The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: A review

The story is well known by all the literate or movie-going world. It's a story told by Nick Carraway, a young man from the Midwest who moves to New York in the early 1920s to seek his fortune in the city selling bonds. He rents a cottage in a (fictional) village called West Egg on Long Island. That cottage just happens to be next door to a gaudy mansion belonging to an entrepreneur named Jay Gatsby. Just across the water in the village of East Egg is another mansion which belongs to fabulously wealthy Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Daisy, serendipitously, turns out to be a cousin of Nick's. 

And Daisy is the first love of Jay Gatsby. The time is 1922 and the Great War is over, but five years before and before Gatsby went off to fight in that war, he and Daisy had a passionate affair and were deeply in love and planned to spend their lives together. But once Gatsby went away, they gradually lost touch and Daisy met Tom and married him and they had a daughter together.

Now Gatsby is back and purchased his mansion, where he gives extravagant parties, in the knowledge that Daisy is just across the water. At night he stands on his dock gazing longingly across at the green light that shines all night on the Buchanans' dock. 

Gatsby's origins are mysterious as is the source of his wealth, but we gradually learn that he was born and grew up in poverty and that everything he has acquired since has been a scheme to attract the attention of his beloved Daisy.

Tom Buchanan, though extremely wealthy, is an extraordinarily unpleasant man, a bully who is serially unfaithful to his wife and is currently conducting an affair with a working-class woman named Myrtle whose husband owns a garage.

Through Nick's efforts, Gatsby and Daisy reunite, but, ultimately, she is unwilling to leave her life of luxury with Buchanan. Recklessly driving Gatsby's car on the night she makes this known to him, she hits Myrtle who has walked into the road. The woman is killed and Daisy speeds away.

Myrtle's husband believes that Gatsby was driving and goes to Gatsby's house and kills him and then kills himself. Daisy and Tom are free to continue their lives of decadence and excess.

The end.

I first read this book many years ago - I can't remember exactly when - and was underwhelmed by it. I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. Reading it now, all these years later, my reaction is a bit different and the book has risen in my assessment.

The novel seems a very focused and deliberate piece of writing and there are themes and symbols there that I simply don't remember noticing when I first read the book. For example, there is Tom Buchanan's casual racism and misogyny and his proto-fascism.

In the first chapter of the book, when Nick first meets Tom, there is this conversation:

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be - will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved." 

I can't remember that that made much of an impression on me at all with my first reading and yet now it stands out like a flashing neon light on the page. This is representative of Tom's opinions as expressed throughout the book. What an awful man he is!

In fact, there are really no likable characters in this short book. Nick Carraway comes closest, but even he is not someone that one would choose as a friend. The writing is polished like a crystal; the language is rich but the characters are cold and distant. By design, I think.

The edition of the book that I read this time had a foreword by Fitzgerald's granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan, which gave some familial context to the writing of the book. But, best of all, it had an introduction written by Jesmyn Ward, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. Her introduction helped me to see things that I had not seen before and to understand the book in a new way. Her introduction was my favorite part of this reading experience.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly: A review

I read the first Harry Bosch mystery, The Black Echo, five years ago, in August 2013 and I was hooked. I came late to my addiction because that book had been published more than twenty years before in 1992, but I've been chasing Harry ever since, usually reading three or four of the books each year. 

And now I've finally caught him! Two Kinds of Truth is the most current entry in the series, so now I'll have to wait around until Michael Connelly produces another one. 

Harry is well past his time with the LAPD and well into his 60s. He's working now for the police department in the small city of San Fernando, a suburb of Los Angeles, reviewing cold cases. But, one way or another, he keeps getting pulled back to his days with the LAPD.

This time an old case of his, one that he had cleared thirty years before, is being reviewed. The man he arrested for the rape and murder of a young woman was convicted and sent to death row where he has remained for the last thirty years. But DNA evidence that had not been available thirty years before now seems to indicate the the man convicted was not guilty of the crime. Harry is not buying it. He is convinced that the man was guilty and that the new evidence has somehow been faked and the whole thing is an elaborate scam. 

The team that is reviewing the old case includes one of his former partners, Lucia Soto. The team comes to San Fernando to interview Harry and he is immediately defensive and irascible and imputes biased motives to the investigation. In other words, Harry is being Harry.

In the middle of his interview with the review team, he gets called out because the SFPD has caught a double homicide. Since the department has limited staff, they need all hands on deck to help handle the case and that includes Harry. So for the first time in several years, he finds himself working a current case.

At the same time, he is reviewing material from that old case and trying to figure out how the defense team set up the scam that he is certain is being worked.

The current case involves the murder of two pharmacists, a father and son, at a small independent farmacia. Harry immediately develops the theory that the murders are the result of some nefarious activity on the part of the son, but he is wrong! Gasp! 

In fact, it turns out that the hit was because of a complaint that the son had filed because his father was providing opioid painkillers based on falsified prescriptions. And the complaint filed with the medical society had landed on the desk of - wait for it - another of Harry's old partners, Jerry Edgar. Jerry is able to assist Harry with some information that helps him when he goes undercover to try to break up the drug ring. A drug ring run by Russians and other Eastern Europeans.

Meantime, Harry hires his half-brother, Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, to protect his interests in the old case that's being reviewed. With Haller and his investigator Cisco on the case, we can be pretty sure of how this one is going to end.

So we have two story-lines: the old case that's being reviewed and the current double murder case. Both of the stories could easily have been pulled from today's headlines, especially the Russian-run opioid drug ring. Connelly deftly handles the two plots and never lets us get lost in the weeds. After more than 25 years of writing these mysteries, I think he's finally got the hang of it.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars      

Poetry Sunday: The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is a much-honored American poet, having won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She is also very popular, which does not always follow from being honored by critics and their like. I think her popularity comes, at least in part, from the fact that her poems honestly celebrate pure pleasure and the intelligence of the senses.

This is one of her poems that I particularly like. She speaks for/to me when she writes, "I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention..."

If I have learned nothing else in my life, I have learned how to pay attention. 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

This week in birds - #315

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

Eastern Kingbird photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Coast.

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The Weather Channel has a series running about the effects of climate change and the potential for conflict and the migration of people as a result of water shortages caused by those effects, particularly in places like the Middle East.

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The current administration in Washington has rescinded an Obama-era ban on the use of pesticides linked to declining bee populations. Environmentalists, who had sued to bring about the two-year-old ban, said on Friday that lifting the restriction poses a grave threat to pollinating insects and other sensitive creatures relying on toxic-free habitats.

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Climate change is responsible for many new and difficult conditions for both man and beast, but wind is one of the most overlooked of those elements. An increase in the force of spring winds is not yet the stuff of earnest discussion among the majority of folks in North America, but in some places it is having a deleterious effect on the efforts of birds to nest.

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The New York City EcoFlora project is an effort using citizen scientists to document the plant life around the city. It was started last year by scientists at the New York Botanical Garden and it has turned up a few surprises along the way.

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We've heard that the loss of habitat is a serious problem that is contributing to the decline in population of many grassland birds, but the fragmentation of habitats may be just as problematic.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the controversial pesticide chlorpyrifos, which former administrator Scott Pruitt had refused to do last year, despite mounting concerns about its risks to human health. The court said that federal law requires that the EPA ban the use of a pesticide on food if it finds any harm from exposure to it, saying that there was “no justification” for Pruitt’s decision to allow farmers to continue to use chlorpyrifos “in the face of scientific evidence that its residue on food causes neurodevelopmental damage to children.”

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Birds of the Mojave Desert have suffered a major population decline over the last century because of the changing climate.

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In a bit of potential good news for birds and other at-risk species, there is a bipartisan bill before Congress called the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act which would provide $1.3 billion a year for at-risk species and offer significant benefits for the country’s approach to conservation. If it becomes law, it could protect many more species of birds. 

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Over the last 50 million years, whales and dolphins lost a gene called PON1. For most of their existence, that gene was not necessary, but in a changing world, it appears that its lack is something that will make the creatures more vulnerable to pesticides and could, in fact, doom them to extinction.  

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Least Terns nesting on Sand Island off the coast of Alabama were safe from predators but not from humans playing volleyball on their nesting grounds. The thoughtless humans decimated many of the nests and destroyed eggs. The Audubon Society of Birmingham managed to save some.

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Bird Conservancy of the Rockies has confirmed that a rare bird, the Baird’s Sparrow, has been found actively breeding at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, the first time the species has been documented reproducing in the State of Colorado. 

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Wild rice is a food staple of Ojibwe communities across the Upper Midwest where it is also used in their traditional ceremonies. But the production of the rice depends upon the weather and that is being threatened by climate change.

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“Partial migration”—where some individuals within a population migrate and some don’t—is common among birds and is speculated to be a step on the evolutionary path to complete, long-distance migration, but scientists know very little about how it actually works. A new study from The Auk: Ornithological Advances tracks where American Crows go during the winter and shows that, while individuals are consistent in whether they migrate or stay put, partial migration might give them enough flexibility to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The study found that most crows in both the eastern and western parts of the country do migrate some distance to breed.

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Saving the endangered steelhead trout could be a key to helping to heal some of California's regional water woes.  A coalition of private and public entities hopes to re-invigorate vital watersheds in California’s most densely populated region thus creating a friendlier habitat for the trout as well as providing more water for other needs.

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This is one of the most hopeful stories I have read this week: Scientists are working to create a material that could replace plastic and that would self-destruct or break down for reuse. They are, in effect, designing the death of plastic. Considering the huge problem that plastic is for the environment, we can only wish them well in their effort and hope that they will succeed very soon.

Hell is Empty by Craig Johnson: A review

Hidden somewhere in Walt Longmire's closet must be one of those special suits that cartoon superheroes wear. A red, white, and blue cape with matching tights perhaps. He certainly gives every indication of being one of the Indestructibles in this entry of Craig Johnson's series about the sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. He endures a blizzard with gale-force winds and temperatures of forty degrees below zero, a forest fire that traps him in a lake and forces him to go underwater to survive, days with little food and less sleep, confronting a mountain lion, being shot, nearly falling off a mountain - the list goes on and on. But, in the end, he's left alive, sitting on his front porch enjoying pleasant spring weather with his friend Henry Standing Bear, his deputy/lover Vic Moretti, and his daughter Cady.

We only get that one glimpse of pleasant weather. It seems that all of these Walt Longmire stories take place in winter when a blizzard is blowing through the Wyoming mountains. And winter seems to last for much of the year. The action in Hell is Empty takes place in May but winter is still most definitely on the scene. 

The action opens with Walt and his deputy Santiago Saizarbitoria (aka Sancho) helping to transport three convicts, murderers all, on their way to their assigned prisons. Transporting convicts across rugged country in a van...hmm, I wonder what could go wrong.

A full force of law enforcement is involved, including FBI and other local sheriffs and prison guards, but, soon enough, what we expected happens and the criminals escape, killing or wounding several of the lawmen in the process. Walt and Sancho were not present at this time, but they soon realize that something is wrong and find the scene of carnage and the convicts gone, taking hostages with them.

One of the convicts is a particularly bad character, a sociopath whom Walt has lately learned had, ten years earlier, killed a young man named Owen White Buffalo. Walt has history with the White Buffalo family, particularly Virgil White Buffalo, who we met in a previous book and who we eventually learn was Owen's grandfather. Part of the reason for the convicts being taken through that part of Wyoming was that the killer had promised to show them where he had buried the victim.

With a storm on the way and communication with the outside world patchy at best, Walt leaves Sancho in charge of the wounded and heads out on his own to track the sociopath. Sancho fills a backpack of supplies for Walt and includes the book he was currently reading, one that was on a list recommended to him by his co-workers. It is Dante's Inferno. Let's see, wasn't Virgil the guide through the different levels of that Hell? I wonder if there could be a connection...

I won't really bore you with the plot. In fact, there isn't much of one except that Walt pushes on through fire and ice, and refuses to give up when any sensible human being would have stopped and waited for the back-up which was on the way. He chases his prey up Cloud Peak, where he's been before in this series. It might as well be named Mystic Mountain, because every time he goes up it, he seems to have a mystical experience involving the spirits of long-dead Indians. Spirits which he refuses to acknowledge or discuss once he gets off the mountain.

This novel was written as a thriller and had very little of the sardonic humor that usually makes the series such a pleasure to read. Moreover, there was little or no interaction with the supporting characters that are so much a part of these stories. It was just all Walt, Superhero, all the way through. It wasn't bad. The connection between Dante's Inferno and that Virgil and Walt's Inferno and Virgil White Buffalo may have been laid on a bit thick, but I found it interesting. The sections featuring Walt's conversations with Virgil White Buffalo were the most enjoyable parts for me. On the whole, though, this was not one of my favorite Longmire stories.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars  

Clock Dance by Anne Tyler: A review

I loved Willa Drake, the protagonist in Anne Tyler's latest book, Clock Dance. I confess I totally identified with her, which, of course, means she is perfect in every way. And she is perfectly drawn by the author.

We first meet Willa at age eleven. She is the older of two daughters. Her sister is six. Her father is the stolid, dependable parent. Her mother is the drama queen, often making theatrical exits from the family whenever she's feeling unappreciated or misunderstood. She always comes back eventually, but her unpredictability marks the lives of her children forever and makes Willa vow that she will be a good mother, "which to her meant a predictable mother," Tyler writes.

Willa grows up in Pennsylvania, eventually goes off to college in the midwest, cuts short her education for an early marriage to a native Californian and moves to California where they raise their two sons. Then, when her first husband dies as a result of his own road rage bullying, she later remarries a semi-retired lawyer and they move to Phoenix, next to a golf course. Her husband is an avid golfer; she tries the sport but finds it boring. Her sons have grown up and moved on in their own careers. They don't need her anymore and seldom get in touch with her. Neither of them has married and neither has produced any grandchildren for Willa. She feels that vacancy deeply.

At age 61, Willa's life has become sadly predictable and without challenge. Then one day she gets a phone call that changes all that.

A former girlfriend of Willa's younger son has been injured and hospitalized and there is no one to care for the woman's young daughter. A neighbor finds Willa's phone number listed by the injured woman's phone and, mistaking her for the child's grandmother, she calls her to ask if she can come and care for her. Willa has nothing else going on in her life and takes the chance, even though she's never met the former girlfriend or her daughter. And, oh yes, the woman and her daughter live in Baltimore.

When Willa gets to Baltimore, she truly comes alive. She finds that she easily fits in with the larger community where the former girlfriend (Denise) and her daughter (Cheryl) and their dog (Airplane) live. It's a community peopled by interesting and diverse characters who are friends of the mother and daughter. These are people who know their neighbors and who look out for them. It's a true community, the kind of community that I think we would all like to live in, and it is lovingly drawn by Tyler.

Anne Tyler makes writing look easy. I think it is because she writes about ordinary people, people that any of us might know. Or be. Her stories and characters are relatable because we can see ourselves in them. Still, in spite of the fact that she has won a Pulitzer Prize and been short-listed for the Man Booker, it seems to me that Tyler doesn't really get the credit she deserves for being a great writer. When people list great writers of our day, she doesn't always get mentioned. She should.

I read Kate Tuttle's review of this book in The New York Times and found it particularly insightful, especially the last paragraph of that review, which, with apologies to Tuttle, I quote here:

Despite her many accolades, Tyler is sometimes dismissed for her books’ readability, for their deeply familiar pleasures. And she can occasionally spout a cliché (“Sometimes Willa felt she’d spent half her life apologizing for some man’s behavior”). However, it’s usually the kind of line that’s a cliché because it’s true. When I told a friend I was reading Anne Tyler, she said, “Oh, my mother loves her books!” In the world of serious literature, this is not a raving endorsement. But, just like Virginia Lee Burton’s “The Little House,” the novels of Anne Tyler seem simple because she makes the very difficult look easier than it is. Her books are smarter and more interesting than they might appear on the surface; then again, so are our mothers. 

Exactly! 

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

     

Poetry Sunday: August by James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He was extremely popular in his day. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" because he was from Indiana and his poems often reflected the rustic landscape and country values of that mostly rural state. He's fallen out of favor a bit today, but when I was in elementary school we still read his poems and I remember some of them quite fondly. 

This is not one that I remember but I came across it when searching for a poem to feature today and it seemed a perfect evocation of a hot August day. I hope you agree.

August

by James Whitcomb Riley

A day of torpor in the sullen heat
Of Summer's passion: In the sluggish stream
The panting cattle lave their lazy feet,
With drowsy eyes, and dream.

Long since the winds have died, and in the sky
There lives no cloud to hint of Nature's grief;
The sun glares ever like an evil eye,
And withers flower and leaf.

Upon the gleaming harvest-field remote
The thresher lies deserted, like some old
Dismantled galleon that hangs afloat
Upon a sea of gold.

The yearning cry of some bewildered bird
Above an empty nest, and truant boys
Along the river's shady margin heard--
A harmony of noise--

A melody of wrangling voices blent
With liquid laughter, and with rippling calls
Of piping lips and thrilling echoes sent
To mimic waterfalls.

And through the hazy veil the atmosphere
Has draped about the gleaming face of Day,
The sifted glances of the sun appear
In splinterings of spray.

The dusty highway, like a cloud of dawn,
Trails o'er the hillside, and the passer-by,
A tired ghost in misty shroud, toils on
His journey to the sky.

And down across the valley's drooping sweep,
Withdrawn to farthest limit of the glade,
The forest stands in silence, drinking deep
Its purple wine of shade.

The gossamer floats up on phantom wing;
The sailor-vision voyages the skies
And carries into chaos everything
That freights the weary eyes:

Till, throbbing on and on, the pulse of heat
Increases--reaches--passes fever's height,
And Day sinks into slumber, cool and sweet,
Within the arms of Night.