar for a nonfiction writer: she got me to care about a topic that previously left me indifferent.

That's fine for a left-coast liberal like LaVonne, some of my friends may be thinking, but I don't read people who have an eponymous show on MSNBC. Hey, we all have the right to our own prejudices, but consider these perhaps surprising facts:

• Maddow begins by deploring government spending gone awry
• She frequently appeals to the framers of the Constitution
• She believes the executive branch has entirely too much power
• She finds fault with decisions made by Johnson, Clinton, and Obama as well as by Reagan, Bush, and Bush (and plenty of other people of both parties)

Maddow's point? That our founding fathers intended to make waging war difficult.

That is why they authorized Congress, not the President, to declare war: warmongering is just too attractive to Presidents Who Would Be Kings. And that is why, when our American forbears did go to war, they used (mostly) citizen soldiers, not a professional standing military force--men who had to leave their fields, factories, and offices when they put on their uniforms, and who were more than happy to return to them just as soon as the fighting was finished. But since the 1960s, the power to declare war has shifted - unconstitutionally - from the legislative to the executive branch, and waging war has shifted from citizen soldiers to private corporations, and war has gone from being rare to being the dull background of everyday life--a thriving industry, in fact.

Drift answered a question that's been troubling me for years. In books or films set during World War II, the whole nation seems to be involved. Sons, husbands, and lovers leave for the front. Women take over factory jobs and grow victory gardens. Everybody drives less, makes do without coffee and butter, and buys war bonds. Families gather around huge radios to listen to news about the war. Victories inspire ticker-tape parades and dancing in the streets. Born three years after that war ended, I've lived through lots of wars, and they didn't feel a bit like those tales of sacrifice and heroism, loss and jubilation. Have I been seeing World War II through a haze of nostalgia? Or has something fundamentally changed?

Something has definitely changed, says Maddow, who is not only a TV presenter but also a Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford DPhil in political science. There has been no conspiracy, but there has been a lot of secrecy. With good or at least pragmatic intentions, our leaders have put us in a situation that could have unimaginably tragic consequences--and one of these days probably will, unless we inform ourselves and act to restore our founding fathers' vision.

Drift has been heavily discussed elsewhere: Google it and enjoy the reviews. Or just get yourself a copy. Still want to know more? Here, let Maddow explain it:

RIVAL TO THE QUEEN by Carolly Erickson

Years ago while visiting friends in Warwick, UK, I went out for an early morning stroll. Not far from their house I saw an interesting-looking old church, and, being a tourist, I wandered in. In a side chapel I spotted two tombs topped by splendid full-color effigies. These turned out to be the likenesses of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his wife Lettice Knollys.

I was enthralled. A lover of all things Tudor, I knew that Leicester was for many years the boyfriend of Queen Elizabeth I. I knew he had been accused (and acquitted) of murdering his first wife in hopes that, once she was out of the way, the queen would marry him and make him king. I knew that when he finally gave up all hope of marrying power, he thumbed his nose at Elizabeth by marrying her beautiful cousin. I had no idea, however, that Robert and Lettice were entombed just down the street from my friends' house.

Nor did I expect to find snarky 17th-century doggerel on a wall plaque across from their tombs, extolling Lettice as once "fairest in the land," and going on to describe her as

She that in her youth hath bene

Darling to the Maiden Quene,

Till she was content to quitt

Her favour for her favouritt.

The 38-line poem, signed "Gervas Clifton," is headed by this inscription: "Upon the death of the excellent and pious Lady Lettice, Countess of Leicester, who died upon Christmas-day in the morning, 1634."

Brief explanation: Lettice, Elizabeth's first cousin once removed, attended the queen. At court she met the queen's "favouritt," Robert Dudley. Eventually Lettice's husband and Robert's wife both died, and Lettice and Robert married secretly. The queen found out, of course, and all hell broke loose. From then on Elizabeth wanted nothing to do with Lettie, though she continued to welcome Robert at court.

You'll learn all that and more - much more - in Carolly Erickson's newish historical romance (2010 hardcover, 2011 paperback and Kindle) about Lettice Knollys. Some of what you will learn is factual. Some is invented, but possible (Lettie's adventure in Frankfurt, for example). Some is distorted through Lettice's lens (e.g., the extremely unfavorable portrait of Elizabeth) - and justifiably, since the story is told entirely from her first-person viewpoint. Some is just plain wrong (e.g., the account of Devereux's downfall), as you'll know if you've read Erickson's own history of the era, The First Elizabeth (1983).

I appreciate Rival to the Queen for bringing to life a nearly forgotten but important woman whose very long life spanned the reigns of Henry VIII (who may have been her grandfather), Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I, and James I. I appreciate it for putting faces on entrancing rapscallions like the Earl of Leicester and his stepson Devereux, and for making Tudor political intrigues slightly easier to follow. I was uncomfortable, however, with Lettice's mindless and perpetual attraction to ill-behaved men, and the way all female characters including the queen seemed to think of little besides their own beauty and their ill-fated love affairs. I wished Erickson had included more details about daily life at court and at home. And as for the scene where Lettice's brother, Frank, plucks a drowning girl out of the sea and discovers ... oh, I won't spoil the surprise. But it was really cheesy.

Maybe I should stop reading historical romances.

I did love Erickson's sly humor in the Epilogue, however. Lettie is in her nineties, and once more she takes up her pen to complete the story she had abandoned 33 years previously. Her great-grandson Gervase pays her a visit:

I must note here that Gervase ... is not a very good poet, though he fancies himself one. His verses are stale.... I am not a poet, but if I were, I would at least attempt to be original.

Gervase has attempted to write my epitaph in verse. He takes undue pride in his few lines. Pray God that when the hour comes, and I am laid in my grave, someone will have the good sense to prevent those lines from coming to light.

RESCUING REGINA by Josephe Marie Flynn

Here's a book you may not run across in your local bookstore (if you're lucky enough to still have one: my town has shut down Toad Hall, Barnes & Noble, and - now - Borders). My excellent public library does not yet have a copy.

Anis Shivani of the Huffington Post, however, listed Rescuing Regina among "The 20 Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2011." It is, of course, available at Amazon, where it is #5 of books about emigration and immigration and #10 of books about Central Africa. All five of its editorial reviewers loved it, as did all five of its citizen reviewers. One suggested it should be a movie.

That was my suggestion, too, in the review I've just written for Christian Century, and to which I will link once it is published and becomes available online. But that will not happen for several months, and you might want to know more about this book now.

Regina is a young woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who is gang raped and jailed because she has been speaking in favor of democracy. After she makes a harrowing nighttime escape to America, her husband (who has remained in the Congo) is jailed and tortured - also for being involved in a pro-democracy group. He too manages to escape to America. And here, in the form of America's grossly dysfunctional immigration system, the two of them face further trials. Stripped of the constitutional rights available to any U.S. citizen, Regina is once again imprisoned - and this time, death seems inevitable.

Note: Rescuing Regina is a true story.  The author, Sister Josephe Marie Flynn, is a Milwaukee nun who became the reluctant leader of a community effort to free Regina and send her home to her husband and two young children. You can read more about Sister Josephe, Regina, and the book here.

Note also: Rescuing Regina is not about political ideology. The story is about human rights, not politics. Sister Josephe is an old-school liberal, but many of the people who worked with her on Regina's behalf are right-wing Republicans. Regina's plight was followed by Fox News and by NPR.

Final note: Rescuing Regina is a suspense-filled adventure tale and courtroom drama. Summer is only half over, and you may not be in the mood to read a white paper on immigration reform. This is not that, thank goodness. Rather, it's an inspirational, heart-warming story about what individual heroism and community solidarity can accomplish, even against apparently insurmountable odds.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger, adored and reviled as the mother of birth control, published her autobiography in 1938 when she was 59 years old. Republished in 1971 by Dover, the book is still in print. I found it while browsing the biography section of the public library, and I thought I’d like to know more about this controversial pioneer. It turned out to be the most fascinating book I’ve read so far this year.

I know that some social conservatives despise Mrs. Sanger. One of her organizations evolved into Planned Parenthood, which is hated primarily because it gives women access to abortions and secondarily because it gives unmarried women access to contraception. In reaction, some have portrayed Sanger as a eugenicist of near Nazi ferocity, eager to improve the race through selective breeding, sterilization and murder of the unfit. They accuse her of aiming to exterminate people of color. They attribute her widespread support among African American leaders to a diabolical campaign of duplicity.

It’s hard to imagine anyone quite so powerful as the monster they depict, particularly if the supposed villain is a diminutive woman in an era when women did not have the vote and were barred from most influential occupations. Indeed, much of the book is a record of the obstacles Sanger faced as she struggled to help disadvantaged women learn how to space their children and produce fewer of them. She had frequent run-ins with Catholic prelates, of course. Time and again the police raided her headquarters, destroyed her property, terrorized her clients, and hauled her off to jail. Courts usually ruled against her. Congress repeatedly refused to consider bills favoring the distribution of information about contraception.

Yet nothing could stop the hundreds of thousands of women who wrote to her begging for help, and nothing could stop Sanger from attempting to provide it.

On “one stifling mid-July day of 1912,” Sanger, a public health nurse who worked in New York’s slums, had had an epiphany. A truck driver, Jake Sachs, had called a doctor to help his 28-year-old wife, who was dying of septicemia following a self-induced abortion. The young couple already had three children, and the wife was convinced they could afford no more. The doctor sent for Sanger, and for two weeks the two of them worked to save Mrs. Sachs. At the end she pulled through, but the doctor warned that another pregnancy would kill her.

“I know, doctor,” she replied timidly, “but,” and she hesitated as though it took all her courage to say it, “what can I do to prevent it?”
   The doctor was a kindly man, and he had worked hard to save her, but such incidents had become so familiar to him that he had long since lost whatever delicacy he might once have had. He laughed good-naturedly. “You want to have your cake and eat it too, do you? Well, it can’t be done.”
   Then picking up his hat and bag to depart he said, “Tell Jake to sleep on the roof.” [91]

Three months later, Jake Sachs again called Mrs. Sanger, who again rushed to their apartment. Mrs. Sachs died within ten minutes of her arrival. That night, Sanger paced for hours through city streets.

When I finally arrived home and let myself quietly in, all the household was sleeping. I looked out my window and down upon the dimly lighted city. Its pains and griefs crowded in upon me, a moving picture rolled before my eyes with photographic clearness: women writhing in travail to bring forth little babies; the babies themselves naked and hungry, wrapped in newspapers to keep them from the cold; six-year-old children with pinched, pale, wrinkled faces, old in concentrated wretchedness, pushed into gray and fetid cellars, crouching on stone floors, their small scrawny hands scuttling through rags, making lamp shades, artificial flowers; white coffins, black coffins, coffins, coffins interminably passing in never-ending succession. The scenes piled one upon another on another. I could bear it no longer.
   … I went to bed, knowing that no matter what it might cost, I was finished with palliatives and superficial cures; I was resolved to seek out the root of evil, to do something to change the destiny of mothers whose miseries were as vast as the sky. [92]

In 1912, contraception was illegal. Doctors could not dispense contraceptive devices to women (though apparently they were allowed to give men condoms to prevent STDs). The Comstock law prohibited even speaking or writing about contraception. Somehow the rich knew how to get around those laws; their families tended to be of modest size. The poor, however, had no idea how to space their children or limit their number. As a result, many desperately poor women gave birth 12, 15, even 18 times, if they lived so long. The majority of immigrant and working-class children died before reaching adulthood, and the survivors were often malnourished, sickly, uneducated, and often brain damaged as well.

Today Americans rightly protest the cruel treatment of dogs in puppy mills. A mere hundred years ago, many urban Americans lived in conditions that were just as bad. And almost nobody dared to tell women that they didn’t have to have a baby every year, that they could limit their children to a number they could support. Nobody dared to provide them with devices that would enable them to have fewer births, but also fewer deaths and more surviving children. Almost nobody, that is, but Margaret Sanger and the people who worked with her.

Her story is more than a history of birth control in America. Much of it reads like a vivid travel memoir: Sanger visited many countries and recorded her observations and impressions. It is also a fascinating social history of the now almost-forgotten lifestyles and mores of the early 20th century. Besides, the book is fun to read: Sanger is a clever writer. She describes one newly married couple, for example, as having “little but love, faith, and hope to save them from charity.” Here is her one-sentence characterization of a lawyer she consulted: “The seeds of social service had been planted in him; his legal training only temporarily slowed down their growth.”

So what about Sanger’s supposed secret schemes of race purification? I found no evidence of them in this book. Some of her supporters were indeed eugenicists – people who thought that the mentally and morally unfit should be sterilized. That view was quite common until at least mid-20th century (my own evangelical parents said similar things) and Sanger probably shared it, but it was not her primary concern. The way she wanted to purify the race was to allow people to choose the number of children they bore, so that they could adequately feed, clothe, and educate their families. Then, she believed, far fewer children would be sickly, far fewer mothers would die in childbirth, and far more children would live to adulthood. In this way, she thought, the human race would become stronger.

Interestingly, some of Sanger’s views are at odds with the views of many Planned Parenthood advocates today. In October of 1916, she opened a birth control clinic in Brooklyn. Women were admitted in groups to learn how to plan their families.

To each group, [she writes,] we explained simply what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way – no matter how early it was performed it was taking life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way – it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun. [217]

Her pro-life views conflicted with those of a prominent German gynecologist she interviewed in 1920. When she opined that abortion was a ridiculous substitute for contraception,

the doctor rose, his chest sticking out; he buttoned his coat, bowed formally, and inquired, “Where did you say you came from?”
   “New York City.”
   “Are you sure you are not from France or Belgium?”
   “Certainly not.”
   “Nobody who has the welfare of Germany at heart could talk to me as you have this morning. Only enemies could come here to give such information [about contraception] to our women.”
   I wished he would sit down; he made me nervous. But I went on. “Why is it such an act of enmity to advocate contraceptives rather than abortions? Abortions, as you know yourself, may be quite dangerous, whereas reliable contraceptives are harmless. Why do you oppose them?”
   To my horror he replied, “We will never give over the control of our numbers to the women themselves. What, let them control the future of the human race? With abortions it is in our hands; we make the decisions, and they must come to us.”
   That was not the tone of this doctor alone but also that of most of his confrères. [286]

Margaret Sanger was, I believe, pro-life. She was also pro-choice. People on both sides of today’s culture war have a lot to thank her for.

It’s easy for us older folks to complain that the world is going to hell. Whenever I get in a curmudgeonly mood, the surest cure is to watch an old movie or read an old book and notice how people lived and how women were regarded back then. Sanger’s autobiography made me profoundly grateful to live in an era when women are, comparatively speaking, respected; when most children – even of the poor – survive to adulthood; and when the Constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech is taken for granted.

WINTER HEART by Margaret Frazer

I love Dame Frevisse, the 15th-century sleuthing nun, and I'm getting antsy. It's been two years since publication of The Apostate's Tale, and I'm not sure how much longer I can go on without a visit to St. Frideswide's Priory.

So I was thrilled several weeks ago when Gail Frazer, author or coauthor of the Dame Frevisse mysteries under the name Margaret Frazer, emailed to ask if I'd like to participate in a blog tour for her most recent novella, Winter Heart - an e-book that begins, irony of ironies, with Domina Frevisse seated at her writing desk, studying a parchment roll.

Alas, several electronic mishaps caused me to miss the blog tour. Nothing, however, would cause me to miss a new book in this series, even if it's available only electronically, and even if it's not a novel but a long short story.

Frevisse is now prioress of St. Frideswide's. She now moves serenely about her duties, though her sharp, questioning mind is always active. Perhaps this is why Tom Kelmstowe asks her to plead his case - he knows she will see what others have missed. Tom, accused of rape, left the village precipitously, and his property was given to another. But now Tom has returned, and soon a man who may have wronged him is murdered. Tom is the obvious suspect, but Tom says all the stories about him are wrong.

Frazer's novels are often long on history, short on mystery. This novella, by contrast, is a classic whodunit, though medieval monastery and village life are present as a backdrop. As in several of her other books, Frazer's love of Benedictine solitude and liturgy is evident. The Divine Office, or fixed-hour prayer, provides the framework for all of Frevisse's days:

The Offices, with their garland of prayers and psalms woven out of the worship of generations past and meant to weave forward through generations to come, were the reason for the nunnery’s existence. They were also Frevisse’s great joy more days than not, giving her a time to leave aside her duties and lose herself in the prayers reaching toward Heaven.

But Frevisse's assignment - finding a murderer - is practical, not mystical, and she handles it with skills honed by years of detection in what must have been an unusually murder-prone village.

Having read all 17 Dame Frevisse novels, I can't say how this story would appeal to someone who's new to the series. No prior knowledge of St. Frideswide's is required or assumed, but I suspect that part of my enjoyment was increased by long-term involvement with Frevisse, Master Naylor the steward, Dame Claire, and other characters. Still, at $2.99 Winter Heart is a steal, and it will take you only a pleasant evening or two to get acquainted with the indomitable domina.

And diehard Margaret Frazer fans should note that 11 of her short stories (click here and scroll down) are now available through Amazon for $2.99 or less, as long as you're willing to trade in your parchment for Kindle editions.
____________________
If you have yet to meet Dame Frevisse, you can take a quick look at my blogpost introduction to her here (or, if you're a subscriber, my Books and Culture review here). Better yet, run to your library or bookstore and begin with the first of the 17 books (so far) in the series, The Novice's Tale.

PATHS OF GLORY (DVD)

CNN reports that Claude Choules, 110, has died in Perth, Australia. Mr Choules was "the last known survivor of the 70 million combatants from World War I, a British sailor who witnessed the surrender of the German fleet in 1918."

That was the war known at the time as "the war to end all wars. As we know all too well, it didn't. Approximately 16 million people died in that war, and then 21 years later war broke out again. Estimates of World War II deaths range from 50 to 78 million.

Choules's son, Adrian, told reporters that

his father refused to glorify war.... In later life Choules refused to be interviewed about the wars in which he served. "He always said that the old men make the decisions that send the young men into war," Adrian said. "He used to say, if it was the other way around, and the old pollies were off fighting, then there would never be any wars."

I read about Choules's death right after watching Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film, Paths of Glory, about French officers, troops, and an impossible assignment in 1916. If ever a film illustrated Claude Choules's words, this is it. Self-deception, pride, cynicism, arrogance, injustice, hypocrisy, mendacity - Kubrick explores all these themes in a mere 88 minutes in a film that will incite you to shake your fist and roar at your TV screen.

There are plenty of decent human beings in the film, and some of them are officers. Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), for example, who defends the three hapless scapegoats, is appealingly earnest. The villains range from the oily Général  Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) to the miserable Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Morris), all managing to be despicable without turning into caricatures. Best performance in my book was Ralph Meeker's portrayal of Corporal Philippe Paris, a dutiful soldier who suffers for other men's sins. Nobody won any Academy Awards, however, and the film was so controversial that it was banned in France and Switzerland for nearly 20 years.

OK, it's probably not a date night film, but it's gripping, provocative, and brilliant - will that do? Preview it here, or read this excellent review and summary, or read the book it was based on ("a chilling portrait of injustice, this novel offers insight into the tragedies of war in any age"), or ask Netflix to send you the DVD.

In case you're wondering about the title: It comes from Thomas Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," line 36:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

MADE IN DAGENHAM (DVD)

In 1968, 179 east London machinists walked off the job and changed history. The machinists weren't complaining about having to work long days in an airless room that quickly became unbearably hot. They objected to being classified as unskilled workers when  their work - making seat covers for Fords - required a great deal of skill. They also objected to being paid considerably less than fellow workers who were less skilled than they were. And they objected to, year after year, being patronized, lied to, and eventually ignored by union officials. The 179 machinists, of course, were women.


Made in Dagenham is funny, sassy, infuriating, and occasionally moving. Watch it for an evening's entertainment, or watch it to remember - or to learn - what life was like only 43 years ago. 1968 was the year when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. It was the year of the Tet offensive and the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Student protests, especially in France, were huge. The Beatles sang about Lady Madonna ("wonder how she manages to feed the rest?"). They might well wonder - women earned less than 60% of what men earned, and it didn't look like things were going to get better anytime soon.

Of course women should have equal pay, some of the more enlightened men-in-charge told us. But these things take time. You can't expect things to happen overnight. Making demands will get you nowhere. That's what the same enlightened men-in charge-had been saying about civil rights for people of color just a few years earlier. And that's what the weaselly union and business leaders told the women machinists in east London.

Fortunately, the women machinists didn't agree.

In 1968 I taught history and French at a small private high school. The pay scale had three levels: married men earned approximately $7000 a year; single men earned about $6000, and women earned about $5000. The English teacher, the German teacher, and I thought this was not quite fair. All the married men had working wives. We, however, though women, were all married to students and were the sole support of our families. Why shouldn't we earn as much as the married men?

We wrote a polite letter of inquiry to the people responsible for our paychecks. We made no threats; we merely asked for an explanation. Immediately our principal got a terrified phone call from his board chairman. "What's this I hear about a teacher's strike?" the man wanted to know.

Unlike Rita O'Grady, the spunky heroine of Made in Dagenham, we didn't strike. We didn't do anything, in fact: we were nice girls. Those were the days, my friend. I'm glad they finally ended.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES and GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Charles Dickens

Oprah's 2-in-1 edition

I was thrilled when a friend phoned me a week ago Friday to ask if I'd read A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations - and if so, would I like to go to Oprah's book club taping with her in exactly seven days? Sort of, and YES!, I said.

I loved A Tale of Two Cities when I read it 50 years ago, but the details had become a bit hazy since then. And I must have read excerpts from Great Expectations (wasn't it in our high-school English book?) or watched a film version, though I remembered nothing but Miss Havisham, the eternal bride. But I'd gladly spend all week reading, I promised.

Reading 900 pages in 4 days, it turned out, was the most fun I've had since the internet was invented. No Facebook! No blogposts! No article writing! Very little e-mail! It was the best of times.

Getting to see Oprah just three months before she shuts down her show was a bonus. And yes, she is fabulous.

Though, for the first time ever in the history of Oprah's book club - 65 books in 15 years! - her selection did not become a bestseller. "I guess I shouldn't have chosen a book that most of you already have on your shelves," she said. Indeed, most of the 350 of us in her studio were carrying well-thumbed older editions of the books. (Opportunity for those who don't still have your high-school copies: right now the large, handsome paperback is on sale at Amazon for $4.97.)

Oprah's guest was novelist Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres, Moo), who has also written a short biography of Charles Dickens. Compared to Oprah, Smiley is somewhat reserved (who isn't?), but she more than held her own in the discussion. Since this was Oprah's book club, not her regular show, there was no hoopla. The two women simply sat at a desk and chatted about Dickens, Victorian England, and the two books for half an hour or so before taking audience questions. I had predicted that many people in the audience would be wearing glasses, and I was right. We were English teachers, librarians, and bookstore nerds all - including cast members of Les Misérables who dropped in for the show. (They carry a shelf of books with them on tour so they can read when they're not onstage, one of them told us. "Haven't you heard of Kindle?" asked Smiley.)

The book club webcast will be broadcast at 5:00 p.m. EST today. Click here to see the webcast or to click through to more information about the two Dickens books.

If you decide to read or reread these books, here are a few things I noticed that might interest you too.

• Notice what a difference the narrative point of view makes. In TOTC, Dickens steps back, sits down next to God, and watches the pageant unroll. He not only tells us a story, he also inserts social commentary and philosophy. In GE, by contrast, Pip tells his own story. If he doesn't experience it, it's not in the book. This makes GE seem more personal and relational than TOTC. I liked both approaches, but I found GE easier to read.
• Look at how Dickens portrays women. A badly mistreated woman is at the heart of both stories, but a woman is the hero of neither. In both books, women, if victims, wreak vengeance. Well-treated women, by contrast, are generally docile creatures who exist to serve the interests of their husbands, fathers, or employers (if they are servants). Hey, Dickens was what he was, and grown-up feminists can enjoy him anyway. But if you're discussing these books with kids, his view of women might be worth talking about.
• Compare the societies Dickens describes (English and French, 18th and 19th centuries) with our society today. We've come a long way from the days when orphans were left to roam the streets and miscreants were hanged for minor offenses, and for that I am deeply grateful. Now, as we consider ways to cut back governmental spending, we might want to think twice about policies that increase the gap between rich and poor, that reduce social services for the indigent, and that allow the infrastructure to crumble. In Dickensian London, it was every man for himself, and the results weren't pretty.
• Admire Dickens's brilliant psychological insights. In 1859 when A Tale of Two Cities was published, Sigmund Freud was 3 years old. C.G. Jung would not be born for another 20 years. Without their help, Dickens instinctively knew how events shape people, how relationships deteriorate and grow, how repressed rage finds an outlet, how love and hatred are created. He also knew how people thought and talked - children and adults, nobles and peasants, servants and masters, city folk and country folk, criminals and lawyers, terrorists and bankers. As Smiley pointed out, Dickens has a range of human understanding that surpasses that of perhaps any other novelist in the English language.

Yes, Dickens's books are long. To find time to read one, you might have to turn off your electronic devices for a while. Except for Kindle, of course: you can download both books free of charge here.