Anarchy And Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill: A review

Laos 1977. The Pathet Lao revolution has succeeded and the new Communist government is two years old. Unfortunately, it has not improved the lives of ordinary Laotians. The regime is bogged down in a mind-numbing welter of bureaucratic red tape. It seems impossible to actually get anything done.

Some of the old revolutionaries who brought the new order into being are disillusioned with its results. It seems that a few may be so disillusioned that they are willing to throw the whole thing out and start over again. A coup against the two-year-old regime is being planned.

All of this comes to light as the result of the death of a blind retired dentist. The man is run down by a runaway log truck on the streets of Vientiane. His body is brought to Dr. Siri's morgue. As the good doctor goes through his clothes, looking for identification, he finds a letter, written in code and in invisible ink. The enigmatic letters seem unfathomable. Siri and the local policeman Phosy take the letter to the man's home in a nearby village where his "wife" tells them that the letters refer to chess moves in an ongoing game that the dentist was playing, but Siri knows a little bit about chess and those letters don't refer to any moves he's ever seen.

Eventually, enough of the letter is decoded to reveal that a plot is under way. Now Siri must decide how he feels about that and how he will react.

There's really no doubt, of course. Disillusioned he may be, but Siri spent most of his adult life fighting for this new government and his beloved wife lost her life in that fight. He can't give up on it after only two years. He has to find a way to save it. Those who know Siri can be fairly confident that he will find a way and, with the help of his old friend, Civilai, now a senior member of the Laos politburo; his faithful Nurse Dtui; Phosy, the police officer; and Aunt Bpoo, a transvestite fortune-teller, Dr. Siri manages to foil the plot.

Meantime, Siri has other mysteries to solve. A government official is electrocuted in his bathtub. Was it murder? An accident? A weird suicide? Then a grieving village woman comes to him begging his assistance in finding out how her young son died. His body was pulled from the river, the mighty Mekhong, but she's seen many drowned bodies and something about her son's is different. Can Siri find out what happened to the boy?

Along the way, Siri is given some advice by an old friend: Do the small things well. We can't always control or even affect the larger issues of life, but we can pay attention to the small things that confront us and we can give each of them our very best effort. Justice for the death of a young village boy is one of those "small things" to which Dr. Siri dedicates his efforts.

Colin Cotterill has given us another winner in this enormously attractive and interesting series. Last Friday morning on NPR's Morning Edition, Colin Cotterill was interviewed and he talked about the Siri series and how it began. Here's a link to that interview:

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/10/158544377/dr-siri-books-began-with-a-surprise-hospital-stay

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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