All posts by Thaddeus Wert

High school math teacher and fan of all kinds of music, but most of all prog.
fiction, LITERATURE

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

 

Karenina

I could say 2024 is the year I rekindled my love of Russian literature: I reread Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and discovered the beauty of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. Like War and Peace, I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina when I was much younger – 21 years old. At the time, I thought it was a pretty good story, but a little melodramatic. Now, with the benefit of having been happily married for 38 years with two wonderful daughters, I can appreciate Tolstoy’s mastery of the novel form as he chronicles the tragic arc of marital infidelity. I now understand so much better the psychological and emotional torture his protagonists put themselves and those around them through.

Anna Karenina is a perfect example of why I enjoy reading classics so much: they are time machines. While reading it, I was able to get a glimmer of what life was like in 19th century Russia – the lifestyles of the peasants; the mores and conventions of the upper class; how hard life was for women, regardless of class; how perilous childhood was – if one survived infancy, he or she could easily die from illness or accident; how slow and difficult getting from one place to another was; the elaborate rules of courtship, and on and on. Tolstoy vividly conveys his world through small details that resonate over decades. I really feel like I have experienced a visit to pre-revolutionary Russia.

The story begins with one of the greatest opening sentences in all of literature: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” We begin with Prince Stepan (Stiva) Oblonsky getting up one morning, bursting with good health and benevolent feelings for those around him. He is a government functionary who doesn’t really do anything, and he’s quite happy about it. He knows all the “right” people, he is considered quite a wit, and he has a bright future ahead of him. The only blot on his horizon is the fact that he has been having an affair with his children’s governess, and his wife has found out about it.

His best friend is Konstantin (Kostya) Levin, who is a man of simpler pleasures. He is a relatively successful landowner who is uncomfortable when he’s in the big city. He has come to Moscow to ask Kitty Shtcherbatskaya to marry him. Kitty is the sister of Stepan’s wife, Dolly. She is also in love with the dashing young military officer, Count Alexey Vronsky. He is an up-to-date man who considers wooing young noblewomen great sport:

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one’s children, earn one’s bread, and pay one’s debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people.

But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 2797-2802). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Stepan’s sister, Anna Karenina, is coming to visit him – with the ulterior motive of reconciling Stepan and Dolly. She is married to an very important statesman, Alexei Karenin, and they have an eight-year-old son, Sergei (Seryozha). Vronsky happens to see her as she arrives at the Oblonsky’s and immediately is smitten with her.

Levin proposes to Kitty, but she turns him down, thinking Vronsky is about to propose to her. However, at a ball later on Kitty sees how Vronsky can’t keep his eyes off of Anna, and she realizes to her shame that she has been discarded.

Anna enjoys the attention Vronsky gives her at the ball, but realizes she must remove herself from Moscow and return to her husband and son in Petersburg. On the train home, she runs into Vronsky (who had deliberately followed her), and, to her horror, is gratified and excited to see him. Once in Petersburg, Vronsky slowly and methodically insinuates himself into a circle of oh-so-advanced nobles and thinkers that includes Anna. Here’s a typical conversation:

But why was it you didn’t come to dinner?” she said, admiring him.

“I must tell you about that. I was busily employed, and doing what, do you suppose? I’ll give you a hundred guesses, a thousand… you’d never guess. I’ve been reconciling a husband with a man who’d insulted his wife. Yes, really!”

“Well, did you succeed?”

“Almost.”

“You really must tell me about it,” she said, getting up. “Come to me in the next entr’acte.”

“I can’t; I’m going to the French theater.”

 “From Nilsson?” Betsy queried in horror, though she could not herself have distinguished Nilsson’s voice from any chorus girl’s.

“Can’t help it. I’ve an appointment there, all to do with my mission of peace.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’” said Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from someone. “Very well, then, sit down, and tell me what it’s all about.”

And she sat down again.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 3121-3133). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

And so the die is cast for this classic tale of all-consuming passion and selfishness. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the reader knows things cannot possible end well, yet he or she can’t stop reading. Anna and Vronsky are doomed, yet you can’t look away.

Even after their affair has been consummated, and Vronsky has told Anna she means the world to him, he really can’t think of anyone except himself. After he loses a horse race due to a riding mistake he commits that causes his horse to fall, he handles his setback poorly:

“A — a — a!” groaned Vronsky, clutching at his head. “Ah! what have I done!” he cried. “The race lost! And my fault! shameful, unpardonable! And the poor darling, ruined mare! Ah! what have I done!”

A crowd of men, a doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran up to him. To his misery he felt that he was whole and unhurt. The mare had broken her back, and it was decided to shoot her. Vronsky could not answer questions, could not speak to anyone. He turned, and without picking up his cap that had fallen off, walked away from the race course, not knowing where he was going. He felt utterly wretched. For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 4795-4800). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Levin is doing what he enjoys most: managing his estate and not worrying about city matters. He even joins his peasants as they mow a meadow:

Another row, and yet another row, followed — long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it was late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was badly mown.

LEO TOLSTOY. Anna Karenina (Kindle Locations 5974-5978). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

All of this happens in the first quarter of the novel, meaning Tolstoy spends the majority of it exploring the effects of Anna’s and Vronsky’s adultery on those around them. One of Tolstoy’s most striking talents is his ability to describe and analyze the psychological motivations of his characters. As I read of Anna’s anguish as she slowly realized the impossible situation she had put herself in, I was able to sympathize with her more and more. Conversely, as Vronsky’s true character came to light, he became more and more repugnant. Anna’s husband, Alexei Alexandrovich, develops from a stiff and priggish man into a compassionate and sensitive one. Konstantin Levin undergoes many changes as he struggles to understand a reason for living and working. Kitty Shtcherbatskaya matures into a thoughtful and intelligent young woman, whose faith never wavers.

Anna Karenina is also a study in contrasts: the decadent moral relativism of upper class society in Petersburg vs. the more traditional morality of Moscow; the spendthrift lifestyle the cities encourage vs. the economies of country life; the useless and parasitical occupations of the governing class vs. the difficult but productive work of the peasants; and, overarching the entire novel, the deeply satisfying holy marriage of Levin and Kitty vs. the decaying and troubled relationship Anna and Vronsky try to convince themselves is a marriage.

Where Levin and Kitty devote themselves to their newborn child and delight in his every move, Anna barely acknowledges her and Vronsky’s daughter. When Dolly visits Anna and asks to see little Annie, Anna doesn’t even know that she has some new teeth. While Levin and Kitty spend their honeymoon learning how to fuse their separate lives into one, and they sometimes quarrel, there is never any doubt about their abiding love for each other. Because Anna and Vronsky’s relationship is not grounded in a true marriage, she succumbs to paranoid jealousy, to the point that she cannot comprehend reality. The end result is truly tragic.

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina deserves its reputation as one of the greatest novels ever written. In it, he plumbs psychological depths to a degree most authors couldn’t dream of doing. Whether he is describing the feelings of a nobleman, a peasant, a woman, a dilletante, or an intellectual, every character is fully fleshed out and someone the reader can have empathy with. Even Vronksy is revealed to truly and faithfully love Anna. No one is all bad, and no one is all good. Much like real life!

Standard Ebooks has an excellent (and free) edition of Anna Karenina that you can download here.

 

LITERATURE

Andrew Klavan’s A Woman Underground – Cameron Winter battles his demons

Woman Underground

Andrew Klavan is one of my favorite writers and thinkers. He has written many mysteries, thrillers, and some very good nonfiction, as well as producing a weekly podcast on politics and culture. A Woman Underground is the fourth book in his Cameron Winter series, which just gets better and better with each installment.

Winter is a wonderfully deep and complex character – a professor of Romantic literature at a small midwestern college, he was an especially deadly counterintelligence assassin for some very dark and secret missions earlier in his life. Every novel in the series has flashbacks to Winter’s career as a deadly assassin, as he relates them to his therapist – a kindly, older woman who is very much attracted to him. Winter is incapable of maintaining any kind of relationship, because his parents, wealthy New Yorkers, had neither the time nor the inclination to care for him.

His nanny was a refugee from East Germany, and he never got over his childhood crush of her niece, Charlotte Shaefer. His unrequited love has served as an excuse to avoid any intimacy in his adult life. He is a deeply troubled man with a code of honor he tries to live by, even though he is not at all religious. Think of a Raymond Chandler character dropped into the 21st century.

A Woman Underground begins with Part 1: The Scent of Something Gone, Winter realizes that Charlotte may be trying to get in touch with him. One evening he comes home to his apartment and smells the lingering scent of her perfume in the hall. The next morning, he studies the building’s security video, and he sees a bundled up woman carrying a book. The book turns out to be a novel that is popular with right-wing extremists, and it features a heroine who is too similar to Charlotte to be a coincidence. Winter quickly tracks down the author. To avoid any spoilers, I won’t reveal any more details!

Klavan does a masterful job of balancing four(!) separate stories while keeping the reader glued to the page. First, there is the main plotline of Winter tracking down Charlotte. Then, there is a plotline involving an old mission Winter was assigned to bring back an agent who had disappeared in Turkey. When Winter is in therapy, he keeps returning to this story, even though his therapist knows he’s doing it to avoid facing what’s really causing his psychological distress. Third, there’s the plotline of the novel Charlotte was carrying when she tried to see Winter. In it, a small group of right-wingers try to decide what to do during the riots that caused so unrest and destruction in the summer of 2020. Cameron is reading this novel to try to pick up clues as to where Charlotte might be. The fourth subplot is some sexual shenanigans Winter’s colleague at the college gets himself into. Believe it or not, all four of these stories slowly come together into one.

A Woman Underground is a pivotal chapter in Cameron Winter’s development. Several things that had stunted his emotional and psychological maturity are dealt with and resolved. The path to that resolution, however, is a harrowing one. As Klavan describes him, he spends most of the book on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It is only through his therapist’s insightful and compassionate work that he is able to come out whole. By the end, it’s clear that Winter has emerged battered, but stronger and more resilient. I can’t wait to see what Andrew Klavan has in store for him. Bubbling under the surface of the various subplots is a potential global conspiracy that involves extremely powerful Americans who have been compromised. It’s enough to turn the most level-headed person into a paranoid lunatic, and the people Winter can completely trust are down to very few. Things are getting very interesting in Cameron Winter’s life!

Music

Listening to the Music the Machines Make

Music Machines

Book number 48 of 2024

The 80s are my favorite decade for music, when it seemed like all kinds of new styles were being created. In 1983, you could turn on the radio and hear hard rock, roots rock, soul, melodic pop, and electronic music all mixed together. My favorite genre from that era was (and is) synthpop, as epitomized by artists such as Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, and Ultravox. Richard Evans has documented the birth and rise of electronic music from 1978 through 1983 in his massive tome (528 pages!), Listening to the Music the Machines Make. It’s a fascinating history of this primarily British musical movement.

Instead of relying exclusively on contemporary interviews of the artists, Evans went back to articles, reviews, and interviews that were published in the music press at the time the music was being released. He does have some recent interviews to support what his research uncovers, but for the most part he unearths reactions and thoughts of the artists when the music was fresh and new. This makes for an honest account that doesn’t rely on the memories of people who were creating this music more than 40 years ago.

Evans begins with describing the effect David Bowie had on British popular music when he unveiled his Ziggy Stardust persona on the BBC television show, Top of the Pops. Bowie’s innovation was to seem to look forward into the future to explain his music. This perspective, along with the availability of inexpensive synthesizers, opened the floodgates for a new wave of music. The short-lived punk movement added its manic energy and DIY aesthetic. All of these elements combined to create the perfect atmosphere in which to create music that was experimental, yet accessible.

Like Evans, I date “The 80s” from about 1977 to 1987. In 1977, I bought the Ramones’ Leave Home album, Talking Heads ’77, The Cars’ debut, Wire’s Pink Flag, as well as many other new wave albums. It was clear to my adolescent ears that drastic changes were happening in music – changes that would challenge the laid-back music of artists like The Eagles or the arena rock of Journey and Foreigner for popularity. Very quickly, the old guard of pop/rock were being supplanted by a host of new, innovative artists.

For me, things didn’t really get interesting until 1980/81. The electronic music produced before then (with the exception of Gary Numan, who, unsurprisingly, was the first big selling synthpop artist) was very experimental and often crude. Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, and early Ultravox just weren’t very tuneful. However, beginning in 1981, this musical movement began to really shake up the British pop charts. Once Midge Ure joined Ultravox, they became a formidable hit machine. 1981 is also the year Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, and Depeche Mode released early hits.

Evans obviously did exhaustive research to write this book; it is divided into three main sections: Revolution (1978 & 1979), Transition (1980 & 1981), and Mainstream (1982 & 1983). He also includes a couple of shorter bookend chapters: Inspiration 1977 and Reaction 1984 – 1993. He must have read every issue of New Musical Express, Smash Hits, Record Mirror, Flexidisc, Melody Maker, and ZigZag from 1977 through 1983! I, personally, would have gotten depressed, because one thing that comes across loud and clear from Evans’ comprehensive and meticulous research is the sheer pettiness and shallowness of the British music press. I could cite hundreds of examples, but here are two:

‘Landscape make my flesh crawl, put snakes in my stomach and make my bowels twitch’, wrote Sounds’ Mick Middles. (page 248)

‘The only recognisable feature of Duran Duran is the singer’s voice, otherwise they have no personality, no individuality, no quirks of style. I think this is what is known in some quarters as “good pop”.’ (page 257)

If there’s one common characteristic of practically every reviewer, it’s resentment. As soon as an artist gains popularity, the music media turn on them and try their best to tear them down. Poor Gary Numan, who was the first electronic artist to break big, comes in for a savaging the rest of his career whenever he released a new album. When Blancmange had some chart success, Ian Pye in Melody Maker wrote,

“The K-Tel answer to Simple Minds, the revolting Blancmange have found themselves a mould and of course a shape follows. Pink, soft, and powdery to taste, this will remind you of school dinners and other things too unpleasant to mention here.” (page 361)

Time and time again, the reviewers neglect to actually describe and critique the music, instead going for a clever putdown.

That said, it is entertaining to read what the contemporaneous reactions were to albums that are today considered classics. Duran Duran’s Rio is now counted as one of the essential albums of the 80s, but it was pretty much dismissed in 1981. Ultravox’s Rage In Eden garnered a little more respect, but not much. One group that the consensus seemed to get right was Depeche Mode. Their first album with Vince Clarke, Speak and Spell, was well-crafted but disposable pop, and their album after Clarke left, A Broken Frame, was fairly lightweight. However, by the time Alan Wilder was integrated into the group and they released Construction Time Again, they were recognized as a significant force to be reckoned with.

Even though I am a big fan of this era and style of music, I still learned many new facts about the various artists: for example, the history of The Human League/Heaven 17 personnel, and their beginnings before the Dare and Penthouse and Pavement albums. I also learned that Peter Saville used a color code to include messages on New Order’s Blue Monday‘s and Power, Corruption, and Lies‘ cover art. Fascinating stuff for music nerds like myself!

Evans is a very good writer; he takes what could have been a boring recitation of musical history and turns it into a very entertaining account of some interesting personalities. If you ever wondered what the backstory was to huge hits like The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me or Gary Numan’s Cars, then Listening to the Music the Machines Make is the perfect resource. Evans has spent untold hours revisiting decades-old British music publications and organized the material into an essential reference. This is a book I’ll be returning to often, and I appreciate all of the work he put into it.

If you are interested in actually listening to the music Evans documents in his book, there is a Spotify playlist for each of the book’s main sections. (Hey, this is the 21st century, right?) They contain practically every song mentioned. I had a blast listening to the songs while reading about them. You can access the playlists here.

Music

Frost*: Life In The Wires Is Perfection

Frost* is set to release their fifth studio album on October 18, Life In The Wires, which follows the excellent Day and Age of 2021. Once again, Jem Godfrey is the prime mover, this time handling all of the lead vocals in addition to keyboards and songwriting. John Mitchell returns on guitars, with Nathan King on bass and Craig Blundell on drums. There are nearly ninety(!) minutes of music here, and it is all terrific. Not a single moment is filler.

As Godfrey explains,

“It’s actually a sort of continuation from Day and Age. The first track on the new album starts with the end of the last track from that album “Repeat to Fade,” where the static comes up and a voice says “Can you hear me?” I remember putting that in when we did Day and Age as a possible little hook for the future; a character somewhere out there in Day and Age land trying to be heard. What does he want to say? Can anybody hear him? Day and Age kind of sets up the world that this character lives in and Life in the Wires tells his story”.

The album chronicles the adventures of a young man, Naio, who lives in the near future, in a world dominated by AI. One night, he hears a voice coming out of the static on an old AM radio asking, “Can you hear me?” From that initial contact, Naio goes on a quest to find out who is the person behind the Livewire radio broadcasts. Meanwhile, the AI that runs the world, “The All-Seeing Eye”, is on Naio’s trail, trying to prevent him from connecting with the mysterious man on the radio:

You wanna take me down for hearing voices on my radio
But I have seen your way of life and, thank you, I don’t want to know
You feed the people food and fear to keep them all compliant
But I won’t play your game so now you’ll fight to keep me silent

Interspersed between tracks are nuggets of speech from Livewire Radio broadcaster: “Hey, this is Livewire, voice of the free. And tonight we’re taking calls. Heh! I’m just kidding… Hahahaha!”

That’s the storyline, so what about the music? I have to say, I haven’t been this blown away by an album in years. Day and Age was my favorite album of 2021, and Life In The Wires is even better. Jem Godfrey is the master of crafting attractive and heartfelt songs, and every song on Life In The Wires delivers. Every style is visited here: ballads, straightforward rock, very heavy rock, and, of course, prog. I have listened to the entire album at least two dozen times, and I keep finding new things to delight in.

The boys of Frost* are a mean biker gang in their off-hours. Frost Band photo by Will Ireland

“Evaporator” is an extended, upbeat, almost funky tune with a nice 80s vibe. “Absent Friends” is a gorgeous and delicate piano-based ballad that reminds me of classic Aqualung (the group, not the Tull album). “School (Introducing the All Seeing Eye)” is a blistering instrumental where Mitchell shows off his chops.

Everything reaches a climax with the final three tracks, “Moral and Consequence”, “Life In The Wires (Part 2)”, and “Starting Fires”. “Moral and Consequence” has one of the most irresistible hooks I’ve ever heard. At the end of its more than 8 minutes, I was still begging for more, until the opening chords of “Life In The Wires (Part 2)”. This track is almost 16 minutes of near-perfect prog perfection. It calls to mind the best of Abacab – era Genesis, but, to my ears, it is better produced than that classic album. The closer, “Starting Fires” is simply beautiful – a somber and sweet melody sung to some spare musical backing. It seems as if Naio has connected with Livewire, and they are going to start a resistance to the Eye:

We’re making waves
We’re starting fires
We can’t go back
to Paradise

We’re starting fires
We’re starting fires
We’re starting fires
We’re starting fires

2024 is coming to close, and so far, Life In The Wires is the Album of the Year for me. We’ve been blessed with some great music this year, in particular The Bardic Depths album, What We Really Like In Stories, but my gosh, Frost* has put together an album for the ages.

Here is the official video for “Moral and Consequence”:

LITERATURE

Turgenev’s Fathers and Children: The Eternal Generation Gap

Turgenev

Continuing my exploration of classic Russian literature (you can read my review of Tolstoy’s War and Peace here), I decided to check out Ivan Turgenenv’s Fathers and Children (also known as Fathers and Sons). A couple of years ago, I read Joseph Frank’s biography of my favorite Russian author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and, according to Frank, Dostoyevsky was friends with Turgenev and had spoken well of Fathers and Sons.

The novel opens with middle-aged widower Nikoloai Petrovitch Kirsanov anxiously awaiting the arrival of his son, Arkady, who has graduated from the university in Petersburg. When Arkady finally arrives at the depot, he introduces a new friend of his, Yevgeny Vassilyitch Bazarov, whom he has invited to stay at their estate.

As their carriages arrive at the Kirsanov estate, it’s clear things are not doing well. Turgenev paints a picture of poverty and decay – emaciated cows, serfs driving pell-mell to gin bars, decrepit and dilapidated buildings. At the house, they are greeted by Nikolai’s brother, Pavel Petrovitch, who is a bit of an aristocratic dandy. He is glad to see Arkady, but Bazarov immediately rubs him the wrong way. The next morning, Pavel Petrovitch is not pleased to learn that Bazarov is a “nihilist”.

To continue reading, click here.

LITERATURE

Ngaio Marsh’s A Man Lay Dead – Great Mystery Writing

Man Lay Dead

I’m a big fan of classic British mysteries. I have read quite a few Agatha Christie novels and all of Dorothy Sayers’, but until now I had not read anything by Ngaio Marsh. I remember my Mom reading her books way back when, so I decided to start at the beginning and read her first mystery, A Man Lay Dead. I am so glad I did!

First, this book did not strike me as a tentative first effort by an inexperienced author, the way the John Bude’s The Cornish Coast Murder did. All of the characters are real and have multifaceted personalities. The murder itself is very difficult to figure out how it could have been carried out, let alone by whom. And, there is a fun side-trip into a weird conspiracy of Russian assassins!

Continue reading here.

fiction

Some Early Stories From Ray Bradbury

Bradbury

One of my all-time favorite authors is Ray Bradbury. Beginning with The Martian Chronicles, which I read when I was in junior high, I fell in love with his imaginative writings. Wildside Press has collected 15 science fiction tales that Bradbury wrote early in his career for pulp magazines, circa 1944 – 1951. While the first few stories aren’t the greatest things he’s written, for $0.99 the collection is still a great bargain. 

Included is a stone-cold Bradbury classic, The Creatures That Time Forgot, the story of a group of humans and their descendants who are stranded on a planet with properties that cause them to live their entire lives in the span of eight days. Born one day, reaching adulthood by the third day, they die of old age on the eighth. Even though it sounds implausible, even for science fiction, Bradbury makes it entirely believable and paints a realistic picture of the struggles a community would undergo to survive under such conditions. 

To continue reading, click here.

Republic of Letters

Simon Fairfax’s 1415 – Agincourt!

1415

Simon Fairfax’s 1415 is the sixth and final book in his A Knight and a Spy series. I have thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the medieval world of Sir James de Grispere and his comrades Mark and Cristo. All of the events of the previous five novels come to a head in this thrilling conclusion.

1415 begins where 1414 ended: Jamie is is recovering from the near-fatal poisoning he suffered at the Council of Constance, Germany. As soon as he is able to return to England, he is tasked with infiltrating a possible plot to overthrow King Henry V. Henry would like to wage war in France and reestablish English rule there, but he is threatened with possible rebellion at home. Jamie and Mark travel across the channel to acquire ships for Henry’s planned invasion, and they foil a plot to destroy the fleet.

Continue reading here.

LITERATURE

Wodehouse’s Full Moon – Excellent Humor at Blandings Castle

Full Moon

Book number 43 of 2024

Whenever I need a restorative read, I turn to the master of comedy: P. G. Wodehouse. My favorite books of his are set at Blandings Castle, the ancestral home of the dotty Lord Clarence Emsworth, his gaggle of formidable sisters, and of course, The Empress of Blandings – Lord Emsworth’s prize-winning pig. His younger son, Freddie Threepwood usually shows up, and there are always interesting guests as well as lovestruck young couples facing insuperable hurdles to their happiness. I have already read and reviewed another Blandings Castle novel, Uncle Fred In The Springtime. 

In Full Moon, Clarence’s brother, Galahad (who goes by Gally) is the guardian angel of the young lovers. One couple is Bill Lister, affectionately called “Blister” by Freddie, and Prudence Garland, daughter of Dora Garland, a sister of Clarence’s. Bill is an aspiring London artist with an unfortunate face like a gorilla, but Prudence loves him dearly and plans to elope with him. Her mother gets wind of things when she answers the telephone, and Bill, thinking Prudence has answered, calls her his “dream rabbit”. Prudence is quickly shipped off to Blandings for her safety. Did I mention Blister is Gally’s godson, and he will do anything in his power to bring him and Prudence together?

Meanwhile, Freddie, who has married American Niagara (“Aggie”) Donaldson, of Donaldson Dog-Joy dog biscuit fame, is back in England to drum up business for his father-in-law’s company across the pond. He would also like to have the American millionaire Tipton Plimsoll agree to carry Donaldson in his chain of supermarkets. To wine and dine Tipton, Freddie invites him to Blandings Castle to spend a few days enjoying the country air. Tipton agrees, because he has been partying a little too hard in the city, to the point where every time he tries to have a drink, he sees a man with a gorilla-like face out of the corner of his eye (you can see where this is heading). Once ensconced at Blandings, Tipton meets Veronica Wedge, the stunningly beautiful yet undeniably dim daughter of Colonel Egbert and Hermione Wedge. Hermione is another one of Clarence and Gally’s sisters, and, according to Wodehouse, looks just like a cook, which will lead to some humorous encounters. The Wedges are thrilled that their daughter seems to have captured the heart of one of the wealthiest young men in America. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to jealousy.

To continue reading, click here.

Faith

Megan Basham’s Shepherds For Sale – Stirring Up A Hornets Nest

Shepherds

Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds For Sale, has made a big splash in evangelical Christian circles with its accusations of prominent leaders “selling out” their orthodox Christian principles. I’m a lifelong United Methodist, and in my denomination that battle was lost decades ago. (As an aside, the only reason I still attend my UMC is because I have many dear friends there.) However, I have read and appreciated evangelical authors such as Timothy Keller (The Reason for God), Russell Moore (Onward), and Eric Metaxas (Miracles). Basham has compiled a convincing case that on a variety of hot button issues, quite a few well-respected pastors – “Big Eva” – have attempted to use their influence to convince evangelical congregations and organizations to lobby for progressive legislation that they normally would oppose.

To continue reading, click here.