A Gambler's Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem: A review

This book has been published in the U.K. with the title The Blot, which actually seems a much better title than A Gambler's Anatomy. In backgammon, which is the preferred game of the main character in the book, a "blot" is a piece that stands alone, vulnerable to attack. Alexander Bruno, the main character, adopts that term to refer to something that has gone horribly awry with his anatomy. There is something growing in his head, between his eye and his brain. Something that shouldn't be there.

It is a tumor, and when we meet Bruno for the first time, in Berlin, that unnatural growth is just about to land him in the hospital after he suffers a kind of seizure while he is playing a high stakes game of backgammon.

Bruno is a professional gambler. He travels the world, winning large sums of money from rich amateurs who are sure that they have what it takes to beat this professional. He has been inordinately successful for a long time, but then, in Singapore, his luck turns. Suddenly, he is losing more than he is winning.

He moves on to Berlin where he hopes for a turnaround in his run of luck, but, instead, the losing continues. And then his health fails. 

The doctors at the hospital in Berlin diagnose his problem, but are not equipped to treat it. He learns that perhaps the only neurosurgeon in the world who may be willing to try to rid him of his unwanted "blot" is in Berkeley, California, where he grew up. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the money to get to Berkeley.

But, luckily, Bruno has an acquaintance from high school days, who now just happens to be in Berlin, and who is filthy rich. He offers to pay Bruno's way and to pay for the medical care he needs once he gets to Berkeley. Soon enough, he is back in California, undergoing major surgery that involves rebuilding his face after removing the tumor.  

He emerges with a face that he cannot recognize and he takes to wearing a surgical mask after his bandages come off. No one on Telegraph Avenue where he lives seems very surprised or put off by the man wearing the mask. In fact, he fits right in there.

Jonathan Lethem is an extraordinarily inventive writer who turns out exuberant prose that is steeped in a sardonic wit. In Alexander Bruno, he has created what should be a riveting character and yet he just seemed flat to me. I couldn't really care that much about him. He gives the impression of floating through life, on the kindness of strangers, without any real passion of his own. True, he is obsessive about backgammon and rather smug about his mastery of it, but he doesn't appear to see much beyond that. He didn't really engage my interest as a reader.

When I sat down to write this review, I had the oddest sensation. I realized that even though I had just finished the book the night before, I couldn't really remember how it ended. I reread the last chapter and, quite honestly, I still don't know how it ended. Perhaps that tells you everything you need to know about my reading experience with it.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars   

Note to my readers

We're celebrating our older daughter's birthday this weekend, so, even though I do plan to do the "This week in birds" post, it will be late - on Monday. The weekly poetry post has already been set and scheduled so it will be published Sunday, as usual.

Happy weekend! And happy birthday to Susan!

"Read up! Fight back!"

I've never actually thought of reading as a revolutionary act but perhaps that's what we have come to in this time of know-nothingness. At least someone in San Francisco seems to think so.

A mystery benefactor there has been paying for copies of 1984 by George Orwell, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson to be given away to interested readers with the admonition "Read up! Fight back!" 

On Friday night, 50 copies of 1984 were bought from Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury district, and placed on a table with a sign reading: "Read up! Fight back! A mystery benefactor has bought these copies of 1984 for you if you need one." The books were quickly snapped up, and then the anonymous donor bought copies of Atwood's and Larson's books, which also quickly disappeared.

The bookseller has said that this random act has inspired others to follow suit in this "fruitful, constructive form of resistance."

Since the beginning of the new administration in Washington, Atwood's and Orwell's dystopian classics have raced up best seller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, and earlier this week The Handmaid's Tale reached the number one spot on Amazon's list. 

Obviously, Atwood's book strikes a chord with many readers, especially women, given the political atmosphere of the day. A theocratic dictatorship where women once again have the status of chattel does not seem as far-fetched as it once did. Moreover, the book's sales are probably aided by the fact that many of us are looking forward to the TV adaptation of the book which will be airing in April.

I do find it heartening that people are turning to books in trying to understand what is happening and how we got to be where we are. Perhaps we can read our way to a more enlightened future, to a government that respects knowledge and the law.

Backyard Nature Wednesday: Waking up

Plants that looked entirely dead in the middle of January are now waking up and showing signs of life once again.

The old azalea didn't die back, of course, but it did lose some leaves. Now it is beginning its bloom cycle, which always starts at the bottom of the shrub and works its way to the top.

The split-leaf philodendrons that were a pile of black mush after our January freeze are now coming back, putting up new leaves.

The yellow cestrum lost all of its leaves, but now the new ones are coming on.

The lemon grass clumps all died back to the ground and I pruned off all the dead leaves with a hedge trimmer. Soon you won't be able to tell that it was "dead" in January.

Milkweed, slowly coming back. It can't be fast enough for the butterflies. I'm going to need to get some new plants from the nursery to fill in until my old plants can regain their growth and their blooms.

White mistflower, coming back strong, after losing all of its leaves to the frost.

Both my Satsuma and Mandarin orange trees are putting out new leaves, but I'm afraid the lemon trees are completely dead after blessing us with a bumper crop of fruit last year. Temperatures in the low 20s F were apparently just too much for them.

Hope is kindled as the garden wakes up and new life begins.

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: A review

This book had been in my reading queue so long it might have grown roots there. Every time it worked its way to the top, I would find a reason to read something else. But now, in this age of anti-intellectualism, anti-science fervor when some governments (such as that of the state of Texas) would ban and burn this book if they could get away with it, it seemed to me that the best response was to actually read it. So I did. 

It was not an easy read. The book was written for non-specialist readers but not really for the general public, and Darwin went into great detail, using the scientific vocabulary of his day, to explain his thinking, his methods, and how he came to formulate his theory of how species came into being and how they continue to evolve. Throughout the book, he continually gives credit to those scientists who have come before him, as well as his contemporaries, who have contributed to his process and to his findings.

He also lays out in detail various arguments that might be made against his theory and then does his best to answer them. They are much the same arguments that one might hear from a creationist today.

Darwin begins his explanation and defense of his theory by discussing animal husbandry. He writes of humans' effect upon their domesticated animals, breeding them to enhance the characteristics which they find attractive and want to encourage. He spends a great deal of time discussing pigeons and how humans have shaped them into many different breeds that differ in great detail from the original rock pigeon. He will return to the example of the pigeon throughout the book.

He then goes on to show that Nature works in essentially the same way as the human breeders of animals. The difference is that humans try to attain the ideal they are seeking in as few generations of the animal as possible, while Nature works on the scale of geological time. Thus, creating a species through natural selection may take thousands and thousands of years with minor, almost imperceptible changes taking place with each generation.

But those minor changes are of the greatest importance. Each tiny adjustment is tested in the crucible of survival of the fittest. If it is a change that will help an entity to survive, the change will be retained and probably enhanced in the next generation. If it is a change that does not contribute to survival or strengthening of its host, then it will be discarded - along with the host. This process is completed time after time across the eons with the goal always being that of survival and creating a better host.

It is now 157 years since Darwin, with some trepidation, sent his book into the world. We know that the book created a sensation in the scientific community and the general public at the time, and it generated considerable and sometimes fiery scientific, philosophical, and religious debate. After more than 150 years of such discussions, it still creates controversy in some quarters, but it is accepted as the foundation of evolutionary biology and there is no well-reasoned argument against it. Those who refuse to accept it generally do so on the basis of their religious faith which admonishes them to accept the holy book of that faith as history/science/philosophy, and that, of course, is their right.

The rest of us accept Darwin's theory as the unifying concept of the life sciences and view him as a hero in the history of science and the promulgation and popularization of the scientific method of thinking. Though we may still only see through a glass darkly, the light that shines through is in large part due to his work and writing. 

(Obviously, the book is worthy of five stars. It gets only four from me only because it was such a bloody ordeal to read!)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fear itself

Poetry Sunday: Abou Ben Adhem

When I was little, there were not a lot of books in our house, but one of them was an old textbook that had short fiction and poetry. I loved that book and wore it out reading it over the years.

One of the poems in particular struck a chord with me. Maybe it isn't great poetry, but it is very meaningful in its own way, and, after all, what more can one ask of a poem? 

Abou Ben Adhem

by Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold: -
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" - The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.