Born To Run (or not) by Christopher McDougall

Here we go with another journalist.  Those readers who drift more towards non-fiction are probably appreciative of the research-laden books that journalists publish.  Everything you always wanted to know about, in this case, ultra running, all condensed, to an extent, in one book. 

In my case, I prefer fiction, which can benefit from good research, as seasoning; but does not become the main entrée for a meal.  All the way through this book, I pictured the author, not participating in yet another screwy running event; but rather sprawled out like I am right now, in front of my computer, digging up vignettes from the Internet and printing them all out until the author had scores of human interest blurbs from all around the world related to running.  Then he wove them together into a cohesive a story as he could muster.

So, for me, this sort of book has to balance the research with a pervasive plot line.  Many of our journalist books these past few years did a good job of this:  Henrietta Lacks had good balance and a plot that carried; Sanctuary of Outcasts carried the plotline, but it was an evil one.  Bliss by Eric Weiner and Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick are my epitomes of bad balance.  Demick at least tried with a bad subject; Weiner didn’t even try to make sense of his “old stories”.

Ultra Running

No one knows anything about it.!.!

No one cares about this arcane subject.!.!

Why not.?.?  ---  because it’s boring.!.!.!

 

I like to talk about “take-away”-s from a book experience: lessons learned; knowledge gained; improvements to my lifestyle, diet, knowledgebase, personality, skill set, love life, handling of interpersonal relationships.

What came to mind in review was:

-     Run barefoot

-     Eat vegetarian

The problem is, the author didn’t do either.  He didn’t walk the walk.

He wore big boots or $200 running shoes all the time.

He ate like a fully-fledged carnivore, an American carnivore at that – red meat with processed food supplements.  YUK.!.!

 

Did I sympathize with him in the “Big” race ? ---  NO.! ---

He seemed like a big, fat slob that deserved to take 12 hours to complete what other did in 6 hours.

The Weird Sisters

They’re not weird at all.

These sisters are perfectly normal.

The author seems to be exploring her own fantasy world of what could/should/might have been in her life.  Perfectly viable territory, but in a novel of one’s own life, we wind up in dream-land, with happy endings for all concerned, and not too many moral resolutions.  I hesitate to use the words, … .. woman’s writing.  I stand for this opinion, as a male, with characterizations of: vapid, endlessly chatty, and oft-times purposeless.  To be balanced, men are often: vulgar, brusque, and are most-times into (war, sports, and themselves); and that’s men’s writing, which, being a man, I like better than women’s writing.  But that doesn’t mean one is better or worse than the other: just that each of us has our own.  No different than, we don’t read, and thus not like [or dislike] Pakistani or Portuguese literature either.

 

I read this as an autobiographical treatise on the author’s split personality, as exemplified through the three sisters.  Who is speaking, as if it is not a single voice, but rather representing all concerned. ?

There are no sisters.!  It’s a single voice; a clearly unchanging single voice.

It is the voice of the author’s self, with the three sister characters’ lifestyles that she envied, wished for, but never actually experienced for herself.  This is not a, “Hey, this is how I grew up, but I changed the names” type of story.

These characters are extremely composite and will each come out -1-, -5-, or -10- on a 1-10 scale of things like “free spirit” [Cordy-10; Bean-5; Rose-1]  or like responsibility [Cordy-1; Bean-5; Rose-10], ie, Cookie-cutter characters.

Trying to move on from the characters, we run into the same problem with the plot line(s).  The author is pacing the book to wind up in Nirvana for all characters involved.  Now, life doesn’t improve everyone’s lot by the same amount each day, but here we find that strangely, everyone’s current and future situation seems to progress evenly, sustainably, and uniformly from the day they come “home”.  It’s the magic elixir: generally LOVE, but with a mix of: purpose for Bean; companionship for Cordy; and Faith for Rose.  All these things are of course of biblical origins: Faith, Hope, and Charity.

As a book club title, and in the continuing interest of the library readership, this was an OK book.  Nouns and verbs are in the right places.  Some sort of plot line advanced periodically.

For our sort of book, this met the minimum standard, but it dwelled for long periods in the fantasy region of the truly weird, to make a pun.
 

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley – May 2013

Mary S. takes a stab at channeling Bill S.

 

She does an interesting beginning; then realizes she’s bitten off more than she can chew as she slows in the middle; and then tires, to wrap this up kinda lamely, exposing her true purpose with all of this, rather than keeping it all magical {which was nice.}

It’s a monumental undertaking, writing a Greek tragedy; it’s bold and audacious.  This remains after two hundred years, as a significant milestone in English language storytelling.

Is the author trying to say that this evil lies within us?

n  That this is a Christian tenent

and that the monster was Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s alter-ego;

That this was an internal struggle between the good and evil

that lies within all of us

n  Or is she documenting a real belief that evil lies without and can be fought, with knife and bludgeon?, religious faith and a wooden cross?

Lots of deaths accentuated the whole point, whatever the point was; just like in MacBeth.

Man is ignoble; possibly a lessor creature to the “Monster”; man is nonetheless, unable to acknowledge the “Monster” as a viable member of the species.  Was this prescience on M.S.’s, part of the Third Reich? or maybe of Asimov’s robotics?; or even an awesome foreseeing of genetic re-engineering, and the creation of a “master race”?

The relevance of this in modern times is scary.  Did she foresee this as a result of our penchant for scientific exploration and discovery?  The A-Bomb and H-bomb.!  Are they the Frankensteins.  We have forgotten them this past twenty years, along with poison gas {and God forbid, the next generation of these sorts of things: proliferation of genetic toxins}], since the fall of the “Evil Empire” [or was that us?].  We are only reminded periodically by events like the Boston Marathon [I am horrified that I first wrote Boston, then realized that I needed to add Marathon, or next year, nobody would know what I was talking about.]

Another, simpler thought, would be: she thought as would a butterfly, or a fawn: friend or enemy; love or hate. In my experience, I am loved by wasps and bees, rats and raccoons, and birds of all sorts.  I like to dwell on that thought.  Also, let’s give Mary credit for maybe spanning the range of human interactions, as well as time and philosophic thought.  Does Good versus Evil work any differently today than it did two hundred years ago?  I don’t think so, not one wit.  I’m currently addicted to catching up on “West Wing” on Netflix, and watching themes from ten years ago: still N. Korea & Iranian nukes.  Short term – nothing changes:  Long Term: Good & Evil; just like the Crusades, a millennia ago.

Is there take-away for our generation?

“You betcha kemo sabe.!”

At the lowest levels:

      There are those who think like us – the good guys

      And those who don’t – the bad guys

At higher levels:

      There are those who think like us – the good guys

      And those who don’t – the bad guys

 

At the end, running out of space and energy, she paraphrases my {all men’s} favorite warrior speech

 

KING HENRY V   Act 4: Scene 3

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

 

 

 

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

 

This is subject matter that deserves being publically aired and is worth our time, 20-30 hours this month, as library bibliophiles.  Besides a valuable topic or topical value, it’s well-written.  The author has taken a topic that could easily have run out of steam in a magazine short story, and kept the reader’s spark of interest throughout the whole book.  My only knock on the writing was that an editor would have cut about 100 pages, eliminating many repetitious retellings of the same story.  I can understand though, that the author probably had two strong reasons not to turn her manuscript over to a publisher’s editor:

1.     She is a journalist with a great story – or maybe a scientist who wants to make sure that accuracy is foremost

2.     The Lacks family might have said no way.

 

I had heard much about this book back in 2010 when Rebecca was on the book tour circuit.  Ten to thirty minutes on NPR or KGO, however, is not sufficient to do this book justice.  The book represents a great effort at journalistic research.  This is a model effort for those striving at really digging up a story that wants to stay hidden.  Perseverance! That’s what Rebecca personifies.

I’m glad I read this book and would recommend it, especially to younger people, who might take a pathway down the road of writing stories.

It is unfortunate, when recounting true biography, that events don’t always fit to a convenient timeline, nor have proper precedents and antecedents.  The flow of this story was dictated by the author’s research efforts and this made the pacing of the book understandably erratic.

Rebecca Skloot, however, demonstrated prowess as an author by creating a loveable character with Henrietta, imbued with spunk and quotable lines:

 

“You Don’t Mess With Henrietta”.!!!

 

Give Back Tuesday for Save The Rio and The Big Read

THE POCKET EMILY DICKINSON by Margaret McLaren

I ambled complacently into the library to pick up my copy of “The Pocket Emily Dickinson”, wondering idly why I had never actually read a single poem of hers, and knew practically nothing about her life.  “I don’t get her,” a friend had recently commented.  “Emily Dickinson,” said another, “Wasn’t she . . . ummm . . . “  

 

So on the way back to my car, I opened the little book, entirely at random, and on page 91, I read:

 

“There is a pain – so utter –

It swallows substance up –

Then covers the Abyss with Trance –

So memory can step

Around – across – upon it –

As one within a Swoon –

Goes safely – where an open eye –

Would drop Him – Bone by Bone”

 

I found myself sobbing uncontrollably by the middle of the second line, there in the parking lot of the Guerneville library, and knocked flat by the time I reached the end of the poem.  Please understand, I am not a woman who cries, but it took me a good hour, and a very long walk in Armstrong Woods, to get myself together again.

 

Suffice it to say I am not likely to ever forget the day I read my first Emily Dickinson poem, and I am determined, once I can read page 91 with equanimity, to attempt another one.  

 

I think it is safe to say that I now “get” Emily Dickinson.

Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

This is a wonderfully well-balanced book.  The writing is excellent, with an interesting theme and research that is impressive without being dominating.  The time transitions are especially smooth and effortless for the reader.  I was never at a loss to know what was going on, but always tantalized about what was to come next.  Edugyan’s plot development is a model example of taking the reader right to the edge of suspension of disbelief.

We care about these men and women.  They are flawed but likeable characters when they are youngsters in their 20’s.  We love the remaining men when they are old and callous; still flawed, but humbled by their experiences.

There was a rich field of as yet untapped plot-line themes that make up this book: African-American jazz musicians and other sorts of entertainers traveling in Nazi Germany; the anomaly of racial purity as a political doctrine that can dominate a nation; the whole dangerous mystique of moving around in Nazi-held territory [She steals the departing Paris train scene from “Casablanca” where Rick and Ilsa don’t meet up as planned, {but why not – it was a great scene} ].

 

An unusual twist, for us Americans, was that, through Edugyan’s research, we learn that African-Americans were respected and welcomed into the dinner tables of Deutschland.  However, through parental-indiscretion, Hiero, is an African-German and considered a racial outcast.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what rich, fascinating information this book contains

The author examines the mischling situation from all angles, not just African mixtures, but Jewish as well.  She seemingly writes herself into the book as Delilah, the only real female character: mysterious and all-knowing, she dominates the action until the book shifts completely to the present.

This book appears to be the complete opposite treatment of the effects of racially-mixed blood lines as last year’s “Cane River”, which was such an intellectual treatise on the subject.  However, they both stimulated deep thoughts about this subject area