Monthly Archives: January 2023

What Else Was Going On?

Christopher Rush

Hello, friends. Twenty-five issues. Where’d they go? Twenty-five issues. I don’t know. I sit and I wonder sometimes where they’ve gone. Appropriately enough, as of this writing, we are a few scant months away from my twentieth high school reunion, so those reflective thoughts have been and will continue to be quite prominent in my head. But, hey, we aren’t here to talk about me … well, we are, but let’s try to keep it positive. As you already know, a significant portion of my summer was taken up with Beach Boys and Beatles material, at least the first half of the summer. About mid-July, I hit the proverbial wall and found myself taking notes on the first time the Beatles heard Elvis songs and minutiae like that and it dawned upon me … I’m preparing too much for this class. I was doing Mark Lewisohn-level work, and I’m not ready to write the definitive work on the Beach Boys and the Beatles — I just wanted to teach a course about appreciating and understanding their music and the times. Thus, after about eight intensive weeks, I just stopped, focused on other things, read different books, played some games, and relaxed quite a bit more. (I also took a nonsensical on-line course about Graphic Novels in the Classroom to renew my teaching license, since higher education is all a scam, but I’d rather not talk about that now.)

As is our custom, here are some brief and most-likely unhelpful book reviews about most of the books I read from late spring up until the beginning of this current school year. Shortly after I curtailed my Beach Boys/Beatles preparation, I realized I hadn’t read any Nero Wolfe books all summer and repaired that nonsense toot suite (and found myself on a bit of a mystery kick for a while). Enjoy, friends.

Simple and Direct: A Rhetoric for Writers, Jacques Barzun

I feel somewhat abashed giving a book by the superb Jacques Barzun only two stars, but according to the authoritative site Goodreads (or “goodreads” as it wants to be known on its own page), two stars equates to “it was okay,” and since Simple and Direct was okay, two stars it gets. I’m not really sure what the ultimate function of this book is: surely it’s not a textbook for classroom use, as entire hordes of young people posing as students collectively work through revising sentences with diction they’ve never heard (perhaps the original audience was familiar with his language, but none today); I certainly did not feel impelled to work through the exercises on paper — I was fine thinking through them while reading them. Toward the end Mr. Barzun gives us an extended survey of punctuation, but inscrutably he defines colons in contradistinction to his own usage throughout the book.

Not to harp on its deficiencies, but organization, another facet of writing upon which Mr. Barzun attempts to instruct us, is almost wholly useless in this work. True, it has distinct chapter headings covering divers aspects of writing, helpful enough, but beyond that … utter chaos. Mr. Barzun traipses merrily from sub-point to sub-point, devoid of meaningful connection or reference-work ease of finding/accessibility/utility. Mr. Barzun gives us wonderfully trenchant tips on diction, tone, style, revision … while you’re reading through the book. Aside from a virtually meaningless index, we have no realistic way of using this book as a reference tool for attacking individual writing errors.

So read it … once. Try to absorb as much as you can. Perhaps copy out the twenty basic rules for writing Mr. Barzun scatters throughout his pages for general guidelines of decent writing. Then … give it to someone else. I doubt you’re going to want to keep it for multiple uses.

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley

Well … that was rubbish. Not only is this full of biases and horribly inappropriate “practice exercises” (many of which deal with various forms of human perversion), but also it is laboriously redundant and ultimately a gigantic waste of time. Basically, Biff Tannen will crash into a truckload of this book in Back to the Future, pt. 4. Several years ago, without reading it, I snagglepussed their list of “the right questions” for a class handout on critical thinking, supplementing the list with better context and purposes and kept telling myself I would read the whole book some time and find out how I can make that handout better. Now I know: I can eliminate their list of “the right questions” and make up my own questions and completely eliminate all trace of this product from my classroom.

For these “authors,” the two-fold purpose of “Critical Thinking” is a) to know for whom to vote and b) to know how to respond to advertisements. That is all. I’m not making this up; the book says that’s why we need “critical thinking.” Not for “how to become a worthwhile person,” not for “how to make the world around us a better place or the people around us better people,” not “to pursue truth and beauty and other affirming absolutes.” No, just to know the right candidate (and it takes about four pages into the book to find out what political party the “authors” think is right) and how to say no to all advertisements (as if we didn’t all know that by the age of 12 anyway). Yes, in the concluding fake final chapter reside some insincere “well, we’re all in this together, so be sure to use your critical thinking skills to help others out” stuff, but we can all be fairly certain someone’s grandfather who signed the paychecks way back in the 2^nd edition days (back in the ’90s, when all smart people knew Islam had run its course) required this and now it’s just left over because it sounds all warm and sincere (or so they “think”).

Now, not much wrong exists with the actual “right questions” themselves, yet the need for entire chapter-like things explaining them does not exist at all. This could have worked much better without the “practice examples,” the nonsensical repetition, and everything but the final “why is this question important” box. One easy indicator of how much piffle suffuses this work is the fact the creators decided to highlight the important notices by both demarcating the essential points with thick grey borders flanking the significant paragraphs and beginning said paragraphs with the emboldened world “Attention.” One would suppose only one of these devices would be necessary to indicate the distinctively special nature of the material, but the authors chose both. And then they repeat themselves a lot. Thus, this would have been quite fine as a three-page pamphlet. Alas, the authors decided the route of horridly overpriced textbook instead of concise, useful pamphlet. Alas.

One could also mention the repletion of contradictions throughout: after redundantly explaining how important the “right question” under evaluation in each individual chapter is, the authors will often prepare you for the conclusion of the chapter (and the wretchedly off-putting practical examples) with “yes, but, sometimes it’s not like that, so do your best to make sure when the right time to ask this right question is right.”

One final concern about this (aside from the concern about their comments to the effect “emotions should never play a role in any decision”): the authors adamantly warn us against thinking in dichotomies. On the surface, of course, this sounds like good advice. Who can fault Pink Floyd for enjoining us against thinking in terms of “us and them”? The concern rests, though, in their outlandish declaration “never think in terms of right and wrong.” Because this is a dichotomy, it must be the wrong (irrational) way of making decisions and viewing the world. Everything that is good must have more than two options. And on and on. I’d say it’s rubbish, but that would be an insult to banana peels, cockroach husks, and last month’s Wheat Thins, and I don’t want to insult them.

Don’t waste your time. It’s a short work, but life’s too short for this work.

A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time #7), Robert Jordan

While this follows the same pattern (if you’ll allow the expression) of the last couple of entries in this series, a good number of positive advancements occur (mostly toward the end, of course) in characterizations and overall storyline. One gets the impression this is “the rest” of Lord of Chaos, picking up right after it (unlike the earlier entries that often pick up a couple of months later). Either that, or we have advanced enough along in the story timeline we can expect the rest of the series is just going to be a continuous account of what is going on in “real time” (in a way). Back to the pattern: a lengthy dealing with the aftermath of the last entry’s climactic explosion, extended time with the Nynaeve/Elayne/Matt and Perrin sidequests, increasingly more menacing time with the Forsaken, a humorous look at what the White Tower is up to, decreasing time with the Aiel, and brief adventure with people we forgot were mentioned two novels ago but now suddenly give us the impression they are going to become B-list or even A-list stars of the series, and then another slam-bang finish in which Rand fights another Forsaken and conquers yet another territory. It may seem redundant, but it isn’t: the familiar weavings of the Pattern is obviously a fundamental aspect of this series, and by this time the basic format enables unforeseen and refreshing variety for us readers even within the expectations.

Halfway through the series, (and more words halfway through than A Song of Ice and Fire will be when it is finished sometime this century…? maybe?) we finally get some things we’ve been waiting for since basically the end of book one: Nynaeve finally gets her act together, Elayne and Egwene start getting their acts together, Rand gets some more of his act together, some good things actually happen to our heroes (for once), and bad things happen to the bad guys (sort of — they also gain more victories, but that’s fine). Is that spoiler-free enough for you?

Because so many positive things happen (though they don’t come pain-free, of course), some of the chapters in the final third of the book are among the most enjoyable of the series so far (and I’m pretty sure that’s not because it’s freshest in my memory): The First Cup, Mashiara (especially), Sealed to the Flame, Ta’veren … you read these and you think “finally, people are listening to our heroes! Let them get done what they need to get done!” It’s a very reaffirming feeling, and it’s not “unrealistic.”

It was a good book — maybe not as “fun” as The Dragon Reborn, but it was a very fast-moving book that felt like it was giving us things we’ve been wanting for a while and propelling us in a new direction (even if it will keep following the pattern). Yes, it has that ambiguous part in the middle with Queen Morgase that may be one thing or may be another, but I’m sure that will be worked through soon enough. Yes, it does have the Seanchan again, which is a) very frustrating (aren’t things bad enough with the Dark One and the Forsaken and the Black Ajah?), b) super impressive how Mr. Jordan would think to add that layer, and c) another big sign things are going to get even crazier in the books ahead (especially now we are in the second-half of the saga). But this was a good one, especially impressive after the major changes and excitement of that last entry — it’s just getting better and better. (And it’s better than ASoIaF … boom.)

Miss Lonelyhearts / The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West

These really weren’t that good. They come across as the angry contributions of an intelligent man who doesn’t want any supernatural to exist, and because no supernatural exists (because he wants no supernatural to exist), he’s angry about how boring and meaningless life is but it’s God’s fault for not existing. Something like that. I admit it’s been a few months since I read Miss Lonelyhearts, which was the main reason I picked this up (the book not the time), but I was not favorably impressed. Clearly I’m wrong, since other people like it, and anger=greatness, but there it sits. Instead of dealing meaningfully with love and faith and human experiences, Miss Lonelyhearts just swaggers around grumbling and assuming and then just stops. It is Modernist, after all.

The Day of the Locust, likewise, gives us that same Modernist not caring attitude about how life really is, just glancing around at the bleakness and discontent and assuming this is how it always has been, always is, always will be, and God doesn’t exist and is to blame for not existing and how banal everything is, and it just stops. Nathanael West would have vilified Brian Wilson for portraying Southern California as a wonderful place of sunshine and happiness. But you know what? I’d rather listen to Brian Wilson than read more Nathanael West. Go on, tell me how wrong I am.

The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, Teresa Patterson

I believe this was the first Wheel of Time book I owned, or close to it at any rate. I remember years ago leafing through it agog, thinking how could I ever possibly become familiar with all of these races and nationalities and conflicts … and then years later after finally reading books 1-7, most of it was easy reminders. Considering the clever viewpoint of the material, long before GRRM started doing basically the same thing (not this particular volume, but in general), the absence of the very things we want to know (the Creator, True Source, Age of Legends) may be disappointing, but there’s enough gathered tidbits to whet our appetites for the second half of the series (not that we needed more).

I know a few people have derided the artwork for the last twenty years or so, but considering the horrible conditions under which the artist was given to work by the publisher, I have no problem with it. My only wish concerning the art is I wish we had visuals accompanying the dress of the various military in the last few chapters especially. The descriptions are good, indeed, but visuals would abet those sections very well. The included visuals of our heroes don’t really match what they look like in my head as I’m reading, but that’s fine.

I’m glad I finally got to this book — it feels very strange having carried this around several moves cross-country and through major life changes (college, marriage, children), and now I’ve read it. Enough about me: obviously, this book is not for you if you haven’t read Wheel of Time books 1-7. You should really just read it when you’ve read them. But, if you have read them, you won’t get a whole lot of new information here, though the scant sections on the Forsaken, the Age of Legends, and a few things here and there are worthwhile (especially if you don’t pay cover price for it). It did help clarify a few things (like how Lews Therin is really “the Dragon,” not a Dragon reborn — he was the first Dragon, making Rand really the only “Dragon Reborn,” in the entire history of however many times the Wheel has turned, and how Artur Hawking was not a reborn Dragon himself just a good ruler hundreds of years after Lews Therin), and for that it was worthwhile for me. Plus a life marker reached. On the whole, satisfactory.

The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, Jaroslav Pelikan

Ah, it was nice to read intellectual discourse again (it had been a while, especially concerning nonfiction). I don’t mind name dropping, but I have Robert Duncan Culver’s copy (he parted with it willingly), replete with his own comments and asides, making it a nifty bonus-filled read for me (and whoever gets it after I shuffle off). As you likely know, Mr. Pelikan is pretty top notch about things, and his insights and enjoinments and adjurations make a good deal of sense throughout his four mostly connected lectures/essays. I wish it were longer, actually. He does a fine job contextualizing all sides of the Tradition issue, including the atheists who think it’s all rubbish, even pointing out how those who continue to follow Emerson’s call for rejecting tradition are guilty of following a tradition. It’s full of spectacular lines, none of which will be quoted here because it’s all the way upstairs and I’m down here. Track this down. It’s really good. Of course, if you are one of those Emersonians, you’ll probably not like it because it will point out how wrong you are, yet it will do so intelligently and respectfully — something you may not be used to from people who disagree with you and write things (post things) today.

And Four to Go, Rex Stout

When you get to the end of summer and realize you haven’t read any Nero Wolfe all year yet, it’s way past time to get on that. This is another trim, clean, crisp group of Nero Wolfe adventures mostly though ancillarily pertaining to holidays. “Christmas Party” is a surprising revelation to what lengths Nero Wolfe will go to keep Archie Goodwin in his employ (and single). “Easter Parade” is a very clever mystery about ancient machines known as photographometers (I believe), fantastickal boxes of antiquity that were used to visually capture a moment of time without also letting you order pizza. This, too, has a surprising revelation concerning to what lengths Wolfe will go to acquiring rare orchids, including asking Archie to steal them!

“Fourth of July Picnic” is also bizarre, but not in a bad way — whenever Wolfe is out of the house the story feels unsettled. Wolfe is on deck to give a speech about the restaurant world and, of course, a murder is discovered during his speech. The problem is an eyewitness can testify no one went into the room of the murder except Archie and Wolfe! Another unique aspect of this mystery (though a bit of a theme for this collection) is motive for murder is almost a nonfactor in the crime solving. Archie and Wolfe spend almost no time on “why” the murder, just “who.” “Murder is No Joke” is another very clever mystery with an obvious set-up: a painfully obvious ruse to befuddle Wolfe at the very beginning, but soon that ruse takes on new twists and nothing is quite so obvious anymore.

Top notch collection. Strangely, as readers, we are torn between wanting to spend time with Archie and Wolfe and the rest but wanting short, concise stories we can inhale and enjoy quickly. This collection with four very short yet rich stories balances that tension perfectly: short, quick stories, but four instead of the usual three. “Satisfactory.”

Champagne for One, Rex Stout

Another enjoyable Nero Wolfe adventure, once again Archie gets into some shenanigans and drags Wolfe into it against his will. While this sounds like Archie’s job description in general, this time Archie is present at the death of a young woman and believes it’s murder … even though everyone else at the event says it’s suicide, the cops believe it’s suicide, and no proof for murder seems to exist other than Archie’s instincts. For us, for Wolfe, for Fritz, this is enough. Of course that’s tough for Cramer to swallow, and even more difficult for the Police Commissioner to swallow, who has a surprising and secret offer to make to the brownstone residents! Fans of the Hutton/Chaykin series will recognize this as an early episode, and the show is rather faithful to this novel, leaving out only a few brief scenes that only confirm a few things for the detectives — but even with the familiarity from a faithful adaptation, the original story is neither stale nor dull. It almost drags a bit toward the middle as many Wolfe novels potentially do, but this one does not lag noticeably. One helpful aspect of the book is its more lucid expression of the connection between the instigator of the mess and the perpetrator of the mess, which was slightly glossed over in the episode. It’s still brief here, but combining both makes the entity of Champagne for One feel enjoyably complete.

Plot it Yourself, Rex Stout

My wife and I listened to this during a long car trip years ago, so moments of it felt vaguely familiar, but I could not remember any of the important things. It’s nothing to brag about, considering it isn’t a very long novel, but I read this in one day; I say that not to brag but to emphasize how gripping it is, especially after the first shocking twist about 24% into the novel. It starts out rather dry, admittedly, and even Wolfe is bored by what is being offered him at the beginning, but once it kicks in it really moves and grips. This is chock full of twists and surprises and even shocking moments. The gang is all here: Cramer, Stebbins, Saul, Fred, Orrie, Fritz, even Dol Bonner and Sally Corbett. This may rank as among the best Wolfe stories, and that’s saying quite a bit, I think.

To Catch a Spy, Chris Scott

This is two books in one, akin to Moby-Dick and Les Misérables, but whereas Moby-Dick is about 50-50 philosophical whaling guide/novel, To Catch a Spy is 75-25 philosophical inquiry/spy novel. Mr. Scott strikes you immediately as one who feels very strongly about knowing words and is compelled to impress you with them. He namedrops most of the Beatles/Beach Boys’ spiritual mentors early on, proliferates the book with antique literary references, and just generally makes the book difficult to read. I’m by no means a skilled, quality reader, so maybe it’s just me and my infacility with language and words and things. And stuffs and items. We are bombarded with several names and codenames at the beginning of the book, so much so one will have great difficulty remembering who is whom throughout, even perhaps until after the book is over, and while that is part of the spy atmosphere, it doesn’t make for an enjoyable reading experience of a spy atmosphere, for most of the book.

Much of this work, as I said, is a psychological treatment on the good ol’ spy game back in the glory days of the Cold War, when men were men and Bruce was Scarecrow and Pierce was Remington and life was good. Aside from all the horrible things that were going on at the time, of course. But the Spy Game was a Gentleman’s Game back in the day, when agents and double agents and triple agents all seemed to know each other and hang out at all the old familiar places. Or did they…

We are treated to the mentality of the different players in this game: what it’s like to investigate why an agent switches allegiances, what it’s like to be a high-level strategist who concocts plots and counterplots, what it’s like to be a Russian puppetmaster/tightrope walker standing in the gap between trust and betrayal, and what it’s like to be a tool-turned-tool user. Or are we…

Suddenly, all the psychological underpinnings are swept away and we are LeCarréd away into a breakneck spy catching thriller … but which spy are we catching? And which do we want to catch? The last few pages have a significant number of twists and countertwists jam-packed and slam-banged together, which may “salvage” the book for some who thought it would be more Ian Fleming-like than John LeCarré-ish. I found it rough going for awhile, but the ending “made up” for it (though I won’t be keeping it and reading it again in my life).

Whose Body?, Dorothy L. Sayers

While it is likely this book suffers from the typical “first entry verbosity,” Ms. Sayers has deftly created a new kind of sleuth, though one that is eminently aware of his place in the history of British detectives. New readers to the series may be surprised (as I was) just how frequently Mr. Holmes’s name was mentioned. Christians that have been given the impression Ms. Sayers is a Christian author will similarly be surprised at the frequency of the, shall we say, “d-word” as used by our “hero,” yet Ms. Sayers never gives attentive readers the impression Lord Peter Whimsey is a Christian. Interestingly enough, it is his policeman chum Parker who is fond of reading Biblical commentaries.

The mystery itself is mildly intriguing, but as I said above as the first mystery novel by Ms. Sayers (as far as I know), we can easily ignore the unnecessarily lengthy bits in hopes she will hone her craft soon enough. This adventure does have one very compelling moment toward the end, however: our hero has willfully if impetuously put himself in the clutches of the fiendish murderer (primarily to ascertain if his heroic deductions are correct, we suppose), placidly allowing himself to be destroyed … until Whimsey’s hand grabs the villain’s in a “vice-like” grip, followed by one of the most intense tacit stare-downs in literature. All in all a fine beginning to the series, especially as one acclimated to Ms. Sayers’s style.

Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

Surprisingly more tedious than the first Whimsey adventure, Clouds of Witness treads territory most series do not tread until much later: family misadventure (thus two surprises in one sentence). Having been introduced to the strengths and some failings of our new hero in the first entry (as is typical for new mystery series), our knowledge of Lord Peter and his policeman chum Parker is expanded by more encounters with the rest of the current Whimsey clan, as Peter’s stoically uninteresting brother is preposterously accused of murder, primarily (if unintentionally) by their own sister! And while this should make for a riveting and fresh perspective on our hero and his world, mostly what we learn is how right the ’70s punk rock scene was in vilifying British peerage (no offense to the truly noble nobles out there). The whole system, especially its self-satisfied legal system, is perfectly exemplified by George Whimsey, and we have an immediate and deep-seated understanding and respect for why Lord Peter only associates with that bunch when he has to.

While this case is distinct enough from the first, despite both being murder cases, the speed of the novel slows down tremendously with a preponderance of clues, lengthy dialectic engaged with those clues, immediate rejection of everything that was just bandied about by a new revelation at the commencement of a new chapter followed by a lengthy (and spurious) account of whereabouts and actions likewise immediately refuted at the dawn of the following chapter, supplemented with a bevy of new clues, surprising new witnesses, and lengthy discussions about them all. And while I acknowledge that is usually how most mystery novels go, this one goes on in “figuring out whodunnit and howdunnit” stage a trifle too long (possible six trifle’s worth). Not that this is bad, mind you, and Ms. Sayers does concoct some interesting twists, but readers should be aware we are not in the “concised” phase of the Whimsey canon yet (if indeed such a thing exists … I’ll keep you posted).

The Liberal Arts: A Student’s Guide, Gene C. Fant Jr.

As the Dull Train plods into Dull Station, we close our uneventful ho-hum. Please exit lugubriously and be on your way.

I don’t want to sound harsh, but that’s basically this book. I was very interested in this series, but this was not the ideal place to start. Perhaps it’s me: maybe I’m at that point at which I don’t need yet another “initial student’s guide,” of which this certainly is one of. Not only is it very much a beginning guide (one hopes it’s not truly aimed at college students … junior high kids, maybe), it deceptively has virtually nothing to do with the Liberal Arts. I was hoping for an engaging overview and interaction with the classical Liberal Arts, somewhere around seven in number I believe, but this little-yet-overlong pamphlet does not truly engage with them. Mr. Fant, Jr. spends some time dabbling with Science and Language Arts and how they can be neat-o, and he does give some attention to God and Stuff like that and how Thinking and Work and Bible-thing-items can be beneficial to one’s thoughtlife, but none of that is really what anyone reading the title wants from what the title advertises. Typically, and especially disappointingly, it ends with a peevish and irritating lament of Mr. Fant, Jr.’s own personal educational background experiences, its ups and downs, its Liberal Artsiness and its Non-Liberal Artsiness, effectively albeit inadvertently confirming for us he really doesn’t have much of a grasp of what the Liberal Arts are (seems like it’s some cloud-like “thinking about what you read” pastime), and neither will you if you read this book. Surely better intro. guides for the actual Liberal Arts exist.

1000 Songs that Rock Your World: From Rock Classics to one-Hit Wonders, the Music That Lights Your Fire, Dave Thompson

Let us try to disassociate the concept of “this book” with “the list of songs” concerning which “this book” purportedly exists. First, “this book.”

This book is pretty much shash. One gets the impression the photographs had been laid out meticulously, the categories of songs and song selections had been worked out over a good long week or so, and then with approximately four minutes remaining before sending the master proofs over to the printer, someone snapped his or her fingers and said, “hey, shouldn’t we say something about all the songs?” And four minutes later we had a slew of “This song really rocks even today,” and “A great song that makes your heart break … but does it?” and “Can feeling bad really feel so good?” and while those are not direct quotations, you’ve basically got a sufficient synopsis of the content of “this book.” I admit it does have a small mattering of historical surveys of famous musicians and songs and such, but none of the extended stories are worthwhile. Most of them end up with a “gotcha” attitude, as if we are the jerks for thinking this book was about to take something seriously for once (and we are, especially if you are late in the book and still thinking the people who made this book know anything or care anything about music).

The overall structure is likewise confusing: it begins with a treatment of presumably Mr. Thompson’s Top 5 of the 1000, but after that we are treated to topical surveys of the songs with no notion of what number the song is in the 1000 or why. We are given no explanation for why “Telephone Line” is 1000, “With or Without You” is not on the list, or even why “I’m Not in Love” is considered a good song (presumably because it took a long time to make in the studio). Perhaps the book is not primarily about the ranking and why, but it begins with the ranking, explains the top 5, gives us a few famous people’s “top 5”s, and gives us no real explanation of why the shift in treating the songs topically or why these songs “rock our world” and not others.

Sometimes this book has “in their own words” for the brief descriptions of the song, but most of those are along the effect of “yeah, we play that song a lot on our tours, and we didn’t know it was going to be a hit when we wrote it!” — nothing that adds to our understanding or appreciation of the song, really. Strangely, sometimes the song will feature purported direct quotations from the singer/band/writer without calling it “in their own words.” Punctuation errors, spelling errors, discontinuity between the song and the photo of an album by that band abound throughout … hasty, poorly edited, slapdash work, filled to the brim with utterly unhelpful words.

Now, “the list of songs.” We know going in it will be a uselessly subjective ranking, and the fact “Bus Stop” is supposedly the best song of all time proves from the very beginning this fellow need not be heeded about anything music-related. Unfortunately, as intimated above, he (or whatever typewriter-trained troupe of marmosets he had writing copy for the other 995 songs) persistently proves it for another 200+ pages. I have nothing against “Bus Stop,” but as the best song of all time? Tish and pish. “With or Without You” is not my favorite U2 song, either, but not even in the top 1000? But Garbage is? and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds? And almost no Genesis, no Collective Soul, a whole lot of radio hits, almost no Beach Boys, and I could go on and on. I know, it’s all subjective. I had too much hope for objectivity with this. It has none. But most of us don’t when it comes to this sort of thing.

Sure, it has perhaps a handful of interesting tidbits from James Taylor and ELO and a few other things you’ll learn, and some of the posters from back in the day are historically interesting if not envy-inducing (you could have seen them and them and them! for $5!?!? sort of thing). But is the entire journey worth it? I don’t think so. But if you are interested in what the list is, send me an e-mail and I’ll send it to you. I’m still working through it, and while it has led me to some interesting songs I’ve never heard (of) before, which is a positive, it’s also proving I have not missed out on too much already either. Thus, it’s a mixed bag. I can recommend “this list” for comparison and thought-provoking discussion, but not “this book” for those purposes.

Armoured Onslaught: 8^th August 1918 (Battle Book No. 25), Douglas Orgill

(Note: These next two books are from a fantastic yet criminally out of print series the Ballantine’s Illustrated History of the Violent Century. Don’t be put off by the title — the 20^th century was rather violent and we need to understand it, Also, the “illustrations” are mostly historic photographs you can’t see anywhere else. If you ever see any book in these series buy it.)

This was a very enjoyable book. One might suspect that is simple praise considering how predisposed I admit I am toward this Ballantine series, but my predilection for this series works against potential poor entries in it. I say “potential” because I haven’t read one disappointing entry yet. I usually enjoy (so to speak) well-told stories about World War I, and this facet of the development of tank warfare was one facet I wasn’t so familiar with, as most of my WW1 reading has been broad whole-war surveys (plus Ms. Tuchman’s The Zimmerman Telegram). I appreciated Mr. Orgill’s treatment of the diverse attitudes to the tank coupled with his generous portrayal of the technical aspects of the tank’s development. It would be easy for lesser writers to be tendentious about the technical aspects or overwhelm the audience with specifications and minutiae, but Mr. Orgill does neither. His tone is inviting and educational and engaging even when explaining the data of the generations of tanks.

I found the reticence for the tank quite interesting, both from the Allied side and the Central Powers side. The general failure of Allied tanks at Cambrai due both to cool-headed Germans with tantamount anti-tank guns and the failure of the construction of early tanks could have easily been the end of tanks for decades if not longer … but a very few visionaries saw the potential of the tank, even as the nature of WW1 itself demanded so much revision of “musket and pike”-era warfare strategy. Perhaps my favorite part was the line about how so few leaders understood just how different WW1 was from everything they were used to in war, especially the traditional cavalry. Gone were the days of outflanking your opponent with clever cavalry charges and scouting — with trench warfare, there were no flanks anymore. It is such a momentous notion in a few words: the world has changed significantly and fully. Technology is not a neutral thing. This was an enjoyable, educational book.

Japanese High Seas Fleet (Weapons Book No. 33), Richard Humble

Surprising myself quite a bit, I may have enjoyed this book even more than the Ballantine book on tank warfare in World War 1. What’s so surprising about that is I had (and still have) virtually no interest in naval or air combat. I certainly don’t mean to offend anyone in the Navy or Air Force — I sincerely thank you for your service. For some inexplicable reason, conflict simulation games about naval or aircraft combat just do not interest me in any way. It’s not because I have had bad Battleship! experiences or anything like that. I have owned Midway and Luftwaffe and a few other games of their ilk, but none of them appealed to me. I say again I can’t explain it. I have no desire to play X-Wing or Armada or Wings of Glory. Strangely enough, I had many enjoyable hours playing TIE Fighter and Wing Commander II back in the day — they did not spoil my appetite for the genre either.

For whatever reason(s), naval and air combat just don’t interest me … but this book was engaging, interesting, informative, well-written (even for a 28-year-old kid) and I plowed through it. I suspect part of my interest came from its Japanese-centric perspective (coming, I understand, from a European Caucasian’s research/analysis/synthesis framework) — you don’t get that too often, at least, I haven’t. Mr. Humble gave what appeared to me (and I less humbly consider myself a fairly attentive and sensitive reader to that sort of thing) a balanced and respectful treatment of the positive and negative aspects of the development of the Japanese navy from the beginning of the 20^th century to the end of WW2, within the limitations of the series, of course.

Especially interesting was the seemingly universal problem of “Decision Makers in Charge” not listening to the wise counsel of actually knowledgeable, competent people, such as Yamamoto — why would high command not listen to him? Mr. Humble answers that question well, of course, but those of who feel like they are in similar situations are still boggled and bamboozled by it.

The only thing preventing me from giving this five stars is it ended too abruptly for me. I wish it had a few more pages (or even paragraphs) of conclusion — what lessons should be learned? what syntheses can we create from this history? Now, please don’t interpret that as “I can’t you do that for myself” … oh, I could. My point is I wish Mr. Humble had done it, because his writing and treatment of the subject was so riveting I wanted to know more from him based on all the reading and research and work he put into it and couldn’t necessarily say because of the limitations of the series design — the work just somewhat abruptly stops. I wanted a fuller, longer conclusion to the entire journey. If it had that, I would be willing to give this five stars, something I don’t give too often (keeper of the stars as I am). This was great. (I still don’t have any desire to play naval or air wargames, but I really liked this book.)

Docilitas: On Teaching and Being Taught, James V. Schall

It pains me deeply to give something by the great Father Schall a mere three stars, but the presentation of this o’erhasty, slipshod, ramshackle of a haphazard collection knocks it down at least one star. If St. Augustine’s Press has an editorial staff, either this book was compiled while they were on a Department Retreat or they need to have a stern talking to (far be it from me to advocate anyone getting fired, but the editorial, proofreading, transcribing work here was atrocious).

The other sort of drawback of this collection, and it truly perplexes me to discuss any “drawback” with a collection of Father Schall, is how similar many of the entries are. I understand that is mainly the point, and I certainly don’t begrudge Father Schall for revisiting his favorite (and indeed worthwhile) themes in divers publications over the years, but to have so many so propinquitous in subject matter presented in a bemusingly “book-like” presentation feels like we are somehow being gulled. The occasional notion these discrete essays are now chapters in a cohesive (but not truly) book is also jarring at times.

But let’s get down to it. This is a collection of essays, however similar, of one of the great thinkers of our day, Father James V. Schall. Any chance we have to read some of this thoughts, to be refreshed by his decades’ worth of reading and reflection, to be reminded to read the things he has read, well, we are in for a good time. There’s not too much on “teaching,” per se, but there is a fair amount on “being taught,” and being taught by James Schall, even if, as he would be the first to admit, he is “merely” repeating the words of Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Johnson, and Schultz, is as worthwhile an experience as this life affords.

Iron First Epic Collection: The Fury of Iron Fist, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Larry Hama, Roy Thomas, et al.

I wonder if Mr. Claremont’s contract back in the day had a “paid by the word” clause to it. But I kid Mr. Claremont: he saved the X-Men and we can all be grateful for his and Mr. Byrne’s tremendous run on that and New Mutants and many others. Even so, Mr. Claremont radically changes the nature of Iron Fist as a character. He begins as a very somber, almost mute character solely focused on his actions and motivations as a serious student of martial arts. Mr. Claremont takes all that away, giving us a very loquacious thinker and talker. Some will like that, some will not, especially as a good deal of it is reminiscent of early ’60s Stan Lee scripting (i.e., “let me say/think the actions you can see me doing with the accompanying pictures!”). But that doesn’t matter, since it all happened forty years ago.

What starts out as a tale of vengeance quickly turns into a tale of self-discovery: Danny Rand now has to live a “real” life away from the home he has known for most of his mature life, and along the way he gathers some allies and foes, and while all of that is the making of a pretty interesting series, when Mr. Claremont takes the reins, the initial creativity of villains and martial arts conflicts effectively goes out the window. He does an interesting job continuing some of the ideas of the early pre-Claremont stories, but the short-lived nature of the series once Iron Fist gets his own series also sees a few rather important storylines/conflicts disappear into thin air. Fortunately, some other big stories are wrapped-up in Marvel Team-Up issues included in this collection, but one wonders what could have been had Iron Fist’s own series continued.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the series is Iron Fist’s complex and fresh relationships with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight. It’s best to read it for oneself in the series, but the complexities and directions Danny’s relationships take with these two Crime Investigation partners is the most impressive aspect of the different direction in which the Claremont-era goes.

It’s a mostly-complete set, as far as the early Iron Fist era goes (it could have had a few other Marvel anthology issues), but the total package, changes and flaws and limitations and all, is a very impressive, worthwhile package and a great deal. You get the first appearance of Sabretooth, early John Byrne drawings of the X-Men, some clever scripting and plot twists (some abandoned ideas and characters as well), and a fairly cohesive-ish story. This was an enjoyable collection on the whole.

Whew, that was a full summer, wasn’t it? Though, truth be told, some of those were read before the summer began and after it ended. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed our exciting and rather diverse 25^thissue. As always, it was great to hear from some old friends, and the work of the current students is none too shabby, either. Here’s to twenty-five more issues! Until next time, friends! So long!

Behind the Scenes of Agatha Christie

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Amanda Mericle

There were several great authors in the twentieth century, but Agatha Christie was one of the best and is still considered to be the bestselling novelist of all time. She is best known for her novels in the mystery genre, of which she wrote sixty-six and sold billions of copies around the world. She is even recognized as the Queen of Crime and is credited with creating the modern murder mystery. Agatha Christie has earned these honors through her wonderful writings, which were influenced by several different experiences. Some of these were her time spent at the hospital during the war, her exposure to archaeology through her husband, and her love for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

Agatha Christie, then Agatha Miller, was born in 1890 to Frederick and Clara Miller. They were a middle-class family who lived in Torquay, Devon. The only uncommon aspect of Agatha’s upbringing was she did not attend boarding school, like her two older siblings, but was homeschooled by her father. Also, her love for books and writing was very evident at an early age. Christie taught herself to read at age five, began to write poems as a child, and even gained some knowledge of the French language through her governess, Marie.

However, at age eleven, Agatha’s family dynamic took a turn when her father died of a heart attack, probably induced by stressing over financial issues. Agatha and her mother grew much closer after this tragedy, and they left for her debutante season in Cairo where she met many young people at parties, which gave way to several marriage proposals. However, she did not accept any of the proposals but did begin seeing a man named Archie Christie in 1912. Two years later, after they had both experienced war, she on the Home Front in a Red Cross Hospital and he in France, they were married. However, because they were apart so much (Archie had to return to France two days after they were married), Agatha Christie remarked she felt their married life did not truly begin until 1918, when Archie was given a position at the War Office in London. They had one daughter, Rosalind, together but sadly their marriage was not meant to work out.

Archie’s affections grew stronger for a family friend named Nancy Neele, and he asked Agatha for a divorce. Christie was devastated and so overwhelmed that one night she got into her car and drove off. The police found her car deserted and organized a search party for her. Ten days later she was found at the Harrogate Spa Hotel under the name Theresa Neale. Many believed she suffered from amnesia, some believed it was a ploy she created to win Archie back, and others believed she used the circumstances to increase her popularity. While this did not help Agatha win Archie back, it did increase her popularity. Several of her earlier books were reprinted and sold out and her disappearance, with its similarity to detective fiction, made her a celebrity.

Agatha Christie started her detective writing career during World War I and debuted her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which starred her most recognized detective, Hercule Poirot. One of the reasons why Christie started writing detective novels was because of a bet made with her sister. She told Agatha she did not believe she could write a good detective story. The other reason was to relieve her from the dreary dispensing work she was now doing at the Hospital. In 1919, Agatha Christie caught the attention of a publisher from The Bodley Head, John Lane, who published The Mysterious Affair at Styles and contracted her to write five more books.

Following the war, Christie experimented with different types of mystery stories and developed characters such as Tommy and Tuppence and Miss Marple. By 1924, Christie had become irritated by her publisher’s unfair terms and turned to a new publishing company, William Collins and Sons (now HarperCollins). As Agatha Christie reached her mid-fifties, she became less prolific and enjoyed a slower-paced life than she was used to. After a very successful life and career, Agatha Christie died of natural causes on January 12, 1976.

Agatha Christie was influenced by many experiences and people in her life but one experience that heavily influenced her writing was her time spent working at the Red Cross Hospital. She worked at the local hospital as a nurse for two years and then was transferred to the hospital dispensary, where she worked for another two years. In order to be able to hand out drugs to patients, she needed to pass the Apothecary Hall exam. She spent large amounts of time being trained by chemists and pharmacists so she would not make a mistake and accidentally mix a poison into an ointment. As a result, Christie became well-versed in her knowledge of drugs, ointments, and poisons. Because she was immersed in the world of medicine and poisons, it is very reasonable that many of her victims met their deaths by means of poisoning. Agatha Christie wrote about a total of eighty-three poisonings in her novels.

During her time working as a nurse she also came in contact with several Belgian refugees because the district in which she lived had a flood of refugees fleeing Belgium after the German invasion. These refugees inspired her first detective, Hercule Poirot, who starred in many of her novels.

Another experience that influenced Agatha Christie was her time spent at archaeological dig sites. After her divorce from Archie, she went on the Orient Express and visited the ruins at Ur where she met her second husband, Max Mallowan, a prominent archaeologist. They married in 1930 and Christie accompanied Max on several of his expeditions. They began a rotation of summers at Ashfield, Christmas at Abney Hall, late autumn and spring on digs, and the rest of the year in London and their country home in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. On Max’s expeditions they visited Cairo, Damascus, and other places. However, Agatha did not just accompany Max on his expeditions. She helped out in many ways, such as cleaning artifacts with her face cream, which turned dirty, fragile antiques into well-preserved artifacts. In turn, her husband’s archaeological digs helped Christie with writing her novels. For example, Christie’s novel, Murder on the Orient Express, was inspired by a train ride she took on the way back from one of the dig sites when the train was stuck for twenty-four hours due to bad weather. Many other novels such as Murder in Mesopotamia, They Came to Baghdad, and Death on the Nile were inspired by the influences of the digs in places like Egypt and Mesopotamia. Some of the characters in her novels even resembled their friends from the dig site at Ur.

One person that influenced Agatha Christie’s detective novels greatly was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous detective Sherlock Holmes. She even admitted to following the Sherlock tradition, especially when it came to implementing an unconventional detective (Poirot). When she was trying to decide what the characteristics of her detective were going to be, she kept going back to Britain’s greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie knew she would never be able to perfectly portray him, so obviously she did try to create differences between Holmes and Poirot. However, early on in her career after a few novels she realized she had been influenced by Doyle’s novels more then she had meant. She remarked she was “writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition — eccentric detective [Poirot], stooge assistant [Captain Hastings], with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp” (Berlin).

Another great author that influenced Christie was Gaston le Roux. It was his novel, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, that initiated Agatha’s conversation with her sister, Madge, about writing a detective book. They had been discussing the book and Agatha described it as a well-thought out and baffling mystery. She then remarked to her sister she would like to write a detective novel. Even though her sister told her she should not write a detective story because they were so challenging, Christie was determined to do so.

It is a good thing that Agatha Christie was so determined to write novels in the detective genre, because many people would have been deprived of reading her wonderful mystery novels. She practically invented the typical mystery book scenario. A crime is committed, a detective is summoned to determine who did it, he investigates and interrogates, he gathers everyone around to display his conclusion, and finally the criminal does not protest but confesses and is taken away by the police. With her specific writing style, Christie won over millions of people and became one of the most prolific writers of all time, especially in regards to her detective fiction. It is no surprise then that she is known as “The Queen of Crime.”

Bibliography

“About Agatha Christie.” The World’s Best-Selling Novelist — Agatha Christie, The Home of Agatha Christie, Web. 14 Oct. 2017.

Acocella, Joan. “Queen of Crime.” The New Yorker. 25 Aug. 2017. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.

“Agatha Christie — The Influences on Her Writing.” http://www.christiemystery.co.uk. The Christie Mystery. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.

Berlin, Erika. “15 Influences on Agatha Christie’s Work.” Mental Floss. 15 Sept. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.

Ferro, Shaunacy. “How Archaeology Influenced Agatha Christie.” Mental Floss. 15 Dec. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2017.

Pinter’s Picture in The Dumb Waiter

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Melissa Yeh

Playwright Harold Pinter’s 20^th-century works still hold an important influence on modern pieces today. Through his life, he developed his passion for literature and a unique style in his plays. His use of pauses coined the terms Pinteresque and Pinter Pause, which communicate tension and oftentimes a menacing play behind the awkward silence. The Dumb Waiter indicates the classic traits Pinter paints in each of his works and achieves a blend of comedy and seriousness in an absurd situation.

Through his talent in the various areas of poetry, acting, and directing, Harold Pinter best expressed himself through his plays. He gained recognition for the style of dramas in the postwar revival of British theatre. Born on October 10, 1930, Pinter experienced the affected society by war, while also developing his creativity. In his biography published in the 1960s, the dramatist reveals the hundreds of poems and short prose pieces, written in monologue or dialogue form, and all composed before the age of twenty. This led to his involvement in theater, establishing his passion as a playwright and eventually, as a director. After, Pinter dedicated time and career to acting, focusing on roles in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice, and then on to many other roles across a range of different genres. Through this, he met Vivien Merchant, an actress at the time, and married her in 1956. In the same year, Pinter wrote his first play, The Room, the first of his style he introduced to the world of theater. He went on to write more, including The Birthday Party and The Caretaker.

Reaching the 1970s, Pinter moved on to experiment with screenplays and refine his own work in plays. The height of his fame peaked in 1975, which also gave him attention, more likely unwanted, concerning an affair. Lady Antonia Fraser was the subject of his drama, to which Pinter chose to be with while still married to Vivien Merchant. He left his wife in 1978, leaving a bitter break and ending in Merchant’s death in 1980. Merchant and Pinter’s son was also affected and estranged himself from Pinter. Entering the 1980s, Harold Pinter then became more vocal in his political beliefs. He joined groups and associated himself to a cause that advocated for the rejection and opposition of war. While his earlier plays had underlying and subtle references to oppression and other issues, they were not the direct theme in the play. Those written in the 1980s were political by obvious nature. However, these plays were not quite well received but also not an extreme matter of negative review. They simply lacked the praise and interest attained before in past works.

In the meantime, Pinter’s relationship with Lady Antonia Fraser grew in strength and how well they fit each other. They completed each other in thought and speech; for example, during one dinner party, Harold was seen to be protesting and ranting, his wife regarded his ideas with a Chinese proverb, “If you sit by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies come floating by,” to which Pinter responded, “Not good enough, I want to be the one who pushed them in.” Pinter’s character was always reflected in his plays, and his thoughts are still seen in glimpses through his distinct tone as a playwright. Through time, his audience began to identify the shape his pieces took. Harold Pinter went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005; he passed away in 2008 and was remembered through the theater named after him in 2011: The Harold Pinter Theater.

During his career as a playwright, Harold Pinter achieved his technique and brand throughout the years. From his style, the terms “Pinteresque” and “Pinter Pause” originate to describe elements within plays today. The two are closely related in its reference to Pinter’s key use of silence; Pinteresque refers to the awkward silence pointing to a hidden menace lurking behind, while a Pinter Pause, which referred to a stop in the dialogue, creating tension and confusion. The use of silence was a trademark element for Pinter, as it served to withhold motives and information. This unspoken dialogue had an ominous feel and threat from one character to another or to both characters altogether.

Another notable feature of Pinter’s plays was the ending and meaning often left for interpretation to the audience. Pinter gained recognition for the unknown allegorical or symbolic revelations, initially receiving negative critique. In one interview, he states, “A character on stage who can present no convincing argument or information as to his past experience, his present behavior or his aspirations, nor give a comprehensive analysis of his motives, is as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, alarmingly, can do all these things.” The constant uncertainty present in his plays took time for playgoers to understand and appreciate, something that came along much later into his career. A factor evident in many of his pieces, Pinter would use betrayal as a frequent theme within his plots. Many speculated it related to his affair with Lady Antonia Fraser and betrayal of his wife, Vivien Merchant; however, the emotion of regret behind it was always a mystery, as his plays did not expand as much on his personal reflection. Yet in an interesting turn, Pinter had the ability to employ humor within his works. The Dumb Waiter was well received for the comical banter while being set within a seemingly grim and serious background. On the whole, Harold Pinter continued to work on his use of ambiguity behind meaning. Even his main actors began to develop it in their portrayal of his plays: Ralph Richardson who acted in the play No Man’s Land remarked on the characters and the response of the viewers, saying, “We’re a mystery to ourselves and other people.” Thus, Pinter was successful in demonstrating his use of silence and obscure meanings.

Published in 1957, The Dumb Waiter is one of Harold Pinter’s earlier plays, about two hit men in a hotel basement waiting for orders on their next task. Ben sits on the bed reading over a newspaper, while Gus paces around the room. It is all very minimal, from the amount of characters to the entire set only in one room for the whole time. The play reflects many of the characteristics his works feature, even being one of the first few plays he had written. Pinter himself spoke on the influence of Samuel Beckett, another dramatist at the time who had a similar style in his works to Pinter. The Dumb Waiter especially found parallels to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Both authors use the silence within a pause to convey a mysterious atmosphere filled with menace. The use of pauses is most evident in the conversation between the two hit men; the plot builds to the reveal of Ben raising his gun at Gus in receiving the order to kill him. In each chain of dialogue, the audience can recognize that Ben sees himself above Gus who constantly questions about the task they will receive and who they will have to kill. When Ben refuses to answer these questions directly, he turns to throw off the question by redirecting Gus’s attention to another topic. For instance, the conversation began in a casual manner about the room they waited in, but when Gus even suggested switching the conversation, Ben responded by alluding to a story he was reading in the paper. This reoccurs the very next page, after their discourse on the article; Gus asks what time their contact, Wilson, will get in touch to which Ben does not even answer at all until Gus has to repeat it again.

The tension continues to grow each time this occurs. As for why these characters respond this way, the two have differing personalities and ideals surrounding their job they must carry out. Ben not only sees himself as the one in charge but also is very evident and violent about it. His speech reflects his thrown around anger, even at minor and unimportant matters. At one point for not being able to light the gas to make tea, Ben explodes at Gus, yelling, “THE KETTLE YOU FOOL,” while putting his hands around his neck at arms length and shaking him back and forth. On the other hand Gus is consistent in being inquisitive whether it is about the their next job or the reason why they do it. His character also demonstrates more care for whom they have to kill and whether the person actually deserves to die or not. Each time, Ben alludes to answering these questions in a condescending reply on something unrelated, mostly being the newspaper.

Yet while Pinter writes with such intimidating characters, he manages to bring comedy into the moments before the two men have to execute their next task. Throughout the entire play, the banter between the two is as if a dysfunctional married couple was arguing every five minutes about the most mundane problems. They transition from making the other prepare tea to why the toilet is no longer working. When they discover messages being sent down from the dumbwaiter, they scramble to send anything back up regardless of the fact they have no idea why or of it would benefit anything concerning their job, much like their conversation being one-sided and almost useless as Ben will eventually betray Gus. They also find a tube that limits the audience to find out what the authority figure is saying through Ben, who repeats the message to Gus, who repeats the message repeated by Ben. The conversation often falls into an absurd foolishness to the advantage of comedy Pinter was trying to convey.

The Dumb Waiter is an excellent play as it is also an excellent play on words. The two hit men, Ben and Gus, wait for their next order and stupidly clamber around with a dumbwaiter in a basement room. Harold Pinter’s ability to effectively use silence in his plays is seen with Ben’s pause each time Gus asks a question he does not want to answer. Overall, Pinter’s career in theater accomplished great feats, awarding him the Nobel Prize for literature, and leaving a legacy for future playwrights.

Works Cited

“Drama Analysis: The Dumb Waiter – Ink9GEnglishI.” Ink9English.

“Harold Pinter: the Most Original, Stylish and Enigmatic Writer in Post-War British Theatre.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 25 Dec. 2008.

Kuska, Martina, et al. “By Harold Pinter and by Edward Albee a Soulpepper Theatre (Toronto) Production Study Guide.” THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE ENGLISH THEATRE PROGRAMMES FOR STUDENT AUDIENCES.

Pinter, Harold. The Caretaker and the Dumb Waiter: Two Plays by Harold Pinter. Grove Press, 1960.

What Makes Literature “Classic”?

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Nathan Flowers

When broaching the topic of classical literature (specifically Classical American Literature), one must wonder “what makes literature classic”? This is a difficult question to ask if one does not first know the definition of literature. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary the most current definition of literature, (that is applicable to the subject at hand) is “writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest” (“Literature”). Now that there is a firm standpoint on the concept of literature the next question one must ask is what makes this literature classic. Those questions my sound a little like this: “Is literature classic because it was popular?”, “Were all classical books once popular?”, “Does popular literature have anything to do with classical literature at all?”, “What is popular literature in the first place?” All of these questions have their places but the first that will be discussed here is “what is popular literature?”

To answer this question is not as simple as looking up the answer; first, one must look at a vast expanse of American literature and see which were popular and then determine what ties the all together as popular. Now obviously no one has enough time to search through all of the so-called “popular” American literature but there are other ways of finding such information. For example, the book A History of American Literature is a great overview of popular American literature in a small 800 or so pages. Within this book we can answer at least one of the many questions about popular and classic literature. Not all popular literature is or becomes classical. We can see very early on many popular stories from Native American tribes are not classical literature (Gray 7-15). In sixteen eight-two there was a book published called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Together With the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, which was immensely popular in the 1500s and 1600s. Most people have probably never heard about it, let alone call it a classic (Gray 50). With Shuddering Fall (1964) and A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967) were two very popular books in the last century but also have not been heard of by too many (Gray 624). So with that we can say without a doubt popular literature in American history does not always become considered classic. However, this does not entirely mean classical literature does not find a basis in popularity. This also does not tell us what it means for literature to be popular. On the definition of popular literature it is acceptable to say at least this: popular literature, at least in America, has had local or widespread influence and large appreciation from those within that influence.

With that said the question arises, what does popular literature have to do with literature becoming a “classic”? Now, we have many examples of classical literature so it would make sense to look at those and see if they became classics because of their popularity or for some other reason. For example, on the 16^th of March, 1850 a book called The Scarlet Letter was released (Laston). It was an instant bestseller (Laston). Some would argue it sold so well not only due to the excellent storytelling of the book but also because it was one of the first (if not the first) American novels that dealt with issues like sexual immorality and other psychological issues that had not been acceptable or appropriate to be addressed so bluntly and therefore most likely engrossed readers.

The Grapes of Wrath was published on April 14, 1939 by a John Steinbeck (Lanzendorfer). The novel was critically acclaimed and a bestseller — some 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940. This was most likely due to the relatability the readers would have had to the characters as the story was based around the Dust Bowl, which had occurred within the decade of the publishing of the book. This shows the author was thinking not only about the way to write the book but also the way to attract lots of attention using a common experience most had gone through within the recent past. This is undoubtedly why it was a bestseller and having won a Nobel Peace Prize for the book Steinbeck had assured his book would be remembered as one of the classics of American literature.

Lastly take a look at The Call of The Wild by Jack London. Written as a frontier story about the gold rush, The Call of the Wild was meant for the pulp market. Originally planned to be about 2,000 to 8,000 words long, it ended up being 32,000 words in length. It was first published in four installments in The Saturday Evening Post in 1903. In the same year, Jack London sold all rights to the story to Macmillan, which published it in book format. The first printing sold out in 24 hours and the book has never been out of print since that time (Lanzendorfer). This book was most likely immensely popular at that time because it was around the time people had finally settled down from the Klondike Gold rush of the 1890s. They would have returned to their family’s home and read a newspaper portraying the life many people had just been living. This most likely brought back memories from their time in the north, not to mention their attachment to their dogs, giving them a feeling of nostalgia and excitement. Moreover this novel/short story fit exactly with the mood of those returning to their homes and those who wanted to know what it was like to go to the gold rush. This novel shows the author’s understanding of the people’s mindset at the time and wonderful craftsmanship of the book itself.

Gathering what has been said, we can now make some statements. First is most if not all classics were at one time or another popular. Second, it can also be said the term “classic” also comes with a certain level of skill from the author. This skill is that which allows the author to read the mindset of the majority of people at the time and use his/her skill in writing to create a masterpiece that has now been labeled as classic. Some authors of classics were undoubtedly not famous the moment they came out, and there are surely examples of famous works that did not receive appreciation until after the author’s death, but in those situations the book achieves classic status by being relatable to something the author could not predict or being enormously famous for some reason or other at a later date.

For example, Edgar Allan Poe: “The poster-boy of struggling writers. Poe is almost as famous for living and dying in poverty as he is for his stories, which have become classics in almost every way possible. Poe was able to publish frequently, but no one seemed to appreciate his work very much until well after he was found lying in a street in Baltimore” (Hope).

It is also good to mention Emily Dickenson who was similar to Poe:

Dickinson took obscurity to truly professional levels, mostly due to the fact that she never left her room. She published a handful of poems in her life, but after her death her family discovered how prolific she was. There were piles of poems, literally, which they published. Then people started to realize the recluse really had something to say. To the walls (Hope).

As can be seen, two very famous authors known for writing classics were not truly famous until after their deaths. This just goes to show that classic literature comes from people who can not only write well but have good taste for what is popular at the time or will be popular or got lucky, which is by far exceedingly uncommon but nonetheless just as qualifying.

Several things have been said and many things have been proven. The first is the definition of literature as a basis for further understanding; the second is popular literature does not always become classic and in fact most popular literature does not. Third, popular literature, at least in America, has been literature that had local or widespread influence and large appreciation from those within that influence. Some conclusions have been reached through some tedious if not well done logic.

Based on the fact most if not all American literature that became a classic was at one time famous we can say there is a direct correlation to a work becoming a classic and it being very popular, such that the popularity was one part of becoming classical. Also it has been said the classical works were very well done not only writing wise but also in a sense the authors could understand the mood and mindset of the general population and used it as a starting point for their literature. This does not mean they were dirty greed bags out for money and fame — some authors were quite poor. In fact, some just felt the need to write as a way to express themselves or due to some unknown urge to write.

It does mean, however, that the author was either very smart or very attentive or most likely both and undoubtedly very skilled in writing by either practice or natural skill. This leads to the conclusion classical literature is a piece of writing that became popular, was very well written by an author who could understand the mindset of the people of the time in order to attract such attention, and is now considered some of the best writing of American literature. With this information it is safe to say the topic of Classical American Literature can now be broached due to a thorough understanding of what makes the said literature classic.

Works Cited

“15 best North American novels of all time.” The Telegraph. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10605407/15-best-North-American-novels-of-all-time.html

Gray, Richard. A History of American Literature. Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Hope, Daniel. “11 authors who became famous after they died.” Lit Reactor. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017. https://litreactor.com/columns/11-authors-who-became-famous-after-they-died.

Lanzendorfer, Joy. “10 Facts about The Call of The Wild.” Mental Floss. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017. http://mentalfloss.com/article/66813/10-facts-about-call-wild.

—. “11 Facts about The Grapes of Wrath.” Mental Floss. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017. http://mentalfloss.com/article/68038/11-facts-about-grapes-wrath.

Laston, Jennifer “Why The Scarlet Letter Was a Mixed Blessing for Its Author.” TIME. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017. http://time.com/3742240/scarlet-letter-hawthorne-history/.

“Literature.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature.

Summer in Paradise by the Reading Light

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Christopher Rush

As you may recall, one of the major goals for the summer of 2017 was to read extensively in preparation for the current (as of this writing) elective Critical Listening, awkwardly subtitled “The Beach Boys, the Beatles, and Their Times.” While that goal was partially achieved (not every work acquired during the summer was read in time for the course and some were intentionally postponed due to over-preparation), room for improvement persists. Thousands of books have been written about the Beatles alone, and the complete library on the Beach Boys is not an unimpressive amount either, so I knew going in there would be neither time nor money enough for a complete preparation up to my standards. Not even Mark Lewisohn has read every book about the Beatles, and that’s saying something. Even so, it was an enjoyable summer of reading and listening and watching, and while you may be surprised at some of the missing volumes (I still haven’t gotten a copy of David Leaf’s essential Beach Boys and the California Myth, for example, since it is rather pricey on the secondhand market), feel free to send my way things you think I should have concerning these subjects. What is covered here is the rather eclectic array of works I did have access and time to read before the overwhelming nature of the project reached its breaking point, after which is a list of the works I have waiting on the back burner for future exploration.

Dark Horse: The Life And Art Of George Harrison, by Geoffrey Giuliano

Until I get the opportunity to read I, Me, Mine, this will serve as the major study on George Harrison’s life (in print) (perhaps Mr. Scorsese’s Living in the Material World will surpass either or both). Mr. Giuliano is a knowledgeable source, which at times provides helpful insights tempered by awkward self-effacing “I don’t want to offend anyone, but…” sorts of comments. His tone at other times is bemusingly insensitive, such as during the potentially life-ruining addictions to drugs seasons of George’s life. (Similarly, Mr. Giuliano presents himself as a devout Hindu, yet the tone during much of that portion covering George’s life at times lent me to believe Mr. G thought George was just playacting.) Still and all, this does a fine job of surveying the life and art of George Harrison, the highs, the lows, and the introspective in-between. One wonders why a third edition covering the final five years of George’s life hasn’t come out, though the hinted-at falling out between George and Mr. G could have had something to do with that.

Perhaps the highlight is the dearth of Beatles-era coverage; that time has been covered by others such as Mr. Lewisohn far better than a reporter of Mr. G’s divers interests no matter how passionate could provide — but Mr. G knows that’s not why we are reading his book anyway. We want to know about the earlier times (likely) and the post-Beatles times (more likely). And while I enjoyed the reading of it all, even if a good deal of it made me sad (such as the bizarre George/Pattie/Eric Clapton situation and the perennial drug addiction issues), some of the periods I was most interested in were glossed over or not included (the Traveling Wilburys and the end of George’s life — but that last isn’t something I can fault the book or its author for). Thus, it surveys it all, and gives a significant amount of time to George’s spiritual journey, but Mr. G tends to lean more heavily to the era in which his personal experiences overlap George’s, which isn’t surprising for a journalist to do, though it does make for some of the more awkward portions of the book.

Should you read this book? If you are a George Harrison fan, certainly. If you are a Beatles fan in general, yes. If you want to know more about the ’60s, Beatlemania, and the like, maybe. If not, I’m not too sure. It’s not what one would call a “general interest” sort of biography. It answers a few questions, but it also raises more indirectly (such as, if each of the Fab Four was eager to move on to new things, why was the breakup so acrimonious?), which isn’t quite as helpful as one would want in a “definitive” or at least “updated” biography. Yet I am glad I read it, giving me a provocative peek into the life and art of the Quiet Beatle.

The Gospel According to the Beatles, by Steve Turner

Fortunately, this book is not what I thought its title implied: this is not a “hey, Christians, let’s look for Bibley-messages in Beatles tunes and sanitize them so we can enjoy them guilt-free!” book. That would be horribly distasteful, both for Christianity and the Beatles. Instead, Mr. Turner gives us a more honest survey of the spiritual journeys of the Beatles (though, let’s be honest, it’s approximately 84% about John, 15% about George, .6% about Paul, and .4% about Ringo) from recklessly secular existentialists to drug-catalyzed spiritualists and beyond. Mr. Turner, who we learn actually got to interview John and Yoko once, begins with a general but intriguing overview in the first chapter about the nature of the Beatles as evangelists of their own rapidly-evolving religion, especially once they started to acknowledge their role/opportunity as influential people, and ends with a refreshingly personal essay on his own lifetime with the Beatles that somehow evades tendentious piffle while simultaneously explaining his impressively respectful and erudite commentary on Christianity throughout the rest of the book: he believes it. And in that rest of the book we get a mostly fascinating perspective on the changing attitudes and beliefs of the Fab Four (though, again, mostly John).

I’m still a bit confused by Mr. Turner’s decision to begin the book with the “Jesus incident,” though I sort of can convince myself why he would, since it’s likely the most famous spiritual-related moment in the Beatles’ career — though, since the rest of the book is chronological, it’s odd to begin with the “turning point” of their lyrical and corporate career then jump back to their (mostly John’s) childhood religious experiences in the following chapter. Even so, Mr. Turner gives us a very researched account of the episode with trenchant commentary, including a rather chilling observation about if Al Benn of UPI hadn’t just so happened to turn his radio to local station WAQY’s broadcast while he was passing through at just the right moment to hear DJ Tommy Charles’s “ban the Beatles” ratings stunt, John Lennon may be alive today. What started as a fairly meaningless local stunt in Alabama (based on a months’-old magazine interview, no less) spiraled into an international brouhaha involving everyone from the KKK to David Noebel.

The rest of the book, as I said, is a chronological journey through the major spiritual moments of the Beatles’ collective and solo careers. John is perhaps the most interesting case after all, having had the most formal religious instruction/experiences as a young boy combined with the roughest childhood (father left, mother killed in a car accident when John was young). John goes through the most oscillating religious life of the group: early choir boy training to cynical rejection of spirituality mainly due to loss to famous musician with everything money can buy to searching for something immaterial beyond for meaning/purpose/et cetera to drugs as a gateway to cosmic oneness to Transcendental Meditation to cynical atheism to magic/spiritism/Buddhist-like panoply of Yoko to dalliance with Christianity to Give Peace a Chance. George doesn’t have many religious youth experiences, gets involved with drugs around the same time as John, gets involved with the Maharishi with the others, then gets involved with Krishna and more or less spends his life there off and on. Paul is the steady, materialistic, willing-to-dabble, Love is the Answer guy we all basically suspect he is. And Ringo is the mostly laid-back one who dabbles with his buddies but finally arrives at the efficacy of spirituality further down life’s long and winding road.

Throughout it all, Mr. Turner gives us what appears to be a well-balanced presentation of the ideas, events, catalysts, and reactions the Fab Four experienced through the good times and bad. Mr. Turner does not just give us the usual line “the Beatles got really good when they started taking drugs,” but instead he reminds us even the boys themselves understood not too long after their drug experiences drugs were not the goal of life, despite what Timothy Leary and Michael Hollingshead and others were preaching. Drugs may have “expanded their consciousness,” but drugs also damaged John, George, Paul, and Ringo in long-lasting ways. The Beatles’ best songs and attitudes during and after their “drug period” were not because of drug usage, and while Hinduism may have prompted their social involvement more than Christianity, the quest for truth remained strong in them all (more or less) — but not because of drugs.

This book does not attempt to tell the whole story of the Beatles. This book focuses on John’s, George’s, Paul’s, and Ringo’s spiritual lives before, during, and after their time as Beatles. At times the book feels like Mr. Turner’s attachment to the subject is about to interfere, but it never does so for more than a moment, even in the very personal conclusion chapter. I began the book with trepidation especially about its title, but this book was a challenging and encouraging treatment of one of the most important yet grossly neglected aspect of one of the 20^th century’s most influential groups. I will likely be reading this again sometime soon.

Wouldn’t it Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, by Charles L. Granata, Tony Asher (Foreword)

Though a bit hagiographic at times (no doubt precisely how I sound when speaking of Babylon 5), this was a very engaging story of the making of perhaps the best rock album of all time. Mr. Granata gives us a modicum of historical background prior to the album, with a smattering of post-Pet Sounds knowledge, mainly relating to Smile and Brian’s miraculous return to the land of “emotional stability” as Brian calls it — none of which is wholly new but all of it is presented well and concisely. For my purposes in reading this book, Mr. Granata’s sparse yet efficient history was an ideal compilation of pertinent episodes in the life of the Beach Boys beyond the main album under discussion, so I very much enjoyed that unsought aspect as well.

Some may say this enthusiastic (shall we say) presentation suffers from too much verve, though I certainly wouldn’t want to read a history of Pet Sounds from some one who didn’t like it very much. Some may say it suffers from too many technical details, though considering Mr. Granata’s background, such technical aspects (such as the nature of the recording equipment, the tonal/harmonic construction of the vocal arrangements, the psychological reasons why we respond to such celestial harmonies, the history of recording/printing/tracking/compression/digitization etc.) of the album is part of Mr. Granata’s main purpose in writing this book. The subtitle (the title itself is never addressed why Mr. Granata chose that track as the initial focus) clearly indicates this is about the making of the album, not just a “here’s why I love it so much” biography (though there is plenty of that, most of which is strings of unexplored/unsupported superlatives — I don’t disagree, I just would have preferred a tad more substance in this area).

Some may be confused, as I was, why Mr. Granata intentionally did not speak to Brian Wilson directly. He says it was a purposed choice, but that’s all — no explanation why he made that choice. Some may be confused, as I was again, why Mr. Granata intentionally gave us a revised edition in time for the 50^th anniversary of the album … but then said nothing about the 50^th anniversary tour beyond one brief reference by (I think) Tony Asher in the foreword! Why this book couldn’t have waited two more months for some words on the phenomenal 50^th anniversary tour with Al Jardine, Blondie Chaplin, and more is very perplexing.

Be that as it may, it’s hard to disagree with Bruce Johnston, Carol Kaye, Tony Asher, and others when they say this may be the definitive (if concise) story of the great(est) album Pet Sounds. I’m not saying this book (or the tour) made me think PS is the most enjoyable Beach Boys album to pop in on a whim (even Brian says Friends is his favorite), but it will give you a great appreciation for it and its worthy claim to greatest of all time.

Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I’ll give this to the Maharishi: he didn’t want life to be boring. No “stare at the wall and empty your mind” sort of path toward spiritual enlightenment for him (or for us). True, I don’t agree with most of what he says in these three treatises, but considering his theological/philosophical presuppositions, he is rather consistent throughout, if ambiguous about quite a few important details. It was enjoyable to spot some of the lines I must believe influenced some of the lyrics of the Beatles and Beach Boys (such as the “all this is that” line concerning the unity of all things in a spiritual way and the obvious “jai guru dev” benediction), and likewise it was satisfying in an intellectual capacity to read thoughts so influential in the world for some time, even though, as I said, I disagree almost wholly with them. Does anyone still believe Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, et al. believe and teach the same things? Possibly only the people with symbolically-constructed “coexist” or “tolerance” bumper stickers (people who don’t subscribe to any of the belief systems represented by those symbols, naturally). But that aside, the notion all wars, hostilities, aggression, crimes, and such like those are all the result of internal conflicts and wrong thinking is … facile? at best. I’m not denying some truth resides in the notion: clearly all hate and antagonism and acts of destruction are built at least in part upon the platform “I am better/more right/more important than you.” Yet the solution of all that being looking within to one’s personal divinity doesn’t seem to provide a proper answer: how can one’s internals be both the cause and the solution to one’s problems? I am rather ignorant about these things, of course, so I am not a trustworthy authority on Transcendental Meditation or the Maharishi or any of it, but those are a few of my initial reflections. Feel free to leave them where they are.

The Beatles, the Bible, and Bodega Bay: My Long and Winding Road, Ken Mansfield

I’ve had this book probably since it first came out (2000), but as is often the way, I didn’t get around to reading it until the right time. It was pretty good, and I would like to give it another star, but Mr. Mansfield’s tendency toward puns especially about song titles got rather irritating. It’s his first book, so I trust he stopped doing that in his later books. This is the only memoir (perhaps the only book of any kind) officially accepted by the Beatles (and Yoko). Perhaps that is because it is so positive about everything and everyone (except Allan Klein), but since I am not an insider on any level like Mr. Mansfield was, I can’t say.

Structurally, Mr. Mansfield oscillates rapidly between Fab Four days and (mostly) mid-’90s beachside scenes, which takes a bit of getting used to, but it happens so frequently one gets used to it soon enough. Mr. Mansfield does not give us a straight chronological approach to his reflections, interspersed as they are with his contemporary spiritual communion moments, which is also a bit perplexing at first. Effectively, Mr. Mansfield is reflecting on a few major experiences he had with Capitol Records and the good fortune he had to be in the right place at the right time to become a trusted member of the Beatles’ inner circle (perhaps second or third tier/orbit) for about five years. Mr. Mansfield does discuss a few other post-breakup experiences with the lads and others of that time, mostly positive memories, though a few sad memories trickle in toward the end. Mr. Mansfield does allude to some personal bad experiences in his own life post-Beatles, but he doesn’t give us many details or descriptions, so we are left assuming the ’80s were a rough part of his life until he met the woman who soon became his (second?) wife. Similarly, many of his contemporary (mid-’90s) episodes along Bodega Bay come across as psalm-like wrestling with negative life experiences with little context (though he does identify two specifically: the death of a friend/young father and his (Mr. Mansfield’s) diagnosis of incurable cancer, but since that was 1995 and he is still with us in 2017, I guess he was cured after all). I don’t want to sound like I’m disappointed he didn’t share the dark moments of his life in more detail — the ambiguity works well enough.

Overall, I learned a few things from Mr. Mansfield’s perspective, especially his unique experience of what it was like for other Capitol artists (such as the Beach Boys) who suffered whenever a new Beatles album came out, or the animosity and serious backlash (including financial repercussions) when some radio stations felt snubbed by not getting “first crack” at a new Beatles single or album. I would have preferred more such experiences beyond the somewhat repetitive “the boys were great, everything was magical, I was so lucky” sort of talk that happens throughout the book. Still, quite a few of his favorite moments (an impromptu jam session with George/Clapton/Donovan here, a pub lunch with Paul there) make for enjoyable reading about moments you could never know about otherwise. Rough spots and all, I thought it was pretty good.

The New Sound, by Ira Peck

Not to sound too much like Vanessa Huxtable, but this was “interesting” mainly for its historical perspective on the “new sound” of rock-and-roll, even though rock-and-roll had been around for over a decade by the time of this compilation. I did not realize this at first, but this is a Scholastic publication aimed at the youth, which now explains some of the tone and diction choices sprinkled throughout. There is one apparently famous (infamous) extended exploration of Phil Spector toward the end (by the other Tom Wolfe), which did seem at the time rather more antagonistic than it needed to be, especially considering this collection is intended to give helpful information — but I suppose the kids of the day were supposed to be antagonistic toward the millionaire youth instead of recognizing his unique contributions to music (whether you like them or not).
Maybe because this was written by a bunch of grown-ups for youth in the 1960s, back when kids didn’t know anything since they were kids and adults were the best because they were adults, but this doesn’t have a whole lot of helpful/meaningful/deep content. It would be one thing to be a light frothy gossip book, but it’s also a light frothy gossip book that talks down to its audience most of the time, and a light frothy gossip book that talks down to its audience most of the time by Scholastic no less, supposedly a bastion for intelligent works for the children.

I don’t want to sound like it’s all bad — it does have a few interesting “in the moment” perspectives on the “new California sound” of Jan and Dean and the … Beachboys? (The Beach Boys, as I’m fairly certain they’re usually called, despite this coming out in 1966 at the apex of their Golden Age, get only about three scattered mentions in various article things, never a serious — or as serious as this compilation gets — treatment or chapter all their own, which is particularly puzzling, especially since their “uncoolness” supposedly did not begin until the year after.)

There is one glaring aspect we can’t really ignore, and we should also keep in mind this is a product of its time, and that is the frequent mention of the … “brown sound.” This is the “sound” of Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Motown. Boy, those ’60s must have been everything people say they were, by golly. At least one article (sadly, an abbreviated treatment of a longer work that would be worth tracking down) by Jeremy Larner discusses the hypocrisy (though he doesn’t use that word) of the music business of the day, starting off by telling us how Nat King Cole was once beat up during the middle of a concert by the White Citizens Council in good ol’ Birmingham, Alabama in order to protect the good white folks from the Devil’s destruction by means of the “brown sound.” Nat King Cole. Let that sink in for a moment. Mr. Larner then goes on to tell us about how a lot of white singers sold a bunch of records by basically stealing them from black artists (now, to be fair, the Beach Boys did effectively lift Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and turn it into “Surfin’ USA,” but they did give Berry credit … after pressure, yes).

One other essay stood out positively, an engaging “Defense of Bob Dylan” by Henrietta Yurchenko. This stood out mainly because it was the most well-written and least tendentious in tone (slightly above Jeremy Larner’s, even). In the afterglow of Mr. Dylan’s Nobel prize, hearing about the contention in the mid-’60s about whether Bob Dylan fans are able to enjoy Pete Seeger and vice versa was very intriguing. Ms. Yurchenko offers a balancing act, in that the world of quality folk music can contain both Seeger and Dylan (no doubt a position taken for granted today).

The short mostly frosting “discussion” on the Beatles by future villain Arnold Arnofsky was nothing special, like most of this collection. It ends with a bizarre recollection by, of all people, James A. Michener, the man himself, and how he was once asked to spend a weekend of his life judging dozens of wannabe rock stars in a pre-American Idol talent contest. It was a fairly enjoyable recollection of what he learned and experienced as a complete novice in the world of rock-and-roll (surprising no one, I’m sure), but I suspect I found it enjoyable because of who it was and my history with him and his works — so you probably wouldn’t like it as much.

If you can track this down (I stumbled upon it Providentially in an Outer Banks thrift store) by some preternatural means, go for it … but only if you are a ’60s music buff to a more-than-advanced degree.

Brian Wilson (Icons of Pop Music), by Kirk Curnutt

Perhaps the best thing I can say about this is I believe the author successfully accomplished what he attempted to do: this is a well-reasoned, well-supported examination of the lyrics, musical contributions, and legacy of Brian Wilson that presents and cuts through a good deal of the hoopla, both negative and sentimental. I’m no David Leaf or Mark Linnett so I can’t testify to the complete success of the project, but even with the occasional tone dips Mr. Curnutt surveys a wide variety of viewpoints on the major areas of discussion and draws very solid conclusions from them. The only drawback, just like Mr. Granata’s revised treatment of Pet Sounds, is it came out about six months too soon! He alludes to the forthcoming 50^th Anniversary Reunion but alas can do no more than speculate — I wonder how that event would have figured in this work (well, probably not much, come to think of it).

As a focused non-fiction (instead of rambling fan-fiction) treatment of what Brian Wilson contributed (and didn’t) to the Beach Boys and the “California Sound” and more, this work mostly eschews the extremes, even making multiple references to the dangers of over-sentimentalizing Brian’s perceived frailty and thus should never be criticized. Thus Mr. Curnutt does not hagiographize nor does he cast aspersions — he even presents a good defense of Mike Love (something you don’t see in Brian-focused works).

I found every section very helpful: coming from 2012 his historical background navigates all the major biographies and works up to that point and provides what appear to be adept assessments of their weaknesses and strengths. His longer section on the lyrical world of Brian Wilson was very insightful, especially as it dealt with so much of the misinformed perceptions about Brian’s lyrics and how many of “his” lyrics are not just Mike’s but also Tony Asher’s, Gary Usher’s, Van Dyke Parks’s and more. Even a good number of the “autobiographical” songs we sometimes find too much in aren’t solely the work of Brian Wilson … and that’s not a bad thing, says Mr. Curnutt.

The longest section, about Brian’s musical distinctions, is very thorough and diverse, ranging from Brian’s ability to sculpt in the studio what he heard in his head (in a good way for Pet Sounds, not so good for Smile at times) to his oft-derided bass playing technique and what seems to be everything in between.

The final section on the “myth” of Brian Wilson is also engaging, though it does not treat on the 50^th Anniversary, No Pier Pressure, or Pet Sounds 50 as we may want (perhaps a revised edition will come out eight months before Brian’s next major release). Mr. Curnutt, as I said, is not interested in rehashing (so to speak) painful memories, but he does address what needs to be addressed quickly and academically, and his conclusions are part of what makes this such an enjoyable read (apart from the very insightful and rare analysis of Brian’s actual contributions, the bulk of the book, and what really make this required reading for BB/BW fans): Brian Wilson is not “one thing” — he may seem like an abject figure today, a shell of his former self, but aren’t we all? Let’s see you weather what he has and come out better. (Mr. Curnutt doesn’t say it precisely that way.)

By “not just one thing” Mr. Curnutt means he is not just a “figure of melancholy” whose only greatness is in his sad songs and whose sense of humor is too simple/corny to make him “deep.” Some of the best insights in the book discuss our misguided attempts to contrast him with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, and the other storied lyricists of his day, or how we misunderstood the Beach Boys because they weren’t “hip” like the Rolling Stones, when “hip” really means “vulgar and sassy.” Mr. Curnutt points to quite a few clever, sly lines in “golden age” Beach Boys lyrics that aren’t all that “tame” but not so blatant as what everyone else was doing. Why do we find fault with Brian Wilson’s sense of humor and think only his sad songs are “deep”? We are wrong to do this, says Mr. Curnutt, and by jingo, he’s right.

Perhaps Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were “guilty” of idolizing “The Myth of Southern California,” an exotic paradise that may have existed in early ’60s America but surely is long-gone now (just like the sweetness of all of America and the world). But … what’s wrong with that? As Mike said, “everybody knows a little place like Kokomo (or pre-Summer of Love Southern California) so if you want to get away from it all go down to Kokomo.” What’s wrong with reveling in simplicity, earnestness, decency, and good timin’? Nothing. So read this book and re-evaluate Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. (And Mike.)

The Beatles, God & the Bible, by Ray Comfort

“So, you liked the Beatles, huh? Guess what! They’re in Hell, Hell, HELL!” That’s pretty much what this embarrassment is about. It’s embarrassing for the Beatles and people who like them, it’s embarrassing for God and people who believe in Him, and it’s embarrassing for the Bible and people who believe in that. The two most cited reference works from Pastor Comfort are Wikipedia and Playboy. Do you need to know any more? All of the “background” chapters truly read like some high school kid paraphrasing Wikipedia, except without the life, the interest, the zeal, and the meaningful context/accuracy. Those chapters are dreadful.

Then come the “critical commentary” chapters, basically Pastor Comfort (who will be glad to remind you he is the star of a television program syndicated around the world) blindly flailing with pinking shears around a religious-type comment or experience with the Beatles, jaggedly divesting it of any meaningful context. Following this treatment, Pastor Comfort begins his barrage: “clearly, real Christians don’t say or do things like this. Real Christians never fear, never worry, never sin. Real Christians never, EVER consider taking the Lord’s name in vain. Ever.” I’m not making that up. I may be contracting a few different commentary moments into two sentences, but he does make those sentiments clear throughout this work. “Real Christians” never sin; “real Christians” never worry; “real Christians” never are haunted or regretful of their former misdeeds.

For no explicable reason, Pastor Comfort spends an inordinate amount of time trying to convince us Mark David Chapman was not a Christian. Apparently it is difficult for some people to understand a man who admittedly sought out the Devil’s advice and listened to him and then murdered someone in cold blood is not a Christian. Most of the book is about John Lennon and Mark David Chapman, but it’s not any good. Pastor Comfort spends some time trying to convince us Paul McCartney does not believe in God, even though Paul McCartney has done a terrific job of that over the years on his own. Among the panoply of cringe-inducing moments, certainly high is Pastor Comfort’s treatment of Linda McCartney. I was going to identify some of it, but it’s too hateful and too nauseating. (Pastor Comfort wants us to believe getting an MBE helped make Linda’s death better for Sir Paul — and that’s not the worst part.)

Despite the fecund territory for Pastor Comfort to interact with George Harrison’s life and beliefs, he doesn’t really take a lot of time to interact with George, other than to hammer us heavily and repeatedly with the fact George couldn’t possibly be a Christian because he doesn’t worship the same way he does (well, there’s a tad more to it, but I thought a sly Stones reference, if you’ll allow, would make some of the hurt go away).

Wasn’t there another … Rango? Bingo? Banjo? Oh, yes. Ringo. Pastor Comfort barely has time to tell us a few things about Ringo in the final chapter, as if he doesn’t matter at all, and since he said the “d-word” and casually used God’s name in vain (though, since Jesus didn’t speak English, it’s possible “God” isn’t His “real name” anyway) Ringo can’t possibly be a Christian. Despite what Steve Turner has to say in his far-superior book The Gospel According to the Beatles, which I would far recommend above this pile of hooey any day of the week, according to Pastor Comfort Ringo Starr can’t possibly be saved, since he does not fit his checklist for “real Christianity.”

Did I mention Pastor Comfort has a checklist that delineates what “real Christianity” is? Oh, yes, he does. In the secret aftermath of his … whatever this was, Pastor Comfort gives us lengthy advice on how we as “real Christians” can avoid headaches and hardships in the Christian life (most of which entails buying and using the curriculum Pastor Comfort and his company have designed, surprising no one).

Please don’t read this. Please don’t buy it for your friends and family members who like the Beatles, God, and the Bible. This thing doesn’t really have anything to do with any of them.

The Nearest Faraway Place: Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the Southern California Experience, by Timothy White

This is a pretty full work, as most people already know. It’s not a quick biography of the people in the subtitle, since it takes over a hundred pages for Brian to be born. Context is king in this work: context of the Wilson family, context of the California experience, context of the cultural factors going on during the Beach Boys era (mostly the “golden age” era). I’m not sure it was intentional on his part, but Mr. White makes a stark contrast of the Beach Boys and the beach life — too much anger, too much pain, too much disappointment passed down from generation to generation; not only was Brian not made for these times, but the “Beach Boys” were not made for the “beach.” When they tried to break away (so to speak) from their early, false image, the fans, the record label, the Decision Makers wouldn’t let them. Somehow, their most creative and experimental era (’67-’73 or so) is their least popular, and from the mid-’70s on, they are stuck being a Greatest Hits band mostly against their will. The beach is all about freedom, fun, good times — and though the BB sing about these all the time, this life was effectively denied them (one generation to the next).

This is not precisely Mr. White’s viewpoint, but it seems to be there, underneath, and not too deeply. This is also not to say the Beach Boys never had any good times in their lives or that they didn’t enjoy making and playing the music, but Mr. White as so many other biographers do conveys the perpetual sense of pressure, disappointment, self-recrimination, artificial stimulation excess, psycho-physical-emotional breakdowns, and almost miraculous survival through it all. It’s truly miraculous Brian Wilson is still with us (as of this writing), having gone through no fewer than three life-shattering epochs, even one of which most of us could not handle let alone all three. And that does not even count the deaths of his brothers and the British Invasion, an event that seems in retrospect like a mere irritation in the lifespan of the Beach Boys.

As I said, all of those comments are undercurrents — none of that is White’s point or emphasis. His is an optimistic work, despite the generational heartache, especially as it reached its completion in 1994, shortly after Brian achieved his final and permanent freedom from “Dr.” Landy. If you want to know what “The California Experience” was like in the first two-thirds of the 20^th century, this work will likely never be surpassed (surely no one will ever locate let alone read the Cali-centric tomes, pamphlets, magazines, and miscellany in the bibliography). This work (calling it a “book” seems a derogation) brings to vivid life what the subtitled individuals experienced in that time, doing so in an accurate and openhearted perspective that puts the pessimistic view of Nathanael West to shame. It’s not an easy read (and not just because of the sorrow), but if these subjects interest you, this is among the top-tier “must reads” of Beach Boys lore.

In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, by John Lennon

The back cover of this collection highlights several words from reviewers. One important word they all forgot to include is “tedious.” Before you get on your high horses about how sacrilegious it is to defame anything by John Winston Lennon, you should try reading it for yourself, which is likely something you haven’t done. It’s not very good. People are fond of saying John Lennon was fond of Lewis Carroll. This is not Lewis Carroll. This is an angry young man — and don’t get me wrong, he certainly has quite a few legitimate reasons to be angry — who has translated “boring and difficult childhood experiences” into “nothing anyone else says is true,” typing what could be clever stories and poems but with a remarkably irritating persistent commitment to adding and changing letters in words. Some of his letter, suffix, compound noun transcriptions are truly clever — but those are statistically ultra-rare ensconced as they are within non-rational uses of the ubiquitous trope. It’s such a pervasive device, Mr. Lennon truly sabotaged his own creativity. It’s just a hassle to read. And a book that is a hassle is not clever.

Some of the poems are treated better by Lennon, but it’s hard for them to stand out among the morass of petulant non-stories. By the time one gets to A Spaniard in the Works, John Lennon is truly angry at religion, society, and just about everything. Again, I’m not saying he’s not justified, but the petulance of the work contributes nothing worthwhile to the challenge of making religion, society, and humanity better — he’s just angry and basically throwing a sub-literate temper tantrum. Anyone who comes to these hoping for something resembling his lyrical work will be sorely disappointed. I’m not faulting Mr. Lennon for not doing in his prose what he did in his lyrics — I’m faulting him for being so childish about it. And I decry the publishers and pundits who laud it solely based on who constructed it — tsk, tsk, brownnosers.

Fifty Sides of the Beach Boys: The Songs That Tell Their Story, by Mark Dillon

This is a good example, for me, of how the atmosphere around a book (how you learn about it, when you read it, those sorts of things) can significantly affect your reading of it. I wasn’t too keen on getting this book when I first saw it, a few other sources I had recommended it somewhat obliquely, I found a used copy cheap, and there it was. I know the subtitle should lead us to think it’s basically a history of the Beach Boys as a group, but the emphasis on the 50 songs also leads us to think it’s going to be about fifty of their most important/famous/best/whatever songs. I didn’t want yet another guy’s take on the story of the Beach Boys, but letting their songs tell the story, well, that notion won me over to getting it (plus the cheap copy on-line). But that’s not what this book is, sadly.

The author (and it is truly Mark Dillon telling the story of the Beach Boys, not the songs) tries to give us some half-hearted apology at the beginning about how he was limited in what songs he could include because all the people who responded to his pleas for personal insights and song experiences ended up slanted toward a few albums and some songs, missing some albums entirely (such as the great So Tough) and emphasizing Pet Sounds (and while it’s not bad to emphasize Pet Sounds, claiming to tell the Beach Boys story by skipping entire albums because of artificial limitations is nonsense). This leads to another of the misleading aspects of the book: it claims these famous and integral contributors to the BB story are reflecting on the songs. While Mr. Dillon does quote them for that particular song, their insights and reflections are sparse at best. Mr. Dillon’s version of the BB Story does most of the talking. This is not true for all 50 songs, but it is true for more than 40 of them. The insights from the people who were there are too thin, too short, too rare. Yes, Mike Love gives you some notions, and Blondie Chaplin gives you a new line or two, but it’s not nearly as much as the book wants you to think it is or how much you want it to be.

Concomitantly, Mr. Dillon gives us insights from a large number (I’d say “disproportionate”) of reflections from, well, fans. Fans that had/have their own bands in the 21^st century, and some of them have even met Brian Wilson or other Beach Boys, but I don’t know them. I don’t know their bands. I don’t care about their fan responses to these songs. Once I graduated high school, I basically drew the line of my musical experiences: the bands now and before, no more. Surely I am missing out on much wonderful artistry in the 21^st century, but having seen enough Grammy-award-related ads for today’s “musical artists,” I’m pretty sure the past is where it’s at. Feel free to send me a list of the great ones of today I am missing to disabuse me. (Disabuse, I say, not abuse.)

Returning to the focus at hand, I did not get this book to read profanity-laced adulations of the Beach Boys in meaningless, superlative terms, which is most of what we get from the “contemporary musicians/producers” upon which Mr. Dillon was dependent to construct this history. I don’t want to give you examples, because they are not worth recounting. I’m not saying I can come up with more lucid praise, but that’s why I’m not writing books about them (at least, not yet). The fan chapters offer nothing of value.

This book intentionally came out for the 50^th anniversary of the Beach Boys, knowing full well they were going to get together and go on tour and put out a new album. So instead of waiting for that rather significant element of “their story,” the book came out before that and immediately became out of date and incomplete. That decision made no sense to me, even as a cash grab for the 50^th anniversary. Why not wait until it has happened so you can speak about it?

If you haven’t read any general histories of the Beach Boys, and if you know about these musician-like people who saltily praise the (real) musicians the Beach Boys, this may be a fine book to read. I came to it too late in my journey through the story of the Beach Boys to appreciate it or find much worthwhile in it. It does have, as I said, three or four good chapters (such as Mike Kowalski, Mark Linnet, Billy Hinsche) with fresh and engaging insights (Mike Kowalski was the longest-termed drummer for the BB) about the history of one of the greatest bands of all times (with possibly the saddest story of all time). Thus, I don’t know if I can recommend it: the aspects that entice, the insights from those who were there, are too few to be worth spending very much money. The songs do not tell their story, here, unless “their story” is one of chart positions and sales figures. Many chapters are replete with nauseating Wikipedia-like lists of data, none of which give us valuable insights into what makes the Beach Boys “the Beach Boys.” It only tells us English listeners in the 1960s and ’70s were more intelligent than American listeners, something we already knew. This history does give us a good sense, though, the people who initially look like “heroes” to the Beach Boys often end up as “villains.” The book gives Mike a fairly decent shake, which is nice as well.

Is this the Beach Boys book for you? Not if you are looking for meaningful insight into the actual songs. That contrivance is a misleading scheme for what the book is: Mark Dillon’s version of the Beach Boys Story besprinkled with rarely insightful and mostly irrelevant commentary from people of whom you may or not have heard. I honestly do not know if this book is for you, but if you can get a cheap copy on Amazon or somewhere, go for it. If you want a free one, stop on by and I’ll give you mine. I’m done with it.

That’s what I got through this past summer (though I admit I had started the Harrison biography before the summer began). Below is a mostly complete list of the books I have sitting down there waiting for me to get to as soon as I can. I don’t include this to brag about my Beach Boys/Beatles literary collection, as it is quite pitiful in comparison to what is out there and I know I am missing some of the most important works out there as I’ve already said, but this is here mainly to give you some other ideas on the diverse reading opportunities should you be interested in knowing more about two of the most important bands in (rock) history.

The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of American’s Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio, Keith Badman

The Beach Boys in Concert: The Ultimate History of America’s Band on Tour and On Stage, Jon Stebbins and Ian Rusten

I am Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson

Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy, Mike Love

Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Peter Ames Carlin

Back to the Beach: A Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys Reader, ed. Kingsley Abbott

Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys, Steven Gaines

The Beach Boys: America’s Band, Johnny Morgan

Beach Boys vs. Beatlemania: Rediscovering Sixties Music, G.A. DeForest

The Beatles

The Beatles, Hunter Davies

The Beatles and Philosophy: Nothing You Can Think that Can’t Be Thunk, Steven Baur and Michael Baur

The Lost Beatles Interviews, Geoffrey Giuliano

The British Invasion: The Music, The Times, The Era, Barry Miles

The Beatles Anthology, The Beatles and Derek Taylor

The Complete Beatles Songs: The Stories Behind Every Track Written by the Fab Four, Steve Turner

Tune In Vol. 1: The Beatles: All These Years, Mark Lewisohn

The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970, Mark Lewisohn

The Beatles Day by Day: The Sixties as They Happened, Terry Burrows

John, Cynthia Lennon

Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, Ken Sharp

The Lives of John Lennon, Albert Goldman

Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music — The Definitive Life, Tim Riley

Paul McCartney: In His Own Words, ed. Paul Gambaccini

Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney, Howard Sounes

Paul McCartney: A Life, Peter Ames Carlin

Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, Barry Miles

Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s, Tom Doyle

George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Olivia Harrison and Mark Holborn

Ringo: With a Little Help, Michael Seth Starr

Yellow Roses and Other Poems

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Sarah Mertz Silva

Anxiety

Is everything okay?

Did I eat enough today?

I ate breakfast and lunch and it’s not dinner yet…

I’m okay, I think

Did I say something wrong?

Of course I didn’t, everything is fine

What did I do? What’s wrong with me?

I must be annoying them, I’m always annoying

Did I eat enough today?

I am annoying… That’s why they stopped talking to me

I’m not annoying.

I’m okay.

I’ll get over this.

What if this lasts forever?

Stop thinking

Don’t forget about that thing three months from now

Who am I kidding I am annoying

Did they ever like me to begin with?

Maybe there’s something wrong with me

There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re fine

Did I eat enough today?

Remember what you did eleven months ago?

Stop thinking

What did I do wrong?

Think

I hope they’re not mad at me.

Of course they’re not, you did nothing wrong.

I’m doing great, how are you?

I’ve never been happier.

I feel a little sad today.

Did I eat enough?

Did I do something wrong?

I’m always annoying.

Is everything okay?

(Untitled)

You are not

The fire that destroys

The forest

But

The remnants

That grow into new life

Over time.

(Untitled)

You are the spine

That holds me up.

My back has been

Hurting lately.

(Untitled)

I will never know why

She shined so much brighter

In your eyes

Than I did.

Her fire is dim and small.

She cannot shine on her own.

I’ve learned you cannot either.

Two matches

With no spark

Will never catch fire.

I am my own flame

I am vibrant and beautiful

Passionate and warm

But if you had held me

In your hands

Like you now hold her

I would burn out

In your cold abyss.

A fire cannot blaze

Without a spark.

Thank God you were not my match.

Yellow Roses (pt.1)

Sometimes I forget

To water my own flowers

In the midst of

Watering others.

I promise

There is a garden of yellow roses

Inside me.

Sometimes

I just need

To be reminded.

(pt. 2)

The yellow flowers

Inside

Have begun to wither.

I am withering

With them.

(pt. 3)

My petals are wilted,

My leaves have shriveled

But I will grow back.

It is simply not my season.

I promise that when

My stems sprout up from

The ground

And my yellow roses blossom

I will be far more beautiful

Than before.

Even in my wilted state

I will still be beautiful

Because I know that

Watered flowers

Thrive.

Change Within Change

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Tim Phillips

The power to impact just by writing words

The willingness to speak and let your voice heard

Courageous to expose issues that he had saw

Out of humbleness for he knew he was still flawed

He dreamt of a city of love invincible from things of this earth

If he saw life today what would he think we thought had worth

He wrote on change and he sought it

We wanted success so we bought it

We stick with comfortability and how things have been

He stuck with himself and wrote from within

We wrote like England and didn’t seek a change

Then he came along and now free verse is here today

Not only did he uncover a new way of writing

He opened the door to the world and gave people a new way of fighting

People don’t want to listen to what you say, so write it

Never had the courage before, now try it

That door has been opened and no one can close it

Someone needed to be an example and he was the one who showed it

He came from nothing and no one knew who he was

He wrote a few poems and then he was all the buzz

But it wasn’t how much he wrote it was what he was saying

Lines few in number but they saw a multitude of what he was conveying

He showed us a message in a message and that’s what we are blessed with

He showed us free-verse and fought for equality and he was freely restless

He showed us change within change and boldly didn’t hide it

He left it out in the open and yet people still were too blind to find it

From 1819 to 1892 he fought till his last breath drifted away

And on March 30 in Camden, New Jersey, Walt Whitman rolled over freely, in his grave

Redeeming Pandora

A Journal of Scholarship and Opinion

Monthly Archives: January 2023

What Else Was Going On?

Christopher Rush

Behind the Scenes of Agatha Christie

Amanda Mericle

Pinter’s Picture in The Dumb Waiter

Melissa Yeh

What Makes Literature “Classic”?

Nathan Flowers

Summer in Paradise by the Reading Light

Christopher Rush

Yellow Roses and Other Poems

Sarah Mertz Silva

Anxiety

(Untitled)

(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Yellow Roses (pt.1)

(pt. 2)

(pt. 3)

Change Within Change

Tim Phillips