This week in birds - Not!

"This week in birds" is taking the day off to celebrate the blogger's husband's birthday. We'll be back as usual next weekend. In the meantime, I hope you have an opportunity to be outdoors enjoying the birds and the environment and that you will remember to take whatever action is in your power to protect them both.

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen: A review

 

The Sympathizer who we met in Viet Thanh Nguyen's previous book has survived his time spent in a re-education camp run by his blood brother, Man. Now it is the 1980s and he and his other blood brother, Bon, are out of the camp and have made their way to Paris which is where we meet them in this book. The narrator is the only one of the two who knows that the re-education camp had been run by Man and that he is the one who was in charge of the torture which they endured there.

The narrator who describes himself as a man of two faces and two minds has a voice that demands the reader's attention and that voice mesmerizes us during the first part of this book. It is an eccentric and fractious voice that makes this story memorable and hard to put down.

We learn more about the narrator's history. We know that he was born in Vietnam and that he is half French, half Vietnamese. His father was a Catholic priest and this son has very conflicted feelings about the land of his father. France, after all, was the colonizer of his home country and as a child, he was racially abused by these colonizers speaking "in the language of Dumas, or Stendhal, or Balzac." He was humiliated by these encounters. And yet, as an adult, when he had the opportunity to flee his "re-education" he went to France. And not just any part of France but to Paris. He is both repulsed and attracted to French culture.

In France, in the second half of the book, the man of two faces and two minds becomes a drug dealer. He lives with a woman whom he calls his aunt who works in publishing and offers him entrance into the world of the left-wing French intellectuals. He quickly finds that these intellectuals have a taste for drugs and he seeks to fill their needs, or at least their desires. It's a short distance from there to becoming involved in gangland violence and to the experience of being tortured again. In fact, there are several scenes of torture in the book and they are hard to take and hard to read about. And, frankly, I felt they really didn't work that well or add anything particularly useful to the narrative. The narrator, however, approaches them with a kind of cynical humor and the assurance that the torturers cannot triumph over him because "I've lived through a re-education camp."

This is a book with multiple literary references. Voltaire and Baudelaire get their turn as do the aforementioned Dumas, Stendhal, and Balzac. The narrator reads and ponders the revolutionary ideas of writers like Sarte, Marx, and Frantz Fanon. If you remember the first book, The Sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize, you will remember that our narrator is - or was - a Communist and for a time he was a spy in America for the Communist government of Vietnam. In truth, his spying was done for his blood brother, Man. His intellectual evolution makes for a very complicated story that sometimes seems to double back on itself and to descend into mayhem. Moreover, the writing itself lends to the complication as the sentences occasionally run on for pages. 

This is a serious book that reviews some of the wrongs of history and perhaps even seeks to redress them in some way, but that does not detract from the fact that it is also highly entertaining. The book and its main character are not without their flaws, but, weighed in the balance, there is much more to like here than there is to dislike.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars     

How to Order the Universe by María José Ferrada (Translated by Elizabeth Bryer): A review

 

María José Ferrada is a Chilean journalist and writer of books for children. Now she has written this quirky little book for us adults. It is her first book to be translated into English and I read the translation by Elizabeth Bryer. It reads flawlessly as if its first language had been English.

Ferrada's first foray into adult fiction has a child as its narrator. At the start of the book, the child narrator who is identified only as M is seven years old and she adores her father, a traveling salesman who hawks Kramp hardware products in small towns across Chile. She is fascinated by her father's work and longs to be a part of it. Her wish is fulfilled when her father agrees to let her skip school and travel with him as he attempts to make his sales. All of this, of course, must be kept secret from her mother who would not approve and who seems to be emotionally absent from her daughter's life. Thus, M and D (the father) go on their adventures and the life of the traveling salesman becomes an alternative education for M. She learns all sorts of hardware-related information as well as about the weaknesses of the human heart and the unique moral code of the salesman. Her presence actually enhances her father's chances of making a sale as she preys on the emotions of his customers. Soon she is missing school for weeks at a time in order to be a partner in her father's work. 

At first it is not clear but gradually we recognize that these events are taking place in the time of Pinochet and things get a bit more complicated when another person joins the two in their travels. He is a photographer and he is looking for "ghosts," people who have disappeared. The photographer, known as E, is particularly interested in one disappeared person who was his best friend. Coincidentally - or perhaps not - we learn that he was also the first love of M's mother. Thus, the story which started out as a charming little tale of a father-daughter relationship takes a darker turn. E's activities do not go unremarked by the government and the story which has been moving along quickly is brought up short by a scene of horror. M, in her innocence, had been completely unaware of the darker side of Chilean society in the Pinochet era, and she struggles to understand and to find a new way to relate to her family and to the wider world.

This book though quite short and easily read in one sitting encompasses a wide range of emotions as a precocious child attempts to understand the world and to find a safe place for herself in it. Ferrada obviously understands the sensitivity of children and of the way their minds work and she excels in conveying all of this in her prose. Her writing is powerful and she draws us into M's consciousness and makes us see things through her eyes. The early part of the book reads almost like a fairy tale and it is often quite funny. The latter part as M and we as readers become aware of what is truly happening in her society and how it affects people for whom she cares is a much darker tale. The book leaves us with much to consider and that sense lingers long after we've read the final sentence.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth

Spring and Wordsworth just seem to go together. While spring may be the favorite season of most Nature poets, I can't think of anyone who wrote more poems that reference spring than Wordsworth. And so, even though I have featured this poem here before, it seems worth repeating. The sentiments it expresses never really grow old or stale.

Lines Written in Early Spring

by William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

This week in birds - #443

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are passing through. The adult males always arrive first to be followed soon by the adult females and the immatures.

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There was more progress for the Biden administration on getting its department heads in place this week. Most notably, Deb Haaland was confirmed and then sworn in as head of the Department of the Interior, the first Native American to head the department. Worldwide, indigenous people are often the most effective stewards of Nature and their leadership will be important in protecting Earth's land and water.

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Many countries are making an effort to curb the trade in plastic waste, but the United States is one of the greatest contributors to the problem.

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A new study of whale behavior after being attacked by whaling ships in the 19th century indicates that information about attacks was shared among the whales and that they then modified their behavior to avoid humans.

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Jaguars could roam over a wider area of the United States than previously thought according to a new study. The study identified an area of land the size of South Carolina located in Arizona and parts of western New Mexico that could potentially support as many as 150 of the big cats.

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Harpy Eagles are often persecuted in parts of Central and South America. A recent study identified cases of people killing the birds in eleven of the eighteen countries that are parts of their range. People shoot them out of curiosity and a desire to see them up close or because they perceive them as being a threat to their livestock.

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Restoring the Environmental Protection Agency will be an uphill battle for the Biden administration. The first order of business is to get the agency restaffed. Many people have left its employment in recent years and the previous administration either allowed staffing to languish or installed people who were inimical to the mission of the EPA.

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Here's a novel idea for reducing methane in the environment: Feed cows seaweed. Researchers have found that cows belch out 82% less methane if they are fed small amounts of seaweed for five months.

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The coyote that had terrorized an area near San Francisco over the last eight months was caught and euthanized last week. The animal had bitten five people, including two small children, in its attacks.

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Why did the amphibian cross the road? To get to a vernal pool where it can lay its eggs. At this time of the year, amphibians search for these vernal pools where they came from, but humans have made their search more dangerous by building roads in their way and they must risk their lives to cross those roads. Of course, many are squashed by traffic in the process, but caring humans volunteer to help them, ferrying them across roads to miss oncoming vehicles. (This annual effort was described by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass which I recently read.)

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And about Ireland and its snakes and St. Patrick: In fact, snakes were eradicated in Ireland during the Ice Age when the entire island was covered in ice. The snakes have never returned.

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Florida might wish that its feral hogs could be similarly eradicated for they are a destructive invasive species that numbers in the millions in the state. However, they are a boon to the professional hunters that seek them out for destruction.

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The wall that the previous president tried to build along the southern border of the country is in bits and pieces that really serve no purpose. They do not keep people out and they are an eyesore that causes great harm to the environment. The question now is what to do with those bits and pieces that cost over $15 billion to build, a price tag that was definitely not paid by Mexico.

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Why do hummingbirds hum? Inquiring minds wanted to know and so they studied the question and came up with an answer. It's all to do with aerodynamic forces and pressure changes. 

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An invasive grass is threatening the saguaro cacti, the West's most iconic cactus. The invasion of the grass has been allowed by climate change and so protecting the cacti ultimately involves fighting the warming of the climate.

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This is not the kind of news we've been used to reading about wolves recently but in fact, one species of the gray wolf is doing very well indeed. It is the Mexican gray wolf whose population has just about doubled in the last five years.

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One of the policies being considered by the Biden administration is the imposition of a carbon tariff on trades with countries that it deems are not doing enough to fight climate change.

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Wintering owls in Weaselhead Park in Calgary have been drawing tremendous crowds of birders eager to see them and that's not really a good thing because their presence stresses out the owls.

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The mountain gazelle has been hunted to near extinction worldwide, but it has found an unlikely sanctuary where it has made a bit of a comeback. On the edge of the war zone between the Syrian and Turkish border, the gazelle is actually recovering and its numbers are multiplying.

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China has a climate blueprint that is intended to get it to carbon neutrality before 2060 but the dependence of some of its companies and regions on coal is making that task more difficult. 

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Romania has a major conservation project underway. Its goal is to create a national park that will rival its American counterparts. Conservationists hope that it will be a "Romanian Yellowstone."

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The Keystone XL pipeline has been stopped but there is another pipeline, Line 3, that would deliver climate-polluting tar sands to the United States.  Indigenous people are raising the alarm about it, claiming that it would cut through treaty territory of the Anishinaabe people, threatening wild rice, fresh water, and the climate. 

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The West Coast's air quality improvements because of the pandemic were wiped out by the wildfires that swept through the area last year. The fires helped to make North America the only continent where air quality actually worsened in 2020.

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In a world where news of the environment is so often bad, there is actually some progress being made. There is, after all, some hope.

A Fatal Lie by Charles Todd: A review

 

In one of the more complicated plots in this long series of books featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge, he is sent to a Welsh village to investigate a death that, at first, looks like an accident. The body of a man is found in a river and he appears to have fallen from a great height. There is a nearby canal aqueduct spanning the valley, and the assumption is that he fell from the top of the structure. He is unknown to the local residents and has no identification on him. Rutledge suspects this is no accident.

The time is 1921, some three years after Rutledge had returned from the trenches of France suffering from shell shock, haunted by actions he had taken in the war, and barely able to function. It has been a struggle to get back to an appearance of normal and he is still haunted by the voice of Hamish MacLeod, the Scottish corporal whom he executed on the battlefield for failing to follow a command, but he has a talent for investigation and is a successful Scotland Yard inspector, although not a favorite of his superintendent. The superintendent generally likes to send him to remote villages to handle the cases there. Thus, he finds himself in Wales.

His first order of business is to try to identify the victim and find out what he was doing in a place where no one owns up to knowing him. His only clues are a faded military tattoo on the victim's arm and an unusual label in the man's shirt. Also, the man was quite short. Rutledge suspects that he may have been a member of the Bantam Brigade, a unit of soldiers who were under five feet and three inches tall and thus disqualified from military service because of the height requirement. His suspicions soon bear fruit as he learns that the man was Samuel Mitford, a World War I veteran who was indeed a member of the Bantam Brigade. Tracing his background, Rutledge learns that he had a baby daughter who had gone missing a year earlier, apparently having been abducted. Rutledge begins to suspect that Mitford may have been looking for the child and that is what brought him to the area where he died. He is now certain that the man was murdered and when two more people who were connected to Mitford are also murdered, he is more sure than ever.

As Rutledge goes about the countryside attempting to tie all the loose ends of his case together, we get the authors' (the mother and son team who are Charles Todd) wonderful descriptions of the little country villages and of a way of life that is beginning to fade even in 1921. There are also the tidbits of English history that are sprinkled amid the descriptions and all of this comprises one of the chief pleasures in reading this historical fiction series. (Who knew, for example, that there was a Bantam Brigade in World War I?)

The other great pleasure is the character of Rutledge, a uniquely humane and compassionate policeman who has overcome great difficulties and sorrows to achieve what he has. The authors' ability to deal knowledgeably and sympathetically with the issue of the PTSD suffered by many soldiers is one of the strengths of the series.

Todd's plots are always strong and that is the case here, too, although this one is so complicated and convoluted that one sometimes risks getting lost in the weeds. But readers who persevere will be rewarded. This may, in fact, be one of my favorite reads in all of this long series. My only caveat for others is that if you want to read the series, by all means, start at the beginning because each entry does build on past events.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - March 2021

As you may have heard, Southeast Texas, and indeed much of the southeastern corner of the country suffered an unusual and devastating freeze in February. For several days and nights, the temperatures hovered in the teens and low twenties (Fahrenheit), an event that our gardens with their many tropical plants are not generally meant to endure. On the coldest night, the temperature actually went down to nine degrees according to the thermometer on my back porch and if it was nine degrees on my sheltered back porch, it was probably colder out in my yard. After it was all over, my garden looked as though it had been swept by fire. It was all brown and black. I wondered if I would ever see green again.

But that was then, this is now.

The redbud tree is in full bloom.

And the bees are grateful.

In a tale of two Carolina Jessamines, the jessamine in one part of the garden, on a trellis near the garden shed, was savaged by the freeze and turned into a brown collection of sticks which are still waiting to be cut back, but the jessamine next to our patio, which was obviously in a much more protected area, remained green and is now blooming.

The coral honeysuckle, a native plant, never missed a beat and bloomed right on time and just in time for the migrating hummingbirds that are beginning to show up.

The plum tree probably actually benefited from the freeze and it has bloomed like never before, giving promise that we might actually get some plums from it this year.

 

The little pear tree, too, is in full bloom.

The loropetalum was in full bloom when the freeze hit and I figured that would be the last of its blooms that I would see for a while. The shrub was left, like many others, a mound of brown, but a month later, here we are. Most of the leaves are still brown and it hasn't put on many new ones yet, but the blooms are back.

Some of my blooms won't be back, at least this year. My old azalea under the redbud tree was full of buds and ready to start blooming when the freeze hit. All of those buds and most of the leaves died. There'll be no azalea blossoms this year. The Indian hawthorns died and have already been removed. The yarrow was ready to bloom when the freeze came and it died back to the ground, but it's back now and soon will be ready to bloom again. Many other of my hardy perennials died back to the ground (blue plumbage, for example) but are now coming back. Give it another month and the garden should look quite different. Perhaps by then I will have finished with my cleanup and will get around to replacing some of my losses.

Wherever you garden, I hope your garden and you are flourishing. Happy Bloom Day!

(Thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gardens.)