Recent Reading

America, America by Ethan Canin
I loved the first part of this book. I admire the ability of writers to successfully pull off the unrealiable narrative. We don't distrust the narrator because we think he is lying, we distrust him because of his naivete. And so I loved this romp into class differences and the guilty pleasure our young working class kid gets with his chance to rub elbows with the rich and famous. And we understand his ability to detach himself from his own realization that the only reason the workers are given attention is because the unions can deliver votes. Yet, we are left disappointed by the failure of our narrator to recognize his gullibility. I found it hard to believe that someone so accustomed to analysis could so completely miss the clues live had given him. So, although I admire the class consciousness of this novel, I despair of the way our hero makes excuses for the ruling classes.

Dark House by Theresa Monsour
This author has moved to another pseudonym and her books are out of print. I found this used book at a local store. It is the third of third and final novel in a trilogy focused on St. Paul homicide detective Paris Murphy. Serene Ransom is a fascinating villain. Crazy cat lady, child molester, academic. Of course! I have a sense that the earlier books provided an interesting back-story for Murphy, but I'll have to search the used bookstores to find out, it seems.

Blind Rage by Terri Persons
Terri Persons is the next pseudonym used by the woman who wrote as Theresa Monsour. This series wanders into the currently fashionable psychic field of crime fiction. Our heroine, Bernadette Saint Clare, is able to see through the eyes of murderers. Yet her vision has serious limitations and has caused her to draw erroneous conclusions. It's an interesting way to portray esp: useful sometimes, but often misleading. It makes us questions the very concept of "hunches" and "gut reactions". I read the first in the series, Blind Spot and liked it enough to pick up the second book on a recent bookstore expedition. Saint Clare's visitors from beyond the grave are fascinating, infuriating and their powers are mystifying. But it's a fun read and I'm willing to take the ride.

Black Bolshevik by Harry Haywood
Reading this with one of my book groups. We read the first half of the book for our first meeting last Sunday. I didn't make it all the way through. I am fascinating by the discussion of black nationalism and how the Communist Party position diverged from the more popular Marcus Garvey "back to Africa" movement. I have a lot to learn about the discussion and don't feel as if I understand it from reading this book. Haywood spends lots of time attacking sectarianism in a very sectarian way, which makes this book difficult and fascinating. It is fascinating when it shows the "correct" political thinking doesn't mean much if an activist is not connected with the actual struggles going on here and now. We activists have a tendency to build utopian structures that fundamentally miss the realities of the people we claim to support. I look forward to reading the second half of this fascinating portrayal of an American communist activist.

Happy New Year

First day of the year and it is very cold. Temps below zero, windchills way below that. I hid inside and read most of the day, then we went out for dinner and coffee. Back home to hide from the elements again.

Hoping everyone has a great new year!

OMG Socialism!

Get Told

Woot!

Had to happen

Understand now?

Too true

An Equal Music

I just finished reading this novel by Vikram Seth. I can't even remember what prompted me to buy it. The novel's central character is a musician, Michael Holme, who plays second violin in a classical quartet. He has loved and lost and attempts to retrieve the lost love of another musician, Julia McNicholl.

First, I must admit that the main character was totally unlikable to me. Selfish, obsessed, inconsiderate and absurd, he makes a mountain of his love affair and fails to understand or even remotely understand the person who is Julia. He's like a stalker, forever obsessed with the way she affects him, rather than the person she is. I found him contemptible. I found her weak and barely forgivable.

And yet, there is an understanding of musicians and their obsession with their instrument that makes this novel worth reading. The real love story is between Michael and the violin he plays, a gift from a patroness who has known him since childhood.

Also, this book deals with class. Michael is the son of a butcher, a man unlikely to become a world-class musician. It is only through the patronage of a local aristocrat, that Michael is able to access this world of musicianship.

And this is where the book goes wrong. You cannot transform a working class child into a self-absorded bourgeois twit without some explanation. There is none. What is it that gives this manchild his massive ego? What makes him so completely insensitive to Julia's reality. How is he able to elevate his lover for her to a mythic Utopia without the least consideration or her reality or his?

I can see writing a novel like this that makes clear the extreme selfishness of Michael and his blindness to reality. But this is not the book Seth has written.

How unfair this book is to the reality of love and living with another human being. How dismissive of Julia's husband and child.

So True!


Cartoon by Caldwell Tanner
Source: http://loldwell.com/?p=104

Cleaning Up

The girls and the grandchildren came by today to help us clean up the household. Found lots of fun items we'd lost in the process. Pretty pictures of daughters on Halloween. This is good.

Spent two hours today at the Casket Arts book sale, picking up classics of the leftist variety.

What a weird sensation to be staring down rows of Sydney Sheldon and Dominic Dunne and finding, amidst the dross, the occasional Chomsky or Lenin.

I plowed on through for two solid hours. Picking the gems from the frauds.

The Lace Reader

Just finished reading this book by Brunonia Barry. It starts with a great premise, the unreliable narrator. The narrator begins by saying she lies all the time and that she's a crazy woman.

Okay. Let's see how a crazy woman thinks.

Except we then go into a fairly logical narrative of which we are expected to believe most of what we read, but be prepared to toss out some of the more outlandish claims. That's cheating.

For an amazing example of reading the words of a crazy woman while being able to discern reality from fiction, I recommend and highly prefer Charlotte Gillman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." It's free on the web at Gutenberg.

However, to review the book on its merits, I should say I was pulled along by the plot and kept coming back to it when I had time to read. The sense of place is awesome, I assume, although I've never been to Salem. I was fascinated by the family, Towner, her twin sister Lindley, her mother May and her guardian Eva. All were strong, fascinating women with quirky habits and powerful beliefs. Even the secondary female characters get fleshed out: Angela, Roberta, Anya and Ann.

But I was really bothered by the shift from first person narrative by Towner to first person narrative by Rafferty, the detective who falls for Towner, midway through the book. In comparison to the women of the book, Rafferty is poorly developed. We know little of his beliefs or his desires. He is curiously incapable of action.

I'm not sorry I read this book, but I'm not recommending it to others.

Updated 10/17 flyers

Don't mess with French farmers!

Another flyer for Mayday

First Draft

Flyer for the anniversary of the war in Afghanistan

Great Resource

Look for the Union Label: A Celebration of Union Logos and Emblems



Hat tip to John at Social Design Notes

Protect Insurance Company Executives

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

The worker's flag is deepest red....