dual personalities

Tag: books

February 4, 2025

Flyover Tuesday

by chuckofish

Well, here we are in February. Yesterday we broke a record from back in the 1880s–reaching the temperature of 76 degrees! I made my usual Monday trip to the grocery store and swung by the P.O. It is a soggy mess out there, but I am not complaining.

Today we toast the wonderful writer MacKinlay Kantor, who was born on this day in 1904 in Webster City, Iowa. He wrote a lot of short stories for popular and pulp magazines before publishing his first historical novel, Long Remember, in 1934. Kantor was a war correspondent with the British RAF during WWII and also served as a gunner in the U.S. Air Force. After his service he became a screenwriter in Hollywood. His verse novel about three American servicemen returning to civilian life, Glory for Me, was adapted for the screen, becoming the Academy Award-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Andersonville, based on the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp in Georgia where nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died, in 1955. I would re-read it, but I’m not sure I can handle such total depravity right now.

Anyway, I have been an admirer of Kantor for a long, long time and I recommend his books (and movies made from his books).

At the moment I am reading another historical novel by another American writer who wrote short stories for magazines while working in a hardware store in his hometown of Bloomington, IL. Harold Sinclair also wrote a few well-received novels, but The Horse Soldiers was his only bestseller. I have my father’s old signed copy from 1955 and I am enjoying it. Of course, the movie version starring John Wayne and William Holden is a favorite of mine. Here’s a picture of the author with John Wayne and the director John Ford.

We also toast country singer Clint Black, who was born on this day in 1962. He was born in New Jersey, but grew up in Katy, Texas. We always think of him as the secret twin of George W. Bush.

Quite the resemblance, don’t you think?

Speaking of twinsies, the prairie girls are enjoying the warmer weather too…

Enjoy your day!

3 Comments
January 29, 2025

“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth”*

by chuckofish

I am proud to say I finished reading Drums Along the Mohawk–all 654 pages! It was well-worth the effort. Really a wonderful book. The author, Walter D. Edmonds, writes in his Author’s Note:

To those who may feel that here is a great to-do about a bygone life, I have one last word to say. It does not seem to me a bygone life at all. The parallel is too close to our own [1936]. Those people of the valley were confronted by a reckless Congress and ebullient finance, with their inevitable repercussions of poverty and practical starvation. The steps followed with automatic regularity. The applications for relief, the failure of relief, and then the final realization that a man must stand up to live…They suffered the paralysis of abject dependence on a central government totally unfitted to comprehend a local problem. And finally, though they had lost two-thirds of their fighting strength, these people took hold of their courage and struck out for themselves. Outnumbered by trained troops, well equipped, these farmers won the final battle of the long war, preserved their homes, and laid the foundations of a great and strong community.

Woohoo, yes, they did.

I was also reminded of how truly hard it was to be a woman on the frontier–something today’s bloggers/influencers, who find it “hard” to have babies and bring up children today, might find mind-boggling. Just to give birth to a baby in 1779 and then watch it starve or freeze to death or be tomahawked and scalped is beyond their comprehension. It’s kind of beyond mine, and, yes, yes, parents do have plenty of modern problems today–iphones and activist teachers etc. etc.–I know, but at least I have the grace to be thankful for my OB-GYN, and safe, warm house, and well-stocked grocery stores. Ye gods, women, get some perspective!

Anyway, we should all take a moment every once in awhile to remember our ancestors who stepped up and made many sacrifices so that we can enjoy our freedom. And stop whining. Please.

Today is the birthday of one of my favorite ancestors, John Wesley Prowers, who was a pioneer on another frontier. I think of his mother, my great-great-great grandmother, who gave birth to him in 1838 in Westport, MO, a frontier outpost on the Missouri River where just a handful of white people lived at the time. She gave birth to my great-great grandmother the following year. Then her husband died. She did have family nearby and the settlement was growing, but wow.

Anyway, it is my practice to watch a good cowboy movie to celebrate JWP’s birthday–usually the great Red River (1947). But I think I might dip again into Lonesome Dove (1989) this year. JWP, you will recall, was a friend and business partner of Charles Goodnight, upon whom the character Captain Call (Tommy Lee Jones) is based. 

Here’s to the sunny slopes of long ago.

And this is really, really good. “To the rest of the country—the rest of the world–we don’t matter, here in the Middle of Nowhere. And that’s fine, for the most part. Most of us are happy to let the noise and craziness of the world pass us by. But that doesn’t mean that we are unseen by God. That we are unnoticed by Heaven.”

Have a good day! Read an old book. Watch an old movie. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

*II Chronicles 16:9

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January 28, 2025

In which I do not recommend several novels

by chuckofish

Every few years, I (daughter #2) decide to read a number of acclaimed and/or recommended contemporary novels in quick succession. This is usually a bad decision, but for some reason I feel a need to know the current state of fiction. Long story short: disappointing. And yet, long story long, I have a lot to say!!

I will write here about various themes and takeaways so that you might choose to avoid the work of reading these (award-winning!!!) tomes. Several of them were, like my previous reading material, 400+ pages long! I plan to end on a positive, note, though, because I successfully landed on a wonderful palate cleanser and treat. A quick rundown:

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch (2013)
Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here (2019)
Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything (2024)
Claire Lombardo, Same As It Ever Was (2024)
Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land (2021)
Daniel Mason, North Woods (2023)
Amor Towles, Table for Two (2024)
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility (2011) (re-read)

To start with the negative, Same As It Ever Was joins seemingly so many contemporary novels in representing the hardships of the modern mother. This novel truly repeated, over and over again, that the young mother was “having a hard time,” even though she boasts various privileges that make life (and certainly parenting) easier. (I put “having a hard time” in quotation marks because I literally mean that sentence was repeated ad nauseam.) Though I found the particulars of this character’s “hardships” grating, it was actually the hand-wringing tone of it all that was so frustrating. It reminded me of Elizabeth Strout’s first “pandemic novel” (Oh William!) in which Lucy Barton actually wrings her hands nonstop. (In Tell Me Everything, it is somehow still pandemic-esque in Maine, and Lucy hasn’t really calmed down.) Both Lucy and the protagonist of Lombardo’s novel are constantly wondering if their children like them, while unapologetically behaving in ways that don’t exactly merit being liked (by their inexplicably-devoted husbands, friends, or children).

Kevin Wilson’s novel is not really worth mentioning — it bordered on a “beach read.” That said, this odd novel about the nanny of children who spontaneously combust is the only contemporary work I read last year in which someone has the experience of loving children unconditionally, 24 hours a day, even when it is hard to care for them. How lovely that it isn’t their mother (deceased, of course) or stepmother, but a nanny!

I did enjoy Cloud Cuckoo Land, in spite of its slow start and the challenge of learning three+ different timelines and narratives. I gave it credit for its relentless love of libraries, language, and literature, and its optimism about people and the world broadly (even with a climate activist/terrorist plotline!). Of course, these were the qualities that were semi-derided by a New Yorker review, which, more interestingly, linked Doerr and Donna Tartt: both authors won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in 2015 and 2014, respectively. My critique of Doerr’s novel was that it was almost absurdly clever, and as it careened toward its conclusion, I knew it was going to wrap up into a neatly-tied bow. This guy really tried hard with the novel, and it showed. But whereas Doerr seemed invested in justice (poetic and otherwise) as well as redemption, Tartt concludes that good and bad actions are basically all relative, and that individuals should simply do what makes them happy. We can explain away all our sins. I hate to admit it, but I was legitimately shocked. I did not love the main character enough to feel happy about how The Goldfinch ended.

I knew that Daniel Mason’s North Woods, which is apparently based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s notebooks and is based in western Massachusetts, would drive me nuts. And it did. While the novel, which spans several centuries, was well-researched in ecology and nature (tree spores! fungi! beetles!), its treatment of people was a little too cute. Spinster sisters, prison pen pals, true crime reporters. Sure. But you know I felt a line was crossed when the author spent a section on fictionalized versions of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I could tell you exactly which notebook entries of Hawthorne’s were referenced, which short story of Melville’s was ripped off — and I didn’t appreciate it. If I want to enjoy literary (and even scientific!) scenes of bucolic Massachusetts forests, I can (and will!) return to Henry David Thoreau.

Doerr, Tartt, and Mason clearly did their research for their novels, and it showed. It was all a little too effortful. By contrast, Amor Towles is capable of writing a smart character who is well-read and quick-witted, without showing off how well-read and quick-witted he is. Accordingly, both Table for Two and Rules of Civility were such a pleasure to read. And you know what’s funny? Walden is a bit of a plot point in one of the novel’s central relationships: she says it’s her desert island book; he reads it with pencil in hand; he leaves it behind at the relationship’s conclusion. Throughout all this, it comes naturally that the narrator shares how Thoreau’s writing applies to the scene at hand:

There is an oft-quoted passage in Walden, in which Thoreau exhorts us to find our pole star and to follow it unwaveringly as would a sailor or a fugitive slave. It’s a thrilling sentiment–one so obviously worthy of our aspirations. But even if you had the discipline to maintain the true course, the real problem, it has always seemed to me, is how to know in which part of the heavens your star resides.

But there is another passage in Walden that has stayed with me as well. In it, Thoreau says that men mistakenly think of truth as being remote–behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the reckoning. When in fact, all these times and places and occasions are now and here. In a way, this celebration of the now and here seems to contradict the exhortation to follow one’s star. But it is equally persuasive. And oh so much more attainable.

I don’t regret reading a number of misses — it just reminds me who I am. I read these novels and I think, these must be for people who are deeply confused. Life is hard, and they don’t know why. They are happy to hear that other people think life is hard. They have neither a pole star, nor a sense of the now and here. And I like to think: I have both.

9 Comments
January 23, 2025

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

It has been such a cold week! Thankfully the sun has been out much of the time and I have been able to needlepoint by my window. I also sent the Review off to the printer. I do love crossing items off my to-do list, don’t you?

I am also making headway reading Drums Along the Mohawk–the 600+-page tome given to me for Christmas. I am more than a third of the way in and I must say, it is wonderful. Published in 1936, it is well-written, exciting, and populated with realistic characters. It is very scary in parts and well it should be. It was a scary time to be on the New York frontier.

“For the first time they began to realize that there was no protection for them except in themselves. An unpredictable force had been born in the Mohawk Valley…”

The book is peopled with historical persons such as General Nicholas Herkimer and Adam Helmer, and other descendants of the German immigrants who were the majority residents in the central Mohawk Valley at the time. It also features such historical events as the Battle of Oriskany.

(Side note: When I was writing the Review article about RADM Courtney Shands, I learned that he was the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany during the Korean Conflict. The USS Oriskany was named after the famous and bloody engagement during the Saratoga Campaign. Synchronicity!)

Anyway, I am learning a lot and enjoying the book. Of course, young people today never read books like this and it is a shame. They might actually learn something about our country and the pioneers who built it. It was not easy, not easy at all.

Here’s another bit of trivia. Henry Fonda, the star of the film Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), was a descendent of Douw Fonda, (1700–1780) a prominent settler and trader in the Mohawk Valley. During the fighting with Loyalists, he was captured by a Mohawk, tomahawked and scalped. Two of Douw Fonda’s sons, John and Adam, were taken prisoner in the raid and taken to Canada.

Our ancestors were a hardy lot. They had to be.

So stay warm, read some (good) historical fiction, watch an old movie. Be thankful for and remember those who came before you.

4 Comments
January 8, 2025

[The] hardship of the January freeze*

by chuckofish

Another day of staying home with not much going on. I am grateful for my nice, snug house and a furnace that is fully functional. We all remember what it was like back in 2006 when the electricity was out for three days and we had no heat. No fun. In fact, really terrible.

I am not being overly productive, but I am getting odds ‘n ends taken care of and the Kirkwood Historical Review ready to send to the printer. And I am reading, actual books! I got several new ones for Christmas…Print the Legend: the Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman (from my brother) and Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds (from my sister). The latter was a huge bestseller back in 1936, staying on the bestseller list for two years. The Bantam Books edition went through no less than 48 printings between July 1936 and August 1956; the novel is still in print after eight decades.

Daughter #1 gave me the TCM film guide to the 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era, wherein I found the nugget of information that Judy Garland was 4’11”–no wonder she was perfect with Mickey Rooney! Well, you learn something new every day.

I also bought the The New and Collected Poems of Richard Wilbur at an estate sale last weekend and so I have been dipping into it. Here’s one* of his poems to read.

And don’t forget to toast Elvis Presley today on what would have been his 90th birthday.

So as long as the holiday treats and the wine hold out, I’ll be fine.

4 Comments
December 11, 2024

Teach us to number our days*

by chuckofish

Yesterday I spent three hours at the Mini dealer getting my Cooper ready to pass on to DN in a couple of weeks. It is not an unpleasant place to wile away a few hours. Steve, the service “advisor”, checks in from time to time and lets you know how it’s going and that they haven’t forgotten you. The Lounge is well stocked with a fancy coffee machine, water and treats. The TV was set to the Hallmark channel and I had come prepared with my phone and an actual book to read.

I read a good amount of A Day’s Journey by Tim Keesee, which tries to answer the question, “How do you make each day of your brief life count?” Keesee is a Christian and a cancer survivor. I am enjoying it. In each chapter he tells about an encounter with someone who has taught him something about a day well spent. They range from the well-known (Rosario Butterfield, Joni Eareckson Tada) to the unknown. There are a lot of good scripture references and quotes by people I like, such as this poem by Wendell Berry:

Anyway, the key to making a morning at the car dealership a pleasant experience, as with most things, is to be prepared and to have the right mindset. Be prepared to be there longer than expected and you will be pleasantly surprised when they call your name sooner than expected.

So be prepared, read some poetry and don’t forget to have some cash ready when you go to the grocery store and the Salvation Army person is ringing their bell outside the store. Give, give, give. ‘Tis the season.

*Psalm 90:12

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October 30, 2024

“The wind rises… We must try to live!”*

by chuckofish

Today we toast the great, but under-appreciated, writer Conrad Richter, who died on this day in 1968. Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, “There are in the literature of the world few works of historical fiction that make the reader feel that the writer must have been a witness to what he describes; he was actually there and came back – a transmigrated soul – to tell a story. The Awakening Land is such a work… it would be a great novel in any literature.”

I would heartily concur. Richter wrote short stories and 15 novels. His novel The Town, the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction.

A strange, uneasy feeling ran over him. If he had been wrong about his mother in this, might he by any chance have been wrong in other things about her also? Could it be even faintly possible that the children of pioneers like himself, born under more benign conditions than their parents, hated them because they themselves were weaker, resented it when their parents expected them to be strong, and so invented all kinds of intricate reasoning to prove that their parents were tyrannical and cruel, their beliefs false and obsolete, and their accomplishments trifling? Never had his mother said that. But once long ago he had heard her mention, not in as many words, that the people were too weak to follow God today, that in the Bible God made strong demands on them for perfection, so the younger generation watered God down, made Him impotent and got up all kinds of reasons why they didn’t have to follow Him but could go along their own way.” (The Town)

Like all great fiction, his words still speak to us, even seventy-five years after being published.

Well, as you know, I am a great re-reader, so I will reward myself with some Conrad Richter today.

Yesterday the boy came over and fixed our shutters which have been buffeted around by the wind all year and thus we were beginning to look like that house in the neighborhood that looks like it is decorated for Halloween all year. He also took apart the crib which was taking up a lot of room in our spare bedroom and moved it to the garage. I am so grateful to have adult children who are still speaking to me. This is a blessing not everyone can claim.

So re-read an old book, count your blessings and remember:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

(Lamentations 3:22)

*Today is the poet Paul Valéry’s birthday (1871-1945)–“Le vent se lève… il faut tenter de vivre !” Read the whole poem here.

5 Comments
August 26, 2024

Our strength and refuge

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Friday I went to lunch with some old friends at my former flyover university faculty club. Then we went back to their house where I boxed up some books to take home. They are getting ready to downsize and that means getting rid of a ton of books. But God only knows where I am going to put more books! Daughter #1 came over to their house and filled a box for herself. I would have taken more, but as I told my friends, I already have a lot of their books.

The rest of the weekend I spent looking at/reading my new-old books. What a pleasure! I also took some old computer monitors over to a nearby recycling event and enjoyed a great sense of accomplishment which I relished all weekend. And daughter #1 and I continued our scientific study of the correct wine-bread ratio…

On Sunday the OM and I picked up the twins to take them to church with us since their parents are very busy getting ready to move. It had been awhile since the twins had been to church so they needed to re-learn some church behavior basics. They did pretty well. The bud drew some interesting pictures…note the devil prominently portrayed in hell…

After church we went home with the twins and the OM picked up lunch at McDonald’s. Then we took a little walk where the bud was able to pet a nice black Lab named Titan, who sniffed his face. Then we played more or less quietly at home while the OM took a nap. Lottie beat me repeatedly at Chutes and Ladders, but the bud told me that winners are losers and losers are winners, so there. And the first shall be last, right?

The boy picked them up mid-afternoon and stayed to chat for awhile, always a treat for me.

I changed my clothes for a third time and we headed back to church at 4:30 for the ordination service of our youth minister. Once again I was overcome with thankfulness that I am a member of this church.

Meanwhile daughter #2 and her family drove up to Lake Huron to spend the week, leaving at five in the morning for the long drive.

I remember those days–leaving before dawn to get a jump on the driving while the kids sleep! (Note both babes are wide awake.)

They are having a good ol’ time.

And not to get political, but this was hilarious.

So put your phone down, look up, and thank God for the day. Then read some old books!

4 Comments
July 23, 2024

“In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.”

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the birthday of the great detective fiction writer Raymond Chandler (1888-1959). He is generally considered to have invented the private detective character and his Philip Marlowe is, indeed, one of the great characters of fiction. Almost all of his novels have been made into movies, none of them, unfortunately, the equal of the original book.

“He was worth looking at. He wore a shaggy borsalino hat, a rough gray sports coat with white golf balls on it for buttons, a brown shirt, a yellow tie, pleated gray flannel slacks and alligator shoes with white explosions on the toes. From his outer breast pocket cascaded a show handkerchief of the same brilliant yellow as his tie. There were a couple of colored feathers tucked into the band of his hat, but he didn’t really need them. Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.”

–Farewell, My Lovely

In other words, it’s best to read the books. Which I am in the mood to do.

3 Comments
July 9, 2024

“Then the hand of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and outran Ahab to Jezreel.”*

by chuckofish

The Olympics are coming up and I really don’t care anymore since it is just a bunch of pumped up professionals competing.

However, July 11th marks the 100th anniversary of Eric Liddell winning gold in the 400 meter dash during the Paris Olympics. Here is a short interview with Eric’s daughter, Patricia Liddell Russell, and John MacMillan, Chief Executive of the Eric Liddell Community. I guess it’s time to watch Chariots of Fire (1981) again!

I am also re-reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. Louis Zamperini, the subject of the book, ran in the 1936 Olympics on the U.S. track team.

Zamperini is quite an interesting guy and the book is well-worth reading. Angelina Jolie made a pretty good movie about him in 2014, but she left out the “Redemption” part altogether, which is a shame.

Lt. Zamperini was a bombardier on B-24 Liberators in the Pacific. On a search and rescue mission, his plane experienced mechanical difficulties and crashed into the ocean. After drifting at sea on a life raft for 47 days, with two other crew mates, he landed on the then Japanese Marshall Islands and was captured. He was taken to a total of four different POW caps in Japan, where he was tortured and beaten by Japanese military personnel. Following the war, beset with terrible nightmares and afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, he struggled with alcoholism. Then he happened to go to a Billy Graham revival and he turned his life over to Jesus. For the rest of his long life he was a devout Presbyterian who worked with youth and as a Christian evangelist. It is quite a story.

So watch an old movie, re-read a good book, run in such a way as you may obtain [the prize].

*I Kings 18:46

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