Not so silent after all

From the Wikipedia article on Silent Spring comes this quote from the book itself:

No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting. ... What is the measure of this setback? The list of resistant species now includes practically all of the insect groups of medical importance. ... Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes. ... Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ..., Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible.

That last bit deserves to be repeated.

Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ..., Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible.

This was written in 1962. Since then, we have seen the consequences of ignoring this advice in other areas, too. Antibiotic resistant staph? TB?
Wikipedia quotes a 1999 Time magazine article about Silent Spring:

Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a "hysterical woman" unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto, Velsicol, American Cyanamid — indeed, the whole chemical industry — duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.

Monsanto. You don't say.

The thing that strikes me about the text from Silent Spring is how moderate it is. One last quote from Wikipedia:

Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides, but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use, with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem.

It seems to me that I see this phenomenon on an almost daily basis. Person A makes a statement. Person B wildly overreacts. Perhaps Person B didn't really hear all of what Person A said. Perhaps Person B only heard a few words and filled in the rest out of their own imagination. Or perhaps person B has some idea about Person A, either from experience or just innate prejudice, that makes them assume they know what Person A is saying. It may sound nebulous and vague when it's described this way, but my opinion is that practically every flame war on the internet fits this pattern to a greater or lesser degree.

This troubles me. First of all, there is so much needless energy and emotion expended with people flying off the handle. Even worse, there is no resolution. The argument goes around in circles and never gets anywhere. There is no hope of compromise, and no problems are solved.

Of course, I include myself among the guilty parties.

Chronology

Perhaps, like me, you have wondered about the temporal relationship between Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope. In that case, the following will be of interest to you.

From Wikipedia:

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose realism, biting social commentary and masterful use of free indirect speech, burlesque, and irony have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature.

Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, in Hampshire, the second of eight children to John Dickens (1786–1851), a clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth, and his wife, Elizabeth (née Barrow, 1789–1863).
...on 9 June 1870, he died at his home in Gad's Hill Place. He was mourned by all his readers.

Anthony Trollope ( 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882 ) became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era.

So now you know, if you didn't before, that Jane Austen was writing in a period more or less following the Revolutionary War in America, while Dickens and Trollope were firmly established in their own writing careers during the American Civil War. These events leave little to no impression on the works of these authors, even though the histories of America and England were finely intertwoven throughout both events.

For good measure, let's include some more British authors:

Charlotte Brontë (21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was a British novelist, the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. Charlotte Brontë, who used the pen name Currer Bell, is best known for Jane Eyre, one of the most famous of English novels.

I find it interesting that even though the Bronte sisters were writing well after Jane Austen's literary success, they still felt it incumbent upon themselves to use masculine pen names.

William Makepeace Thackeray (18 July 1811 – 24 December 1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.

I include Thackeray because I know that Charlotte Bronte and Anthony Trollope both admired him tremendously. And now I know, which I didn't before, how contemporary all of these authors, excepting only Jane Austen, were. I wonder, two hundred years from now, which of our popular writers who will continue to find audiences as these writers have done.

Drowning my sorrows in Dickens

I am not happy about the state of our book club. No, I am not happy at all. So I am turning to my old standby, English literature; to be precise, The Old Curiosity Shop, by Dickens.

I chose this book because it is mentioned in Little Women, and to my surprise it is, in many ways, a hoot. The overarching plot, of a young girl whose life is ruined by her gambling grandfather, is rife with pathos, but for all that, this book is really funny. I never really thought of Dickens in this light before.

There are many interesting characters, some unremittingly vile, some more complex, and some, or course, as good as the day is long. The introduction seems to imply that the heroine, little Nell, is on the insipid side, but I am having none of that. She reminds me of Maya, actually, in the excessive sweetness of her nature and her desire to protect and serve others, as well as her vivid imagination that makes her more anxious sometimes than perhaps she needs to be.

The story itself eventually revolves around a character whose very name indicates movement: Richard Swiveller. Originally seeming to be dissolute and disreputable, by the end of the book he is shown to be a good-hearted, although clearly weak-willed, man who ultimately is the cause of much good in many lives. And he is the subject of my favorite passage in the book:

... he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext, determined in favor of groundless jealousy. Having made up his mind on the important point, he circulated the glass (from his right hand to his left, and back again) pretty freely, to enable him to act his part with the greater discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of his meditations.

This spot was at Chelsea, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her widowed mother and two sisters, where she maintained a very small day-school for young ladies or proportionate dimension ...

To this Ladies' Seminary, then, Richard Swiveller hied, with designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia ...

(Glass in this case means mirror, a hand-held mirror to be precise, just in case it's not obvious from the context.)

Designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia. Yes, I love it.

I also like the passage where the villain intimidates his wife and mother-in-law by the way he eats breakfast:

..he ate hard eggs, shell and all, devoured gigantic prawns with the heads and tails on, chewed tobacco and water-cresses at the same time and with extraordinary greediness, drank boiling tea without winking, bit his fork and spoon till they bent again, and in short performed so many horrifying and uncommon acts that the women were nearly frightened out of their wits and began to doubt if he were really a human creature.

I love this book, and I didn't expect to at all, since as far as I know it's not regarded as one of Dickens' major works.

Next I will be reading the Palliser Novels, by Anthony Trollope, and sometime soon re-reading Pride and Prejudice.

It's a lonely undertaking, but what's a reader to do?

A Modern Mephistopheles

by Louisa May Alcott

I came across this book while looking in the adult stacks for a copy of Rose in Bloom. What I found, alongside multiple copies of Jo's Boys and Eight Cousins, were several books by and about the "other" Louisa May Alcott, who published many books pseudonymously, or anonymously, even after she had become a successful writer of children's literature. This particular book was published in 1877, anonymously, and was apparently considered pretty strong stuff. The blurb on the inside cover promises drugs, hypnotism, fraud, and deals with the devil -- in my opinion, the book doesn't really deliver. There is one scene where the innocent heroine is given hashhish by manipulative mephistopheles character, but it's not like anything particular unseemly ensues.

So if you read this book with an eye to illicit thrills, you're going to be disappointed. The scandals of the 1800s don't pack much of a wallop these days. And what really fascinated me is the way that whole passages could really have been lifted straight out of Little Women, if not that the literary allusions were to such dark works as Faust, rather than, say Pilgrim's Progress. The tone, however, was so clearly recognizable. I guess it's hard to describe, but if you've read a lot of her books, you'll know what I mean:

As she stood there, looking down the green vista, two figures crossed it. A smile curved the sad mouth and she said aloud, "Faust and Margaret, playing the old, old game."
"And Mephistopheles and Martha looking on," added a melodious voice, behind her, as Helwyze swept back the half-transparent curtain from the long window where he sat.

or:

Sunset came, filling the room with its soft splendor, and he watched the red rays linger longest in Gladys's corner. Her little basket stood as she left it, her books lay orderly, her desk was shut, a dead flower drooped from the slender vase, and across the couch trailed a soft white shawl she had been wont to wear. Helwyze did not approach the spot, but stood afar off looking at these small familiar things with the melancholy fortitude of one inured to loss and pain.

For a book about the seduction of innocence, there really is a heaping dose of wholesomeness in this book. Which, now that I think of it, is probably its best quality. Because the story of innocence degraded, regrets that come too late, all that kind of thing, has really become cliched. The story of innocence that holds its own, barely, while engaging with the seducer on an ongoing basis, has a little more complexity.

Not having read Faust, I'm probably missing a lot, but even so I enjoyed reading Alcott's version. I'll be moving on to other books now, although a second reading would probably be rewarding (easy, too; this isn't a long book). You know what, though? If you like Little Women, I have a feeling you would like this book, too.

In and out of Vogue

by Grace Mirabella

I had spent almost my entire life working for Vogue. I wanted to have something more behind me there than a history of raised and lowered hemlines. I wanted to be committed to something -- whether it was fighting smoking or striving for real-life clothes or fighting Alex and Si to improve the status of women both in pages and in the offices of our magazine.

(p. 212)

That, in a nutshell, captures the difference I see between Grace Mirabella and women like Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour. Barbara Walters has an interesting interview with Anna Wintour where she asks about TDWP. "But, Barbara," Anna replies, "If it's good for fashion, I think it's great!"

I want to be clear that I don't necessarily think that either of these quotes tell us what the real woman behind them actually feels. But these are the images they have chosen for public consumption: one wanting to be taken seriously for taking on real issues, one feeling an absolute devotion to fashion that never questions whether it should be taken seriously or not.

This memoir by Grace Mirabella is more interesting than I would have expected. She spends a lot of time explaining herself, which can get a little tiresome. She still seems to have a chip on her shoulder about her humble New Jersey roots. Her father was a bootlegger, though, so her childhood had a dashing romantic quality to it -- she spent plenty of time at ritzy clubs in New York, where her father was always welcomed. She went to good schools and soon made friends in society, so she's really been one of the upper crust for most of her life, whether or not she actually felt like it.

The part of this book I like best, though, comes briefly at the end, where she discusses the difference between couture (now dead) and fashion, and the evolution of runway shows from the more intimate salon showing. She cites a sea change in the eighties, when all of a sudden money became important, and ostentatious displays of wealth that would have been considered in bad taste a decade before, suddenly became all the rage. Having lived through that, my perceptions square with hers. I remember wondering at the time why it was OK all of a sudden to be so blatantly selfish about things, and not to care about other people any more.

Oh well, that's all in the past now. Ironically, I wouldn't have read this book if I wasn't interested in Anna Wintour. God knows, I'm not really all that interested in Vogue. Having read it, I feel that Grace Mirabella would have been even more successful had she been able to make a career in the business side of operations -- she clearly has a very good head for it. Anna Wintour, on the other hand, seems to have been destined for the editorship of Vogue, by which I mean the job seems to suit her to a T. So apart from the suffering of untold underpaid minions who suffer under Wintour's dictatorial employ, things seem to have worked out for the best. What remains an open, and interesting, question to me is whether Wintour will outlast Si Newhouse, who can't live forever, or whether she too will ultimately fall victim to his unpleasant habit of abruptly firing his editors. Time will tell.

D.V.

by Diana Vreeland
Edited by George Plimpton and Christopher Hemphill

The editor of Vogue who preceded Grace Mirabella, Diana Vreeland has to have been one of the first crazy-making, dictatorial editors; not unlike Ann Wintour herself. They definitely have a lot in common. Both upper class from the get-go, raised among Europe's elite. Both supremely self-confident in their vision for Vogue. Both devoted to fashion from an early age. If I was going to compare them, though, I think the first difference I see is that Vreeland was larger-than-life, flamboyant, and warm. Anna Wintour, by contrast, is often described as icy, aloof, even calculating.

When Mirabella was fired and Wintour named her replacement, many people noted the similarity to Mirabella's own ascent to the editorship of Vogue. Mirabella even admits that it was so awkward that she could never face Vreeland again afterwards. Yet, unlike Mirabella, who spends a fair amount of space in her own memoir rehashing the circumstances of her release from Vogue, Vreeland expresses little self-pity over her firing. It's significant, though, that Mirabella's name doesn't come up so much as once in this entire book, even though Mirabella makes much of their close working and personal relationship in hers. From reading D.V., you can gather that Vreeland was fired from Vogue in a graceless way, but that's about it.

So what I'm driving at is that, no matter what her private feelings were, Vreeland always puts a good face on things and maintains her air of fabulous pizzazz. This book is almost willfully scatter-brained, and definitely a little heavy on the name-dropping, but still presents an extremely interesting view of life in the twenties and thirties that is now long-gone. Her intense feeling for color is also a strong presence throughout -- is there anyone who hasn't heard her pronouncement "Pink is the navy blue of India?"

If you've seen the movie Funny Face, with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, then you probably know that the fashion editor in that movie was said to have been based on Vreeland. Reading her book, I couldn't get that character out of my mind, and it seemed to fit. Although this book is not really all that informative, it's definitely interesting, and I did enjoy reading it.

front row Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief

by Jerry Oppenheimer

I say this book was written to cash in on the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada, and Jerry Oppenheimer himself couldn't convince me otherwise. Here are some things I have learned about Anna Wintour:

1) High school dropout. Really. This actually makes me respect her even more.
2) She has sure made her share of enemies. She also has friends, and even fans.
3) Despite her tough image, plenty of people have seen her cry in public.
4) She has enormous self-discipline.
5) She is inordinately fond of high heels.

This book is clearly written with an eye to the image of Miranda Priestly in TDWP. A sample sentence:

Just when Mirabella thought she was finally safe from that skinny shark draped in Chanel, she started hearing the Jaws theme song ringing in her ears again.

Did I mention the writing is generally clunky and annoying? I doubt there's a page in the book that doesn't have some phrase like "that skinny shark draped in Chanel" or Miyake or whoever. There are also excessive mentions of her clacking (sound like clackers to anyone else?) around in stilettos. Plus why must Oppenheimer continually refer to her as an editrix? Aren't gender-distinguishing profession names passe? When's the last time anyone used the word actress? Is it possible that this continual use of "editrix" is meant to not-so-subtly evoke the similar-sounding dominatrix? Grow up, Jerry Oppenheimer, please.

When I started this book, I was already feeling a little Wintour-weary, yet somehow I am finding her story compelling. I can't help being impressed by her iron will, by the innumerable pictures of her looking wonderful (although I saw those on the internet, not in this book), by her ability overcome setbacks and keep moving on with her life. She certainly hasn't done a good job of controlling public perception of herself as a bitch on wheels, but she has done an amazing job of controlling the facade that the public sees. It's astonishing how good she looks, and how consistent, regardless of the variety of clothes she wears. She looks great in almost anything. Although being independently wealthy certainly must help in this regard.

This book seems to be the only biography written about her to date, which is too bad, because I think in more skillful hands this material would have been truly fascinating.

TDWP

Done! And Jerry Oppenheimer's book (I'm not sure it deserves to be called a bio) is waiting for me at the Santa Clara City Library. The newspapers are piling up, unread, but I'm still feeling pretty cocky. I'm glad that I'm going to have lots of time to track down the October book, because it looks longish.

Is it ironic, or just stupid, that my copy of the Oppenheimer book is on interlibrary loan from the San Jose system? SJCL thinks I need to pay them for a book that we actually returned, so I'm currently putting my borrowing their on hold. (It's hard on them, I know.) I guess I should actually check my account and see if they've taken the charge off, but I like the Santa Clara Library so much better that I haven't bothered yet. I haven't been to the MLK library downtown, but I had certainly been to the main branch of the City system, and the SJSU library that was the MLK predecessor. And I have to say, the Santa Clara library is far and away the nicest library I've been to in California.

It's nice, for example, that there's a big park behind it, as well as the International Swim Center. (Remember, we read about the Swim Center right before the last summer olympics?) The library itself is pretty inside, with lots of nice art, and somehow is the bookiest library I've been in in a while. It has the nasty fluorescent lights that I hate so much in every library there is, but they aren't so obvious for some reason. The children's section is huge, the adult section even huger, and the non-fiction collection has its own second floor. Lots of books and videos in lots of languages, beautiful folk literature collection -- I really love this library. And to top it all off, you get a grace period of 24 hours on overdue books. That's right! They don't start charging you until the second day after the book is due! Not that I plan to abuse this knowledge or anything.

Anyone can get a card there for free, so if you have any reason (like Park Day) to be in or near Santa Clara Central Park on even a semi-regular basis, I highly recommend it.

The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll

The Search for Dare Wright

by Jean Nathan

Trashy and compelling. Does anybody remember The Lonely Doll or any of the other books from the series? Apparently it is wildly popular in certain circles: library copies worn to pieces, used copies on eBay spurring frantic bidding wars, used booksellers with long lists of people willing to pay high prices.

I myself do not really remember these books, although I think maybe I might have seen one when I was little. If I did, I didn't like it. These are books told as a series of captioned photographs, and this has a static, creepy feeling to it that is just not to my taste. Looking at some of the photos from the children's books in this biography of their creator, I have to be impressed with how life-like she has made them, and to admire the details she has crammed into the frame, but I still don't like them as a children's story. But that's just me.

This biography looks at the life of their author and photographer, a reclusive artist of apparently unlimited creativity and weirdness. (Now there's a combination you hardly ever see. Really.) There is some attribution to written sources such as letters, but mostly it seems to rely on word of mouth from family friends. It's pretty heavily slanted. Dare Wright spent most of her life in an what appears to be a very unhealthy relationship with her mother, who the book depicts in a most unflattering light. And of course, it is titillating in a coy kind of way, implying but never saying that there was an incestuous aspect to it all. I suppose the main reason I actually read the whole thing is that it is short and to the point, and in not particularly trying to be balanced, manages to be fairly concise. Certainly Dare Wright was an interesting woman, and the photographs scattered throughout the book (almost every other page, it seems) are really something.

This book has been staring at me from the New shelf in the library for more than a year (and how is it still new in that case?) so I finally just gave in and read it. If you liked Dare Wright's books as a child, you might like to read it, too. Or if you're interested in artists with unhealthy personal lives. Or if you like photography. Or you might just want to find something more instructive and wholesome, like a biography of, oh I don't know, Queen Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne

by David Starkey

I liked this book very much. By now, Elizabeth's story is available to pretty much everyone, what with all the TV and movie attention it has been getting. There are also books by Antonia Fraser, or Philippa Gregory if you prefer, as well as numerous academic studies. I like this one, though, because its limited scope allows room for lots of interesting details of how Elizabeth actually lived -- more about her closest servants, advisors, and friends, people who get only a passing mention in books that have more ground to cover. There is a lot of attention paid to the ways in which Elizabeth distinguished herself from her sister Mary, and the ways in which Mary's rule influenced the decisions Elizabeth made on her ascension to the throne. So for anyone interested in Tudor history, this book is really a good read. And aren't we all really? Those Tudors seem to be pretty damn sexy.

Catherine the Great

by Virginia Rounding

Roughly the contemporary of Marie Antoinette, Catherine was also the object of vicious slander, both during her lifetime and after. Unlike Marie, Catherine was a powerful, capable ruler who seized the throne from her husband in a coup and was subsequently implicated in his murder, at least indirectly. She then proceeded to take a series of lovers -- they seemed to be always be in their 20s, so as she aged, the gap in ages steadily widened -- in the most matter-of-fact, out-in-the-open way that it's not really too surprising that people enjoyed gossiping about her. She furthermore maintained close ties to her first three objects of affection: one who eventually became the King of Poland, another one of her finest generals, the third her lifelong advisor.

An interesting woman, obviously way ahead of her time.

Marie Antoinette

by Antonia Fraser

Do history professors hate Antonia Fraser? Are they green with jealousy?

The reason I ask is that many professors I have known basically regarding teaching as the price they have to pay for being able to make a living while doing research. Yet here is Antonia Frasier, born, it seems, with a silver spoon in her mouth, writing blockbuster biographies supported by the most meticulous research with nary a student to pester her and no exams to grade. She gets to waltz through Europe, gaining access to all sorts of primary documents, without, as far as I can tell, even having earned an advanced degree. She has time to read every work ever published in her field of interest. What a life! I'm not even a historian, and I'm envious.

I really loved this biography of Marie Antoinette. All this time, I had no idea that I was a victim of propaganda more than two centuries old in my uninformed opinions about her. The effect of this propaganda on the people of her time, and the massive substitution of emotion for rational thought in the political climate of this time are both very relevant to conditions today. There's much food for thought there, as well as the always interesting portrait of life in another time and place. I certainly appreciated the way this book lets Marie Antoinette speak for herself, in quotes from her letters, and conversations remembered and recorded by people who knew her.

This book is interesting, informative, and well-written. What more could you ask? It even has way more pictures than the average non-fiction book, something that I really enjoyed. At approximately 450 pages, this book might be a little long for casual reading, but I nonetheless recommend it highly.

I'm also including a few Marie Antoinette links for anyone who might be interested.

This page was created in conjunction with a PBS show about her. It has some interesting interactive features.

This page has a gallery of portraits of Marie Antoinette, all painted by Elisabeth Vigee LeBrun. So it's interesting to see the work of a woman painter in a time where painters were generally men, and also to see the variety of ways she painted Marie Antoinette.

Stealing Your Life

by Frank Abagnale

This is the same Frank Abagnale who was the subject of Catch Me if You Can, the movie with Leonardo di Caprio and Tom Hanks. (And actually Catch Me if You Can is the title of one of his memoirs. ) Speaking of which, there's an amusing anecdote towards the end of the book where he is stopped by a police officer while driving a U-Haul somewhere. The police officer runs his license and comes up with his previous criminal record, which is actually substantial. Mr. Abagnale points out that these are all a long time ago, and tells the officer he is now legit. What is his current job? He is a consultant on crime prevention for the FBI. To which the officer replies, "What do you take me for? I wasn't born yesterday!" Too bad that actually happens to be the truth.

As a consultant for various law-enforcement agencies, Mr. Abagnale is in a position to see a lot of identity theft, and this book is his response to what he views as an epidemic increase in this crime. It's interesting to read, with lots of case histories, and also lots of practical advice. Not only does he outline the steps you need to take if you become a victim, but he also gives his personal ideas on the steps you should take to avoid it. He also veers ever-so-slightly into the self-serving, since he is a spokesman for a company that provides identity-theft protection, and has designed a shredder he thinks should replace the common confetti shredder. Assuming, however, that he genuinely believes that in the protection these offer, he would be remiss in not mentioning them, and he certainly doesn't spend an inappropriate amount of time singing their praises. Just the facts, ma'am.

This book is well worth reading. I think I'm going to look into his other two books, too.

Jamaica Inn

by Daphne DuMaurier

I listened to this on CD, rather than reading it as I normally would have, and I have to say it is a whole different experience. For one thing, speaking is much slower than silent reading, so I had a lot of chances to think over the story as it progressed. Little details of the writing also made more of an impression than they might have otherwise. This story is packed with dramatic tension, but no matter how much I wanted to find out what would happen next, the reading continued at its own steady pace. This particular reading was very expressive, with lots of accents and voices that I enjoyed for the most part.

Well, based on this book and Rebecca I would characterize the books of Daphne DuMaurier as follows: A young, plucky, but self-effacing young woman is alone in the world (immediate family all dead). She falls in love with a dark, brooding, damaged but still forceful man in whose presence she melts. Despite her general competency and common sense, she totally misreads the people around her (grossly underestimating the feelings she has aroused in the dark and dominating man). There is a big, destructive crisis following which she and her man strike out for parts unknown and the adventure of the open road.

I suppose it sounds like I didn't like this book, but actually I did, even though the gender stereotypes in the romance don't read that well in this day and age. Interestingly, despite frequent references to the story's placement in the 20th century, there is not an automobile in sight. The heroine is constantly walking long distances across the moors, occasionally being rescued by someone passing by in a carriage or on horseback when she ends up too far from home late at night or in inclement weather. The plot revolves around some particularly heinous smuggling, but the scenes involving the outlaws and their dastardly deeds are well written, and the descriptions are vivid and compelling.

And in what may seem like a total non-sequiteur, one thing I learned while listening to this story is that I really should not knit while lying flat on my back. It's doable, but the end result is not all that one could desire.

Little Heathens

By Mildred Kalish

This book got a lot of attention in the local media (both neighborhood and city papers, I mean) because the author is now living in the Almaden Valley. Amazingly, this is her first book, written after a lifetime as an English teacher -- I guess it's not too surprising that it's so beautifully written. I liked the various quotations she had interspersed throughout the text, too, doubtless another byproduct of her chosen vocation.

You could describe this book as a kind of combination of Letters from a Woman Homesteader and the Little House books. She writes about growing up on a farm, raised by a single mother and an extended family, under circumstances where cash was scarce but hard work produced bountiful food. Despite all the chores necessary to keep the farm going, she and her siblings managed to find plenty of time for reading and games and getting up to mischief. It sounds like a wonderful childhood.

Her adult life is added almost as an afterthought, but it sounds pretty interesting too. Military service, teaching career, family extending now to several grandchildren, all the while maintaining the health and vigor to still chop and stack wood (the jacket picture, in fact, shows her standing in front of a wood pile).

Like the Little House books, this book is charming for many reasons. It describes an interesting, warm family life, even though the culture of that family was not one for overt displays of affection. It has interesting tidbits of how-to information relevant to a way of life that is passing, or maybe even already gone. It even has recipes! And through it all, the voice of the author, who clearly has a great personality. She attributes it to her upbringing, but I think she was born with it.

Harry Potter is upon us

Decisions, decisions. Should we go to the library party on Friday night or the bookstore party in the morning? Well, the bookstore won out, since we had copies on reserve there.

So down we drove to the bookstore, seven o'clock in the morning, and found the party in full swing. Lots of games where the kids could win little stones, then trade them in for a prize from a grab bag. A scavenger hunt, book readings, trivia contests. Friends we hadn't seen in a while. It was a nice couple of hours, but I started to get hungry, plus really, it seemed like time to get reading.

And so now, it's over. Seven books and more than that many years of waiting. Reading this last installment, I was really impressed. I know I have spoken slightingly of the Harry Potter series in the past. This last book pulls it all together beautifully, though. As someone who has lost people I loved dearly, I feel this book touches eloquently on what death means to the ones who survive. I've never really thought these were appropriate as children's books, and this last one is certainly no exception. It's very intense, and difficult to read in places. Ziad is tackling it, but finding it tough going. I wonder if he'll re-read this series any time soon. I doubt I will. It feels funny, though, not to have another book in the offing.

To Steal a Kingdom

This fascinating book, subtitled Probing Hawaiian History, details a non-standard, Hawaiian-based view of Hawaii's contact with outside influences. One of it's major theses is that Hawaiian history as it is written about and presented by various institutions, has been tightly controlled by members of one prominent family, a family whose wealth is based on land-grabbing and exploitation of Hawaiian people and resources. It's interesting, then, that this book was recommended to me by a guide at a museum run by the Hawaiian historical society, one of the institutions specifically mentioned by name

One easy reading of this book is that the Hawaiians were overwhelmed by the diseases, religions, and greed of white men who came to their shores. In my opinion, though, it's impossible not to see that various Hawaiian nobility attempted to use the white men for their own personal gain, and in so doing, sold out their people and their country. King Kamehameha, for example, widely known for gathering all the islands under his personal rule, used European military power in his conquest. This is not to say that the Hawaiians could, in any event, have maintained their independent sovereignty. The chain of events that led to Hawaii's annexation, however, seems to me to be a real-life tragedy on an epic scale, with the short-sightedness and selfishness of the nobility as only one factor among many. Certainly the greed of sugar manufacturers is appalling.

I have a friend who grew up on Maui (her parents are from Molokai), and she told me that in many respects, native Hawaiians are worse off than the native Americans. Before Europeans came to their shores, the Hawaiians had lived for thousands of years in a stable, prosperous culture. Today, their numbers have been reduced until their voices are drowned out in the land of their ancestors. Many live in poverty. There has been no compensation.

Given that so many of us love our Hawaiian vacations, I think this book is a good dose of reality; something to think about when we're admiring the enjoying a luau, wearing a lei, engaging in any of the thousand tourist activities the islands have on offer.

Watership Down

certainly gets more compelling as it goes along. In fact, it's downright hard to put down. The appearance of the evil, arch-villain super rabbit adds immensely to the drama. So finishing the book was not a problem after all.

I'm looking forward to our discussion tonight.

Leonardo Da Vinci was crazy ...

With these immortal words, a science teacher brought Leonardo Da Vinci to the forefront of my son's interest and imagination. (Leonardo Da Vinci was crazy, he went around telling his neighbors that man would fly one day. He spent lots of time watching birds and figuring out how they did it. This kind of talk.) Unfortunately, all the children's biographies were checked out. In fact, all the children's books on the Renaissance were checked out. Someone must be doing a history project.

So when I stumbled across Leonardo: Flights of the Mind I felt obligated to read up and report back to the boy. Unfortunately, this very good book spends a lot more time discussing his art in great detail, and really only mentions his scientific work in passing. I enjoyed this book a lot, however, especially in contrast to The Other Boleyn Girl which is historical fiction. I enjoyed reading quotes from his notebooks and letters, as well as from other original sources, and liked knowing documented fact left off and author speculation began. So even though this book had no actual sex scenes (although a lot of speculation about Leonardo's sex life), and no snappy dialogue, I liked reading it a lot more. Of course all the reproduced drawings and color plates were also a big plus.