Tag Archives: Book review

Faith, LITERATURE

The Betrothed: A 200 Year Old Tale of Suffering and Redemption

Alessandro Manzoni published his magnum opus, The Betrothed, in 1824. At the time, Italy was composed of many different states with different dialects. Through the popularity of his novel, Manzoni forged a uniform version of the modern Italian language. As such, The Betrothed is one of the most important literary works in Italian culture. It’s also a delightful and wonderful novel.

It is set in northern Italy in the early seventeenth century – 1628 to 1630, to be exact. Technically, the Spanish empire is in charge of the region, but the towns are ruled by local lords – some benevolent and fair, some cruel and despotic. In a small town in Lombardy near Lake Como, young and honest Lorenzo “Renzo” Tramaglino, and the pretty and pious peasant girl, Lucia Mondella, are planning to get married. Unfortunately, the local ruler, Don Rodrigo, has noticed the beauty of Lucia, and he has a bet with his decadent cousin, Count Attilio, that he will seduce Lucia. He sends two of his “bravi” (basically thugs) to threaten Don Abbondio, the priest who is supposed to perform the wedding. Don Abbondio is a self-centered coward who takes the bravi’s warnings to heart and tells Renzo that the wedding must be postponed.

On this basic event, a massive, sprawling chronicle unfolds that takes in a famine, a plague, and political upheaval. Renzo and Lucia, with the help of her mother, Agnese, first try to trick Don Abbondio into marrying them by a subterfuge, but he sees through them, and his frantic cries for help awaken the entire village. At the same time, Don Rodrigo’s head henchman, Griso, is leading a group of bravi to kidnap Lucia. Lucia, Agnese, and Renzo barely escape, after being warned by a good friar, Fra Cristoforo. He arranges for Lucia and Agnese to take shelter at a convent, while Renzo heads to Milan seeking work.

While in Milan, the innocent and naive Renzo gets caught up in some bread riots, because prices have risen due to flour shortages resulting from the famine. Manzoni has some fun here at the expense of clueless political leaders who try to curry popularity by defying the laws of economics:

Ferrer [the Grand Chancellor of Milan] saw – and who would not? – that a fair price for bread is a very desirable thing. He thought – and this was his mistake – that all it would require was an order from him. He set the bread meta (as they called the tariff of foodstuffs) at a price that would have been fair if the average price for grain had been thirty-three liras a bushel, when in reality it sold for as much as eighty. He acted like an aging woman who thinks she can be young again by simply altering her birth certificate.

As a result of Ferrer’s folly, the bread shortages worsen, and the chapters describing the horrors of a city in the throes of a deep famine are incredibly moving. Thousands of people die from starvation, and the scenes Manzoni describes are heartrending.

As soon as there is some relief from the famine, the Thirty Years War intrudes in the form of German mercenaries who ravage and pillage the countryside. They also bring another wave of the bubonic plague, and when it strikes the densely populated city of Milan it practically wipes out everyone. Renzo manages to get out and head to the town of Bergamo, where a friend is able to employ him as a silk weaver. 

Meanwhile, Don Rodrigo has not given up his obsession with Lucia. He calls on the most powerful gangster in the area to kidnap her from the convent and bring her to him. This gangster is so feared, he is only referred to as “The Nameless One”. He pulls the strings of every prominent person in northern Italy, and he is incredibly powerful. He succeeds in kidnapping Lucia, and when he first confronts her, her helpless purity and piety somehow warm his cold heart and begins a long process of repentance.

I’ll stop there, because I don’t want to spoil the tale any more. Manzoni does a masterful job of portraying the horror and suffering of those struck by the plague. Nevertheless, this is, at heart, a comic novel, so there are some truly humorous characters and scenes. The aforementioned Don Abbondio is hilarious in his efforts to avoid responsibility and save his skin. He’s a scoundrel, but a lovable one. The Archbishop of Milan, Federigo Borromeo, is a heroic an inspiring man who does everything in his power to alleviate the suffering of those around him. The underlying message throughout the book is that the meek and powerless, through the mercy of God, can eventually triumph.

Many of Manzoni’s characters are based on actual historical figures, and he has a lot of fun making comments on their actions and behavior. The premise of the novel is that he has discovered a lost manuscript, and he is retelling the story related in it to a nineteenth century audience. There are many clever asides to the reader that make the book very enjoyable.

Finally, I must praise the translator of the latest version of The Betrothed, Michael F. Moore. He has made a 200-year-old novel sound as new and up to date as any contemporary writer without losing any of Manzoni’s power and morality. Even though it is 650 pages, I zipped through it in a few days. My all-time favorite author is Charles Dickens, and The Betrothed is on a par with Dickens’ best. It’s a wonderful and moving novel that should be as widely known as any well-loved and revered English language classic.

LITERATURE

Trollope’s Phineas Finn: Victorian Political Drama

Phineas Finn is the second Anthony Trollope novel I’ve read (you can read my review of Can You Forgive Her? here), and the second in his Palliser series. In this novel, our hero, Phineas Finn, is a good natured, very attractive, and upstanding young man who is the son of an Irish country doctor. His father has paid his expenses while he studies under Mr. Low, a London barrister (lawyer). While dining at his club, young Finn is approached by his friend, Barrington Erle, and convinced to run for a seat in parliament for the borough of Loughshane. It’s a dead certainty he will win it, since there will be no serious opposition. The only problem is that members of parliament (MPs) do not get paid, and Phineas is entirely dependent on his father for his expenses!

Despite his father’s and Mr. Low’s very good arguments against running, Phineas decides to do it, and before he knows it, he is seated in Parliament. His longsuffering father agrees to continue his allowance until he can somehow figure out a way to pay his own way. Soon, he is swimming in the high society of London, but he manages to keep his head and remain humble. He becomes friends with another Irish MP, Laurence Fitzgibbon, a glib and somewhat dissolute young man who wastes no time convinces Finn to guarantee a bill for 250 pounds, assuring him that he will have the money in a couple of weeks, and there is nothing to worry about.

He also is befriended by Lady Laura Standish, who takes Phineas under her wing, because she sees such promise in him. She is another character of Trollope’s who illustrates the frustrating position upper class women in Victorian England were in: she is smart and well educated, and she has good ideas about what legislation should be passed by Parliament, but there is no way she can bring them to fruition, given she has no vote, let alone no way to run for parliament. Phineas is convinced he’s in love with Lady Laura and proposes to her, but she turns him down, because he is penniless, and she has given all of her money to her brother, Lord Chiltern, so he can settle some enormous debts he’s acquired through questionable life choices.

Lord Chiltern is a bit of a wild man – he despises social conventions and proper manners, preferring to spend his time hunting and traveling around England and Europe. He is in love with the beautiful Violet Effingham, who stands to inherit a large fortune when she marries. He has proposed to her three times (not very tactfully, it must be said), and she has flatly refused him because of his poor reputation and erratic behavior. To make things worse, Chiltern’s father has had nothing to do with him since his sister squandered her share of the family fortune to settle his obligations.

Lady Laura convinces Phineas to befriend Chiltern, in the hopes that he will be a moderating influence on him. They become friends, until Phineas meets Violet and decides he wants to marry her! The good friends become deadly rivals.

As a backdrop to all of this drama, Trollope chronicles all of the political intrigue involved in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1866. The reader is shown in exhausting detail how parliament works, and, by and large, it’s not pretty. What is interesting is how Finn, as a tyro MP, gradually gains confidence. At first, he is too terrified to even stand up and make a speech. Eventually, he finds his legs, and he becomes a trusted member of the Liberal party, led by the Prime Minister William Mildmay. Finn’s greatest asset is his ability to keep his mouth shut when necessary and to make pleasant conversation with the right people. Very soon, he is elevated to a paying position in the cabinet. Regardless of his rapid rise in society, he remains a very likeable character, due to his total lack of vanity.

As the novel progresses, Trollope uses various characters to illustrate different issues that were present in Victorian England. Phineas is an ambitious, yet talented and altruistic, young man from whose presence parliament would benefit, yet it is nearly impossible from him to affect legislation, even when he is made a government minister. The crisis of the novel occurs when he has to decide whether he will support a bill that will help his fellow Irish but goes against the policy of the governing party, of which he is a member. If he votes according to his conscience, he will be required to submit his resignation and lose his salary.

Lady Laura is the most tragic figure. Moments before Phineas proposes to her, she accepts Robert Kennedy’s offer of marriage. He is another MP, and one of the richest men in the UK. She feels that through him, she might be able to influence English politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Kennedy is an insufferable prig who insists Laura submit herself to the proper duties of a wife and have no independence at all. Their marriage degenerates to the point where they can barely communicate.

“Laura”, he said, “I am sorry that I contradicted you.”

“I am quite used to it, Robert.”

“No; – you are not used to it.” She smiled and lowered her head.
(ii, p. 109, Oxford Univ. Press Ed., 1991)

There is also a Madame Marie Goesler, a wealthy German widow, who moves in the highest circles of London society, but feels trapped by the fact that she can do nothing but attend parties and host them herself.

Phineas becomes very good friends with Joshua Monk, a “radical” MP who helps Phineas get his confidence during his first term in parliament. Mr. Monk, though, when he is offered and accepts a post in the government by the Liberals, loses his effectiveness as a debater, because he is forced to support the Liberals’ policies, even when he disagrees with them.

Trollope paints a fascinating and detailed picture of how politics worked in Victorian England. There was much frustration at the demands placed upon MPS to toe the party line, yet enforcing party discipline was the only way to get important legislation passed. Like today, opposing parties had to compromise, and everyone gave up something to get something in return. Near the end of the book, Monk’s and Finn’s bill to help Irish tenants fails on the second reading. Finn is dejected, but Monk makes this observation:

“Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; – and so at last it will be ranged on the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”
(ii, p. 341)

Like almost all Victorian novels, Phineas Finn is long – 712 pages in the edition I read. However, it is an interesting complement to Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, another tale of a self-made young man. While Dickens was the master of chronicling the travails and triumphs of England’s lower and middle classes, Trollope gives us accurate portraits of what it was like to move in the highest social strata of Victorian society. He isn’t afraid to point out the contradictions and injustices of the governing class, yet all of his characters are real. Phineas Finn is amazingly successful at first, but he has his flaws. His fellow MPs all exhibit human foibles – they each have good qualities as well as lesser ones. However, it’s the female characters that are the most fleshed out by Trollope – he has sincere sympathy for the plight they are in. They have very limited choices: either marry or be an “old maid”, but in neither case can a woman be an active political force. And once a young woman marries, she has no rights to any property or personal agency. If a young woman is due to inherit wealth, there is no guarantee she will be allowed to use it to live independently. However, lest one think Phineas Finn is all angst and frustration, Trollope sprinkles a lot of humor to leaven the drama. At heart, he loves his country and its people.

There are lots of free digital versions of Phineas Finn (you can download a nicely formatted one here.), but I really appreciated my Oxford University Press edition, because it had lots of helpful notes that explained the political events that were occurring at the time the novel is set in, as well as the meanings of slang phrases, references to other literary works, etc. I’ve read two of the six Palliser novels, so I guess I’d better get ready to tackle Phineas Redux next!

LITERATURE

Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her? Another Victorian Classic

Ever since I read Charles Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers, I have been a fan of Victorian literature. Anthony Trollope was a contemporary of Dickens, and an incredibly prolific writer. Can You Forgive Her? is the first novel in his Palliser series. It begins with the dilemma facing Alice Vavasor: “What should a woman do with her life?” For an upper-class woman in Victorian England, the options were limited to marrying or living with relatives the rest of your life.

Alice is engaged to a man everyone (including her) acknowledges is a perfect catch. John Grey has a substantial estate in Cambridgeshire, he is definitely in love with her, he is intelligent, handsome, and doting. Yet, Alice looks upon a future with him with apprehension – she only sees herself trapped in a boring country estate with no intellectual or social stimulation. As she explains to her aunt McLeod,

People always do seem to think it so terrible that a girl should have her own way in anything. She mustn’t like any one at first; and then, when she does like some one, she must marry him directly she’s bidden. I haven’t much of my own way at present; but you see, when I’m married I shan’t have it at all.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Can You Forgive Her? (Kindle Locations 564-566). Delphi Classics. Kindle Edition.

It doesn’t help that she previously was in love with her cousin, George Vavasor, who cheated on her. He fancies himself a bohemian who is above such mundane institutions as marriage, and he and his sister, Kate, waste no time convincing Alice to break off her engagement with Grey.

Alice convinces herself she is unworthy of being John Grey’s wife, but to her consternation, he refuses to accept her rejection of him and insists she is still betrothed to him. He isn’t ugly or forceful in any way, he is simply confident that, given time, she will come to her senses and return to him.

Kate Vavasor is also unmarried, and she has an extended visit with her aunt, Arabella Greenow. Mrs. Greenow has recently lost her fabulously wealthy older husband, and Trollope’s account of how she flirts with two men – the boring but well-off farmer Mr. Cheesacre and the dashing but penniless Mr. Bellfield – while observing the proper mourning rituals is hilarious.

Yet another cousin of Alice, Lady Glencora Palliser, invites Alice up to her estate to spend a few weeks. Lady Glencora is very rich, very young, and recently married to Plantagenet Palliser, a very dull man who greatest ambition is to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. She once loved a dissolute young man, Burgo Fitzgerald, but her family intervened and made her marry the much more suitable Palliser. He doesn’t give her much attention, and she is fairly miserable.

Burgo is friends with George Vavasor, and he hopes to elope with Glencora to Italy. George doesn’t encourage him to do this, but he doesn’t discourage him, either. George is basically amoral, and he pursues whatever path will give him the most pleasure. He breaks up Alice and John Grey’s engagement, because he gets a kick out of it, not because he is in love with Alice. So the stage is set for all kinds of social intrigue and shenanigans; in other words, a perfect setting for a Victorian novel!

This is the first novel by Trollope I’ve read, and I’m impressed. He is very different from Dickens, though. Where it was always clear from his works that Dickens had a heart for the poor and downtrodden in Victorian England, Trollope obviously moved in a higher social setting. He chronicles the issues and conflicts facing the British governing class in the mid-nineteenth century.

Can You Forgive Her? is primarily concerned with the limited options available to upper class women of that time. Alice is principled (to a fault) and wants to make a difference in English society. Her only option, since she can’t vote – let alone run for Parliament – is to ally herself to someone who can run for office. That is a major reason why she breaks off her engagement to John Grey; he is quite happy to live a quiet and prosperous life in Cambridgeshire, taking no interest at all in politics.

Lady Glencora is forced into a marriage with the up and coming Plantagenet Palliser, and even though it is her fortune that makes possible his political career, she has no interest. She is the most interesting character in the novel. She yearns to be free of stuffy Victorian conventions, and she delights in tweaking her poor husband’s sensibilities. She’s never in danger of getting into any scandal, but she is very funny whenever she decides to do what she wants.

More serious is George Vavasor. Initially, he is a somewhat sympathetic character, in that he wants his former love, Alice, to renew their relationship. He is very clever in the ways he manipulates her and his sister, Kate, to get what he wants. As the novel progresses, he becomes more and more trapped in a downward spiral of greed, deceit, and fury. By the end of the book, he is truly evil.

Plantagenet undergoes character growth in a positive way, learning how to be a good husband to Lady Glencora restoring proper perspective to his life. He and Cora will return in later Palliser novels, and I look forward to seeing their marriage mature.

Aunt Greenow also develops into a worthy character. At first, she is comical in her flirtations with Mr. Cheesacre and Captain Bellfield, but when her niece Kate needs her, she is there with excellent advice and moral support.

The main negative of the novel is the indecision of Alice when it comes to accepting John Grey’s standing offer to resume their engagement. She drags her feet for increasingly poor reasons, and it gets tiresome to read of her inner struggles when there really isn’t much reason for them. However, as a portrait of upper class Victorian England, Can You Forgive Her? is a detailed and fascinating glimpse into a long gone era. I will definitely read the next novel in the series, Phineas Finn.

LITERATURE, Music

The Fantastical Prog of Terra Incognita (Uncharted Shores)

Hello, Spirit of Cecilia readers! Kevin J. Anderson has a Kickstarter campaign up and running for a gorgeous reissue of his Terra Incognita trilogy of fantasy novels and accompanying music that includes a new album from Roswell Six – Terra Incognita: Uncharted Shores.  Brad Birzer, Rick Krueger, and Tad Wert share their thoughts on it.

Tad: Brad and Rick, I understand this is the third Terra Incognita album, but they haven’t been on my radar. What’s the story behind this group, and how are they connected to author Kevin Anderson?

Rick: Tad and Brad, it’s great to join you two for a roundtable at long last!  I’m sure Brad knows a lot more about this project than I do.  But I first came across Kevin Anderson when he and Neil Peart wrote a novel based on the Rush album Clockwork Angels.  That one led to two more novels in the CA universe over the years, Clockwork Lives and Clockwork Destiny; all three of them were delightfully true to Peart’s concepts, with lots of clever Easter eggs from the Rush canon and enjoyable plot twists.  The only other novel of Anderson’s I previously read is The Dark Between the Stars, the first part of a science fiction trilogy that was nominated for a Hugo award back in 2015 – solid, sprawling space opera fun.   I’ve just downloaded his latest, Nether Station and am racing through it; he’s got that ever so slightly pulpy, lickety-split writing style down.  it’s about a deep space expedition that, little by little, gets kinda eldritch . . .

But that really just scratches the surface of what Anderson has done.  He’s most famous for continuing Frank Herbert’s Dune saga with Herbert’s son Brian; he’s also produced tie-in novels in the Star Wars, X-Files and DC universes; he’s an extremely prolific writer overall, whether it’s sci-fi, fantasy, horror or any combination of those genres – by his count, about 180 novels to date.  On top of all that, he and his wife Rebecca Moeste run their own publishing company, WordFire Press.

Through Brad’s connections with Anderson, I’m on WordFire’s mailing list, so I’ve noticed that he’s run a few Kickstarter campaigns over the years.  His latest campaign is a reissue of Terra Incognita, a fantasy trilogy originally published in 2009-2011. The thing that’s different about these books, though, is that the first two had soundtracks; apparently, Anderson has had a lot of contact with the music world over the years.  And maybe that’s where I should let Brad take over.

Brad: My dear friends, Tad and Rick, so great to do this with you guys!  And, to talk about one of my all-time favorite human beings, Kevin J. Anderson.  I’ve been reading Kevin’s works for years, but I only got to know him for the first time about 11 years ago.  I had a one-year position at the University of Colorado-Boulder (2014-2015 academic year), and that position came with some funding to bring speakers in.  As soon as I arrived in Longmont (where we lived for the year), I contacted Kevin (whom I had never met) and Dan Simmons.  I never heard back from Simmons, but Kevin immediately agreed to come speak for me.  He and his lovely (and equally talented) wife, Rebecca, came to Boulder, and Kevin gave an excellent speech on the art of writing fiction.  He called it his “pop-corn theory,” explaining that ideas happen all over the place.  I loved the speech.

And, I also loved Kevin and Rebecca.  We hit it off at dinner at an Indian restaurant right before Kevin’s talk.  He then invited us to his famous New Year’s Eve party for 2015.  Dedra and I happily drove to Monument to see Kevin’s impressive and rather Arthurian house!  Crazily enough, my car slid down his steep driveway and almost crushed the natural gas vein!  Thank the good Lord that disaster was averted and New Year’s Eve was a different kind of blast.  One of the great things about Kevin is he knows how to form communities.  He’s a natural leader.

We also really bonded over his friendship with Neil Peart.  In fact, it was Kevin who suggested I write the book about Peart’s lyrics, Cultural Repercussions, for his WordFire Press.  I was deeply honored to do so not just because of my love of Rush, but also because of my respect for Kevin.

And, Kevin has deep roots in the prog rock community.  Indeed, I can’t imagine a current writer who has greater or more legitimate ties to prog than does Kevin.  Rush’s Grace Under Pressure inspired Kevin’s first novel, Resurrection, Inc., and Kevin’s never been shy about his inspirations: Rush, Kansas, Styx . . . .

Rick, you brought up Clockwork Angels and its surrounding universe.  Admittedly, I love the Clockwork trilogy–the novels, the audiobooks, the graphic novels–and I think that Kevin really offered new insights into Rush and, frankly, into music.  To me, Clockwork Angels is Chestertonian, and I don’t understand why it’s not been made a Netflix series!

When I first encountered Kevin’s music project, Roswell Six, I was understandably impressed by the scope as well as the execution of the vast project.  Kevin has a great entrepreneurial spirit, but always with the artistic soul.  Roswell Six perfectly blends Kevin’s many loves and expertises.  I’ve been proudly listening to the first two CDs since they were first released, and I happily include them among my all-time favorite albums.  I’m especially taken with the first CD, 2009’s Beyond the Horizon.

When Kevin first announced this Kickstarter project–hardback editions of Terra Incognita as well as a re-release of the first two Roswell Six CDs, AND a brand-new third CD, I was absolutely thrilled.  I pledged during the second hour of the campaign.  And, that campaign has done exceedingly well.  Initially hoping to hit the $10,000 mark, the Kickstarter project, as of this writing, is at the $51,000 mark with 399 backers!  Incredible.  And, so well deserved.

So, what do you guys think of the music?

Tad: Okay, both of you have much more experience with Anderson’s work than I. When I saw that there was a companion novel to Rush’s Clockwork Angels, I immediately read it and enjoyed it very much. The Roswell Six albums slipped under my radar, though.

That said, I really like this third album, Terra Incognita (Uncharted Shores). To my ears, it’s pretty much straightforward, classic progrock. Fans of Kansas, Styx, Spock’s Beard, Threshold, Arena, et al. will love it. The fact that there are so many different vocalists brings to mind an Arjen Lucassen project – especially when the beautiful voice of Anneke van Geirsbergen appears in track 3, “A Sense of Wonder”. 

I like the acoustic, Celtic sounding “Haunted and Hunted” a lot. “Lighthouse” is another highlight for me, with its chugging rock riffing and excellent guitar soloing. “The Ballet of the Storm” is an instrumental that has a very nice intro played on violin that transforms into a warm piano/electric guitar duet underpinned by some excellent bass. 

“The Key to Creation” features the return of Anneke, and it has a fun 80s vibe to it – it’s got a relentless beat with a wall of synthesized sound. As a matter of fact, I think this is my favorite track on the album. It has a nice hook in the chorus that sticks in my ear. 

“Unexpected” keeps the musical quality high with, I believe, Dan Reed handling the vocals. I feel like these songs will take on more meaning when I have the chance to read the accompanying novels. They obviously follow a storyline. In many of the tracks, I can hear sounds of the sea, which makes sense, given the Uncharted Shores title!

Rick: Brad, what you said about Anderson’s connections in the music world helped me get my bearings for listening to Uncharted Shores; it definitely has that American heartland prog vibe with some nifty touches of funk (but also touches of European theatricality, as Tad pointed out).  KJA gave an interview this week with Michael Citro of Michael’s Record Collection where they go into the background behind the music; the basic tracks are written and performed by Bob Madsen (bass), Billy Connolly (guitar), Jerry Merrill (keys) and Gregg Bissonette (drums) – all artists working under the umbrella of The Highlander Company Records.  (Madsen’s band The Grafenberg Disciples announced themselves to the world a few years back with a tribute to Peart, “No Words”, that caught Anderson’s attention.)  And all that excellent violin work is by Jonathan Dinklage – he led the Clockwork Angels string section on those 2012 & 2013 tours.  Rush connections aplenty!

The guest vocalists take the whole thing up a notch as well.  Michael Sadler from Saga sings on the title song. “Hunted and Haunted” and “Lighthouse”; he’s played one of the “lead roles” for all three albums. Like you said, Tad, Ted Leonard and Anneke give it their all on their feature tracks.  But the big surprise for me was Dan Reed, who takes the villain role on “Mortal Enemies” and “Unexpected”; for a minute, I thought Steve Walsh had emerged from retirement!  Reed has this grizzled timbre, but a real purity of tone and expression underneath, and he absolutely sells the part.  And The Grafenberg Disciples vocalist Hans Eberbach brings it all home on “Not In My Name” –  gutsy and soulful by turns, and consistently dramatic (with Tull’s Doane Perry contributing a spoken-word cameo as a capper)!  I think that’s the track that’s my favorite so far.

But there isn’t a duff song on the new album, and it definitely grew on me the second time through.  I agree with you, Tad, that knowing the Terra Incognita storyline better will probably help, but the core emotions and throughline of the story come across loud and clear.  According to the Anderson/Citro interview, all the albums are being released through Sony (on InsideOut?) in the fall, but I decided not to wait; I’ve pledged for the ebooks and the digital albums, so my summer reading and listening are already lined up.  And when the CDs go to broad release – who knows?  It’d be far from the first time I’ve bought music twice!

Brad: Tad and Rick, so well stated!  And, yes, I pledged to buy all three albums as well, even though I already own the first two.  If you’ve not listened yet, I especially recommend the first track on Beyond the Horizon: Ishalem.  Incredible prog metal.  Very much in line with Ayreon or Dream Theater.

For those out there not totally familiar with Kevin, he has, as noted above, written extensively in the Star Wars, Dune, and X-Files franchises.  My favorite of his own books (that is, those not set in another mega genre/universe) are Nether Station (a sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness) and Stake (a completely original novel questioning the existence of the supernatural).

Again, all praise to Kevin for bringing together so many beloved things: fantasy, science fiction, and prog rock!

Tad: Kevin Anderson’s Kickstarter link is here, for those interested!

LITERATURE

Jay Wellon’s All That Moves Us: The Trials and Triumphs of a Pediatric Neurosurgeon

Moves Us

A new year, and an opportunity to begin a new batch of books! I was given several titles for Christmas, and the first one I dove into was All That Moves Us.

Dr. Jay Wellons is a pediatric neurosurgeon at Vanderbilt’s Monroe Carrell Jr. Children’s Hospital here in Nashville, TN. His memoir, All That Moves Us, is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. It consists of 23 short chapters, each one chronicling an important episode in Wellons’ life. He doesn’t pull any punches, either. In the prologue, he explains his efforts to separate two conjoined twins that resulted in both of their deaths.

Other chapters deal with triumphs such as two-year-old Allie:

Her brain MRI showed a large bleed in her brainstem, the pons specifically. The normal brain was compressed from the inside out, the pontine brain tissue now only a thin rim displaced by the blood clot, most likely from a hemorrhagic cavernous malformation. It was gigantic considering the small space. At that point in my career, I had never seen a hemorrhage quite that large in that part of the brain with the patient still alive. (page 103)

Miraculously, Wellons is able to save Allie, and seven years later, she continues to recover. He admires her indomitable will to survive and thrive.

Throughout the book, Wellons provides interesting autobiographical details: why he went into medicine, the enormous influence his father had on him, his own battle with a tumor in his leg, the joy he receives from his own children. It doesn’t hurt that he is an extraordinarily fine writer. As a matter of fact he was an English major as an undergraduate in college. I found that I couldn’t read more than two or three chapters at a time, they are that emotionally powerful.

I also got a glimpse into the life of a surgeon, and the various trials they face. While the gratitude from parents whose children he has saved is nice, Wellons tells of the time when he couldn’t save a middle-aged woman, and her family came at him in the hallway ready to physically attack him. A surgeon has to be sensitive to the feelings of the families of his patients, while always being truthful and informative.

Doctors are always on call, even when they aren’t anywhere near a hospital. In the chapter, Last Place, Wellons is on the interstate driving to a triathlon when he comes upon a terrible car accident. He immediately stops and does triage on the family in the car that was hit. If he hadn’t been there, the mother and father would have died. This experience gives him new respect for the incredibly difficult job first responders have.

Another chapter, Shock Wave, is particularly hard-hitting. It is about a teenaged girl who shot herself in the head, driven to such despair by social media bullying that death seemed preferable to the pain she was suffering. She survived the gunshot, but the bullet destroyed her optic nerves, permanently blinding her. However, she has chosen to use her condition to try to prevent others from making the same choice she did.

Alyssa will forever live with the profound effects of that day. Both she and her parents wanted her story told so that people might understand that social bullying is real. Her mom aske me to make sure that Alyssa has worked hard since that day to be a good young woman living out her faith. For all that she has endured, Alyssa loves the idea of being able to help others, and that is how she understands her purpose now. She does not remember much of her life before her injury. But she makes a point to say that sometimes we can inflict pain on one another without much thought. It can be awful. And then she says she knows we can do better. (page 189)

All That Moves Us is an incredibly powerful read. In every chapter, Wellons’ sincere care and compassion for his patients and their families is apparent. He also weaves his love and admiration for his Mississippi Air National Guard father throughout the book. His father passed away from ALS, and Wellons was able to spend time with him and properly express his gratitude for all he did for him. As for me, I am thankful that our medical system is able to produce amazing caregivers like Jay Wellons.

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!

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.

Biography, Faith, History, Republic of Letters

Book Review: Christopher Gehrz’s Religious Biography of Charles Lindbergh

Christopher Gehrz, Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America’s Most Infamous Pilot, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021, 265 pages.

Christopher Gehrz - Charles LindberghCharles Lindbergh is simultaneously the most fascinating and the most frustrating individual I have ever encountered. Since December 2019, I have been cataloging the Missouri Historical Society’s collection of over 2000 objects that Lindbergh donated following his May 1927 New York to Paris flight. The collection ranges from artifacts carried on that flight to the hundreds of medals and awards he received, personal effects, artwork, two aircraft, jewelry, and the random gifts people and governments sent him or gave him and his wife, Anne, on their travels. In studying the material culture owned by and given to Lindbergh, I have learned a lot about him. Perhaps I have learned too much.

I imagine Christopher Gehrz, professor of history at Bethel University in Lindbergh’s home state of Minnesota, might also say he has learned too much about Lindbergh in the course of writing the latest biography on the aviator. There have been many biographies written about Lindbergh since the pilot, outspoken isolationist, and conservationist died in 1974, with A. Scott Berg’s 1998 biography widely considered to be the standard text on Lindbergh’s life.

A lot has come out of the woodwork on Lindbergh since 1998, most prominently the discovery of his multiple extramarital affairs and the children he had with three German women. Over the past twenty years, historians have also unpacked Lindbergh’s legacy in light of his views on eugenics and race, as well as his anti-Semitic remarks made during his isolationist America First speeches in the run-up to World War II.

Despite the numerous books that have been written about Lindbergh over the years, one aspect of his life has been woefully overlooked, until now. Gehrz’s biography is the first to analyze Lindbergh’s life, writings, and actions through a religious lens. Perhaps you might not think religious or spiritual when you think of Charles Lindbergh (if you even think of him at all – increasing numbers of people I run across have never even heard of him). That would be fair, since Lindbergh was not an orthodox Christian. He did not believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, yet he was fascinated by Jesus and thought deeply about his own spirituality. Lindbergh’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1953 book The Spirit of St. Louis drips with religious imagery, as do some of his other later writings.

Gehrz’s biography investigates Lindbergh’s beliefs and writings on Jesus, religion, spirituality, the afterlife, and how Lindbergh’s beliefs influenced his actions. Through intense archival research and analysis of published works, Gehrz unpacks Lindbergh’s spiritual complexity. Since Lindbergh’s spirituality flourished in his later years (he was only 25 when he made his famous flight), the foundational part of Gehrz’s argument rests upon the period of Lindbergh’s life spanning the 1930s until his death. The book begins by looking at the religious elements in the lives of Lindbergh’s parents and grandparents, shining a light on the rather unorthodox beliefs in which he grew up.

This book is perhaps best suited for those who already know the fundamental stories of Lindbergh’s life: his 1927 flight, his marriage to Anne Morrow, the 1932 kidnapping and murder of their son, dubbed the “crime of the century,” and Lindbergh’s involvement in the isolationist America First committee from 1940-41. Gehrz touches on Lindbergh’s early life and the 1927 flight, but he does not dwell on those periods as that is not the point of the book. Instead he briefly tells those stories through a religious lens. It is quite the literary feat to pull this narrative style off. I am fascinated and impressed by Gehrz’s skills as a writer. He tells a familiar story in a brand new way.

Gehrz looks at his subject openly and honestly.  When I sat down to read this book, I honestly expected it to be a hate-fest, but it isn’t. He simply tells the story of Lindbergh’s spiritual side in a “matter-of-fact” way, which I believe is how history should be written. Gehrz also tells this story in a very readable way. The book flows very well, and it is exceptionally well written. The biography is very focused, which makes it digestible in a way a broader biography might not be. I actually found the book to be quite the page-turner.

One of my few complaints with this tale of Lindbergh’s spirituality is one omission: there is no discussion of Lindbergh’s involvement in freemasonry. Lindbergh was a 32nd degree freemason in the Scottish Rite. He attained that level in a masonic temple in St. Louis, Missouri, when he was working as an airmail pilot prior to his transatlantic flight. I have cataloged a few artifacts given to him by that masonic group as well as others across the nation. My frustration in researching those objects was how little I could find about Lindbergh’s masonic past. About all I could find were references to it in newspapers at the time. I assume Gehrz does not mention it because either he was not aware or because there is no additional information about that part of Lindbergh’s life. There appears to be little to no related primary sources, apart from the gold masonic gifts held in the Missouri Historical Society collection. (Shameless self promotion: a coworker and I wrote a blog post about objects in the collection connected to secret societies, including a few masonic pieces: https://mohistory.org/blog/secret-societies/.)

If Gehrz had come across information related to Lindbergh’s masonic involvement, he probably would have included it. It is possible that Lindbergh never had anything to do with freemasonry after he left St. Louis. Maybe we will never know.  

One of Gehrz’s best contributions to the Lindbergh story is his analysis of Lindbergh’s journal entries from the run-up to World War II. Lindbergh published these journals in an edited form in 1970, but Gehrz dug into the original journals housed at Yale. What Lindbergh omitted from their published form says a lot.

Perhaps the most offensive thing Gehrz uncovers in his book is a journal entry from November 5, 1940 where Lindbergh, in recounting a conversation he had with friends, questions the validity of universal franchise, specifically arguing that African Americans should not be allowed to vote. In the same entry, Lindbergh discussed “the Jewish problem,” hoping to solve that “problem” without resorting to the violent racism seen in Nazi Germany (page 135).

One cannot help but be disappointed and angry with Lindbergh at such statements. Many have accused Lindbergh of being a Nazi sympathizer, which I think goes a stretch too far and misses a lot of the nuance of Lindbergh’s actions in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Nevertheless, Lindbergh, at least at this point in his life, held racist views of other human beings who are created in the image of God. He never publicly repented of such beliefs.

Gehrz’s honesty with the reader is refreshing. Rather than a distant biographer, Gehrz reminds us of his presence without inserting himself needlessly. The following is my favorite paragraph of the whole book because it perfectly encapsulates how I have felt about Lindbergh over the past twenty months of studying him (page 138):

It can’t be you! If not as intensely as his youngest child, that’s still how most of us feel when we come to this chapter in the story of Charles Lindbergh. If we have any appreciation for his historic achievements, any admiration for his courage and modesty, any compassion for the tragedies he endured, or if we simply nod along with the honest questions he asked about God, science, and mortality, we don’t want to accept that he believed what he said about Jews.

Even so, it is hard not to be a little sympathetic towards Lindbergh. The man was treated as if he were the Messiah. Gehrz has a chapter entitled “The New Christ,” where he discusses the religious language used to embrace Lindbergh following his 1927 flight. An entire monograph could be written about the reasons why Americans and Europeans embraced Lindbergh with the enthusiasm they did. Gehrz argues that the media and public created a version of Lindbergh that fit what they wanted: “Lindy.” Gehrz writes,

For all the public scrutiny that would soon make Charles Lindbergh more protective of his privacy, no one was interested in uncovering the more complicated story of their hero’s upbringing, influences, and beliefs. Whether politicians or pastors, reporters or their readers, Americans wanted a type, not a person: Lindy, not Lindbergh. (page 64)  

The media pressure on Lindbergh was intense. How is any mortal man supposed to live up to the Messiah image the public created? Add to that the kidnapping and murder of his firstborn son a few years later, which he perhaps rightly blamed on press publicity. None of this excuses his racism and lack of compassion for those he deemed lesser than himself, but it is clear that America set Lindbergh up to fail. For that I cannot help but pity him, even if I find some of his beliefs to be offensive and sinful.

The saddest part of Lindbergh’s story, however, is how it ends. Based upon Gehrz’s research and narrative of Lindbergh’s final days, I see no evidence that Lindbergh ever let go of his arrogance and pride and acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior. Maybe he had some sort of deathbed conversion as he died of cancer at his home on Maui, but based upon the witness of those who spent those last days with him, it does not sound like it.

In that regard, let Charles Lindbergh be a warning to us all. Lindbergh knew that scientific achievement falls far short in its attempts to explain the meaning of life, but his example also shows us that unsanctified human reason also falls short. Christopher Gehrz’s biography does an excellent job of exploring that aspect of Lindbergh’s life.

Bryan Morey

https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7621/charles-lindbergh.aspx