Please, recall the SG spent a year in solitary confinement before being presented with DOJ pleas deal.
Plea bargainin in US is unjust
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Monday, May 1, 2017
James Clavell
Shogun, his masterpiece to many, he cribbed from another author . Some say James Clavell was inspired by the true life adventures of the English sailor William Adams who became an advisor to a Japanese ruler in the 16th century when he wrote the captivating story of an English captain and his crew making contact with Japan in 1600 while only the Portuguese had the contract to do so. Their adventures that followed, the rise of the protagonist to assimilation with the Japanese culture and the picture of Japan at that time is so thrilling that it was made into a TV movie in the late 1970's. The largest ever American film production in Japan to this day, and featuring some of the very best Japanese actors of the time, _Shogun_ is still replayed around the world almost forty years later. It is a love letter to a most unique country, one whose past continues to entrance and influence.
After the success of Shogun, Clavell decided to continue writing historical fiction epics (these are not thin books, averaging over 1000 pages each) calling his series the 'Asian saga' but went forward for his second to 1841, specifically the ongoing trade between Japan and the European traders it allowed to be based there.
His third novel, King Rat, his slimmest volume, is the story of Singapore when, after the largest surrender of the war, it was WWII's largest POW camp. Told with heart-rendering detail, and praised by veterans, it is his best stand alone novel and one that should be included in courses on the Pacific theater in WWII.
Continuing with his focus on the Pacific rim and European/Asian contact, he based his fourth book, Noble House, in 1963 Hong Kong and on the post WWII Pacific growth miracle. With an operatically large cast , many of whom were descendants from his previous novels, he charts the end of British political empire but the continuing relevance of British and European commercial relations to the East.
For his final novel, Whirlwind, he switched from Asia to Iran and the 1979 Revolution with his cast being both Iranians and the European helicopter firm that services all their oil rigs. Having grown attached to the families and fortunes of the Pacific as he so majestically laid them out for so many hundreds of years, many fans wish that he had stayed in Hong Kong or elsewhere in the Pacific for the final novel but it is worth reading for an understanding of the motivations of the Iranian people in their revolution.
Any of his novels can be read alone, though together they truly do form as he said, a saga.
After the success of Shogun, Clavell decided to continue writing historical fiction epics (these are not thin books, averaging over 1000 pages each) calling his series the 'Asian saga' but went forward for his second to 1841, specifically the ongoing trade between Japan and the European traders it allowed to be based there.
His third novel, King Rat, his slimmest volume, is the story of Singapore when, after the largest surrender of the war, it was WWII's largest POW camp. Told with heart-rendering detail, and praised by veterans, it is his best stand alone novel and one that should be included in courses on the Pacific theater in WWII.
Continuing with his focus on the Pacific rim and European/Asian contact, he based his fourth book, Noble House, in 1963 Hong Kong and on the post WWII Pacific growth miracle. With an operatically large cast , many of whom were descendants from his previous novels, he charts the end of British political empire but the continuing relevance of British and European commercial relations to the East.
For his final novel, Whirlwind, he switched from Asia to Iran and the 1979 Revolution with his cast being both Iranians and the European helicopter firm that services all their oil rigs. Having grown attached to the families and fortunes of the Pacific as he so majestically laid them out for so many hundreds of years, many fans wish that he had stayed in Hong Kong or elsewhere in the Pacific for the final novel but it is worth reading for an understanding of the motivations of the Iranian people in their revolution.
Any of his novels can be read alone, though together they truly do form as he said, a saga.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, born in 1891 in Kiev, Ukraine, was the greatest Soviet playwright, novelist and short story writer. He died in 1941 and many of his works were published posthumously. He is justly famous for his humor and penetrating satire. Yes, I said the greatest, and I have read quite a few Soviet-era Russian authors. His incomparable masterpiece, The Master and Margarita (1967) is on my 'desert island book list'. It is a combination of rigid discipline and wild imagination with which Bulgakov was able to situate Jesus' world in Soviet Moscow, but more on this in a moment.
Beginning his adult life as a doctor, he gave up medicine for writing when his first novel The White Guard (1925) was published as a serial (not published in book form during his life). It was a realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the motives and behavior of a group of Anti- Bolshevik White Russian officers during the civil war and was met with a storm of criticism for its lack of a communist hero. Reworking it into a play in 1926 entitled Days of the Turbins, it was staged to subsequent acclaim but immediately banned.
Moving on to satirical fantasies implicitly critical of Soviet communist society. Just as obviously, this work was quickly denounced. In the same year he completed Heart of a Dog (1968) which was also suppressed and not released to the public for four decades, twenty-eight years after his death. A scathing comic satire on pseudoscience, my second favorite of his works is still applicable in today's' internet conspiracy theory fueled society. Only Bulgakovs' incredible humor kept Stalin laughing and thus Bulgakov from the gulag, seriously, Stalin was quoted as saying as much.
Because of their realism and humor, his works enjoyed great popularity but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities. By 1930 he was effectively prohibited from publishing. He pleaded to emigrate and multiple countries were eager to accept him, but Stalin refused. During the following period of literary ostracism which continued until his death in 1940, he created his masterpieces.
The first of these, a play, was a tragedy on the death of Moliere entitled Moliere (1936) which had a one-week run before being banned due to its thinly disguised attack on Stalin and the Communist party. I confess that I found this entertaining and the political messages beautiful in their subtlety but I unfairly compare it to The Master and Margarita as I had read that first, just so, I unfairly compare any Soviet writer to Bulgakov once I'd read Bulgakov. C'est la vie.
The second of his masterpieces is his dazzling Gogolesque fantasy The Master and Margarita (begun in 1928, published in 1966). Witty and ribald, it is simultaneously a penetrating philosophical novel wrestling with the profound and eternal problems of good and evil, juxtaposing two planes of action - one set in contemporary Moscow and the other in Pontius Pilates Judea. The central character is the Devil, disguised as 'Professor Woland', who descends upon officially atheistic Moscow in the 1930's with his purgative pranks that expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the cultural elite. His counterpart is 'The Master', a repressed novelist who goes into a psychiatric ward for seeking to present the story of Jesus. The work oscillates between grotesque and often ribald scenes of trenchant satirical humor and powerful and moving moments of pathos and tragedy. My favorite line which I will tease with by not describing the context, only the speaker, is haunting; "What would the Earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?" asks the Devil.
It was not finally published in the Soviet union until 1966 and then only in heavily censored form. Published in its entirety outside the Soviet Union it quickly became renowned and then adapted for the stage, attempted often but only one legendary playwright was ever thought to have brought it to the stage correctly (his name escapes me but he died since I was in prison and I read his obit in _The Economist_ and that was his epitaph; "the only one to bring The Master and Margarita to the stage to critical acclaim") One of my life's regrets is that I never saw it, but I hope there's a video of the performance somewhere.
Beginning his adult life as a doctor, he gave up medicine for writing when his first novel The White Guard (1925) was published as a serial (not published in book form during his life). It was a realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the motives and behavior of a group of Anti- Bolshevik White Russian officers during the civil war and was met with a storm of criticism for its lack of a communist hero. Reworking it into a play in 1926 entitled Days of the Turbins, it was staged to subsequent acclaim but immediately banned.
Moving on to satirical fantasies implicitly critical of Soviet communist society. Just as obviously, this work was quickly denounced. In the same year he completed Heart of a Dog (1968) which was also suppressed and not released to the public for four decades, twenty-eight years after his death. A scathing comic satire on pseudoscience, my second favorite of his works is still applicable in today's' internet conspiracy theory fueled society. Only Bulgakovs' incredible humor kept Stalin laughing and thus Bulgakov from the gulag, seriously, Stalin was quoted as saying as much.
Because of their realism and humor, his works enjoyed great popularity but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities. By 1930 he was effectively prohibited from publishing. He pleaded to emigrate and multiple countries were eager to accept him, but Stalin refused. During the following period of literary ostracism which continued until his death in 1940, he created his masterpieces.
The first of these, a play, was a tragedy on the death of Moliere entitled Moliere (1936) which had a one-week run before being banned due to its thinly disguised attack on Stalin and the Communist party. I confess that I found this entertaining and the political messages beautiful in their subtlety but I unfairly compare it to The Master and Margarita as I had read that first, just so, I unfairly compare any Soviet writer to Bulgakov once I'd read Bulgakov. C'est la vie.
The second of his masterpieces is his dazzling Gogolesque fantasy The Master and Margarita (begun in 1928, published in 1966). Witty and ribald, it is simultaneously a penetrating philosophical novel wrestling with the profound and eternal problems of good and evil, juxtaposing two planes of action - one set in contemporary Moscow and the other in Pontius Pilates Judea. The central character is the Devil, disguised as 'Professor Woland', who descends upon officially atheistic Moscow in the 1930's with his purgative pranks that expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the cultural elite. His counterpart is 'The Master', a repressed novelist who goes into a psychiatric ward for seeking to present the story of Jesus. The work oscillates between grotesque and often ribald scenes of trenchant satirical humor and powerful and moving moments of pathos and tragedy. My favorite line which I will tease with by not describing the context, only the speaker, is haunting; "What would the Earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?" asks the Devil.
It was not finally published in the Soviet union until 1966 and then only in heavily censored form. Published in its entirety outside the Soviet Union it quickly became renowned and then adapted for the stage, attempted often but only one legendary playwright was ever thought to have brought it to the stage correctly (his name escapes me but he died since I was in prison and I read his obit in _The Economist_ and that was his epitaph; "the only one to bring The Master and Margarita to the stage to critical acclaim") One of my life's regrets is that I never saw it, but I hope there's a video of the performance somewhere.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Nelson Demille
'Airport novels'. Easily a derogatory term thrown at mass market authors had its original connotation as a descriptive adjective for the good clean easy fun that comes from a master storyteller appealing to the masses via the airport kiosk. A book you can buy, enjoy reading, and pass on with no fear of offending whomever you give it to or who may find it in their next seat. It's why they sell millions and their authors have no reason to hang their heads, though many a bibliophile - confession; I, for one, do it a lot (sorry David Baldacci, Brad Thor, etc, but your formulaic ad-libs don't inspire me) - deride them.
Nelson Demille is, though, the very best of these authors, never having written a bad book and always delivering in a pinch. Often I have run out of reading material in the 'pre-kindle' days where I traveled extensively, and I always knew that if I could find one of his that I had not read, the day would be saved and no flight delay would be intolerable. My favorite of his books is The Gold Coast (1990), the tale of old money petering out on his native Long Island and merging with new capital and the old traditions of la cosa nostra, which spawned a sequel a decade later, The Gate House (2008), which was just as riveting. Supposed to have become a movie, The Gold Coast even had Al Pacino attached to play the mobster but a series of sales of rights and lawyer shenanigans kept it from ever being made and we are all the poorer for it.
At the height of the Cold War, Demille wrote The Charm School (1988)about a KGB training facility in Russia staffed by captive US POW's from Vietnam who were used to train Soviet deep cover agents. It was harrowing, entertaining and better than any of the other stories related to that possibility.
Demille was a U.S. Army infantry officer in Vietnam and his hard-earned knowledge lends verisimilitude to any novel with a US Army protagonist. In Word of Honor (1985) his central character is a former US Army officer who had resigned his commission after service in Vietnam but is called back involuntarily for a war crimes investigation. Intelligent and accomplished, it was a fitting discussion of some vital experiences of that sad war on both sides.
In a series featuring an Army Criminal Investigative Division (C.I.D.) character, Paul Brenner, Demille exposes the very best and worst that the US Army and the DOD perpetrated in the war, giving the reader insight into a normally hidden world. One of these novels, The Generals Daughter (1992) became a hit movie with John Travolta, but there are others in the series with my favorite being Up Country (2002) as our hero goes back to Vietnam in 1997 after being recalled to CID and not having been there since his service in the war.
There are other serial novels too, such as the John Corey Series' exemplified byPlum Island (1997) that stand out, but I must confess he does hit some old tropes. For example, in one series built around a Federal anti terrorism agent which simply failed for novelty in an over worked genre and did not fill me with joy. Generally, though, but I am more than willing to overlook their predictability as, after all, he saved me when I could get nothing better at many an airport. Thank you sir.
Nelson Demille is, though, the very best of these authors, never having written a bad book and always delivering in a pinch. Often I have run out of reading material in the 'pre-kindle' days where I traveled extensively, and I always knew that if I could find one of his that I had not read, the day would be saved and no flight delay would be intolerable. My favorite of his books is The Gold Coast (1990), the tale of old money petering out on his native Long Island and merging with new capital and the old traditions of la cosa nostra, which spawned a sequel a decade later, The Gate House (2008), which was just as riveting. Supposed to have become a movie, The Gold Coast even had Al Pacino attached to play the mobster but a series of sales of rights and lawyer shenanigans kept it from ever being made and we are all the poorer for it.
At the height of the Cold War, Demille wrote The Charm School (1988)about a KGB training facility in Russia staffed by captive US POW's from Vietnam who were used to train Soviet deep cover agents. It was harrowing, entertaining and better than any of the other stories related to that possibility.
Demille was a U.S. Army infantry officer in Vietnam and his hard-earned knowledge lends verisimilitude to any novel with a US Army protagonist. In Word of Honor (1985) his central character is a former US Army officer who had resigned his commission after service in Vietnam but is called back involuntarily for a war crimes investigation. Intelligent and accomplished, it was a fitting discussion of some vital experiences of that sad war on both sides.
In a series featuring an Army Criminal Investigative Division (C.I.D.) character, Paul Brenner, Demille exposes the very best and worst that the US Army and the DOD perpetrated in the war, giving the reader insight into a normally hidden world. One of these novels, The Generals Daughter (1992) became a hit movie with John Travolta, but there are others in the series with my favorite being Up Country (2002) as our hero goes back to Vietnam in 1997 after being recalled to CID and not having been there since his service in the war.
There are other serial novels too, such as the John Corey Series' exemplified byPlum Island (1997) that stand out, but I must confess he does hit some old tropes. For example, in one series built around a Federal anti terrorism agent which simply failed for novelty in an over worked genre and did not fill me with joy. Generally, though, but I am more than willing to overlook their predictability as, after all, he saved me when I could get nothing better at many an airport. Thank you sir.
Graham Greene
Graham Greene was a giant of twentieth-century English literature. Novelist, short story writer, journalist, and playwright, when he passed in 1991 I remember my English teacher mentioning it at the beginning of class with a lump in her throat. His novels treat life's moral ambiguities in the context of what was then contemporary political settings but give those of us reading him now incredibly insightful portraits of some twentieth-century seismic shifts in politics and culture, and it his novels that I will concentrate on here.
Greene's first published work was Babbling April (1925), a book of verse and his first novel was The Man Within (1929). The success of these two publications saw him quit his job at the venerable Times of London and go to work for The Spectator his base for three decades traveling the world as freelance journalist spending and using the expense paid travel to search out locations for his novels
.
Greene's first three novels are commonly referred to as his teething time and not generally renowned. He came into his own though with The Stamboul Train (1932) known more popularly as The Orient Express in which he played off various characters against each one another as they ride a train from the English Channel to the Bospheus. This would be the first of a series of novels he would refer to as 'entertainments', works similar to thrillers in their spare, tough language and their suspenseful, swiftly moving plots, but possessing greater moral complexity and depth. Stamboul Train was also the first of his novels to be made into a film. It was followed by three more 'entertainments' that were equally popular with the world; A Gun for Sale (1936, filmed 1942), Confidential Agent_(1939 filmed 1945) and the Ministry of Fear (1943, filmed in 1945). A fifth 'entertainment', The Third Man, published in novel form in 1949 was originally a screenplay for a film directed by Carol Reed.
Greene's first published work was Babbling April (1925), a book of verse and his first novel was The Man Within (1929). The success of these two publications saw him quit his job at the venerable Times of London and go to work for The Spectator his base for three decades traveling the world as freelance journalist spending and using the expense paid travel to search out locations for his novels
.
Greene's first three novels are commonly referred to as his teething time and not generally renowned. He came into his own though with The Stamboul Train (1932) known more popularly as The Orient Express in which he played off various characters against each one another as they ride a train from the English Channel to the Bospheus. This would be the first of a series of novels he would refer to as 'entertainments', works similar to thrillers in their spare, tough language and their suspenseful, swiftly moving plots, but possessing greater moral complexity and depth. Stamboul Train was also the first of his novels to be made into a film. It was followed by three more 'entertainments' that were equally popular with the world; A Gun for Sale (1936, filmed 1942), Confidential Agent_(1939 filmed 1945) and the Ministry of Fear (1943, filmed in 1945). A fifth 'entertainment', The Third Man, published in novel form in 1949 was originally a screenplay for a film directed by Carol Reed.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is one of the greatest American storytellers ever, acclaimed by some as our greatest living storyteller, which I am inclined to agree with. He is certainly the very best writer of the area known as the borderlands between the US and Mexico with his novels that range from the beginning of European exploration to the pressing issues of drugs and immigration in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
His 'Border Trilogy', consisting of All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994) and The Cities of the Plain (1998) is magnificent in every way, telling the story of a protagonist from a poor farming background whose life along both sides of the border as a real cowboy through the early to mid-twentieth century is a vivid and telling picture of an America long past. Terse prose eerily accurate to the patterns of speech of the weathered characters of these settings echoes long after reading.
All the Pretty Horses was made into a film in 2000 by director Billy Bob Thornton, though we have never seen the film he made as the studio gutted it to a 'standard run length' alienating along the way the genius creator of the custom musical score (among others), so that what was released, starring Penelope Cruz and Matt Damon, was a two hour Hollywood cookie cutter that ran lukewarm to the critics. It was, before cutting room butchery, a beautiful adaptation of an excellent novel, and many hope the studio someday will let the 'Directors Cut' be sold and with the original musical score attached. I, for one, am willing to pre-order it right now so that I may just have the 'someday' of seeing it and am sure tens of thousands of others will as well. the handful of people who have seen it whisper of it with the reverence of ancient Dionysian mystery cult initiations long faded into myth.
Thank the cult status of All the Pretty Horses, Hollywood had a great many McCarthy fans when in 2005 he published No Country For Old Men which quickly became a highly successful film in 2007 with multiple Oscars awarded, including to Javier Bardem. A wonderful read and an equivalently enjoyable film that lives up to being a rather tough act to follow after such a great book. His post apocalyptic novel of a father's struggle for survival while guarding his young son in an America that is barely recognizable, entitled The Road (2006). It won a Pulitzer for and it was about G D time the committee recognized this genius. I was disappointed they didn't award him one for his westerns, but happy they finally did give him the beginning of the credit he deserves. Made into another successful film this time starring Vigo Mortensen, I have not seen it yet as I am incarcerated, but it is high on my list of 'to view a.s.a.p.'. Sving the best for last, let me say that my favorite western ever from any author and my favorite book by McCarthy is his masterpiece Blood Meridians or the Evening Redness in the West (1985). Innovative in style, brutal in composition and subject matter, influential across a myriad of authors worldwide (even Johnathan Ferris gives this work a shout out in the afterwards of one of his hilarious modern day comedies, but more on him later), it is absolutely riveting and is on my 'desert island' book list. For those who have not read it, prepare to be amazed, but be forewarned, it will haunt your memories and you will never read or write the same again.
Thank the cult status of All the Pretty Horses, Hollywood had a great many McCarthy fans when in 2005 he published No Country For Old Men which quickly became a highly successful film in 2007 with multiple Oscars awarded, including to Javier Bardem. A wonderful read and an equivalently enjoyable film that lives up to being a rather tough act to follow after such a great book. His post apocalyptic novel of a father's struggle for survival while guarding his young son in an America that is barely recognizable, entitled The Road (2006). It won a Pulitzer for and it was about G D time the committee recognized this genius. I was disappointed they didn't award him one for his westerns, but happy they finally did give him the beginning of the credit he deserves. Made into another successful film this time starring Vigo Mortensen, I have not seen it yet as I am incarcerated, but it is high on my list of 'to view a.s.a.p.'. Sving the best for last, let me say that my favorite western ever from any author and my favorite book by McCarthy is his masterpiece Blood Meridians or the Evening Redness in the West (1985). Innovative in style, brutal in composition and subject matter, influential across a myriad of authors worldwide (even Johnathan Ferris gives this work a shout out in the afterwards of one of his hilarious modern day comedies, but more on him later), it is absolutely riveting and is on my 'desert island' book list. For those who have not read it, prepare to be amazed, but be forewarned, it will haunt your memories and you will never read or write the same again.
J.G. Farrell
Reading historical fiction is almost always profitable for the reader. In exchange for just a basic knowledge of the period in question, the reader reaps the benefits of the author's extensive research into the nuances and details often found as too dry to make an impact in non-fiction texts. An intimate feel for the period and its peoples leads one to understand so much better what really shaped an event. There is no better author of historical fiction than was J. G. Farrell.
J.G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy (1970-78)ranges from the Sepoy Mutiny in India, through World War I and Ireland's Easter, 1916 rebellion, and then on to World War II in the Far East. In these three novels, Ferrell paints an unequaled portrait of the folly of empire.
The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), which won the Man Booker Prize in 1973, takes place in India in 1857 and tells the story of the Great Mutiny when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. Set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent, this novel exposes colonial ambitions that is all at once brutal, blundering and wistful. And, as it followed Ferrell's earlier work on the Irish mutiny one can't help understanding that Ferrell saw these events as linked in concept if not in time and place. Troubles (1970) is at once a hilarious and heartbreaking master work which takes place in Kilnalough, Ireland set during the 1916 Easter Rebellion. It is a sad, tragic and very funny tale exemplifying the human heart of insurrection. The last of the trilogy, The Singapore Grip (1978), is a love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life. It explores the boundaries between classes and nations through the figures of the business community in Singapore directly before the Japanese invasion.
It is always audacious to explain a two hundred and fifty-year span of history but Ferrell's ambition seems to be more an attempt at explaining the human failings of the British Raj than any actual history. The Brits, in Ferrell's estimation, watched the Sun set over their empire owning class blinders and arrogant disdain for any who let them rule.
Perhaps ironically, in 1979 while fishing, a rogue wave not unlike the Sepoy Mutiny or the Rising, or the inevitable defeat arising from a lack of foresight, as in Singapore, swept Ferrell, age 44, off of a rock and to his death in the Irish sea. His death stunned the literary community and one cannot help but mourn the many great works died with him.
J.G. Farrell's Empire Trilogy (1970-78)ranges from the Sepoy Mutiny in India, through World War I and Ireland's Easter, 1916 rebellion, and then on to World War II in the Far East. In these three novels, Ferrell paints an unequaled portrait of the folly of empire.
The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), which won the Man Booker Prize in 1973, takes place in India in 1857 and tells the story of the Great Mutiny when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. Set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent, this novel exposes colonial ambitions that is all at once brutal, blundering and wistful. And, as it followed Ferrell's earlier work on the Irish mutiny one can't help understanding that Ferrell saw these events as linked in concept if not in time and place. Troubles (1970) is at once a hilarious and heartbreaking master work which takes place in Kilnalough, Ireland set during the 1916 Easter Rebellion. It is a sad, tragic and very funny tale exemplifying the human heart of insurrection. The last of the trilogy, The Singapore Grip (1978), is a love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life. It explores the boundaries between classes and nations through the figures of the business community in Singapore directly before the Japanese invasion.
It is always audacious to explain a two hundred and fifty-year span of history but Ferrell's ambition seems to be more an attempt at explaining the human failings of the British Raj than any actual history. The Brits, in Ferrell's estimation, watched the Sun set over their empire owning class blinders and arrogant disdain for any who let them rule.
Perhaps ironically, in 1979 while fishing, a rogue wave not unlike the Sepoy Mutiny or the Rising, or the inevitable defeat arising from a lack of foresight, as in Singapore, swept Ferrell, age 44, off of a rock and to his death in the Irish sea. His death stunned the literary community and one cannot help but mourn the many great works died with him.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Robert Harris
Robert Harris is an English columnist and journalistic correspondent (still active, writing riveting and timely pieces in major UK papers), is also a long-form writer whose books have all become international bestsellers. His bibliography at this writing runs to 20 books and screenplays.
He rose to prominence with Fatherland, rated by "The Economist" as the best modern alternative history novel ever written. In it, a murder mystery is set in 1962 Berlin with the Germans having won WWII. It was later made into a film for HBO and would be the first of his works to be rendered onto the screen, but not the last.
Selling Hitler was more reportage, an investigative look at the famously forged diary of Adolf Hitler and its subsequent journey from its dubious origins through its sale and eventually its denouncement.
Turning to an entirely different moment and subject he expressed his love for ancient Rome, and specifically the period at the end of the Republic as it transitioned to dictatorship with a gift to the world of a trilogy on the life of Cicero (Imperium (2006), Lustrum (2009), and Dictator (2015) which are, next only to Robert Graves' I, Claudius in their magnificence.
Enigma, a fictional book about the Bletchley Park code breakers in WWII, was also made into a film, and though coming to the screen is not necessarily the best indicator of literary quality, as most of what he writes is historical fiction novels, it is perhaps no unreasonable to assume that his attention to detail and accuracy leave little for Hollywood to improve upon.
An Officer and a Spy, one of his best historical fiction reads, is about the infamous Dreyfus affair in late 19th century France, and it is by far the best description of the affair and I make this claim having read almost the full catalog of fiction and non-fiction works on the subject.
Not limited to just historical fiction, his modern thriller set in high finance, The Fear Index (2011), was just as enjoyable as anything else on the scene and it brought serious questions about high-frequency trading and the use of AI's into public discourse.
There is not one of his works that I have not enjoyed, and I always eagerly await his next release. If I had to choose one author to give as a gift to anyone across the political and social spectrum and know it would be greatly appreciated, it would be him. His newest work (Winter - Spring 2017), which I have yet to read, is Conclave, is first in my book 'begging list'.
He rose to prominence with Fatherland, rated by "The Economist" as the best modern alternative history novel ever written. In it, a murder mystery is set in 1962 Berlin with the Germans having won WWII. It was later made into a film for HBO and would be the first of his works to be rendered onto the screen, but not the last.
Selling Hitler was more reportage, an investigative look at the famously forged diary of Adolf Hitler and its subsequent journey from its dubious origins through its sale and eventually its denouncement.
Turning to an entirely different moment and subject he expressed his love for ancient Rome, and specifically the period at the end of the Republic as it transitioned to dictatorship with a gift to the world of a trilogy on the life of Cicero (Imperium (2006), Lustrum (2009), and Dictator (2015) which are, next only to Robert Graves' I, Claudius in their magnificence.
Enigma, a fictional book about the Bletchley Park code breakers in WWII, was also made into a film, and though coming to the screen is not necessarily the best indicator of literary quality, as most of what he writes is historical fiction novels, it is perhaps no unreasonable to assume that his attention to detail and accuracy leave little for Hollywood to improve upon.
An Officer and a Spy, one of his best historical fiction reads, is about the infamous Dreyfus affair in late 19th century France, and it is by far the best description of the affair and I make this claim having read almost the full catalog of fiction and non-fiction works on the subject.
Not limited to just historical fiction, his modern thriller set in high finance, The Fear Index (2011), was just as enjoyable as anything else on the scene and it brought serious questions about high-frequency trading and the use of AI's into public discourse.
There is not one of his works that I have not enjoyed, and I always eagerly await his next release. If I had to choose one author to give as a gift to anyone across the political and social spectrum and know it would be greatly appreciated, it would be him. His newest work (Winter - Spring 2017), which I have yet to read, is Conclave, is first in my book 'begging list'.
Charles Frazier
Being a North Carolinian, I must have a favorite North Carolina author, it is required, so Charles Frazier is my favorite by far. Perhaps it is because of his settings, particularly his intimate feel for the Blue Ridge Mountains, they being the first mountains I ever saw and explored. Or perhaps it is because of his deft portrayals of the people who settled those mountains and whose identity is entwined with them. Frazier grew up there, and his love for the mountains and their deeply shadowed coves pervades his novels, the most famous of which is his first book, Cold Mountain. A story about an obscure anId unimportant part of the American Civil War it was an international bestseller, won a ton of awards and later became an award-winning film all on the basis of the author's ability to set realistic people on realistic terrain and let them talk.
His second novel, Thirteen Moons was more epic in timeframe than Cold Mountain, covering many decades of development. Set in the same terrain as Cold Mountain, the book rewards his fans and all fans of the region with stunningly accurate descriptions of the settlement and develop of the area, along with a compelling personal narrative of the protagonist.
Nightwoods is his third novel and as expected, does not disappoint. I don't want to ruin any of these amazing narratives by describing them here, so let me just say that if you love the Appalachians, the South and the people that settled Western NC and live there still, read this incredibly gifted writer.
His second novel, Thirteen Moons was more epic in timeframe than Cold Mountain, covering many decades of development. Set in the same terrain as Cold Mountain, the book rewards his fans and all fans of the region with stunningly accurate descriptions of the settlement and develop of the area, along with a compelling personal narrative of the protagonist.
Nightwoods is his third novel and as expected, does not disappoint. I don't want to ruin any of these amazing narratives by describing them here, so let me just say that if you love the Appalachians, the South and the people that settled Western NC and live there still, read this incredibly gifted writer.
Amitov Ghosh
When writers choose to write historical fiction, they have to be careful to get the known experiences of characters that actually existed as accurate as possible in order to have verisimilitude to the period and to leave themselves leeway to create fictional characters and have their actions appear plausible. This complexity only compounds when the fictional characters interact with nonfictional characters. Amitav Ghosh set himself an incredibly difficult task in his trilogy beginning with Sea of Poppies (2008) and succeeded in spectacular fashion.
In writing this trilogy of South Asia and the Pacific in the 19th century, specifically in the opium trade - from farm to pipe, India to China - and the subsequent forced opening of China in the Opium War, Amitav Ghosh writes primarily about the less glamorous people involved; from illiterate farmers to coolies, not shying away from the complex interplay between the lives of a great host of characters while informing the reader empathetically of so many personal journeys of the common people overcome by the grand events.
Simply put, each a gem, together they are a masterpiece: Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, Flood of Fire.
In writing this trilogy of South Asia and the Pacific in the 19th century, specifically in the opium trade - from farm to pipe, India to China - and the subsequent forced opening of China in the Opium War, Amitav Ghosh writes primarily about the less glamorous people involved; from illiterate farmers to coolies, not shying away from the complex interplay between the lives of a great host of characters while informing the reader empathetically of so many personal journeys of the common people overcome by the grand events.
Simply put, each a gem, together they are a masterpiece: Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, Flood of Fire.
Elmore Leonard
You've seen a movie based on one of his books, I guarantee it. His work includes 45 novels, not to mention all the other writing he did, Elmore Leonard was a master of riveting fiction.
Starting with westerns in the 1950's, including 3:10 to Yuma which became a great movie - twice, he then progressed into crime novels that sketched geography and society ranging from his hometown of Detroit all the way to South America by way of Miami and even into Africa. Hollywood adored him, "Get Shorty" with John Travolta, "Rum Punch" which became the Tarantino film "Jackie Brown", there are too many to list.
Beloved by other authors, he even wrote and taught, most famously instructing authors to "leave out the parts they don't want to read". A great American storyteller and an unapologetic Detroiters, he is sorely missed.
Starting with westerns in the 1950's, including 3:10 to Yuma which became a great movie - twice, he then progressed into crime novels that sketched geography and society ranging from his hometown of Detroit all the way to South America by way of Miami and even into Africa. Hollywood adored him, "Get Shorty" with John Travolta, "Rum Punch" which became the Tarantino film "Jackie Brown", there are too many to list.
Beloved by other authors, he even wrote and taught, most famously instructing authors to "leave out the parts they don't want to read". A great American storyteller and an unapologetic Detroiters, he is sorely missed.
James Harriot
Harriot wrote of love: Love for those without a voice, our animal friends. Love as well for the people that love them and the mutually beneficial relationships between man and beast in all their beauty. Lastly, love for Yorkshire and the now almost vanished mid 20th century way of life there.
James Herriot was a Scotsman who qualified as a veterinarian before WWII, served in the Royal Air Force during the war and was a country vet with all the cold and muddy farm births and deaths that that entailed for over forty years. During this time he wrote some of the great stories for animal lovers starting with All Creatures Great and Small and continuing with several other titles until his death. These are must-reads for anyone who has a pet or loves animals, guaranteed to make you smile and when you read one you are advised to have tissues at hand.
James Herriot was a Scotsman who qualified as a veterinarian before WWII, served in the Royal Air Force during the war and was a country vet with all the cold and muddy farm births and deaths that that entailed for over forty years. During this time he wrote some of the great stories for animal lovers starting with All Creatures Great and Small and continuing with several other titles until his death. These are must-reads for anyone who has a pet or loves animals, guaranteed to make you smile and when you read one you are advised to have tissues at hand.
Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk is still writing in his tenth decade. His most recent work is not surprisingly a memoir, which I believe was released last year. In it, he speaks about his strong Jewish faith and the discipline it gave him to be such a prolific writer of sweeping operatic fiction such as The Winds of War.
He won the Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny, later to become a classic film with an all-star cast, and gave the world the struggle for Israel in heart-wrenching The Hope. His escape-NYC-to-the-Caribbean novel Don't Stop the Music was turned into a musical with Jimmy Buffet, and I could go on.
For engaging characters in special situations in which they must sink or swim, there are few, if any, 20th-century masters of the large operatic novel better than Wouk.
He won the Pulitzer for The Caine Mutiny, later to become a classic film with an all-star cast, and gave the world the struggle for Israel in heart-wrenching The Hope. His escape-NYC-to-the-Caribbean novel Don't Stop the Music was turned into a musical with Jimmy Buffet, and I could go on.
For engaging characters in special situations in which they must sink or swim, there are few, if any, 20th-century masters of the large operatic novel better than Wouk.
Robert Crais
Post-Vietnam, Hollywood sold out. Gone were the operators in the gray area of life, instead life was portrayed as black and white - or in the case of crime stories, blue and everyone else had to be bad. A reflection of the new 'us versus them' mentality that grew from the government having the crap scared out of it by the counterculture of the 1960's and 70's. With poor James Garner bearing the torch alone with the Rockford Files, the rest of TV were all cops if they were heroes.
In American literature, there had always been the man in the middle who could solve the case and didn't have to wear a badge. From Dashiell Hamett, and the American westerns before him, through the 'film noir' days, there was a strong vein of how things really worked and thank heavens it stayed true to life and didn't become government propaganda too.
In high school, I enjoyed anti-hero as protagonist novels immensely, and one of the new writers that I quickly became enamored with was Robert Crais with his Elvis Cole detective novels. Beginning with the Monkeys Raincoat, I was hooked and have read every one at least twice.
As a Marine in Southern California, I got to see the LAPD implode past the point of their PR machine's ability to save them as the video beat-down of Rodney King looped, then came the riots and LA was on fire. Suddenly Hollywood had to notice the shift and they came back to reality, but the literary world never left and produced some amazing works from that time and place.
Robert Crais, a native of Louisiana, who had moved to LA in the 1980's and became a journalist on the police beat was well poised to ride the wave and is still surfing it. His most famous stand-alone novel is Hostage which was made into a successful movie with Bruce Willis. That book's full catalog of characters brings humanity to everyone across the social spectrum except the actual really bad characters who deserve what they get. In our mass incarceration nation, where one in three American adults has a criminal record and one in six is a felon, there is a lot of gray.
In American literature, there had always been the man in the middle who could solve the case and didn't have to wear a badge. From Dashiell Hamett, and the American westerns before him, through the 'film noir' days, there was a strong vein of how things really worked and thank heavens it stayed true to life and didn't become government propaganda too.
In high school, I enjoyed anti-hero as protagonist novels immensely, and one of the new writers that I quickly became enamored with was Robert Crais with his Elvis Cole detective novels. Beginning with the Monkeys Raincoat, I was hooked and have read every one at least twice.
As a Marine in Southern California, I got to see the LAPD implode past the point of their PR machine's ability to save them as the video beat-down of Rodney King looped, then came the riots and LA was on fire. Suddenly Hollywood had to notice the shift and they came back to reality, but the literary world never left and produced some amazing works from that time and place.
Robert Crais, a native of Louisiana, who had moved to LA in the 1980's and became a journalist on the police beat was well poised to ride the wave and is still surfing it. His most famous stand-alone novel is Hostage which was made into a successful movie with Bruce Willis. That book's full catalog of characters brings humanity to everyone across the social spectrum except the actual really bad characters who deserve what they get. In our mass incarceration nation, where one in three American adults has a criminal record and one in six is a felon, there is a lot of gray.
Kurt Vonnegut
The absolute master of deadpan humor. A giant of American twentieth-century literature who talked the talk and walked the walk. Kurt Vonnegut wrote novels and plays noted for their pessimism and satire which highlighted the horrors and ironies of 20th-century civilization.
After studying at Cornell, he served in the US Army Air Wing in WWII before being captured by the Germans and then surviving the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945. He would use this experience in an attempt to recreate in fictional form his Dresden experience in Slaughterhouse Five (also called The Children's Crusade) in 1969, pointing out the cruelty and destructiveness of war down through the centuries and thus became a legend amongst the US intelligentsia and an anti-war icon. The book became one of the infamous 'banned' books in many public schools alongside other iconoclastic works, such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, that didn't fit with the whitewashing of the past being taught to American students.
His first novel, Player Piano visualizes a completely mechanical society whose dehumanizing effects are unsuccessfully resisted by the scientists and workers in a New York factory town. The Sirens of Titan is a quasi-science fiction novel in which the entire history of the human race is considered an accident attendant on an alien planet's search for a spare part for a space ship.In Cat's Cradle, some Caribbean islanders adopt a new religion consisting of harmless trivialities in response to an unforeseen scientific discovery that eventually destroys all life on earth.
Vonnegut's use of science fiction and fantasy as tools rather than as genre definition opened up paths to countless authors. My favorite work of his that I have found more quotes from in my notebooks than any other is Mother Night. Phrasing from many of his works has consciously or unconsciously entered my personal lexicon, much like so many aspects of his influence, 'So it goes.' It has all been welcomed.
Kurt, we miss you and from multiple generations of American students, I thank you.
After studying at Cornell, he served in the US Army Air Wing in WWII before being captured by the Germans and then surviving the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945. He would use this experience in an attempt to recreate in fictional form his Dresden experience in Slaughterhouse Five (also called The Children's Crusade) in 1969, pointing out the cruelty and destructiveness of war down through the centuries and thus became a legend amongst the US intelligentsia and an anti-war icon. The book became one of the infamous 'banned' books in many public schools alongside other iconoclastic works, such as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, that didn't fit with the whitewashing of the past being taught to American students.
His first novel, Player Piano visualizes a completely mechanical society whose dehumanizing effects are unsuccessfully resisted by the scientists and workers in a New York factory town. The Sirens of Titan is a quasi-science fiction novel in which the entire history of the human race is considered an accident attendant on an alien planet's search for a spare part for a space ship.In Cat's Cradle, some Caribbean islanders adopt a new religion consisting of harmless trivialities in response to an unforeseen scientific discovery that eventually destroys all life on earth.
Vonnegut's use of science fiction and fantasy as tools rather than as genre definition opened up paths to countless authors. My favorite work of his that I have found more quotes from in my notebooks than any other is Mother Night. Phrasing from many of his works has consciously or unconsciously entered my personal lexicon, much like so many aspects of his influence, 'So it goes.' It has all been welcomed.
Kurt, we miss you and from multiple generations of American students, I thank you.
Rick Atkinson
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism and the Pulitzer Prize in History. Winner of the George Polk Award, the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award. A former staff writer and senior editor at the Washington Post , Rick Atkinson is one of the most comprehensive researchers who also has some of the most eminently readable prose in the field of military history.
His 'Liberation Trilogy', composed of An Army At Dawn, The Guns at Last Light and The Day of Battle is a triumph of narrative history which chronicles the entirety of US military involvement in its campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and the Western Front in WWII.
Skillfully illustrating the campaigns from the command structure and logistical challenges all the way down to what life was like for the individuals participating, he excels at describing the horror and chaos of battle while pointing out both the absurd and the momentous.
When there are popular historians like Rick Atkinson, along with other luminaries such as Stephen Ambrose and Bruce Catton, it is sad that only right wing pundits co-authoring' similarly prefixed (Killing...) annotated and sensationalized accounts of important world history are in the top ten best sellers list.
His 'Liberation Trilogy', composed of An Army At Dawn, The Guns at Last Light and The Day of Battle is a triumph of narrative history which chronicles the entirety of US military involvement in its campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and the Western Front in WWII.
Skillfully illustrating the campaigns from the command structure and logistical challenges all the way down to what life was like for the individuals participating, he excels at describing the horror and chaos of battle while pointing out both the absurd and the momentous.
When there are popular historians like Rick Atkinson, along with other luminaries such as Stephen Ambrose and Bruce Catton, it is sad that only right wing pundits co-authoring' similarly prefixed (Killing...) annotated and sensationalized accounts of important world history are in the top ten best sellers list.
Anthony Doerr
Must confess that I did not know Anthony Doerr's work until I read his 2015 Pulitzer Prize winning novel for fiction, All The Light We Cannot See. A novel with the European theater of WWII as the scene, but really a story of how ephemeral life really is. Now that I have read it, I will be going back and reading his previous four works, while looking forward to anything he writes in the future.
Isn't this what awards are all about? Not self-congratulatory claptrap for the established, but bringing to the forefront an artist deserving recognition? Bravo to the Pulitzer committee, for you, have given us some wonderful authors in these last few years.
Full disclosure; emotionally overwhelmed at the end of this book, my tears took a half hour of staring out a window to stop. A magnificent and deeply moving story of interconnected lives set against the harshest of realities in some of humanities darkest times and yet it shows us how we should always try and be good to each other. F___ me, I am tearing up writing this. What else can I say?
Isn't this what awards are all about? Not self-congratulatory claptrap for the established, but bringing to the forefront an artist deserving recognition? Bravo to the Pulitzer committee, for you, have given us some wonderful authors in these last few years.
Full disclosure; emotionally overwhelmed at the end of this book, my tears took a half hour of staring out a window to stop. A magnificent and deeply moving story of interconnected lives set against the harshest of realities in some of humanities darkest times and yet it shows us how we should always try and be good to each other. F___ me, I am tearing up writing this. What else can I say?
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
John D. Macdonald
The grandfather of the great writers of Florida, John D. MacDonald.
A native of Utica, NY, John D. Macdonald got his M.B.A. from Harvard before being sent off to WWII where heserved in theChina, Burma, and India Theater (CBI). While in serving, he wrote his first short story and sent it home to his wife, and she had it sold before he even got back from the war.
Upon returning, as a Lt. Colonel and Harvard graduate, he had his choice of plum career options yet he took an undemanding job so he could concentrate on writing. He moved to Florida, the land of light, the place where "the curtains were never drawn" and blossomed into one of the preeminent fiction writers of the 20th century.
When he moved there, FortLauderdale had been the scene for several bad movies but hardly any books. This would quickly changee. He put it on the literary map by writing over fifty stand alone novels that included the world famous Cape Fear which became a movie twice, once with Robert Mitchum and then again with Robert DeNiro playing the ex-con psychopath antagonist.
And then there is the Travis McGee series, which chokes me with emotion even just to write about. With the base of my throat swelling, overwhelmed by the imaginary feel of white sand between my toes, I say thank you John D. MacDonald for so much.
In the reissuing of the Travis McGee series in the mmid-1990s, the introductions to each novel where penned by some of the leading authors of the time, each writing about how influential MacDonald was to them. Stephen King, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Dean Kootz, Donald Westlake, Jonathan Kellerman, Ed McBain, Robert B. Parker... and of course my favorite Florida writer, Carl Hiaasen.
Rugged and sentimental, fearless and flawed, McGee is everything a connoisseur of private eye capers could ever want; a knight in rusty armor', a knock about retriever of lost fortunes and a savior of spiraling souls Travis is gritty and yet tender. A Korean war vet living on a houseboat he won in a card game, the "Busted Flush", docked in Ft. Lauderdale, he engages in 'salvage work' and keeps half of what he recovers to pay his slip-fees and put beer on the table, his is a character for the age. The first fictional character of the 'disillusioned-with-Norman Rockwell's-America' genre, he was a precursor to the social movements of the 1960's and it is worth reading these novels just to hear his bearing witness to the changes in America from his incarnation in the early 1950's until his last adventure in the early 1980's.
Written with a wise cynical eye that evokes Raymond Chandler, he tells rip roaring yarns but also he nails mid to late 20th century Florida for all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise and breath taking beauty. He wanted his readers to do more than see Florida, he wanted them to care about it deeply, celebrate it as he did, marvel at it, laugh about it, grieve for it and even fight for it.
Travis McGee was a poet-naturalist who was also a hard bitten sleuth, a samurai writing poetry. He was a very special character and with MacDonald's' unexpected death in 1986, millions of fans worldwide were left wondering what would happen to him. For me, I prefer to think he just moved the "Busted Flush" from slip F-18 and is still out there to this day. For if he's really gone, I prefer not to know.
A native of Utica, NY, John D. Macdonald got his M.B.A. from Harvard before being sent off to WWII where heserved in theChina, Burma, and India Theater (CBI). While in serving, he wrote his first short story and sent it home to his wife, and she had it sold before he even got back from the war.
Upon returning, as a Lt. Colonel and Harvard graduate, he had his choice of plum career options yet he took an undemanding job so he could concentrate on writing. He moved to Florida, the land of light, the place where "the curtains were never drawn" and blossomed into one of the preeminent fiction writers of the 20th century.
When he moved there, FortLauderdale had been the scene for several bad movies but hardly any books. This would quickly changee. He put it on the literary map by writing over fifty stand alone novels that included the world famous Cape Fear which became a movie twice, once with Robert Mitchum and then again with Robert DeNiro playing the ex-con psychopath antagonist.
And then there is the Travis McGee series, which chokes me with emotion even just to write about. With the base of my throat swelling, overwhelmed by the imaginary feel of white sand between my toes, I say thank you John D. MacDonald for so much.
In the reissuing of the Travis McGee series in the mmid-1990s, the introductions to each novel where penned by some of the leading authors of the time, each writing about how influential MacDonald was to them. Stephen King, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Dean Kootz, Donald Westlake, Jonathan Kellerman, Ed McBain, Robert B. Parker... and of course my favorite Florida writer, Carl Hiaasen.
Rugged and sentimental, fearless and flawed, McGee is everything a connoisseur of private eye capers could ever want; a knight in rusty armor', a knock about retriever of lost fortunes and a savior of spiraling souls Travis is gritty and yet tender. A Korean war vet living on a houseboat he won in a card game, the "Busted Flush", docked in Ft. Lauderdale, he engages in 'salvage work' and keeps half of what he recovers to pay his slip-fees and put beer on the table, his is a character for the age. The first fictional character of the 'disillusioned-with-Norman Rockwell's-America' genre, he was a precursor to the social movements of the 1960's and it is worth reading these novels just to hear his bearing witness to the changes in America from his incarnation in the early 1950's until his last adventure in the early 1980's.
Written with a wise cynical eye that evokes Raymond Chandler, he tells rip roaring yarns but also he nails mid to late 20th century Florida for all its languid sleaze, racy sense of promise and breath taking beauty. He wanted his readers to do more than see Florida, he wanted them to care about it deeply, celebrate it as he did, marvel at it, laugh about it, grieve for it and even fight for it.
Travis McGee was a poet-naturalist who was also a hard bitten sleuth, a samurai writing poetry. He was a very special character and with MacDonald's' unexpected death in 1986, millions of fans worldwide were left wondering what would happen to him. For me, I prefer to think he just moved the "Busted Flush" from slip F-18 and is still out there to this day. For if he's really gone, I prefer not to know.
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