The Long River Home (Larry Smith) (8.5/10.0)

I love this novel. I love it not for what it is, but for what it represents. And what it represents is a continuation of the quintessential American storytelling tradition wherein family is intimately and irrevocably linked to the land that provides for its survival and it is the emotional drama of multiple generations of hardworking and hard-loving men and women that drives the story straight to the reader’s heart. It is the tradition first made popular by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, then polished by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, and finally perfected by Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It and Ken Kesey in Sometimes a Great Notion. It is, quite simply, the tradition to which The Literate Man is dedicated. And it is a tradition that is largely absent from the pages of Amazon and the bookshelves of Barnes & Noble, which are increasingly dedicated to the formulaic and the prurient.

The Long River Home follows four generations of the McCall family from 1861 through 1949 as they witness and experience the transformation of the Ohio River Valley from wilderness to agriculture to industrialization. Andrew McCall, solitary child of the Civil War and sometime bootlegger, is the patriarch of the family, and the wildness and wanderlust of his nature can be traced down the succeeding generations. Equally prominent in the family’s blood is the loyalty and stoicism brought by Andrew’s wife, Mariah, who manages to hold the family together even when events threaten to tear it apart. There is no unbelievable drama here—only the decisions, right and wrong, of the very human beings that inhabit the novel’s pages. But Smith treats them both fairly and subtly, and the reader comes away with the sense of having lived among the McCalls and having loved them in spite of, or perhaps because of, all of their flaws.

The Long River Home is not perfect. It is inconsistent at times, and the reader feels strangely closer to the historical characters than those that would be almost contemporaries. It is not in the same class as those classics mentioned above, though at times it does get within spitting distance of them. But it is a book that brings you into emotional contact with the characters that inhabit its pages and closer to an understanding of the human condition. And for that reason alone, it should be treasured.

The Second World War (Six-Volume Set) (Winston S. Churchill) (9.4/10)

Now this is a man’s work, and for more reasons than one. In six long and annotated volumes, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill holds the reader’s attention masterfully through the years of blind pacificism and the rise of the Nazi menace in Germany (The Gathering Storm) through the blitzkrieg campaigns that brought all of Europe, and very nearly England, to its knees (Their Finest Hour) to the reluctant entrance of both Soviet Russia and the United States into the war (The Grand Alliance) and the gradual turning of the tide as the massive capabilities of all three were harnessed to overcome German war production (The Hinge of Fate) to the storming of the European continent and the discovery of German concentration camps (Triumph and Tragedy) to final victory over Nazi Germany by traditional warfare and imperial Japan by the reluctant use of atomic weapons (Closing the Ring).

Please understand, I am not generally a fan of military history or of war tales in general. And I am certainly not a fan of all of Churchill’s works (his four-volume work, A History of the English Speaking Peoples, has me begging for release only halfway through volume two). But this is quite simply the greatest story of the twentieth century, and this set of six volumes records the events through the eyes and ears and hands of one of its primary architects. Churchill is a fantastic storyteller here, though he does have a weakness for prolonged and verbose defense of his decisions in the moment. Nevertheless, the urgency of actual events moves the story along at a comfortable pace, and Churchill generously excerpts from his own correspondence and the archives of the British government’s to tell the tale.

Especially interesting is the tremendous correspondence that passed and the friendship that developed between Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt before America’s entrance into World War II. Even as the population of Great Britain was huddled underground in subway stations during the Battle of Britain, Churchill had faith that reason and right would win out in the hearts of the American people and he repeatedly expressed that faith to Roosevelt, while also pleading for increased military support under the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Equally engaging is Churchill’s hot and cold relationship with Joseph Stalin, whom Churchill variously considered his closest ally and, by the end of the war, the embodiment of evil upon the earth. But the facts don’t lie, even in Churchill’s hands, and there can be no doubt that England and America would have very likely lost the war to the Axis powers if the Great Bear had not made its timely entrance and proceeded to sacrifice the greater share of its manhood for victory.

The Second World War is not for the feint-hearted. The reading of it is an enormous project to undertake. But the rewards are tangible not only in the beautiful prose which graces its pages, but also in the significance of the events that it relates. Overall, it is simply one of my favorite works.

The Conquest of New Spain (Bernal Diaz del Castillo) (7.5/10)

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a captain under the command of the conquistador, Hernan Cortez, presents a straightforward, if less than poetic, chronology of his adventures in the New World. Diaz was party to two failed expeditions from the Spanish beachhead on the island of Cuba to the Yucatan prior to the attempt of Cortez, and each was soundly defeated by Maya warriors at Cozumel and Champoton, respectively. Then, in March of 1519, Cortez mounted a larger expedition intending to establish trade with the Maya and perhaps establish a permanent settlement for Spain. Ambition and glory soon eclipse these plans as Cortez’s victories over small bands of Maya lead to gifts of gold and tales of the strength of far-off Montezuma lead to visions of conquest.

At bottom, Cortez is able to take advantage of a Maya civilization in disarray before the violent strength of the Aztecs and he deftly plays one group off against another and all against the Mexicans on his march toward Tenochtitlan. What stands out in stark detail throughout is the degree to which Cortez and his men relied upon their asserted “duty” to spread the word of God to the natives in order to justify their rape and pillage of two decidedly advanced (if not also violent) cultures.

Told in the style of a soldier, the account still makes for fascinating reading. Diaz is sometimes brutally honest (in admitting, for example, that the vast majority of Cortez’s soldiers joined his quest to bring native slaves back to their plantations on Cuba) and sometimes transparent (in repeatedly stating their intent to do God’s work in civilizing the natives, while raping and pillaging from morning until night), and he is always nauseatingly deferential to Cortez (who was supremely powerful in both Spain and New Spain at the time of the book’s publication), but the book remains a good read both for its historical significance and to remind us all that there were fully-functioning societies—no more barbarous than the nations of Europe—long before any white man set foot on what was known to them as the New World.

Salt: A World History (Mark Kurlansky) (9.0/10.0)

Who knew a book about a cooking condiment could be so exciting?


It’s hard to imagine a world where salt is more than just a food complement, but for most of human history no element on earth has played a more critical role in society’s evolution than sodium chloride. In the aptly named, Salt: A World History, author Mark Kurlansky paints a rich and fascinating portrait of salt’s pivotal role in shaping the world as we know it.

Gold? Diamonds? Oil? All are mere historical footnotes compared with the role salt has occupied over the past five millennia of the human journey. In fact, until quite recently, salt was the most valuable commodity on the planet. Wars were waged, civilizations collapsed, and empires rose and fell as people throughout the ages sought to acquire this once scarce mineral. Salt has since shed its glamour with only the poorest and most backward countries still in the salt mining business and damning medical evidence curtailing its consumption. But Kurlansky transports us to a time when salt was the cornerstone of life and the epitome of opulence.

Transcending both time and space this running historical narrative takes us from China in 5,000 BC to England in the 19th century as this swift-paced tale unfolds. From the key ingredient in early animal domestication and antiseptic in Egyptian times, to soldier pay in Roman times, to a food preservative during the European Age of Exploration, salt has been humanity’s companion and catalyst through the ages. It’s done more than just spice up our food, harden our arteries, and provided us with witty sayings (ever wonder where the expression “salt of the earth” came from?) and that long forgotten and intriguing past is compellingly revealed in this 449-page ode to NaCl.

Kurlansky has a rare talent for making the mundane fascinating (he’s also written mesmerizing biographical accounts of both the cod fish and the oyster) and his powers are at their greatest in this enthralling read. You’ll never look at a salt shaker the same way again.

The Comedians (Graham Greene) (9.1/10)

As the tragedy in Haiti continues to unfold, Graham Greene's treatment of the corruption and terror of the regime of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and the Tonton Macoute seems newly relevant.  Obviously, the government has changed, though one still hears the cries of corruption from every corner, and the secret police are no longer the primary source of fear for a population that now battles daily for its very survival.  But the core message of The Comedians remains a pointed criticism not only of Haiti's failings, but of our own as mere bystanders (i.e., comedians) in observing a society descend into utter chaos.

Greene is perhaps the most consistently successful writer in the English language when it comes to crafting characters that are hopelessly conflicted within themselves.  The Comedians is no exception.  The American hotelier, Mr. Brown, is a bit player in the revolutionary movement and is occassionally persecuted by the Tonton Macoute, but declines to ever dedicate himself to the cause, instead preferring to focus on his budding affair with Martha Pineda, the wife of a South American Ambassador.  Of course, ultimately the affair is a mere distraction (as are the Smiths' efforts to establish a vegetarian center in a country that is literally falling to pieces about them) and the larger events of Haiti pass them by as they eventually decide one by one to leave the country to its madness.

The counterpoint to the indifference of Brown and Smith is Major Jones, who ultimately dedicates himself to the cause entirely, though he has little actual experience in such affairs.  Greene does not paint him as a hero, however, as his ultimate sacrifice leads not to a new dawn in Haiti, but only to the loss of his life and the flight of his routed troops over the border to the Dominican Republic.  Ultimately, The Comedians is a masterpiece of do-gooder desire and shameful impotence, and the reader walks away as conflicted as the characters that inhabit the story.         


 

The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Andrew Turnbull, Ed.) (Rating 8.5/10)

There is perhaps nothing more satisfying for a reader than the discovery of a dusty, hardbound copy of some forgotten tome in the dirty recesses of a flea market or attic. When the reading of that tome leaves an impression, the experience is that much greater.

We came upon The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald in the corner of an indigenous artisan’s market in Antigua, Guatemala. More than a bit weathered and musty, it carries the scent (though not the stamp) of a public school library and the marks of having been thumbed by more than one thorough reader. As for the book itself, it is a very complete set of the letters between Fitzgerald and his intimates, including his daughter, Scottie; his wife, Zelda; his editor, Max Perkins; his friend, Ernest Hemingway; and his agent, Harold Ober, among several others. Edited by Fitzgerald’s friend, sometime ward, and fellow Princeton graduate, Andrew Turnbull, the collection provides an intimate look at a man of tremendous talent who, when not on the bottle, was a craftsman of the English language, a loving father, a devoted (if absent) husband, and a loyal friend.

Hemingway once quipped that Fitzgerald was hopelessly enamored of money and the moneyed classes, and to some extent the letters in these pages bear out that criticism, but it is his devotion to his craft, the fleeting nature of his fame, and his need for others’ respect of him as an artist come through most loudly here. And, as the years wear on, there is a particular pathos throughout of a man that feels his talent slipping from him and his reputation becoming a distant memory. Overall, The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a very close and realistic portrait of a man that has become a part of American folklore.