Book Review: Had A Good Time by Robert Olen Butler

Had a Good Time

Author: Robert Olen Butler

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Date of Publication: August 9, 2005

Pages: 288 (Trade Paper Edition) 

     This is another stellar set of stories from a terrific writer.  Robert Olen Butler won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain.  Had a Good Time is another intriguing book of expertly crafted short stories, each with a very interesting starting point.  The author collects vintage, turn of the century post cards.  He uses the photo and greeting from a different card from his collection as a jumping off point for each story.  This is reminiscent of his collection Tabloid Dreams, in which he used a bizarre but actual headline from a supermarket tabloid as a starting point for each story. 

    In each story the author recreates a vignette of early 1900s America, from small towns in the South to remote farms in desolate South Dakota.  Each story is a carefully constructed character study with many poignant as well as humorous moments.  My personal favorite is “The Ironworker’s Hayride” where a very shy young bachelor is convinced to go on a blind date with a girl who has a wooden leg.  The ensuing hayride and this man’s internal debate with his conscience are hilarious.  This one story alone is worth the purchase price of the book.

     While the author describes scenes with realism and creates memorable characters, the best parts of these stories are the dialogues.  Several of the stories, set in the South with children as main characters, evoke memories of verbal exchanges in Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.  In others, the plots move along solely through dialogue.  In others, the spoken words set tone and create atmosphere. 

     Robert Olen Butler teaches creative writing at Florida State University.  If you are interested in how a truly masterful writer creates a short story, visit his web-site “Inside CreativeWriting”.   He has a day by day posting of his work on a story, from inception to completion, including edits and revisions.

     This is a very entertaining collection.  The stories themselves are very interesting, but the thought processes behind each one are even more so.  Had a Good Time by Robert Olen Butler is available in hard back from Grove Press.

Book Review: Pieces of Light by Charles Fernyhough

Pieces of Light

Author: Charles Fernyhough

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Date of Publication: January 7, 2014

Pages: 320

"Memory has its own special kind of truth.  It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies and vilifies also, but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events;  and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own."
- Salman Rushdie

     Developmental psychologist Charles Fernyhough begins the final chapter of Pieces of Light by saying: "I set out to write about some science, and I ended up by telling a lot of stories."  Indeed he did.  In a little over 200 pages this author has concisely summarized current  memory research.  He enlivens the anatomic and statistical facts with colorful anecdotes and stories which help the reader comprehend what all of this research means on a practical level.  In the process, the author encourages us to think differently about memory and : "Thinking differently about memory requires us to think differently about some of the 'truths' that are closest to the core of our selves."

     In his introduction, Fernyhough states "We need our memories, and we find ways of hanging on to them.  According to the conventional 'possession' view of memory, we do that by filing them away in a kind of internal library, ready to be retrieved as soon as they are needed."   He then goes on to say that "The view that I want to explore in this book is that memory is more like a habit, a process of constructing something from its parts, in similar but subtly changing ways each time, whenever the occasion arises."  It is this reconstructive view of memory that he explores throughout the book.

     In successive chapters the author explores how reconstructed memories are very susceptible to distortion by information provided after the event and by bias.  He distinguishes between semantic memory (memory for facts) and episodic memory (memory for events) and how memories from our own lives involve an integration of these two types of memory.

     He also writes about the evocation of memory by certain stimuli.  In particular, he talks about how certain sensory stimulation can evoke very strong memories (or "involuntary memories").  The classic example of this in literature is Proust's memories of his grandmother which were brought about by the smell and taste of Madeleine cakes in his book In Search of Lost Time.  

     This concept of memories as reconstructions has many critical implications.  The legal system is taking this into account.  More and more, the courts are discounting the reliability of eyewitness testimony in favor of more verifiable evidence.  Memory manipulation is a great concern, especially in the arena of child abuse.  There is great interest in this concept of memory reconstruction in the treatment of memory disorders including amnesia, dementia and post-traumatic stress syndrome.  The chapter on PTSD is particularly interesting, especially since this is a relatively new diagnosis (first included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the 1980s).  The successful use of therapy to refocus the memory of  PTSD patients is fascinating.  

     This book is reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell's books in that both authors use data and facts which then are augmented by "real world" narratives.  Fernyhough goes further, however, using many personal anecdotes and family stories.  The chapter which describes his interviews with his 90 year old grandmother are touching as well as enlightening.  I also really enjoyed the segments in which Fernyhough uses literature (Proust, of course, as well as many more contemporary authors) to show how different views of memory are portrayed.  Fernyhough also has the advantage over Gladwell in the fact that he is a scientist and a practitioner in the field rather a reporting journalist.  This author obviously had a thorough command of the information and has a real talent for explaining it on a level that the non-psychologist and non-neuroanatomist can comprehend.  

     This is a very enjoyable study of modern memory research which deserves a wide audience.

Book Review: David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell

David and Goliath

Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: October 1, 2013

Pages: 320

     Malcolm Gladwell has produced another wonderful book of counter-intuitive thinking.  I marvel that all of his books seem to make so much sense and yet they scoff at the politically correct or majority opinion way of thinking.  

     In David and Goliath, Gladwell takes us on fascinating statistical surveys which underscore his main point which is that much of what we would normally perceive as hindrances or handicaps may actually be advantages.  From physical limitations to adverse socio-economic circumstances he shows us how many have been motivated by these life circumstances to become super successful.

     He opens the book by re-examining the fabled Old Testament story of David and Goliath.  While this story is traditionally understood as the classic example of the triumph of the underdog, Gladwell presents cogent reasoning to convince the reader that things aren't always the way they seem.  David, in Gladwell's vision, is actually the favorite in this lop-sided battle.  The author sums this premise:

"We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren't and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser."  (Page 20)

     He then uses multiple studies and statistical surveys to examine everything from sports to classroom size.  He introduces the concept of the "inverted U" phenomenon.  This refers to graphical analysis of data where at some point more of something produces the opposite of the desired effect.  There comes a point where there can indeed be too much of a good thing.  He applies this principle to wealth and states: "Wealth contains the seeds of its own destruction."  (Page 38)

     He then relates several more interesting stories.  The first tells of the Impressionists in France and their difficulty finding acceptance in the traditional Parisian art world.  The second is more contemporary and introduces a college student who went to an Ivy League school and couldn't finish in her field of choice because of the high level of competition.  The point of these stories according to the author is "that there are times and places where it is better to be a Big Fish in a Little Pond than a Little Fish in a Big Pond."  The Impressionists were successful because they operated outside of the expected behavior and the student would more likely have been able to pursue her original dreams in a less competitive environment.

     The next section of the book relates how many with handicaps defy odds and become successful.  Gladwell reasons that their handicap may actually be perceived as an advantage because of the psychological benefits of overcoming their handicap.  Their resolve may be the ticket to their achievement.

     The last three chapters deal with legitimacy of authority.  According to Gladwell, the principle of legitimacy relies on three principles.  First, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice.  Second, the law has to be predictable and, finally, the authority has to be fair.  He applies this test to several examples, including positive parenting, an effective police program in Queens, New York and military action against civilians in Northern Ireland.  He further explains that "when law is applied in the absence of legitimacy, it does not produce obedience.  It produces the opposite.  It leads to backlash."  The author then explores how this applies to misuse of power.  He spends a lot of time discussing the California "three strikes" law  and how the extension of prison sentences over a long period of time actually led to the opposite of the desired effect (lowered crime rates).  He has compelling explanations for this, again using his "inverted U" principle.  The logic is that the same strategies that work really well at first stop working past a certain point. He concludes with a story from Nazi occupied France.  This story illustrates his point that "the powerful are not as powerful as they seem - nor the weak as weak."  Gladwell points out that "the excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems, and force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission.

     Gladwell's books are always entertaining, well written and thought provoking.  I admire his contrarian view of the world.  Some may argue with his statistics and others may carp about his conclusions, but no one can claim that Mr. Gladwell is not an original thinker.  

The Origin of the Jesuits by James Brodrick, S.J.

The Origin of the Jesuits

Author: James Brodrick, S.J.

Publisher: Loyaola Press

Date of Publication: March 28, 1997

Pages: 274

 This book was first published in 1940.  Irish born Father Brodrick was educated in Dublin and London and wrote extensively on Jesuit history.  This book was intended as an introduction to a larger, more complete Jesuit history.  It covers the period of the life of Ignatius of Loyola (the Jesuit founder) in a period of Catholic Church history known as the "Counter Reformation".  The Jesuit role in that movement is not a central theme, but it is noted throughout. 

Book Review: Sycamore Row by John Grisham

Sycamore Row

Author: John Grisham

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date of Publication: October 22, 2013

Pages: 464 (Hardcover Edition) 

  You have to give John Grisham his due.  Year after year he spins out great stories filled with memorable characters and just the right amount of tension.  A Time to Kill was his first novel (which I read shortly after I read his breakthrough novel The Firm) and Sycamore Row is a worthy sequel.  Grisham reprises most of the characters from his first book, including young and struggling attorney Jake Brigance.  It is three years after the heralded murder trial from A Time to Kill (the late 1980s).  Jake still runs his practice on a shoestring budget, fending off creditors and looking for business.  "Business" finds him in the form of a letter from an elderly white male, in the terminal stages of lung cancer, who hung himself from a Sycamore tree shortly after penning the letter to Jake.  Included in the letter is a hand-written will which leaves the bulk of his considerable estate to his black housekeeper and specifically excludes his derelict children.

  It's hard to believe that a 460 page novel about a contested will could be interesting much less entertaining, but Grisham achieves both.  The cast of characters is large and they are portrayed well.  Even though the author is describing "typical" Southerners, he doesn't wallow in stereotype or cliche.  The disgruntled heirs and their "big city" lawyers who swoop in like turkey vultures on roadkill, the locals who all have opinions fueled by gossip and innuendo, Jake and his family and a multitude of other minor characters all keep the story vibrant and moving.  

     Like A Time to Kill the main theme here is race and bigotry.  The difference in Sycamore Row is that the race issue is more simmering with overtones everywhere but it is not as bluntly in your face.  The final message is that events of decades past can indeed have serious repercussions generations later.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is just what you would expect from this author: a fine story, great characters and a very satisfying resolution.  What more could a reader ask?

    

Book Review: Visitation Street by Ivy Pachoda

Visitation Street

Author: Ivy Pochoda

Publisher: HarperCollins Publisher

Date of Publication: July 9, 2013

Pages: 320 (NOOK Edition)

     Visitation Street is a "lost girl" novel.  The set up is interesting.  One summer night two bored 15 year old girls searching for adventure decide to take a small raft onto the river near their Brooklyn home.  One is found on the shore the next morning near death, amnesic for events surrounding the raft ride.  The other remains missing, her fate unknown until the very end of the book.  The book studies the effects of this disappearance on a complex urban neighborhood.  There are many other main characters.  They include the girls' music teacher who also is an alcoholic, a troubled African-American teen who encountered the girls on their way to the water, a Muslim convenience store owner and the extended families of the girls and these other characters.

     This is a first novel for Ms. Pochoda and there are certainly flashes of writing brilliance in Visitation Street.  My problem with the book is that it never decides what it is.  It is not a police procedural, since the formal investigation is almost never mentioned.  It tries to be a complex character study and succeeds on certain levels, but the author has so many characters involved that none ever get the full attention they deserve.  It also has hints of a sociological study of an urban neighborhood, with conflicts between the dwellers in the projects, the original inhabitants and new intruders trying to revitalize the waterfront.  All of these conflicts are alluded to but never completely developed.  Several of the characters have the ability to "communicate with the dead" and there are scenes of  the missing girl channeling through yet another girl as well as making appearances in a mirror to the other raft rider. 

     Overall, this was a good book, kept me turning the pages and had spots of sparkling description.  I would have been happier with a less complex story that focused more on just a couple of the main characters. 

Book Review: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch

Author: Donna Tartt

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: October 22, 2013

Pages: 784

     The Goldfinch is many things.  First. it is a remarkable character study.  The main character, Theo Decker, suffers an unspeakable tragedy.  At age 14 he loses his mother in a terrorist attack.  He spends the rest of the book reeling through abandonment issues, survivor's guilt and self-loathing.  There is a second main character.  Boris is a Ukranian whose mother has also died and whom Theo meets in school in Las Vegas.  They become inseparable.  There is also a huge cast of well drawn supporting characters.  Second, it is a captivating sociological examination of growing up in a modern world: latch-key teens, readily available alcohol and drugs, materialism and celebrity culture.  Third, it is a philosophical treatise on the role of fate and chance in our lives and asks the question: How much control do we  really have over what happens to us in our lifetime?  Finally, all 784 pages of this book are a primer on exactly what challenging and spell binding creative writing should be.  Every detail of setting creates the atmosphere necessary for the story, the dialogue is crystalline and pitch perfect and the story, although lengthy, is perfectly rendered.  There is not one word, phrase or sentence which should have been edited out.  As an example of this author's writing skill, here's Theo describing arriving in Las Vegas:

 "My new room felt so bare and lonely that, after I unpacked my bags, I left the sliding door of the closet open so I could see my clothes hanging inside.  From downstairs, I could still hear Dad shouting about the carpet."

     This book has three sections which occur in two main locations.  The book starts with Theo and his mother in New York.  After the bomb blast Theo lives for a few months with an affluent family on Fifth Avenue.  His heretofore estranged father reappears and Theo moves to Las Vegas with him and his live-in girlfriend.  It is in Las Vegas where Theo meets Boris, who is just as out of place in Vegas as Theo.  Their shared strangeness unites them in a catastrophic  friendship.  The story concludes with the young adult Theo back in New York.  The final scenes occur in Amsterdam.  Although there are multiple settings, The Goldfinch is a total celebration of all things New York:  ethnic restaurants,  the art and theater scene, funky specialty shops, the great melting pot of different peoples and the general chaos that is life in "The City."  Las Vegas is included to show the exact opposite of New York: overbuilt and barely inhabited subdivisions on the outskirts of the dessert, false glamour, failed promises and total shallowness.

     The writing here is truly marvelous.  The author packs a ton of detail into this story, although at times you feel that there is too much.  You come to realize though, that each detail adds a layer of complexity to this already very complex tale and each detail is necessary to comprehend the sum of what the author is trying to do.  The author is also extremely clever.  There is one particular scene late in the book where Theo is having coffee with a young lady in a Greenwich Village coffee shop.  Theo notes that Bob Dylan is playing on the music system in the background.  A few pages later Theo observes a young couple walking arm in arm down an otherwise abandoned Village street.  I almost fell off of the stationary bike at the Y when I realized the author had described the cover art of Dylan's legendary album "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"!
                                           
                                                
 
     The one constant in this otherwise constantly morphing story is a small 16th Century masterpiece painting called "The Goldfinch."  Theo's mother had been mesmerized by a print of this as a youth.  An exhibit featuring the actual painting prompted the ill-fated visit to the art museum which culminated in her death.  Theo walks out of the chaos of the museum bombing with the small painting in hand and keeps it in hiding throughout the story.  The painting is at once a talisman which connects Theo to his Mom, an object of beauty which Theo adores and a pervading source of angst for Theo.  What happens to him if he is caught with the purloined painting?  He becomes obsessed both with the painting as well as the need to keep his possession of it secret.

     Late in the story Theo is discussing antiques and collectibles with Hobie, an aging artisan who restores furniture and becomes a surrogate father for Theo after he returns from Las Vegas.  Hobie says:  "Caring too much for objects can destroy you.  Only - if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it?  And isn't the whole point of things - beautiful things - that they connect you to some larger beauty?  Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another?"  Theo considers this and later reflects: "I think of what Hobie said: beauty alters the grain of reality.  And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful."

     The real ambition of The Goldfinch is it's attempt to define what role fate and chance have in our lives.  How much of what we wind up doing and becoming is really under our control and how much of it is thrust upon us by circumstance and just plain luck (good and bad)?  The final chapters of the book have Theo reunited with Boris.  Boris' life has taken some radical turns, most of which are on the wrong side of the law.  Theo and Boris reflect on their tumultuous time together in Vegas and their subsequent divergent life paths.  Boris says this to Theo: "Maybe sometimes - the wrong way is the right way?  You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be?  Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?"  More Boris: "What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God?  What if the pattern is pre-set?  No no - hang on - this is a question worth struggling with.  What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good?  What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?"  This is not the "stuff" of an average novel.


     This book took me a very, very long time to read.  This, however, is not a criticism.  The reason it took me so long to read is that I found myself re-reading paragraphs, pages and whole sections over and over again because I couldn't believe how well written they were.  The first two hundred pages or so, in fact, are probably the best description of a terrorist attack I have read to date.  The whole event (the melancholy morning leading to the ill-fated trip to art gallery, the visit to the gallery itself and the bomb and its aftermath) is told by Theo in a dream-like, slow motion, detail packed way which is totally mesmerizing.  You feel like you are experiencing the attack and its aftermath yourself. 

   Take the time to experience The Goldfinch.  It is worth it.