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basswood

basswood

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Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind
Michael J. Bradley, Jay N. Giedd
Waiting for the Barbarians
J.M. Coetzee
On Power: Its Nature And The History Of Its Growth
Bertrand De Jouvenel
10 Days in a Madhouse - Nellie  Bly Nellie Bly, journalist, novelist, inventor, world traveler, human rights activist, feminist icon, and:

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...very cute.

At the request of Joseph Pulitzer at The New York World, Nellie spent an evening in front of a mirror practicing "crazy expressions" and then voluntarily committed herself to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island, in part to expose its horrors and in part to escape writing the fashion, theater, and gardening columns normally assigned to women in 1887. The writing and reporting in the book are fair though she can't hide her own humor and charm and her perspective on life helps lessen the depressing stories of the "inmates" that give a glimpse into the brutality of mental health care in America that remained essentially unchanged until the reforms of the 1970's.

Another character whose life is much more interesting and important than the book she is best known for.
10 Days in a Madhouse - Nellie  Bly Nellie Bly, journalist, novelist, inventor, world traveler, human rights activist, feminist icon, and:

image

...very cute.

At the request of Joseph Pulitzer at The New York World, Nellie spent an evening in front of a mirror practicing "crazy expressions" and then voluntarily committed herself to the Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island, in part to expose its horrors and in part to escape writing the fashion, theater, and gardening columns normally assigned to women in 1887. The writing and reporting in the book are fair though she can't hide her own humor and charm and her perspective on life helps lessen the depressing stories of the "inmates" that give a glimpse into the brutality of mental health care in America that remained essentially unchanged until the reforms of the 1970's.

Another character whose life is much more interesting and important than the book she is best known for.
War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier - Smedley D. Butler, Adam Parfrey I have to admit, all of the hype I'd encountered before finally getting to this book led me to believe that this would be an articulate and impassioned voice of "right" over "might" from the pen of one the USMC's mightiest warriors. However, Smedley seems to reduce the "cost" of war primarily to its economic terms and goes into the $$$ figures of how much companies make during war-time and preparation for war-time. Smedley died before WWII and all of the statistics and numbers he gives in this "op/ed" piece are really chump change compared to what transpired after the military industrial complex truly exploded. Still, his sentiment is sincere and at the time it was written, there weren't too many men with his credentials able to speak out this way, calling out Wall Street and their bought-and-paid-for politicians; but the value I think of Smedley Butler lies more in what he did for his fellow military men than what he wrote: Smedley Butler and the Bonus Army.
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Oh! So THIS is how you write a book.
De Profundis - Oscar Wilde Beautiful, fascinating, poetic, and heartbreaking, Wilde becomes the “spectator of his own tragedy” in De Profundis and attempts a sort of mystical Confiteor to make sense of the suffering of his soul.

When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realizing what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would be always haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant as much for me as for anyone else -- the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver -- would all be tainted for me, and lose their healing power and their power of communicating joy. To reject one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development. To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one's own life. It is no less than a denial of the Soul."

There are so many great reviews of this here on GR that I'll just add an aspect that I think hasn't been touched upon. Wilde’s meditations on his pre-prison life were colored by the reading he undertook while in prison: the Bible, Dante, Saint Augustine, and Cardinal Newman among others. However, it was still his situational antinomianism upon which he filtered his philosophy even as he found in himself parallels with the prodigal son:

Of course the sinner must repent. But why? Simply because otherwise he would be unable to realize what he had done. The moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that. It is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their gnomic aphorisms "Even the Gods cannot alter the past." Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it. That it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said — I feel quite certain about it — that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept he really made his having wasted his substance with harlots, and then kept swine and hungered for the husks they ate, beautiful and holy incidents in his life. It is difficult for most people to grasp the idea. I dare say one has to go to prison to understand it. If so, it may be worthwhile going to prison.

Wilde puts the past transgressions (despite what you/I/we see today as transgressions) of the prodigal son into the category of “beautiful and holy things” rather than the effect that later resulted from them, thus making the evil things good rather than accepting that God may bring good from evil. He’s justified his own actions as necessary for the remaking of the man he thought he was become.

It is tempting to see him as a new man born from his catastrophe but the short, mostly depressed and alcohol-soaked life of poverty he lived afterward was not exemplary of someone on the road to wisdom or salvation. Instead, it seems he'd become even more mired in "the depths" from which he thought he was rising. However, that detracts nothing from him being one of the masters of the English language.
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley,  Michael York No point in rehashing a book we are all familiar with but at this point (in all of my godly and infinite wisdom) I'd really advise removing this from the "canon" as there's probably some better recent works to replace it. It's astoundingly accurate in its prophecy for our times but by chapter 9, the worth of the story is spent and the rest merely becomes an effort in perverted perseverance, with nothing of value to add to mind or soul (or good literature for that matter).
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley,  Michael York No point in rehashing a book we are all familiar with but at this point (in all of my godly and infinite wisdom) I'd really advise removing this from the "canon" as there's probably some better recent works to replace it. It's astoundingly accurate in its prophecy for our times but by chapter 9, the worth of the story is spent and the rest merely becomes an effort in perverted perseverance, with nothing of value to add to mind or soul (or good literature for that matter).
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov, Diana Burgin, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor The devil went down to Georgia Moscow, he was looking for a soul to steal to satirize the Stalinist Soviet Union. Check.

Bizarre, absurd, slap-stick, Kafkaesque, Celine-like, Dostoevsky-worthy, and the like. The adjectives and accolades and comparisons used to describe this book over the years are endless, including: "the greatest novel of the 20th century." Come on now. I've liked every Russian writer I've ever invited into my brain and Bulgakov is no exception, however, being witty or clever doesn't automatically place you in the echelon of literary greats. In my opinion it was a fine book, and the sections dealing with Pontius Pilate are magnificently written, but it wandered around so that I frankly had a difficult time keeping track of just what was happening to who and when. And the "wackiness" of the unexpected didn't quite go far enough to keep me sufficiently interested.

I feel guilty for not enjoying this book as much as so many other people obviously have.
The Play Of Hadrian VII; Based On Hadrian The Seventh And Other Works - Peter Luke I don't know how closely this short play is based upon the original semi-autobiographical novel* but it was apparently successful enough to launch the new career of Peter Luke, a former artist/soldier. I can't believe I'm going to say this but I think today's standards might be a little higher. The story is of an angry, debt-ridden, foul-mouthed, ill-mannered, unsuccessful misanthrope with a kind heart (I imagine a Mr. Roper from Three's Company) who has dreamed his whole life of becoming a priest so he can finally reform the church to his liking. When he is suddenly elected Pope (named Hadrian after the last and only English Pope), you'd think the hilarity would ensue, right? No. Dry, dull, and parochial in its grasp of basic church structure and theology. And in the end, it was all just a dream. For all the complaints about the ending of the TV show LOST, at least they didn't take that route...

Just silly.

*The only reason I read this was because the online seller that I purchased it from apparently didn't understand that it was not the actual "Hadrian VII" novel written by Frederick Rolfe that I was expecting to get. Either that or he just suckered me knowing that nobody would buy it otherwise.
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break: A Novel - Steven Sherrill (Edited to repair a glaring omission!)

(This turned out to be the longest review I've written and for a 4 star book!)

Let me state that td has written the penultimate review of this fine book and I won’t dare to compete with her depth of comprehension (her review was the whole reason I even purchased the book). So, I thought I’d take a slightly different tack in this and try to understand who and what the Minotaur is (he does have a name, by the way). However, let me preface my own meanderings here with a couple notes:

First, the “sex scene” is not really a sex scene. There are a handful of other “scenes” within the book that sensitive readers could somehow find arguably more offensive so don’t let the rumor of bestiality turn you away.

Second, Sherrill is NOT Gaiman (again, see td’s review).

Now, to begin, the Minotaur is not a metaphor. He is not symbolic of the human condition. He is not even an anthropomorphization. He is an actual flesh and blood immortal living in a trailer park in North Carolina. And it is barely out of the normal. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you will start enjoying the book. However, in his 5,000 years, he’s obviously begun a process of devolution in which the powerful qualities of the flesh-eating terror we all knew and loved have been worn down and diminished before the weak though relentlessly steady aspects of his humanity. Yes, I groan to say it because it sounds so corny but in most ways he has become just as (if not more) human than modern man. We are all the lesser when we lose our monsters:

“There was a time when the Minotaur and his ilk were important, creating and destroying worlds and the lives of mortals at every turn. No more. Now, most of the time, it is all the Minotaur can do to meet the day to day responsibilities of his own small world. Some days he can passively witness the things that go on around him. Other days he can’t stomach any of it…”

Yet, biology attests that his old ways are not so easy to ignore or forget:

“The architecture of the Minotaur’s heart is ancient. Rough hewn and many chambered, his heart is a plodding laborious thing, built for churning through the millennia. But the blood it pumps – the blood it has pumped for five thousand years, the blood it will pump for the rest of his life – is nearly human blood. It carries with it, through his monster’s veins, the weighty, necessary, terrible stuff of human existence: fear, wonder, hope, wickedness, love. But in the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”

Perhaps a short biographical note and a cute picture of the Minotaur as a bouncing baby on mommy’s knee will help overcome any obstacles.

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According to Apollodorus in his ">Library of Greek Mythology:

…Minos wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to Poseidon he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. Poseidon did send him up a fine bull, and Minos obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another. Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands.

But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in Daedalus, an architect, who had been banished from Athens for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth. Now the Labyrinth which Daedalus constructed was a chamber “that with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way…”


If you are a member of Goodreads (and it appears you are), you are probably fairly well read and already know what happens after that. However, it’s obvious that the original mythology is slightly incorrect because the Minotaur is still alive lo these many years later, despite rumor of having been slain by Theseus. [Edited] Sherrill, unfortunately, never gets around to explaining what the real story was except that the Minotaur is simply immortal Sherrill does explain how the Minotaur was spared from Theseus' club in a bit of poetry in the Prologue though his immortality remains unexplained (like the several other Greek contemporaries of his that make cameo appearances such as Medusa and Hermaphroditus; Sherrill does neglect to explain how the American South came to be the coincidental gathering spot of these characters but it doesn’t detract from the story of our hero). So being immortal, he doesn’t fear death, but he is still afraid:

“…not of death, obviously, but of something else. Ridicule. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Misunderstanding. Injustice. His own potential for tiny rages. Maybe that most of all. All these things can seem, in the moment, worse than dying, particularly if death isn’t an option.”

And exactly like the Labyrinth in which the Minotaur was first placed, Sherrill leads the story through a wandering path where excitement is rare but it is genuine and sudden and takes the reader to an unavoidable destination. Throughout the tale, despite his thousands of years of experience, the Minotaur is constantly puzzled by human behavior; by man’s ability to avoid the important questions, by his ability to treat others with such impervious cruelty, and yet still have the ability to treat things not human with so much emotion, something that he finds “...baffling, enviable, and tinged with hope.”

The book is not slow or grinding in the least. The work runs at its own pace for a very good reason: It is beautifully written. It is a true credit to Sherrill that he can create such excellent dialogue from a creature who’s curling lips, bovine teeth, and thick tongue limit most of his linguistics to glottal Unnng’s and Ummhm’s.

Something that gave me a nice surprise chuckle was the Minotaur’s enrollment in the Sacred Heart Auto Club. Yes, it’s a real organization (actually called the Sacred Heart Auto League) and it’s still around today. As someone interested in all things Catholic, I’d already known about it but I can’t say I’ve ever known anyone else that did. What good southern novel doesn’t contain at least one Catholic element in it even if it’s for comic relief?

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Perhaps I’m being picky, but the single flaw I find in Sherrill’s work here is what prevents me from giving the book the full five stars I want to give it: his departure from the literary form from which he drew his title character, and it shows especially in the final paragraph of the book:

“There are few things that he knows, these among them: that it is inevitable, even necessary, for a creature half man and half bull to walk the face of the earth; that in the numbing span of eternity even the most monstrous among us needs love; that the minutiae of life sometimes defer to folly; that even in the most tedious unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready.”

To me, Sherrill has made of the Minotaur a fable. A tale with a moral. There’s nothing wrong with that, and some reviewers (including td) really latch onto it. However, the tale of the Minotaur stems from mythology, a world in which the inhabitants are in no way in control of their own fate but instead at the will of capricious and whimsical gods and goddesses. I’d have rather not had an explanation given to me. To have that at the end of an otherwise fantastic story was a minor disappointment.

Since I intend to stay true to my vow of not giving out 5 star reviews willy-nilly anymore, 4.4999… stars.
The Malleus Maleficarum - Montague Summers, Jakob Sprenger, Heinrich Kramer Fascinating review to come this weekend.
Invocation of the Name of Jesus: As Practiced in the Western Church - Rama Coomaraswamy This book sat in my to read stack for almost two years, as I was waiting for the right mind-frame with which to tackle it. I'd thought it was going to be a Catholic version (reconcilement?) of the Eastern Orthodox "Way of the Pilgrim" but as it turns out, its value lies mainly in being a good source book for sermons and essays on the name of Jesus as well as Mary.

It was disappointing because Coomaraswamy was a brilliant mind (and a friend as well) with a spirituality centered upon the mystic. His contribution to the book consists almost entirely of the Introduction, which unfortunately is also a mass of quotes followed by quotes of saints and thinkers without any real theological challenge to the reader. However, Coomaraswamy does provide Saint Bernadine of Siena's sermon on "The Holy Name," Coomaraswamy's the first complete translation into English from the original Latin ever provided. If for no other reason, this alone gives great value to the book.

Following Saint Bernadine of Siena's sermons are writings by/on a virtual Who's Who of Catholic thought:

Saint John Eudes
Saint Patrick
Richard Rolle
Saint Bonaventure
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Blessed Thomas A Kempis
Blessed Henry Suso
Saint John Chrysostom
Saint Bernard
Saint Anthony of Padua
Saint Peter Canisius
Alban Butler

Much of the writings are what you might expect from what served the church well enough for many centuries, however the flowery hyperbole can become numbing and I caught myself skimming through many a passage, trying to ignore the excessive adjectives and adverbs which I think trips up the the modern mind with a slowness it simply does not "want" at the moment. Good friends will disagree with me.

There is also a "Note on the Hail Mary" taken verbatim from Michael Muller's "The Devotion of the Rosary and Five Scapulars" (1878). Again, useful but nothing added to it.

For me, the important meat of the book is actually the Appendix: The Hesychast Prayer in the Orthodox Church, written by Archimandrite Placide Deseille, a former Cistercian turned Orthodox monk and theologian. Much information is given that requires a slow and careful read to be absorbed correctly. He focuses upon the "Jesus Prayer" which has become very popular among the masses again in the past 50 years or so, and how it is to be used "correctly" for proper spiritual growth. He uses two words new to me that I can't stop considering: "deiformity" and "enstasy." They're real, I even looked them up to be sure :) A lot of theology is packed into these 32 pages and will be a re-read for me this year and probably again into the next.

Originally I gave this book 4 stars upon completion because of its value as a source book but I'm dropping a star now as I've considered its flaws again, the greatest one consisting of Coomaraswamy's "voice" remaining mostly unheard.
The Open Boat - Stephen Crane I read Crane's "Red Badge of Courage" while in high school and without ever giving it a second thought over the years I've always recommended it highly to anyone who's ever asked. But after reading "The Open Boat," it seems I'd forgotten exactly how powerful a writer Crane really was.

I've never quite shared in the ultimate philosophy of writers like London, Conrad, and Crane yet they perpetually rank among my favorites, mainly I think, because the masculine vocabulary and narrative of "naturalist" deism (and sometimes atheism) speaks so well to those like myself who are or have been in constant contact with the dangers of outdoor life and work; those who know that their fate rests primarily in their own hands; those who know that one slip-up could cost them not simply their daily meal but their very lives. The "naturalist" relies upon the observation that although there may be a "grand architect" behind all that we see in this world, he/she/it is indifferent to our cares. It is not an agnosticism, but really that the idea that revelation, miracles, or any type of divine relationship between man and his creator is nonexistant. It is the belief that in nature, we are at the mercy only of our own abilities. How Crane came to hold such views, especially at such a young age, I can't comprehend, yet they are very evident in "The Open Boat" and it makes for extraordinarily beautiful though lonely sentiment:

"...During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him, despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still --

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.

Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."

A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation..."


Crane does not entirely discount that miracles happen, just that they are rather rare natural turns of luck that few men are fortunate to witness or partake in. Near the end of the story, when rescue is at hand, a wave carries the "correspondent" over the capsized boat, he makes it a point to call this "a miracle of the sea."

However, Crane does give some hope in the story that even if we are at the mercy of nature, we are still worthy of survival because in the end we are capable of saving each other. For there are men, like the captain in the dinghy, that can still exhibit a duty toward other men as regards their cold station in life, and he paints a near messianic picture of his selflessness as he stood in the water with "a halo on his head" and shining "like a saint."

I never did nor will I agree with the basis of deism/naturalism but it makes for incredible literature. 4.5 stars and another look at Stephen Crane.
The Picture Of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde, Susan Beattie My oh my.

Another standard by which to judge other authors.

At the age of 43, I've finally gotten to Wilde (aside from his delightful children's tales) after many years of the "I'll get to him, I'll get to him, stop bothering me" stage. I wish you all hadn't stopped bothering me. Reading this at 23 might have helped me to understand some dark events and people better.

Not a novel to make one feel good, for sure. As a matter of fact, it left me feeling nauseous at a few points. Wilde is such a master of prose that he's able to describe perfectly the vacuous "new" hedonism he observed in late Victorian society with his characteristic wit yet show no signs of cynicism that might otherwise lead the reader to any dry conclusions. Rather than being an autopsy of the condition of morals, it is simply a body laid bare upon the table, complete with hair and scabs and scars and imperfections, leaving you mildly uncomfortable at the slight grin on its pale face.
The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde Aha! So THIS is what Wodehouse was trying to do. Algernon > Jeeves
The Stand - Stephen King,  Grover Gardner Stupendously bloated. Another rare book I couldn't finish and yet I am chalking it up as "read." I think getting through 800+ of 1500 pages without yet caring about the characters or the plot merits an A for effort at least if not for a monumental waste of time. I flipped ahead to the last five chapters to see if there was actually any resolution or moral or... point. No. It just continues off into the distance. Friends have told me this magnum opus was about the "journey" and I realize that this book is part of the Western Canon for many people (including the people behind LOST, the only reason I even began this "journey"), but I got nothing out of it except the knowledge that Stephen King's fantastic book "On Writing" is apparently pure fiction because he follows not a single piece of advice he gives in it, except possibly "write, write, write..."