Category Archives: Books and literature

Book review: The Hot Zone

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The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. Recommended.

Imagine a virus that may spread through the air and that causes death at the same rate as the Black Plague during the Middle Ages — within a matter of days. You don’t have to imagine it; it’s emerged from the rain forest of Africa. In The Hot Zone, Richard Preston covers the filoviruses, Marburg and Ebola, from their effects on victims, how they are spread, and various outbreaks to the horrifying discovery of an Ebola strain right outside the U.S. capital, in Reston, Virginia.

To shatter our complacency, Preston begins The Hot Zone by detailing how a French expatriate, “Charles Monet,” undergoes the transformation from healthy human being to a Marburg virus host undergoing extreme amplification within days. His fate is to “crash and bleed out” — to throw up the “black vomit,” go into shock, slough intestinal lining, and lose copious amounts of blood from every orifice. This is a true horror story that Poe could not have imagined — yet it is what happens in 50–90 percent of similar cases. There is not only no cure for the filoviruses Marburg and Ebola, there is no treatment.

When the Army and the Centers for Disease Control (inexplicably abbreviated C.D.C.) discover there is an outbreak of an Ebola-like agent in a research monkey holding facility in Reston, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., a team of virologists, veterinarians, physicians, and technicians go into action to identify and isolate the agent, to euthanize the monkeys, and to kill all life within the building.

Preston follows the daily life of Jerry and Nancy Jaax, both Army veterinarians; Dan Dalgard, consulting veterinarian to the company that imported the monkeys from the Philippines; researchers Gene Johnson and Peter Jahrling; intern Tom Geisbert; Colonel C. J. Peters; and others as they develop and execute a strategy for containing the virus (named by co-discoverers Jahrling and Geisbert Ebola Reston) within the monkey facility population and to protect humans from exposure.

Preston plays up the melodrama inherent in the story. He shows the ordinary home life of the Jaaxes, feeding their children, picking them up from school events, and taking care of their pets. In contrast, Nancy dons a “space suit” to work in relatively safety around Level 4 biohazard agents like Marburg and Ebola. Geisbert is a young father who has sacrificed his marriage to his work. Gene Johnson is unable to write about his research and has recurring nightmares about a breech in his gloves. While Army teams are “nuking” the monkey facility, killing and carving up monkeys that host what was believed to be a virulent, deadly hot agent, children play happily at the day-care center down the hill. These juxtapositions of normal life with scenes of people in space suits in fear for their lives from Ebola are intended to add to the horror. While life goes on, a particularly grisly kind of death is only steps away.

I found the attitude of the veterinarians difficult to understand. Dan Dalgard euthanizes monkeys to see if they have simian hemorrhagic fever (SHF). They prove to be healthy. Preston writes, “Sacrificing the monkeys had been a difficult, disgusting, disheartening task” — a sentiment the other veterinarians echo throughout the book. Dalgard notes, “. . . the animals were unusually well fleshed (butterballs), young (less than 5 years), and in prime condition.” Yet even as he feels the “disgust” of sacrificing the monkeys, he doesn’t question the ethics of working for a company that takes these young, healthy, “butterball” non-human primates away from their natural habitat and family groups and sells them to researchers at a profit — researchers who will most likely inflict pain and suffering on them in the course of research.

Later, to ease the distress of what they are about to do, one of the Army officers tells the young privates sent to assist in killing the monkeys and collecting samples, “These animals gave their lives to science.” This may be comforting to humans, but misses the mark. Animals don’t give their lives to science; their lives are taken from them involuntarily. Five hundred monkeys need not have been euthanized had they not been artificially housed together, amplifying the filovirus’s ability to spread.

At points, Preston sacrifices science for drama. When he writes, “moths and insects” and “a monkey or perhaps a baboon,” one assumes he knows that moths are insects and that baboons are monkeys. He refers to monkey canines as “canine fangs” or simply “fangs” to heighten the sense of danger — but zoologists typically would not use “fangs” in this sense. There are occasionally contradictory statements. In the middle, Ebola is shown to travel through air. By the end, this has become, “You have to wonder if Ebola virus can do that or not,” Peters notes.

The Hot Zone left me with unanswered questions. Why didn’t the virus appear during the 30-day quarantine after the monkeys were imported? Why did Hazleton Research Products import more monkeys from the same source, given the likelihood they would be infected? Why was the second outbreak in the monkey house allowed to burn through the population, causing a cruel death to the monkeys? Why did the company, the Army, and the CDC treat the second outbreak so casually (once they realised Ebola Reston did not affect humans), although today the same filovirus strain requires Level 4 biohazard handling, the same as for the deadly Ebola Zaire strain?

The Hot Zone is a horrifying, compelling story adequately told. In the wake of 9/11/01, it is also a timely one; today, filoviruses are considered bioterrorism threats (although who would want to handle them?). When you’re falling asleep in at night, imagine what else lurks among the life of the rain forest — and consider that the forest may yet have the final word.

15 November 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet

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Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet by Fritz Redlich, M.D. Recommended.

In Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, psychiatrist Fritz Redlich, a Jewish contemporary, attempts to determine how physical ailments and mental disorders may have affected and influenced the Nazi leader.

This type of work, known as a “pathography,” has no set or determined structure. In the first part, Dr. Redlich describes “Hitler’s Life from Birth to Death,” including such topics as “Entry into Politics,” “Ascent to Power,” and “Warlord.” The second part, “Review, Comments, and Interpretations,” delves into more detail about the medical and psychological issues brought up in the first section.

This first part is the more problematic one. Dr. Redlich is not a historian and is not equipped to present or interpret history, especially history as fraught with the unknowns, distortions, and lies that surround Hitler. For example, he refers to the “billy goat story” several times. He notes that Hitler was not known to be cruel to animals as a child, except for the “dubious” billy goat story — a highly unlikely story of questionable origin that no historian would cite as an exception, even with the “dubious” qualifier.

He also discusses Geri Raubal’s death but provides no insight into what actually happened or how Hitler reacted to it. He briefly discusses a few innuendoes that Raubal was murdered, but there is nothing here — about a critical moment in Hitler’s psychological life — that is not covered more thoroughly and carefully in other books (Ron Rosenbaum’s Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, for example). On the other hand, there is sometimes too much detail about Himmler, Goebbels, et. al, which does not particularly relate to Hitler, his health, his psychology, or his actions. Indeed, much of the first section could have been eliminated as it often provides irrelevant information or biographical detail that is explored better in Hitler biographies and Nazi and WWII histories.

In the second part, Dr. Redlich attempts to diagnose Hitler, based on the scant and unreliable information available. He dismisses diagnoses when there is too little evidence or the known symptoms are inconclusive, although given that there is so little information and that neither Hitler nor anyone surrounding him is a reliable source, it is still primarily speculation. Dr. Redlich does conclude that Hitler had Parkinson’s syndrome, of unknown etiology, although at one point he mistakenly refers to it as Parkinson’s disease. He also provides a plausible explanation for Hitler’s headaches.

In his discussion of Hitler’s psychology, Dr. Redlich covers anxiety, depression, sexuality, and other obvious topics (often inconclusively) as well as such things as his lies and ambivalence. Again, there is nothing conclusive to say; many of these questions are still hotly debated by Hitler scholars (for example, whether he believed or came to believe his own fabrications).

The question of cruelty is an interesting one. It’s easy to say that Hitler was cruel, given the death, destruction, persecution, and torture he wrought against dissenting Nazi Party members, Gypsies, Jews, and others. This gets short shrift in Dr. Redlich’s analysis, because it’s not clear that Hitler was cruel in the conventional way many of us might think. Someone who gains pleasure from kicking a dog or witnessing the kicking of a dog is clearly cruel — but generally Hitler did not directly participate in or even witness what was happening in the concentration camps. He kept his distance from it. More discussion of such detached cruelty and distancing, with real-life examples, might be useful.

The reader does learn a great deal about the mundane details of Hitler’s health (including his ongoing problems with flatulence, which Dr. Redlich does not quite connect to his vegetarian diet), about the doctors who treated him, and about some of the medical practices still used in the 1940s (including leeches).

Dr. Redlich’s ultimate diagnosis of Hitler is one that few lay persons would recognize; it is part of the title. Hitler saw morality simplistically in black-and-white terms, he believed he’d been chosen by a higher power to do what he did (and was afraid he would not live long enough to accomplish it), and found a convenient scapegoat (the Jews) around whom to rally his followers. This is a cautionary tale that is especially relevant in today’s international political arena.

It’s important to note that Dr. Redlich’s effort could have been more condensed and focused. In addition, he is not a writer and fails to make what are necessary paragraph breaks to large chunks of text with multiple subjects (as does his editor).

Given how little is known of Hitler and how much of his own history he falsified, it would have been difficult to have produced a definitive work. Dr. Redlich honestly describes his personal reasons for writing Hitler: Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet, which ultimately is not a particularly significant contribution to the Hitler literature. Those who wish to try to understand every aspect of Hitler’s life (including his flatulence and bad teeth) or who wish to recognize political paranoia wherever it rages may find this a must-read.

7 November 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Return of the Native

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The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. Recommended.

In Egdon Heath, Thomas Hardy creates an otherworld consisting of the elements earth, wind, fire, and water, populated by a witch condemned by a pious woman’s spell, a Christian ruled by pagan beliefs, an assortment of other odd characters, and the native of the title whose return precipitates a series of tragic events.

The Return of the Native is centered around Eustacia Vye, a beautiful outsider wrenched from the society she craves by orphanhood and exiled to live on Egdon Heath with her maternal grandfather. Spoiled, vain, fickle, and selfish, Eustacia is not a sympathetic heroine. Although she claims to belong to Damon Wildeve (“body and soul” in one uncensored version), she really belongs to whomever can grant her what she desires and, in her mind, deserves. While Wildeve is a step above the local rabble, Eustacia can never fully commit herself to him. Each time she considers it, she is held back by the thought that even he lacks something and that surely she can do better. “He’s not great enough for me to give myself to — he does not suffice for my desire! . . . If he had been a Saul or a Bonaparte — ah! But to break my marriage vow for him — it is too poor a luxury!”

In another place, like the Paris Eustacia longs for, she would have become a mistress or a courtesan — the consort of a powerful man or men. On Egdon Heath, however, there are neither powerful men nor courtesans. There is only Damon, an equally fickle young man who hotly desires that which he cannot have — sometimes Eustacia, sometimes the naïve Thomasin Yeobright. To complicate matters, Thomasin’s cousin Clym returns from Paris, where he has a financially rewarding and spiritually stifling career. In Eustacia’s eyes (blinded to what she doesn’t want to see, just as Clym’s sight becomes literally blurred to that which he does want to see), Clym appears to be the ideal replacement for Wildeve.

In his introduction to the “standard edition,” John Paterson, talks about the censorship of The Return of the Native and its anti-Christianity elements. The novel, at least in this form, appears to be more anti-Christian than anti-Christianity. Eustacia, with her beauty; aloof and lonely snobbishness; hold over men such as Wildeve and Clym and boys such as “the little slave” Johnny Nunsuch and the adolescent Charley; and habit of haunting Rainbarrow at all hours of the night, can easily appear to fit the role of the Egdon Heath witch. Yet it is the churchgoing Susan Nunsuch who falls prey to superstition, believing that Eustacia has afflicted her son with illness. She stabs Eustacia with a needle during one of the young lady’s rare church appearances. Ironically, in the end Susan is the witch, fashioning a likeness of Eustacia and practicing a homegrown form of obeah upon it.

Susan’s male counterpart, the ironically named Christian, is no better. Simple-minded, naïve, and condemned to perpetual bachelorhood, Christian is pious not for love of God but for fear of life. He is ruled by superstition, and it requires little effort for Wildeve to convince him he is lucky and that he should gamble (as it turns out, with money that isn’t his, adding theft to his sins).

Like Egdon Heath itself (“oozing lumps of fleshy fungi . . . like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal”), the remainder of its inhabitants — the ones from whom Eustacia wishes to escape — are unflinchingly, unchangingly pagan, with Christian’s own reprobate father, Granfer Cantle, setting the example. They avoid inconveniences like church; they gleefully celebrate Guy Fawkes Day with fire and dance; they gossip without undue concern for good or bad. These are the folks from whom Mrs. Yeobright and the stoic pagan Diggory Venn (the reddleman) wish to save Thomasin’s reputation — as though it matters to them.

These are also the people among whom Eustacia is a queen. When she says, “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman and how destiny has been against me!” the reader is hard pressed to find Eustacia’s efforts to better herself, other than trying to determine which man will best launch her into society. With his Paris connections, Clym is the obvious choice, yet it is Wildeve who turns out to have better prospects — and the will to take advantage of them.

Queen among the heathens of the heath, Eustacia is blissfully unaware of the probability that, in the Parisian society she aspires to, she would be one among many and might find herself unable to compete with the elite courtesans, mistresses, and wives of Paris. “I was capable of much,” she claims. Hardy, however, never makes clear what this “much” might be exactly, as Eustacia’s intelligence, learning, and wit are incompletely and imperfectly portrayed, and one does not make a splash in society based on looks and pride alone. Eustacia hasn’t “tried and tried”; and her youthful, ambitious impatience has led her to miss the clues that Clym is not going to “try and try,” either. Perhaps she, like Sue in Jude the Obscure, represents the dilemma of the intelligent woman in the 1800s, who can shape her own destiny only through attachment to the right man in a socially acceptable way. When that fails (Eustacia), or if an alternative means is attempted (Sue), tragedy is inevitable.

While not Hardy’s best, The Return of the Native is a must read for his readers, incorporating a grim yet objective setting, memorable characters, and a tragic plot driven by human failings more so than the destiny at which Eustacia rails. Ignore the awkward, unconvincing happy ending, as Hardy’s censors forced him to tack it on.

31 October 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Count of Monte Cristo

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The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père. Translated and with an introduction by Robin Buss. Highly recommended.

As translator Robin Buss points out in his introduction, many of those who haven’t read The Count of Monte Cristo assume it is a children’s adventure story, complete with daring prison escape culminating in a simple tale of revenge. There is very little for children in this very adult tale, however. Instead, the rich plot combines intrigue, betrayal, theft, drugs, adultery, presumed infanticide, torture, suicide, poisoning, murder, lesbianism, and unconventional revenge.

Although the plot is roughly linear beginning with Edmond Dantès’ return to Marseille, prenuptial celebration, and false imprisonment and ending with his somewhat qualified triumphant departure from Marseille and France, Dumas uses the technique of interspersing lengthy anecdotes throughout. The story of Cardinal Spada’s treasure, the origins of the Roman bandit Luigi Vampa (the least germane to the novel), Bertuccio’s tale of his vendetta, and the account of the betrayal and death of Ali Pasha are few of the more significant stories-within-the-novel. While Dumas devotes an entire chapter to bandit Luigi Vampa’s background, he cleverly makes only a few references to what will remain the plot’s chief mystery — how the youthful, intelligent, and naive sailor Edmond Dantès transforms himself into the worldly, jaded, mysterious Renaissance man and Eastern philosopher, the count of Monte Cristo, presumably sustained by his own advice of “wait” and “hope.”

This novel is not a simple tale of simple revenge. The count does not kill his enemies; he brilliantly uses their vices and weaknesses against them. Caderousse’s basic greed is turned against him, while Danglars loses the only thing that has any meaning for him. Fernand is deprived of the one thing that he had that he had never earned — his honour. In the process, he loses the source of his initial transgression, making his fate that much more poignant. The plot against Villefort is so complicated that even Monte Cristo loses control of it, resulting in doubt foreign to his nature and remorse that he will not outlive.

This long but generally fast-paced tale is set primarily in Marseille, Rome, and Paris. It begins with Dantès’ arrival in Marseille aboard the commercial vessel Pharaon and ends with his departure from Marseille aboard his private yacht, accompanied by the young, beautiful Greek princess Haydée. What gives The Count of Monte Cristo its life, however, are the times in which it is set — the Revolution, the Napoleonic era, the First and Second Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830. Life-and-death politics motivates many of the characters and keeps the plot moving. Dumas also uses real people in minor roles, such as Countess G — (Byron’s mistress) and the Roman hotelier Signor Pastrini, which adds to the novel’s sense of historical veracity.

The most troubling aspect of The Count of Monte Cristo is Edmond Dantès himself. His claim to represent a higher justice seems to justify actions and inactions that are as morally reprehensible as those that sent him to prison, for example, his account of how he acquired Ali and his loyalty. Had he not discovered young Morrel’s love for Valentine Villefort, she too might have become an innocent victim. As it is, there are at least two other innocents who die, although one clearly would not have been an innocent for long based on his behaviour in the novel. One wonders if Dantès’ two father figures, his own flower-loving father and fellow prisoner Abbé Faria, would have approved of the count.

The translation appears to be good, with a few slips into contemporary English idioms that sound out of place. In his introduction, Buss states that the later Danglars and Fernand have become unrecognizable and that Fernand in particular has been transformed “from the brave and honest Spaniard with a sharp sense of honour . . . to the Parisian aristocrat whose life seems to have been dedicated to a series of betrayals.” There is never anything honest or honourable about Fernand; his very betrayal of Edmond is merely the first we know of in his lifelong pattern.

What seems extreme and somewhat unrealistic about Fernand is his transformation from an uneducated Catalan fisherman into a “Parisian aristocrat,” hobnobbing with statesmen, the wealthy, and the noteworthy of society. This, however, is the result of the milieu that the novel inhabits. During these post-Revolution, post-Napoleonic years, Fernand could rise socially through his military and political accomplishments just as Danglars does through his financial acumen. Danglars is careful to note that the difference between them is that Fernand insists upon his title, while Danglars is openly indifferent to and dismissive of his; his viewpoint is the more aristocratic.

Countess G — is quick to point out that there is no old family name of Monte Cristo and that the count, like many other contemporaries, has purchased his title. It serves mainly to obscure his identity, nationality, and background and to add to the aura of mystery his persona and Eastern knowledge create. What is most telling is that his entrée into Parisian society is based primarily on his great wealth, not his name. Dumas reinforces this point with Andrea Cavalcanti, another mystery man of unknown name and reputed fortune.

I have read The Man in the Iron Mask and The Three Musketeers series, both of which surprised me with their dark aspects (the character and fate of Lady de Winter, for example) and which little resembled the adventure stories distilled from them for children and for film. When I overheard a college student who was reading The Count of Monte Cristo on the bus tell a friend that she couldn’t put it down, I was inspired to read it. I couldn’t put it down, either, with its nearly seamless plot, dark protagonist, human villains, turbulent historical setting, and larger-than-life sense of mystery. At 1,078 pages, it’s imposing, but don’t cheat yourself by settling for an abridged version. You’ll want to pick up every nuance.

12 September 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Prussian Officer and Other Stories

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The Prussian Officer and Other Stories by D. H. Lawrence. Edited by John Worthen with an introduction and notes by Brian Finney. Recommended.

In The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, D. H. Lawrence explores in short story form the themes that dominate many of his best-known novels. “The Daughters of the Vicar,” for example, echoes both Women in Love and Sons and Lovers, where one relationship is out of balance and the other shows some promise, and where a son is in near-complete subjection to his mother — even after her death. The question left unanswered at the end of “Daughters” is whether collier Alfred Durant will be any more successful at forming a lasting relationship with Louisa than artist Paul Morel was with Miriam. The answer would seem to be “yes” since he and Louisa are to be married soon — although in the other stories, marriage does not mean a meaningful or lasting relationship has been achieved. It’s up to reader speculation whether they will end up like the couple in “The White Stocking” or the couple in “The Odour of Chrysanthemums.”

Lawrence’s world is focused on dominance and subjection, whether sexual, social, or economic, and the resulting imbalances. For all their social loftiness, the vicar’s family is as poor or poorer than the uneducated colliers whom coal mining (ironically) elevates economically if not socially. As in the mines, there is a going down and coming up of the classes, with the declining rural gentry no better off than the rising class of miners and their managers. Lawrence experienced the mixing of these disparate groups in his own family, with his educated and domineering mother and his ignorant and brutal father. It’s not difficult to find the origins of Elizabeth and Walter Bates in “The Odour of Chrysanthemums.” In this story, Lawrence overtly articulates the alienation the wife feels from her husband, once death has given her the objective distance to realise it.

While compelling, this story demonstrates what I believe is Lawrence’s predominant weakness — a heavy handedness of the author’s voice in the narration of thought. Across all the stories (and the novels), his characters have similar thoughts and reactions, often expressed in similar terms that seem unlikely and unnatural for those particular characters. In many cases, you could lift entire sentences and even passages with little revision and transplant them seamlessly into any of his other stories or novels. While most critics, better informed about Lawrence’s social and cultural milieu and his artistic intent, understand this as part of his “metaphysic,” I find it artificial and tiresome. Reading so many stories together in a compressed time period highlights their similarities in theme, tone, and point of view.

As an example, this passage sounds less like the voice of the wife of a dead collier than that of Lawrence himself: “There were the children — but the children belonged to life. This dead man had nothing to do with them. He and she were only channels through which life had flowed to issue in the children.” At a certain level, many of Lawrence’s characters have no voice that is recognizable as their own — only as his. They are in subjugation to his dominance, which burdens and overwhelms this collection.

Two stories that stand out are set in the military: “The Prussian Officer” (originally “Honour and Arms”) and “The Thorn in the Flesh.” In the former, a young orderly revenges himself on his rigid and sexually sadistic captain, then dies blindly to restore the balance. In the latter, the runaway soldier and his country servant girlfriend find spiritual elevation and detachment from their mundane concerns in their sexual unification. They are free to face the repercussions of their respective transgressions with indifference. “A Fragment of Stained Glass” is memorable for its medieval setting, sadism, and eeriness, but is flawed by a particularly weak ending that adds nothing and detracts from the tale’s previous tone.

The Prussian Officer and Other Stories is a must for anyone interested in Lawrence and his development. Most of these stories are unforgettable, partly because of their symbolism and partly because they integrate pieces of Lawrence’s overarching metaphysic. As a side note, my favourite Lawrence story — indeed, one of my favourite short stories by any author — is not part of this collection: the haunting “The Rocking-Horse Winner.”

6 September 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

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The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson. Recommended.

In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson has turned what could be a dry retelling of the facts into a suspenseful story of creation, destruction, and insanity, focusing on architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, serial killer H. H. Holmes, and disturbed young man Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast. How will Burnham complete the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition on time? In the midst of the world’s fair excitement, will anyone ever notice Holmes’ grisly career choice? What will Prendergast do and what does he have to do with the fair?

In chapters that roughly alternate, Larson exposes the characters of these individuals: the ambition and drive of Burnham, the amoral charm and bloodthirsty quest for psychological power of Holmes, and the obsessive insanity of Prendergast. While these stories are know to history, Larson is able to imbue them with suspense, showing the critical points at which the world’s fair nearly failed and the many obstacles that continually arose to obstruct it, the care with which Holmes planned his career and chose his victims, and Prendergast’s growing fascination with Chicago Mayor Carter Henry Harrison.

Unfortunately, Larson begins several strands that lead nowhere. After Burnham’s partner, John Root, dies, Larson hints that the opium addiction of Burnham’s new partner, Charles Atwood, will cause problems later, but never alludes to it again.

Larson also spends a great deal of effort on everything that impedes Frederick Law Olmsted’s implementation of the world’s fair landscape architecture plan, from temporary infrastructure such as rails to paths rutted after heavy rains. Despite extensive quoting of Olmsted’s concerns beyond the fair’s opening, Larson never reveals whether Olmsted’s plan was completed or, if not, the extent to which it was completed. At the end, while he describes Olmsted’s decline into dementia in great detail, I found myself wondering what the results were of Olmsted’s work on the world’s fair and not finding even a hint of an answer.

Another area that Larson builds on is Chicago’s desire to “out-Eiffel” Alexandre Gustave Eiffel and his Eiffel Tower. The result is the Ferris Wheel, which attracts thousands of visitors and makes $200,000 in profits. It’s never clear, however, whether the contemporary world perceived that Burnham and Ferris had succeeded in their quest.

In his conclusion, Larson omits some interesting details and gets others wrong. He mentions that the Palace of Fine Arts was transformed into a permanent building, home to the Museum of Science and Industry, but fail to mention that it was designed by Burnham’s opium-addicted partner, Charles Atwood. Indeed, Atwood is mentioned only twice. While noting that Olmsted’s lagoons and Wooded Island survive in Jackson Park today, he doesn’t allude to the other remnant of the fair that graces the park — a replica of the Statue of the Republic, fondly known as “Big Mary.”

His portrayal of Wooded Island as a “wild and tangled place” is only partially accurate. At the request of area nature lovers, the Chicago Park District stopped managing some areas, which are becoming “wild and tangled.” Visitors who cross the bridge, however, first behold a mowed lawn, while the Japanese garden is carefully, planted, pruned, and maintained — a fact that would surprise readers who go by Larson’s description.

Larson also talks about Burnham’s contribution’s to Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s “Miracle Mile.” The area is, of course, known more commonly as the “Magnificent Mile,” a phrase coined in 1947 by real estate developer Arthur Rubloff that is more suited to Burnham’s lofty aspirations. (“Miracle Mile” appears to be a recent marketing invention that most likely refers to the miracle it would take not to spend any money at the avenue’s many upscale shops and restaurants.)

Larson captures the era of rapid change and how a new type of American criminal, the antisocial serial killer, could take advantage of the time’s evolving mores and seeming indifference to mysterious disappearances. Burnham is incompletely portrayed; while he is shown to be a great architectural project manager who helped change the American idea of what a city could be, the reader is left with no sense of Burnham’s own architectural vision and style. Louis Sullivan’s criticism of the fair as relying on the past seems unfair based on Larson’s version of how the exposition was built; even had he wanted to be innovative, Burnham and his architects simply ran out of time. What would the exposition have looked like if Burnham had had another year?

Early visitors to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition felt a sense that the fair was incomplete, especially since the unfinished Ferris Wheel silently attested this impression. Careful readers will feel the same way about The Devil in the White City.

24 July 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Lieutenant Hornblower

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Lieutenant Hornblower by C. S. Forester. Recommended.

Lieutenant Hornblower, set in the early 1800s during the Napoleonic Wars, is the second book chronologically in the 11-part Horatio Hornblower series. Forester is a master of combining exciting plots, recognizable characters, realistic naval and period information, and interesting historical detail. As you read Lieutenant Hornblower, you will see how even modern science fiction television and films, from Star Trek to Star Wars, owe a debt to Forester’s story-telling technique.

This time, Hornblower is seen from the perspective of a more senior lieutenant, Bush, as they serve aboard Renown. Bush, himself a decisive, strong, if unimaginative, leader, finds himself redefining and expanding his concepts of leadership and command as he observes Hornblower’s interactions with his junior and senior officers. Hornblower subtly guides them to the actions and decisions that he wants from them without overstepping the top-down chain-of-command structure of the 1800s British navy, in which the captain enjoys the omnipotence granted by the king over crew and officers alike. Hornblower’s approach even anticipates today’s most current thinking about the nature of corporate leadership.

As a character, Hornblower can be too perfect. His suggestions and his actions are always on target and successful, and it is he who saves Renown and her mission time and again. Even when he makes a rare mistake, for example, overheating the shot so that it will no longer fit in the cannons, the error does not affect the outcome of the venture.

Forester tries to humanize Hornblower, whom Bush notices carefully hiding his emotions and frailties-even hunger and poverty-lest anyone perceive his weakness. Interestingly, Hornblower survives the paranoia of a mad captain, the indecisiveness and incompetence of an inept first lieutenant, harrowing sea and land battles with the Spanish, and delicate diplomatic maneuverings with the Spanish and with the highest levels of naval representatives, only to succumb to an unattractive but smitten woman.

Throughout the novel, there is one recurring question that Hornblower avoids answering. Bush asks it, as does Buckland, the lackluster first lieutenant. Depending on how you perceive the underlying situation-and what you believe the real answer to be-you could see it as a positive reflection on Hornblower’s character, or a disturbing aspect of it. Forester deliberately raises this point repeatedly; it adds mystery and a human dimension to a character who could otherwise have become a stock hero, always correct and always victorious (at least in war and politics).

If you’re like me and love sea adventure, Lieutenant Hornblower is a must-read. Forester is able to explain the workings of a sailing vessel and the machines of war without sounding overly technical, mechanical, or tedious. He portrays the harsh discipline of the British navy so well that you will understand why sailors rapidly disappeared when the press gang was spotted; there was little question of patriotism, only one of self-preservation. Forester also plants in the imagination the horrors of war, where even lieutenants can be cut in two by cannonballs or tormented by mad captains, where decks become slippery with the blood and guts and limbs of the fallen.

Lieutenant Hornblower is an exciting, fast-paced read that may convince you to investigate the rest of the series.

30 June 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

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The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. Highly recommended.

Only 23 years old when she wrote The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers captures the restless energy of adolescence and the loneliness and isolation of those who choose not to fit into their world — Mick Kelly, an artistic teenager whose titles and graffiti reveal a darker side to her personality; Jake Blount, an itinerant socialist; Benedict Mady Copeland, a consumptive black physician; and Biff Brannon, sexually ambiguous owner of the New York Café.

Linking this disparate group of outsiders is the ironically named John Singer, a man who cannot talk (or sing). They are drawn to him, as lonely people are to someone they believe will listen and understand. They never step out of themselves to discover that Singer listens, but he doesn’t understand, nor do they realise that he, too, is lonely and isolated — or why.

Just as these four impose their concept of Singer upon him, he has his own idol — his companion of 10 years, Spiros Antonapoulos. While Singer’s lonely friends project upon him the character of a wise, knowing, understanding man, Singer in turn imposes a similar personality on Antonapoulos. His life revolves around his rare visits to the asylum to which Antonapoulos is eventually taken. As the reader’s awareness of Antonapoulos as a childish, greedy, and lazy man grows, so grows Singer’s faith in him as gentle and wise. As a fellow mute, Antonapoulos is all Singer has, so he both idealises and idolises him — in the same way that Mick, Blount, Copeland, and, to a lesser extent, Brannon idealise and idolise Singer.

Rarely do any of the four interact, except when Blount and Dr. Copeland engage in a circular argument about how best to help their peoples — victims of capitalism in Blount’s case, blacks in Dr. Copeland’s. These two groups have much in common, but just as Blount and Dr. Copeland remain in bitter conflict, so do their peoples — a conflict which is alluded to throughout and which culminates in a brawl at the carnival grounds where Jake works. Dr. Copeland and Jake never find common ground, nor do the poor white laborers and oppressed blacks they wish to enlighten. Dr. Copeland’s self-sacrificing but hopeless dedication and Jake’s self-destructive brutality could be seen as representing their time and place, the 1930s South.

Sexual ambiguity pervades the novel. It is never clear whether Singer and Antonapoulos are lovers, although it seems like that that is what lies behind Singer’s uncritical devotion. Even when Antonapoulos’s selfish, greedy, irrational behaviour drives away a third mute, Singer is merely disappointed at the loss of a potential friend — as long as he has Antonapoulos, he is content. After Antonapoulos leaves, “. . . in the spring a change came over Singer . . . his body was very restless . . . unable to work off a new feeling of energy.”

This sexual energy is shared by Mick, who is always restless. This isolates her even more from the rest of her family: her father, a disabled carpenter trying half-heartedly to make a living; her mother, for whom Mick acts as a substitute parent for her younger brothers Bubber (George) and Ralph; her older brother Bill, once close to her and now distant; and her older sisters Hazel and Etta, who have been forced from adolescence into adulthood through work and their own conventional interest in celebrity. (One could speculate about the nature of the “diseased ovary” Etta develops.)

Mick lives in an “inside room,” where she finds peace in music and in her perceptions of her friendship with Singer. Later, after her sexual initiation, she finds herself slyly manipulated into taking a job by her apparently solicitous family; at this point, she notices that, while the “inside room” is still important, she has less time and energy for it. McCullers exposition of Mick’s transition from inventive childhood to dulling adulthood is subtle and is one of the best aspects of the novel.

Of the four, Brannon is the most enigmatic. After his wife dies, he redecorates in what seems a distinctly unmasculine way (in contrast to his heavy, black beard, the subject of many comments). Even more interesting, he begins to wear his late wife’s perfume. While he observes, defends, and supports Jake, his sexual feelings are focused on Mick, to whom he seems distant and cold (in her naiveté, Mick attributes his attitude to the fact that she and Bubber shoplifted gum from the café). Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

Not surprisingly, after Mick is sexually initiated, obtains a job, and begins to dress and behave more like a girl on the cusp of womanhood, Brannon loses interest and consequently warms up to her. She is now no more of a challenge to his impotence than his late wife was.

McCullers weaves a dense cloth of themes. First, there is the inward and selfish nature of loneliness. No one ever truly reaches out; in fact, Mick’s Jewish neighbor Harry, appalled by fascism and Hitler, and Brannon are the only characters who are interested in the greater world. The conditions of the working poor and the black experience are eloquently portrayed without much narrative or focus on details.

By the end, everything and nothing has changed. Mick is determined to escape fate through music, unlikely as it seems; a weakened Dr. Copeland becomes unable to carry on his “strong, true purpose.” Blount leaves town to find someone who will finally accept the basket of ideas that haunts his nightmares; Brannon, “suspended between bitter irony and faith,” faces the dawn exactly as he has for years.

McCullers’ portrayal of these disparate characters in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is true to life and reveals a remarkable insight into people, no matter their age, gender, race, or background — an insight that is lacking in her self-absorbed characters. The heart is a lonely hunter, so it will find what it wishes to — love — in the most unlikely of places. It would take many re-readings to mine the richness here.

31 May 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues

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cThe Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues by Susan Griffin. Not recommended.

In The Book of the Courtesans, Susan Griffin tries to capture the magic that made courtesans some of the most noteworthy and notorious women of their times. According to Griffin, a courtesan would need to have several virtues to succeed, including: timing, beauty, cheek, brilliance, gaiety, grace, and charm. Mixed with these virtues are seven “erotic stations”: flirtation, suggestion, arousal, seduction, rapture, satiety, and afterglow.

Griffin uses biographies to illustrate how various courtesans exhibited these virtues, for example, courtesan and poet Veronica Franco’s beginnings and career are covered under the chapter on “Brilliance.” Griffin, who earlier separated the concept of courtesan from those of mistress and prostitute, runs into trouble, for many of her plentiful examples do not fit her definition of courtesans. For example, she talks at great length about Mme. de Pompadour (mistress to Louis XV), Marion Davies (mistress to William Randolph Hearst), and “Klondike Kate” (gold rush saloon dancer). The point of naming these virtues is lost if a courtesan cannot be found who exemplified them.

Griffin’s information is untrustworthy. She states that Jeanne du Barry’s father was a monk as though this is an accepted historical fact. Most biographical information on du Barry, however, states that her father is unknown but could have been a cleric. There are numerous instances of this kind of misleading information throughout. She talks of a suggestive sculpture in the Musée d’Orsay based upon a body cast of courtesan Apollonie Sabatier, but art sources say this story is unconfirmed and originated from a rumour circulated at the salon where the sculpture debuted. It is difficult to separate Griffin’s blithe statements from the established facts.

The author doesn’t stop there, however. She engages in flights of fancy that sound poetic but have little basis in fact or reality. As a child, Mogador and her mother lived in fear of one of her mother’s former lovers. She escaped him twice, and, according to Griffin, “the exhilaration of these two escapes must have livened her [dance] steps” later in life. How the terror of running from being beaten and brutalised as a child could lead to “exhilaration” while dancing is clear only to Griffin. She uses “exuberance” in a similar context.

In addition, Griffin stretches metaphors past their limits, to the point where they are ludicrous rather than apt or poetic. For example, “even while destiny was robbing Céleste [Mogador] of any sense of safety, like the careening rise and fall of the polka, it also conspired to tempt her with something grander than simple security.” She says Marie Dorval “nearly asphyxiated herself for each performance,” which seems comparable to being a “little pregnant.” She states that, like the other poor people of Paris, Mogador saw the melodramatic events of her own life reflected [on stage]” and that “even today a pulse can be felt to vibrate back and forth between the stage and the audience.” What is lost here is that the members of today’s audiences are unlikely ever to have been poor in the same sense as Mogador.

Courtesans is replete with these kinds of disconnects. When discussing beauty, Griffin gives an example of a canyon, then claims that beauty “needs” to be enhanced — but fails to explain why or how one can enhance the natural beauty of a canyon. In other words, she demonstrates the opposite of her point — beauty does not need to be enhanced, and her concept of beauty is phony and ephemeral. She also says Blanche d’Antigny, at age 10, hid in the attic because of a “desperate longing” to stay in the “beautiful countryside.” The obvious never occurs to Griffin — that small children are rarely eager to leave the only stable home they have ever known, even an ugly one.

Another leap of logic occurs later when Griffin says, “Many men would have been threatened by such potency in a lover.” Perhaps this is generally true, but Griffin seems oblivious to the fact that “many men” aren’t Louis XV, king of France. His sense of security about du Barry’s “potency” is hardly remarkable, since he is the primary source of it.

Mostly, Griffin idealises the courtesan’s career, and much of Courtesans seems to reflect her personal regret that this lifestyle opportunity belongs to history. She quotes Veronica Franco as writing, “You can do nothing worse in this life . . . than to force the body into such servitude . . . to give oneself in prey to so many, to risk being despoiled, robbed or killed . . . what fate could be worse?” Franco’s advice is quite clear — except to Griffin, who says, “In fact, the impassioned tone of her letter does not contradict the passionate defense she made of courtesanry [where?], but instead outlines the perils courtesans faced . . .” “What fate could be worse?” than subjecting one’s will and body completely to others seems a very specific condemnation of the lifestyle, but not to Griffin. We can’t expect anything more of the author who peppers this “history” with page after page of fiction and who says, “But that is why fiction exists — so we may see the undocumented moments that would otherwise pass out of history, and thus out of our understanding, unwitnessed.” In other words, don’t file The Book of the Courtesans under “History/Women’s History,” as the cover suggests. Shelve it under “Susan Griffin’s idealist imagination.” Better yet, consider reading a different book altogether. Grandes Horizontales by Virginia Rounding has been recommended as an alternative.

As an aside, there is no index, which also detracts from any value this book may have had as a reference.

12 May 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf

Book review: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation

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Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis. Not recommended.

In Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis uses six vignettes to show how the thoughts, acts, and interactions of the leaders of the “Revolutionary Generation” reveal their uncertainty about the new republic’s ability to survive and about the issues that threaten that survival, including slavery and the two parties’ fundamental differences. The “Brothers” of the title are Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton (one vignette examines their famous duel), George Washington, Benjamin Franklin (who is skimmed over, partly because of his age and lack of highest-level participation in the new government and partly, one suspects, because Ellis openly holds him in low regard), James Madison, John (and Abigail) Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

Ellis is a highly biased historian and, as a result, can be a sloppy one. He fares best with Hamilton and Burr, showing Hamilton’s concerns about Burr’s character at a crucial time when character mattered because so much was at stake. While, given the evidence of Burr’s lifetime, it is difficult to turn Burr into a sympathetic figure, Ellis does show that Burr and Hamilton were very much alike and, later, that many of the Revolutionary Generation had legitimate concerns about Hamilton’s character in the context of a republic.

Any attempt at objectivity ends with Hamilton and Burr, however. For Ellis, George Washington is the sole reason we are here today. While outlining his physical flaws (unimportant as these are in the context), Ellis believes that Washington had a prescient idea of what the nation needed, including a strong leader like himself — a leader who could write to the Cherokee “in this path I wish all the Indian nations to walk” (referring to his advice to them to stop fighting white expansion and to adopt white economics and culture). Ellis avoids the arrogance of this suggestion and any reference to what would happen when many of the Cherokee did exactly what Washington told them to do — the infamous Trail of Tears. For all of Ellis’s belief in Washington’s prophetic abilities and insight, he deliberately leaves out that which does not fit with his view of history — the fact that the Indians, whether compliant Cherokee or defiant Comanche, were going to suffer similar fates, whether they took Washington’s advice or not. Being further east and situated on prime land, the Cherokee merely faced theirs sooner.

Later, when listing the Founding Brothers’ individual faults, the worst Ellis can say of Washington is that he was not well read, did not write well, and was a poor speller (as though spelling ability is a critical quality in a leader — and as though the rest of the Revolutionary Generation were much better). He also notes that Washington was more of an actor than a leader, failing to acknowledge that leadership is largely a matter of acting out the role and performing for the public.

Ellis is similarly protective of John Adams, whose presidency is remembered as a bad one because that is what Jefferson wanted. Ellis points out that Adams’s best decision — to send a peace delegation to France — was made while Abigail was sick in Quincy, while his worst choices — support of the Alien and Sedition Acts — were made under her direct influence. When he says that Adams did well when all the votes were counted, despite “bad luck, poor timing, and the highly focused political strategy of his Republican enemies,” Ellis disingenuously blames circumstance, Abigail, and Jefferson for Adams’s failings. Ellis can gloss over the evidence, but he cannot explain away Adams’s personal choice to support bad legislation. He, not Abigail or Jefferson, was responsible for his own actions and his own presidency.

This is not the case with Jefferson’s presidency. While it is barely mentioned (it merits part of a paragraph on page 212), Ellis says that Jefferson’s first term “would go down as one of the most brilliantly successful in American history.” This passive statement implies that this success had nothing to do with Jefferson or his actions, but just happens to be how history has recorded it. Ellis hurries on to state that his second term “proved to be a series of domestic tribulations and foreign policy failures.” Ellis leaves the reader with the impression that Adams is not to blame for his mistakes and that Jefferson can take credit only for his failures.

At this point, Ellis enhances Adams’s quoted assessment of Jefferson by noting that “Jefferson was an elegant stylist, to be sure . . . But he was not a mover-and-shaker, only a draftsman.” This seems an odd point for Ellis to make, given his focus for much of the book on Jefferson’s tireless efforts to eliminate Adams and the Federalists as threats and to have his version of history emerge as the one remembered.

While Ellis’s view of Jefferson as a conniving, borderline psychotic may explain Jefferson’s behavior and pattern of denial, it does so partly because Ellis contorts the evidence to lead to his conclusion rather than letting the evidence lead him to the conclusion. At one point, he states that Adams must surely have seen an exchange of letters between Abigail and Jefferson and that “we can be reasonably sure that Abigail was speaking for her husband as well as herself” and goes on to elaborate that the “Adams team” was charging Jefferson with two serious offenses. One page later, Ellis contradicts himself when he says, “Although Jefferson probably presumed that Abigail was sharing their correspondence with her husband, Adams himself never saw the letters until several months later.” He quotes Adams as writing, “The whole of the correspondence was begun and conducted without my Knowledge or Suspicion.”

Later, Ellis reads Jefferson’s mind, asserting that his use of the “collective we” in a letter was “inadvertent acknowledgment of the coordinated campaign of the Republican party.” How Ellis draws this conclusion is unclear; Jefferson uses “we” three times in the sentence. There is nothing “inadvertent” about Jefferson’s statement; he is telling Adams outright the collective Republican leadership’s perception of his role.

Ellis has come up with an interesting interpretation of Washington as indispensable; Jefferson as treacherous, traitorous, and seemingly disturbed; and Adams between the two — a fiery but decent man, hamstrung by Washington’s aura and reputation and by Jefferson’s disingenuous deviousness. Jefferson’s version of history, which Ellis believes was consciously created, has won. The underlying problem is that, given the level of contortions, distortions, and outright mind reading it requires for Ellis to come to this point, his version of history is as suspect as that of the Thomas Jefferson he portrays.

If you want to learn about the aftermath of the American Revolution and the relationships of its leaders, read Founding Brothers — but read it critically and with an awareness that Ellis is guiding you not to where the evidence leads, but where he directs it to lead. It’s interesting, entertaining, and thought provoking — but then so is historical fiction. Trust Ellis’s objectivity as much as he trusts Jefferson’s.

5 May 2004
Copyright © Diane L. Schirf