Tag: book review

Posted on

Reviews of Three Very Different Books

Patrick F. McManus, Kerplunk! (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 227 pages.

 

There is a favorite used bookstore in Wilmington, North Carolina that I often stop in when I’m home. This time I was looking to pick up another copy of Guy Owen’s The Ballard of the Flim-Flam Man to give to a cousin, along with any books by Archibald Rutledge (both Southern writers). I didn’t have any luck, but I came across a book by Patrick McManus that I had not read. I promptly purchased the book and read half of the stories that evening. All these stories had previously seen ink in Outdoor Life. They are funny and many have a good moral lesson, too. McManus has always been a bit of a curmudgeon. He longs for the days of old, when mountain trails weren’t so steep and there was more oxygen in air. He recalls hunting 80-acre section of land where the deer were seldom seen, but when he visited recently his old hunting ground, he sees that it’s not been developed into a gated community and the deer are plentiful, snacking on the shrubbery. The deer earing shrubs hit home! In these stories there are also good safety lessons, such as the purpose of hooking the safety chains on a trailer, because having your boat pass you on the highway us “one of the least pleasant sights you may encounter during your lifetime.” And McManus is also a master as self- deprecation, such as the time fishing for steelhead, his friend already had one on the line while he, having made a half-dozen casts, he hadn’t yet gotten his line in the water.  As for “Kerplunk”, you’ll have to read the book to find out. I do recommend McManus’ books!

 

David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2019), 331 pages, a few illustrations.

 

I have enjoyed many of McCullough’s books (John Adams, The Wright Brothers, The Johnstown Flood) and while I enjoyed this book, it’s not one of McCullough’s best.  While the book is about the opening up of the Northwest Territory (which included the future states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin), McCullough spends the first part of this book discussing how the territory came to be in the early days of the Republic. As the nation was broke, this territory allowed the country to pay the soldiers in the Continental Army with land. Of course, these former soldiers had to clear the land and fight for it, as the native tribes were not agreeable to giving away their land. One of the promoters of the territory was Manasseh Culter, a Congregational Pastor. He spent time in Philadelphia lobbying for the territory and would later travel westward into Ohio but would not move there. It was through Cutler’s eyes that McCullough tells of the passing of the Northwest Territory Act. After discussion of the passing of the act that opened the territory, McCullough focuses on those who establish the town of Marietta (which is located just north of the Ohio River, where Interstate 77 crosses). McCullough does a wonderful job telling the story of how the settlement was established, overcame the hardships of the early years, and became a permanent town.  I think he should have stopped there.

Where McCullough’s book fails is that he tries to tie his story through the middle of the 19th Century, which leaves many gaps in the story. By focusing only on Marietta and towns along the Ohio River, the reader is only given insight into one strand of settlers who poured into the territory. That said, I still enjoyed reading this book which my men’s book club read for its December selection.

###

James Clavell, Tai-Pan  (1966, Blackstone Publishing, 2019), 885 pages (~34 hours on Audible).

 

Tai-Pan is a fictional account of the founding of the British Colony “Hong-Kong.” This is a long book. I listened to all the book and read some sections (as this is our January book selection for my book group).  While Clavell tells a good story, he seems to excel at foreshadowing, which means that when things happen there is little surprise. An example was when the Chinese lover of the Tai-pan was bitten by a mosquito, I knew she’d be coming down with malaria. Thankfully, Clavell doesn’t make a direct connection as, at the time (1842), it was thought that malaria came from “night vapors.” Clavell also seems to spend too much time in what goes on in the heads of various characters. People act or seem one way, but often have different ideas, which is especially true for the Chinese and their secret societies that even place mistresses so they can know what the British are up to. Clavell seems to embellish certain “kinky” sexual fantasies, from playful spankings of a lover to more harsh beatings and torture (he especially seems drawn to thumbscrews). I also felt he had a love for the sound of “reefed” sails. In his wonderful descriptions of sailing, he almost always has something to say about them being reefed (sails shortened due to excessive wind).

 

However, I did like how he worked in principles of economics, the advantage of free trade, the world views that tied together or put in conflict the interest of a variety of nations (from Britain, to Russia, and the America), and a main character (Dirk Sturan, a Scotsman) who is open and interested in what he and the English can learn from the Chinese. Staran is the “Tai-pan” or the leader of the strongest trading group in China. He has a number of other challengers including his arch-enemy, Tyler Brock. Staran is planning on leaving Asia and turning the operation of this company over to his son, Culum, which happens to be in love with Brock’s daughter.

 

The dream of the traders is to have a safe harbor where they are free to trade in China without Chinese control, and their fleets (the British navy and merchant ships of many nations) can survive storms. The book ends with a terrible typhoon (foreshadowed by the constant checking of the barometer), that destroys much of Hong Kong. But the fleet is spared. The trade will continue and Hong Kong will rebuild. Upon the death of his father, Culum assumes the role of the new Tai-pan while this half-brother (half Chinese and half Scot from Staran’s mistress plots to control the city.

 

While Clavell’s story does try to give value to the Chinese (their customs and their medicine), it is very much written from a Western point-of-view. I found myself wondering, while reading, how the book would be received in today’s more culturally sensitive and “Me-too” climate. While I’m glad I read the book, I won’t recommend it to anyone else (but I might make you a good deal on a used copy of the book 😊).

Posted on

Two Very Different Book Reviews

I am in North Carolina, taking a few days off and sitting inside watching it rain…  Here’s my last post of the year as I review two recent books I’ve read. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s Eve and a prosperous 2020 (and please, no more eye jokes)!

John Kasich, It’s Up to Us: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change (Hanover Square Press, 2019), 237 pages.

John Kasich was the last Republican in the running against Donald Trump during the 2016 primaries. This little book makes me wonder how much better things might be in America had he succeed in his quest for the White House. While definitely conservative (certainly he is truer to conservative principles than Trump), Kasich also appears to be a good guy. And, at least from what I gleam in this book. He appears willing to listen to all people and not resort to ad hominem attacks upon those who challenge his position. In fact, he seems to seek out those with opposing opinions as well as having a more open view about those who think differently than him. He’s a man of deep faith who draws upon his religious belief in how he treats others and views the world.

Kasich encourages his readers to make a difference in the world by offering “ten little ways.” However, “little” is a marketing word, for some of his suggestions are big undertakings. He begins suggesting we start a movement, with examples that are not so “little.” He begins by recalling the work of Greta Thunberg (his book was published before Trump got into a twitter war with the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist). He discusses the youth from Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and their efforts at being to the forefront the need for sensible gun control legislation. He discusses those involved in Special Olympics and (as if he was speaking to me directly) recalls the work of his (and my) childhood hero, Roberto Clemente. Where Kasich conservative principles show is where he suggests that all great movements rise from the people, not the government.

While starting a movement seems to be a big thing, Kasich follows it with an encouragement to start local and to “be the change where (we) live.” Again, as he does with all his suggestions, he offers examples such as a janitor who supported the Children’s Hospital Free Care Fund to the tune of over $200,000. “Find a hole in our community and fill it,” he suggests (78). Another suggestion is to “Be Prepared to Walk a Lonely Road,” reminding us that often those who are on the forefront of any worthwhile change are ridiculed and often persecuted. He encourages us to “Slow Down” with the 3 T’s [time to think (115)] and quoting race car driver Bobby Rachael who said: “You can’t go racing into things all the time. You have to step back and see where you are going” (124). Others in his list of ten include “Bounce Back,” “Love Thy Neighbor,” “Get Out of Your Silo,” “Put Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes,” “Spend Time Examining Your Eternal Destiny,” and “Know that You are Mad Special.”

At the beginning, Kasich said he wrote the book because he didn’t want people to think they could only change world is through politics. This book highlights many people who are changing the world for the better without seeking notoriety. The book is easy to read and for those of us who have a heart for Pittsburgh, many of his stories comes from the area. Kasich grew up in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania. He also draws on the music of the Baby Boomer generation, opening the book with the line from The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” suggesting that often the votes do get fooled again and again.

 

Caryn Green, Overland: Remembering Southeast Asia (Chicago, IL: Manitou & Cedar Press, 2018), 241 pages.

A few weeks before reading this book, I had responded to a request of a blogger about my most  spectacular train journeys. I listed several including the ride across the island of Java in Indonesia, from Jakarta to Jogjakarata. Shortly afterwards, someone else echoed my comment about the Indonesian train ride being one of her favorite. When I looked at her profile, I saw that she had recently published this book on her journey across Southeast Asia. I ordered a copy. I’m glad I did.

Caryn Green was a 24 year old woman from Chicago when she decided to hit the trail, traveling to Indonesia and then making her way overland from Bali to Jakarta, on to Singapore and into Malaysia and then to Bangkok and around Thailand. She even made it into Burma. My trip didn’t take me into Burma, as I hung a left in Thailand and headed into Cambodia and then Vietnam, before running north and traveling on to Europe. That wasn’t an option for Green, as she did her travels in the winter of 1975-76, shortly after the fall of Cambodia and Vietnam. Those countries were definitively off-limits at the time. It was an interesting time to travel as the recent American presence in Asia was evident and American travelers were often berated and drawn into unpleasant conversations.

Green wonderfully describes her travels and the people she meets. She mostly hangs out with fellow travelers, many from Australia and Germany, but also meets many natives along the way, especially those who provide housing and services. She is taken with the children. I was also impressed with how much of the languages she learned, more than just being able to say thanks or to ask for the bathroom or where to find beer. Some reading the book might be taken back by how honest she was about her relationships with a few of the men she met along the journey (although nothing is too graphic) as well as how she occasionally enjoyed drugs. She did draw a line at the use of harder drugs.  Reading this, I found myself wondering if the airport in Indonesia had large banners in several languages reading, “death to drug runners,” on the concourse in 1975 as you entered the country as they did when I traveled.

Perhaps the most exciting part of her trip comes at the end, when she travels with a guy filming a documentary on the Karen resistance in Burma. The Karen are tribe in northeastern Burma who have long wanted to separate from the rest of Burma. They passed over into Burma in a remote part of the country, from Thailand.  I knew some of the conflict with the Karen from Pascal Khoo Thue’s memoir, From the Land of the Green Ghost: A Burmese Odyssey.

I felt a little cheated that she was able to take a ferry from Jakarta to Singapore. Back then, ferries were more available. When I made the trip, it was only running once or twice a week and, even then, didn’t go to Singapore, but to an island south of the city-state, where you had to take another ferry into the city.  The other place that we both spent time on was on the island of Penang in northern Malaysia. While I had a Malaysian blogger friend to show me around, she hung out in beaches on the north part of the island where lots of young people gathered. Today, these beaches have been “gentrified” as places where lots of wealthy Arabs hand out.

Green is Jewish, which provides an interesting point of view for the variety of religions within this part of the world.  She spends Christmas in Singapore, a city that has Buddhist, Muslims, and Christians. She was drawn into the celebration by hanging out with a retired FBI agent on Christmas Eve. When she leaves Asia, after three months, she flies on to the Middle East in order to spend time in Israel.

In ’75, Green journey was the end of what had been known as the “Hippie Trail” which lead overland from Europe to Southeast Asia. Interestingly, at that time, the trail Overlanders were taking went south because of the political issues of traveling across the Soviet Union and China. These days, those making such a journey as I did in 2011, travel further north through China and Russia in order to avoid places like Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. It’s interesting how things change.

This book is a quick read, and I enjoyed it because of the comparisons I was able to make with many of the places we both travelled (36 years apart).  I would recommend the book for those who have experienced this part of the world.  Another book that deals with overland travel in Asia during the mid-70s that I found enjoyable is Tiziano Terzari’s A Fortune-teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East.

Posted on

Looking way back: 3 Reviews of History Books

Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Knopf, 1978), 720 pages including notes and index.  Some plates of photos and artwork.

 

The world, or at least Western Europe, seemed to be coming apart in the 1300s. England and France was involved in a 100-year war.  Whenever they took a break in fighting, it was time to attack (crusade) the Muslin invaders who had invaded parts of Europe or Muslin pirates hindering shipping along the African coast. The Black Death kept reappearing. The nobles and noble want-a-be’s wore fashionable shoes, pointed and curly ends, that were condemned by the church. In England, the followers of Wycliffe provided a precursor to the Protestant Reformation (which would be another 2 centuries in the future). During this century, the population of Europe fell, mostly due to plague, but also from war. This had a dramatic impact on the economy.  Without people to work the fields, forest took over farmland. Taxes to finance wars and to keep the nobility in luxury became a burden to everyone, especially to the lower class who paid a much higher rate of taxes than those with affluence. The Roman Catholic Church split. With both an Italian and a French pope, who excommunicated each other, people worried about their salvation (which was seen as coming through the Church) for no one knew which church was the right one.  A lot happened in the 14th Century as Barbara Tuchman skillfully tells in this mammoth work. But, when you think of all that happened, it’s amazed that she can touch on so much of the events in 700 pages.

This was the age of the knights, although these warriors weren’t nearly as noble as we’re led to believe. Knights with their heavy armor, fighting it out on a battlefield, was the ultimate. When the English began to use commoners and arming them with longbows, it was seen by the French (who mostly was on the losing side of battles) as denying the knights their glory. It was also a shift in power, lifting commoners while demoting the power of the nobility. Instead of revising their tactics, the French started using heavier armor to protect them from arrows and made them even less mobile.

The key figure in this book is Sire de Coucy, a man who appeared to be almost as large as his huge fortified castle in Picardy. Coucy seemed to dominate all the great events of the second half of the century. Although he was not the king of France, he held more power and controlled more wealth. He was involved in many of the great battles and, at a time where military judgment was not a defining characteristic of the armies of France, he was one of their successful military leaders. During the last crusade, he was captured by the Turks and died in prison, awaiting ransom. Ransom was a part of war back then, as nobles were “sold” back to the country from which they came. Coucy had a modern vision of war that most of his French contemporaries refused to see.

This book reads well, but there are just too many names and dates and events to keep everything straight. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it and learned a lot about life in the premodern world.

###

 

Edward Dolnick, A Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society and the Birth of the Modern World, 2012 (Audible 10 hours and 4 minutes).

 

I am not a math person, but I found myself listening to this book and wishing I could go back and study math once more. But then, Dolrick notes that most great mathematic discoveries are discovered by younger geniuses (especially before 25), so I realized that my math ship has sailed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book immensely. The mid-17th Century was a time of change as the world was moving into the modern area. But as exciting of a time it was for a few intellectuals, for most people it was a dreadful age. Filth and disease abound, as cities did not yet have sewers or safe drinking water. London, the location in which much of the book occurs, was ravaged by fire and famine. But there, within the Royal Society of Science, men began to ask questions and ponder new solutions. Some, at least to my mind, were crazy, but this drive to know more about God’s creation (and most of these men were religious) led to breakthroughs in mathematics and science, especially in the understanding of space. Calculus became the language for much of this understanding and the two men most responsible were Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz—a Brit and German. The two appeared to have discovered it independently, but both insisted they were first. In the end, Newton had the best PR, but Leibniz wasn’t forgotten and was resurrected more recently as his binary system predated the development of the computer by three centuries.

This book has a lot in it. We meet many of the great men of the era who pushed math and science beyond the ancient Greek thinkers: Descartes, Kepler, Galileo, and Haley (who, in addition to discovering and predicting a comet’s path was the catalyst behind Newton publishing his thoughts). But the two main characters are Newton and Leibniz, who both admired and were jealous of the other. Their relationship forms a tension that holds the book together.

###

 

John H. Leith, Assembly at Westminster: Reformed Theology in the Making (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1973), 127 pages.

 

I first read the Westminster Confession of Faith as a high school student and have studied much of it throughout my adult life, but I have never read any detailed account of the assembly of “Westminster Divines” who wrote the work. In this short work, the late John Leith provides the background and the setting for the Assembly. The authors of the confession were living on the edge of the modern world, yet they had been raised in the medieval world. The politics of what was going on in England during the Puritan era, as well as what was happening on the continent played a great role in both the writing and influence of this work. After the restoration of the crown in England in 1660, the Confession would no longer play a role in English society, but due to the number of Scottish members of the Assembly, the confession would be adopted in Scotland and become the main confessional document for Presbyterians around the world. In this book, Leith covers the make-up of the Assembly, the political and theological context in which they worked, how they went about their tasks, the nature of confessions, and the key doctrines of the Westminster Confession. He also discusses the limits and fallibility of confessions. This is a good starting point for learning more about Westminster.

###

Posted on

Not Guilty

Not Guilty by C. Lee McKenzie
Published October 2019

This book grabbed my attention in the first chapter and kept me engaged throughout. I didn’t want to put it down, wanting to figure out how the protagonist, Devon, gets through his dilemma. A high school junior with the hope of playing college basketball, Devon is dumped by his girlfriend after someone falsely identifies his car parked on the street where his ex-girlfriend lived. That was a start of a bad day that only got worse. He skips his last class and went to the beach. On the way, he’s receives a ticket for speeding and then later, identified as the person who stabbed a local surfer on that afternoon. When he’s found guilty, he is sent to juvenile detention for five months and then is on probation afterwards. Along the way, he’s haunted by a basketball player from another town who he runs into in detention (and afterwards). In detention, he befriends several Hispanic youths who teach him what true friendship is all about. After he gets out of detention, he realizes things have gone downhill for his family (they suffered financial hardship because of his conviction). But in the end, everything works out as Devon helps put the pieces together that eventually lead to the arrest of the person who committed the assault. In a way, the Devon and his family fortunes have changed so that the book seems somewhat comic (in the classical sense). But Devon does learn what it means to work hard, to have true friends, and that although the justice system doesn’t always get it right, it often corrects itself.

This would be a great read for any teenager, especially for boys who have found themselves being wrongly accused by police (as I experienced nearly a half-century ago). Lee McKenzie should be congratulated for writing a book that addresses such issues.

I received a free electronic copy of this book for an honest review.

Posted on

Disassembly Required

Beverly Willett, Disassembly Required: A Memoir of Midlife Resurrection (New York: Post Hill Press, 2019), 269 pages.

 

The framework of this story is rather simple. The author sells her home in Brooklyn, New York and moves to Savannah, Georgia. But we quickly learn that this was not an easy decision. Willett had placed so much hope in the brownstone house she’d sold. It was her nest where she raised her children. But eventually, she would be the only one living there. Her husband had abandoned her for another woman, and the house held the memories of when she had learned of his betrayal. The house also held the memories of her daughters, but once the last had started college, the big house was lonely and too much to maintain. Knowing the difficulty to keep the house and feeling she needed a new start, Willett decided to sell. Once that decision is made, there is much to be done as the reader learns about hoarding and the decisions to be made about saving and storing stuff, along with our reluctance to let go of stuff.  Then there’s the work to be done to prepare the house for market, the real estate listing, the waiting, and finally selling of the home so the author heads south.

This story is more than just what is required to sell a house. It’s a spiritual journey as the author struggles to come to term with her relationship to stuff. The house is part of her, as is all the stuff that is in it. Likewise, the people around her (like here) are changing. Willett, who grew up a Southern Baptist who had married a secular Jew, discusses the role her faith plays as she comes to depend on it more and more as she becomes more active within an Episcopal congregation while also spending time learning the wisdom and mediation practices of Buddhism. The reader will identity with Willett as she makes this transformation that eventually leads her to her new life in Savannah and perhaps learn for her new wisdom. I recommend this book to all readers. I expect those going through difficult mid-life changes would find this book helpful and encouraging.

I am a friend of Beverly Willett and have been in a writing group with her that meets at Flannery O’Conner’s childhood home in Savannah since 2015. I purchased the book and did not receive compensation in exchange of writing this book review.

Posted on

“Them”

Ben Sasse, Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018),  272 pages including notes and an index.

 

One would need to be deaf and blind not to realize there are serious problems in American society. Instead of rationally discussing issues that divide us, we join polarized camps and dismiss those with whom we disagree. We use unflattering names or spread false rumors about those we see as opponents. Instead of debating topics of concern, we yell at those with different views. It’s as if we believe that the one who yells loudest is right, which is absurd. Instead of looking for common ground upon which we might build a relationship, we use perceived differences to Balkanize ourselves into camps of like-minded people. And when we are only around those who look, think, and act like us, we just confirm our preconceived biases. And there is no doubt that 24-hour cable news and the algorithms of social media have only strengthened this divide. We no longer watch the same news programs and entertainment, nor read the same authors and newspapers. Instead, with a world flooded with information, everything comes tailored for us as individuals. This whole system, according to Sasse, makes us very lonely.

I was a little shocked when I began reading this book on how divided America is to read Sasse’s critique of America culture and how our problems stems from loneliness. I did wonder if he makes more out of the problem of loneliness than it deserves. He also suggests that the decline of the traditional home as another reason for society’s problems. I hope his ideas are debated. Perhaps they can play a role in building a more civil society. That said, there are critiques he makes that will make everyone a little uncomfortable. He challenges an article that identifies the genesis of nasty politics from the 1994 election and Newt Gingrich. Sasse suggests that Gingrich was only a backlash of nasty politics of the Democrats against the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court in 1986. (Personally, I’m old enough to think the issue goes back further than 1994 or 1986). But those on the right can’t rejoice, for in the next chapter, he challenges Fox News and suggests they profit greatly from monetizing the fear. He particularly attacks Sean Hannity for not only preying on this fear and inciting rage, but also ignoring any evidence he finds inconvenient. By the time most readers with die-hard political positions, whether on the right or left, have finished the first half of the book, they’ll have found cherished positions challenged. Sadly, many will probably skip the second half of the book where Sasse suggests strategies for building bridges instead of walls.

Sasse grew up in a small town in Nebraska. It was a place with strong rivalries between towns and sports played a major part of these rivalries. He idolatrizes his father, who was a coach. He obviously grew up in a traditional family.  Sasse, himself, attended college on a wrestling scholarship. He would later earn a Ph.D. at Yale in American history and became the president of a small Midwestern liberal arts college. He also comes from a strong Lutheran Church background. His experiences with small towns, family, sports, religion, and education come together in this book as he seeks a way to bridge in the impasse that exists within American society.

Sasse’s eureka moment of his childhood came when he attended a Nebraska football game. There he was in the big house in the prairie, with 100,000 other folks, all in red, cheering on the cornhuskers. A few rows a way he spotted a group of people from a neighboring town that was a big rival of his town. These were folks his town cheered to their demise at Friday night football games, yet here they were, enemies, cheering on Nebraska. The problem caused by isolation (and loneliness) when we maintain isolation is that we fail to realize that we often have a lot in common with those we see as “them.” He learned from an early age that these folks from a rival school district weren’t really enemies. However, Sasse doesn’t suggest we end rivalries, for competition helps us be our best.

In the second half of this book, Sasse lays out several ideas on how we can begin to break down the walls separating us from them. In his first chapter in this half, titled “Become Americans Again,” Sasse provides a civics lesson about what should unite us. I found it refreshing to read a Lutheran who can write like a Calvinist as he calls for us to admit our that we’re all flawed. He encourages us to set limits on our (and our children’s) use of technology, to be more open to diverse debate within the university (an idea, he points out, that he and Obama agree on), and to develop roots while also exploring outside our own tribe. While most readers won’t agree 100% with the author (and I assume that would be fine with Sasse), Americans would be better off we seriously debated his thesis as we seek to breakdown the divides that separate us. This is a good book for all Americans to read (and maybe even those in Russia or China to read to learn more about what America should look like).

Posted on

LBJ and on the cusp of a storm

This photo was taken at Delegal Creek last night as the sunset. Hurricane Dorian is several hundred miles south at this point. Today, as I write this, we have had a few bands of rain with wind, but nothing too bad. The storm should brush by us late this afternoon or in the evening, but will be staying off shore. Prayers to those in the Bahamas who suffered so greatly, and for those in the Carolinas who may experience more of this storm’s fury.

 

 

Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1982), 882 pages, photos, index and detailed notes on sources used.

 

It’s a goal of mine to read Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. He’s the first President I can remember. The only thing I remember of Kennedy was him being shot in Dallas, as I had just started the first grade. LBJ would remain President throughout my elementary years.

 

Several years ago, I partly read this volume, but this summer invested the time to listen and/or read the entire volume that covers the life of the future President from before his birth through the beginning of the Second World War. The first volume I read in this series, over a decade ago, was Master of the Senate. It was Caro’s third volume, which consists of the years from 1948, when LBJ was elected to the senate, to the late 1950s as the 1960 Presidential campaign heated up. Caro has four volumes out and has just began covering Johnson’s presidency. As he is now in his 80s and I (along with lots of other folks) hope he’ll complete his life-long ambition to cover all of Johnson’s life.

 

As with Caro’s other volumes, he spends a significant portion of his book providing background information. The reader learns about the events that shaped life in the Texas Hill Country and the people who influenced Johnson. We’re taken back to the early years of Texas and of its frontier heritage that was still in the memories of those alive when Johnson was a boy. Johnson always discounted his father as a failed drunk and attempted to create an image of a self-made man, but Carol dug deeper and discovered a different truth. Johnson’s father was a very honest former legislator whose ties to populism was so strong he had his son listening to the speeches of Williams Jennings Bryan. He also took Lyndon, as a boy, with him to Austin, where Johnson experienced the political life for the first time. There were many other individuals who helped Johnson’s rise to power. Richard Kleberg, one of the richest men in Texas and a new congressman, hired a schoolteacher named Lyndon to be his congressional aide.  As an aid, Johnson both learned politics as well as began to build his own base of power. Then there was Sam Raybun, a Texas congressman who became speaker of the House and who saw LBJ as the son he never had. There was Herman Brown, of Brown and Root, became a mighty industrialist who helped and was helped by Johnson’s growing power. Caro also provides details in how the landscape of the hill country shaped those who settled there, such as Johnson’s families on both sides of his family. He even provides detail into a dam that helped push Brown and Root to a major corporation, a dam in which Johnson worked to fund as a junior congressman. The funding was in jeopardy because the dam did not meet the New Deal guidelines, but Johnson found a way around such requirements.

 

As Caro points out over and over again, the real Lyndon wasn’t likable. He was awkward, didn’t really fit in, and learned early on how to manipulate others. Most of his peers didn’t think highly of him, but some saw his ambition and was willing to work for him with the hopes that as he rose in power, they would too. When he was denied entry into the White Stars, a college club, he created his own secret club, the Black Stars. Those who joined him had also been denied entry into the more elite group. They were able to secretly control school politics. While he wasn’t popular with those his age, Johnson had a way with adults and spent more time with them.

 

From an early age, he wanted to be President. Caro’s shows how LBJ never lost that ambition. From politics in college, through working as a congressional aide for Kleberg, to heading the New Deal’s Youth Program in Texas, to a young congressman raising money for other congressmen, Johnson was constantly building a larger organization with the goal to become President.  Interestingly, while through the book, Johnson publicly is seen as a “Roosevelt man,” and in favor of the New Deal, Caro shows how Johnson’s politics was more about achieving and holding power than ideology.

 

Johnson was quite a risk-taker.  After marrying LadyBird, he carried on an affair with the beautiful and younger mistresses of Charles Marsh, one of his top supporters who also owned a number of newspapers in Texas. Obviously, had that become well-known, it had the potential to destroy the young Congressman’s political future.

In the spring of 1941, a senator from Texas died suddenly. Johnson, seeing this as his opportunity to increase his power, campaigned for the race. He quickly went to work building a base and becoming the front runner against many other better-known candidates, when the state’s colorful governor, Pappy O’Daniel, through his name into hat. “Pass the biscuits, Pappy,” was a former flour salesman, who knew how to campaign (his character even shows up the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou). It became a bitter race with both sides having precincts that they controlled. When he through he had a comfortable lead, Johnson told his precinct bosses to release their votes. Pappy, holding on to a handful of precincts, was then able to “best” Johnson by 1300 votes. It would be the only election Johnson would lose.

 

While Johnson doesn’t come across as a likeable character throughout the book, there were places where Caro showed a gentler side of him. As a teacher in a mostly Mexican-American school, he was one of the few who cared for this students and encouraged their success. Later, after college, he became a teacher in Sam Houston High School where, as a debating coach, was able to propel his students to greatness. Johnson was a complex man, who carefully cultivated his image. The book leaves the reader wondering what’s going to happen to the young congressman who receives an appointment as a naval officer as the country goes to war. I also came away book wanting to know more about Johnson’s father and his “surrogate” father, Sam Rayburn.

 

If you have the time (and you’ll need it) and interest, I recommend this book!

Posted on

First Cosmic Velocity

Zach Powers, First Cosmic Velocity (New York: Putman, 2019), 340 pages.

 

I’m not sure how to classify this novel. At times I thought the author had written the first anti-Sci-fi (similar to the anti-western genre of films that began to challenge the classical westerns in the 1960s). At other times, it felt as if I was reading a comedic Cold War spy thriller or an alternative history. Regardless of the genre, this book is a fun read.

 

It’s 1964 and the Soviet space program is a deception. Instead of challenging the United States in the race to the moon, the Soviets haven’t yet had a successful mission. They have placed men and women into space, but have yet to successfully bring them back to earth. The cosmonauts have either burned up on re-entry or in the case of Leonid, are doomed to orbit the earth for the entire book. You’ll have to read it to understand what happens. To make up for the lack of success, the Soviet cosmonaut corps are made up of identical twins, each given the same name. While one sibling conducts a suicide mission, the other receives a hero welcome back home. The secrecy of the program is so guarded that only a few know about it. Even the Soviet premier, Khrushchev, doesn’t know of the deceit. At first, even Ignatius, the KGB-type agent who is always close by, doesn’t appear to know (even though she knows more secrets than most). In a country with lots of deception and secrets, maintaining this secret is of ultimate importance for everyone involved (including the remaining twins) risked execution for treason is exposed.

 

This secrecy leads to humorous moments such as when Khrushchev volunteers his dog for the next space mission. Everyone but the Premier hates his ratty dog, and they can’t find another one like it in all Russia. Khrushchev aids secretly suggest they leave the disliked mutt in space (not realizing that might actually happen as the space agency has no way of returning it alive to earth). The space program is frantically attempting to build a successful heat shield that will allow cosmonauts (and dogs) to safely return, while two of the surviving twins (the second Leonid, the brother of the Leonid in space, and Nadya, whose sister was the first cosmonaut, run away.

 

The book ping pongs between 1964 and 1950, the year when a famine struck the Ukraine, That’s the year the twins who were both renamed Leonid were taken from their grandma to be trained for the space program. As the reader is taken from the present (1964), into the past, we gain inside into bits of history such as the struggle within the various states within the Soviet Union, the impact of the war (World War 2), and the hope of the space program. Powers also brings up the discussion of faith, looking at how the older members of society (such as the twin’s grandmother) practices faith and prayer, and its role (or lack of a role) with the younger generations who have grown up in an atheistic society. In one discussion, it is suggested that a society without gods must create them from their “heroes”

 

This is a delightful and unique novel. I recommend it for an enjoyable read. For full disclosure, I was in a writing group with Zach Powers when I first moved to Savannah (and before he left the area). I was under no obligation to write this review.

Posted on

Baseball as a Road to God

John Sexton, Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game (New York: Gotham Books, 2013), 242 pages including photos, index and bibliography.

 

 

Sexton, the president of New York University, has written a wonderful book that shares his enthusiasm for baseball while weaving in thoughts drawn from his academic background as a philosopher and student of religion. The book’s chapters are divided into innings, each exploring a particular aspect of faith: “sacred space and time, faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, blessings and curses, saints and sinners, community, and nostalgia (and the myth of the eternal return).” He also throws in three extra chapters focusing on baseball: “the Knot-hole Gang (Brooklyn Dodger’s pregame show), “the seventh inning stretch” and “the clubhouse.” He highlights the parallels between the game and faith, and notes how the small details of a baseball game encourages us to slow down and enjoy life and to find meaning and beauty in small things.

 

Sexton is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and while he generally writes from a Christian perspective, he also draws on religious teachers from a variety of faiths: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim. This is not a book about orthodox Christianity, although when he writes about the Christian faith, his theology is orthodox. Having grown up in Brooklyn in the 1950s, he was a Dodger fan. In the 70s, he became a Yankee fan (this is where his orthodoxy breaks down). He felt he needed to give his son a baseball team (by then the Dodgers had long moved to Los Angeles).  Discussing team allegiances allows him to explore the meaning and process of conversion.

 

Baseball is a game that places great hopes on what might happen next year. No one knew this better than the Brooklyn Dodger fans who encouraged one another, year after year, with the saying, “Wait till next year.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Presidential historian and another Brooklynite who wrote the introduction to this book, has a memoir that uses this phrase filled with Brooklyn’s hope. Of course, the Dodgers did finally win the World Series just before moving to the West Coast. Baseball, like religion, has its own eschatological vision of the future!

 

In the chapter of sacred time, Sexton links baseball to religion’s cycles (baseball starts just before Easter and Passover, and the regular season ends around Yom Kippur.  Like all religions, baseball has a cycle of life). Drawing on the writing of Marceau Eliade, he shows the importance of specific places and times which ground our religious traditions, Sexton muses also how ballparks serve a similar function. Discussing miracles, he relives Willie Mays’ fabulous 1954 catch that turned around the last World Series played in the Polo Ground as the Giants beat the Indians. But with miracles, there is always some doubt, as he illustrates with the 1951 Giants coming from a 13 ½ game deficit behind the Brooklyn Dodgers with six weeks left in the season. But then the miraculous happened and the Giants were able to catch up and with the “shot heard around the world,” beat the Dodgers to take the pennant. Years later, it was revealed that during the last ten weeks of the season, when the Giants won 80% of their home games, the team was given an advantage with a telescope deep in a clubhouse behind center field. The Giants had been stealing the opposing team’s signals and then quickly relaying them to the batter. This wasn’t against the rule in 1951, but in 1961, it was banned by Major League Baseball. As Sexton notes, sometimes miracles just seem miraculous.

 

In the chapter on blessings and curses, we relive the curses of the Cub’s “bill goat” and the Red Sox’s suffering revenge for trading a failing pitcher, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees. In the chapter on saints and sinners, we travel to the shrine of the “saints” at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Saints also play a major role in religion, from those canonized within Roman Catholic Christianity, to the prophets of Judaism, to the “Friends of Allah” in Islam, to the swami of Hinduism. Of course, as with many saints, parts of their lives are overlooked as it was with Babe Ruth whose monument reads: “A GREAT BALL PLAYER, A GREAT MAN, A GREAT AMERICAN.” As Sexton reminds us, Babe wasn’t always “saintly” off the field. As for sinners, there’s Ty Cobb, who still has many records in the book, and others only broken by another “sinner,” Pete Rose. And don’t forget the Chicago “Black Sox” scandal with its conflicting tales.

 

If there is one thing that Sexton left out, it was purgatory. As a Protestant, I find such a concept lacking in Scripture and doctrine and it’s not a part of my faith, but as a Pirate fan, I sometimes feel stuck in purgatory. Perhaps Sexton could have added an extra inning for this concept that I find more support for at the ballpark than within doctrines of my faith.

 

I should also note that his book is primarily about Major League baseball. The minor leagues, little leagues and other leagues are not the focus of Sexton’s work. The is room on the shelf for other books about the religious-like hope of the minor player at making the majors, or the high school standout hoping to catch the eye of a big league scout. And, of course, every little league player and kid on a sandlot has dreamed of one day playing in the world series.

 

On the last page, Sexton humorously muses that maybe baseball isn’t a road to God after all, but it can help awaken us to what’s important around us while providing an example of how to merge together the life of faith and the mind. The reader has been treated to two hundred pages or baseball stories, mixed in with teachings of the great religions. This book is a delight for any baseball player. For the serious student of world culture, the book might help them learn to pay attention to life and not take things too seriously. I recommend this book, but maybe you’ll want to catch a few games as the season moves into its final stretch toward October. By November, when the ballparks are all shuttered for winter, pull out this book and remember when, or (especially if you’re a Pirate fan), “wait for next season!”

Posted on

Behind the Barbed Wire (A Review)

A lot of students have fantasies of having teachers locked up. For my 5th grade teacher, it wasn’t a fantasy, it was a horrific experience. As a Marine embassy guard in China, which was behind enemy lines when the war began, he spent the entirety of the 2nd World War as a POW. This is a review of a book he later wrote about this experiences.This review originally appeared in my other blog and has been slightly edited.

The author as an embassy guard in China.

Chester M. Biggs, Behind the Barbed Wire (1995, Jefferson, NC:  McFarland & Co, 2011), 224 pages, some photos and maps.

 

On the morning of December 8, 1941, the Marine guards at the American consulate in Peiping (Beijing), China woke up behind enemy lines. Overnight (on the other side of the International Date Line), the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had invaded China several years earlier and the American consulates in China were now inside territory held by the Japanese army. Although it was a tense situation in the Far East and war was not out of the question, the Marines were caught unaware. They were in the process of packing up and were days away from being withdrawn from China (many of the military members and diplomats of other consulates such as Britain had already been withdrawn). As the war began, the ship sailing to North China to pick up the Marines turned south and those left behind were prisoners of war. They would spend the entire war as POWs. One of these Marines, PFC Chester Biggs, the author of this book, was also my fifth grade teacher. Mr. Biggs would spend 20 years in the Marine Corp (1939-1959). The latter half of his life he spent in education. And, until his death, he would spend time teaching and answering questions at the Special Forces POW classes taught at Fort Bragg. He died in December 2011 at the age of 90.

The book begins by describing the events of December 8, 1941.  Only hours before the Marines awoke, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The Marines have no idea what is happening or that the day meant war. The Japanese surround the compound, disarm the sentries and forced their surrender. Biggs, a young man of 20, finds himself as a POW. The next two chapters, Biggs describes life in Peiping before the war. China had been at war with Japan for years and the area of the consulate had been securely controlled by the Japanese. The situation in the countryside, where there were Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japanese, was tense and movement by American personnel there was limited. However, inside the city, where there was quite large contingent of foreigners, life continued as normal. Peiping, at least in the international section, was a cosmopolitan city with Europeans, Russians and Americans living there. During this time, there were fancy parties and even premiers for movies such as “Gone with the Wind.” There were some tension with Japanese soldiers, but with the exception of a few incidents, it appears much was done on both sides remain calm. After the one incident, US military personnel were restricted to a few clubs near the compound.

At first, after the surrender, the main change that the Marines noticed was a loss of freedom of movement, the loss of their Chinese workers (they had Chinese laborers that did many of their task from laundry to shoeshines to manicures) and a reduction in food. Even though they were confined to the compound, one Marine who had girlfriend in the city slipped out and then came back undetected. The NCOs tried to impress upon the Marines of the serious of such actions, but two others slipped out and were caught. Although the Japanese had said anyone caught attempting to escape would be shot, they were not. As Biggs noted, the Japanese could and would be brutal, but their behavior wasn’t always consistent, and at times they surprised everyone. At the end of January 1942, the Marines in Peiping were transferred to Tientsin and were later transferred to a POW camp near Shanghai. Before the transfer, the Japanese allowed a Marine from Tientsin to marry his English fiancé before they were moved to Shanghai. During Christmas 1942, the Japanese allowed an American restaurateur who ran a famous establishment in the city to prepare a Christmas dinner for the POWs. This was the last great meal they enjoyed. Before the next Christmas, all expats in the city including this man were confined to concentration camps by the Japanese.

At first the Marines who had been on diplomatic duty were hopeful they would be exchanged and freed. The diplomats in China were exchanged six months into the war. Such hope began to wane as they were placed into a POW camp in Shanghai that included Marines and civilian contractors from Wake Island and British sailors on a ship captured in a Chinese port at the beginning of the war among others. Interestingly, in 1943, they were joined by Italian Marines stationed in China. As a part of the Axis powers, they we left alone. But once Italy surrendered and declared war on Germany, members of the Italian military in China found themselves as POWs bunking with Americans and British POWs. In the Shanghai area, the Marines were held in two different camps. They were worked hard and the Japanese capturers could be incredible brutal. The POWs did what they could to keep their spirits up and Biggs tells many incredible and sometimes humorous stories of survival and endurance. There was even a radio which provided a little news of the war (which was spread via rumor for no one was to know about the radio).

In 1945, the POWs were locked into rail cars and shipped north and then down through Korea. Their travel was hard. In Pusan, they were placed on a ship bound for southern Japan. Once on Japanese soil, they were shipped by train north. Although they could see only a little (the Japanese had covered the windows of the trains) there were enough cracks through which they realized the devastation done to Japanese cities from American bombings. They knew the war couldn’t last much longer. The Marines were taken north, to Hokkaido, where they were put working inside coal mines. This was brutal work and from the book I have the sense it was the worse time of Biggs’ entire imprisonment. The Americans were split up and sent to smaller camps where they worked in teams with a Korean miner underground. After the Japanese surrender, the POWs stayed at the camp as American planes dropped supplies. It was well into September that Biggs had his first airplane flight in his life as he was being moved from Hokkaido to Yokohama. However, bad weather forced the plane to turn back. He would later take a ship south and then on to Guam where the POWs were seen by doctors and navy intelligence officers who record their experiences.  From Guam, they were flown across the Pacific, with stops for hospital visits at Honolulu (to be checked for infectious diseases and parasites) and then on to a hospital in San Francisco.

Mr. Biggs was 18 when he left his home in Oklahoma for the Marine Corps training base in San Diego. He was 24 when he returned home on an extended leave after having been a POW for over 3 ½ years. I found this book to be well written and to give great detail of everyday life in a POW camp. I wish I had read it while Mr. Biggs was still alive.