Doctorow's Picks

Taken from E.L. Doctorow

Well, I kind of got away from reading the "D" list for a while, but I got back to it with the annual anthology of short fiction, Best American Short Stories, the 2000 collection, edited by E.L. Doctorow. Doctorow, as some of you may know, wrote the famous book, Ragtime. The stories he selected for this volume were mostly enjoyable to read. Some were sweet and uplifting, others kind of depressing, but all were representative of the human condition.

The authors included were: Geoffrey Becker, Amy Bloom, Michael Byers, Ron Carlson, Raymond Carver, Kiana Davenport, Junot Diaz, Nathan Englander, Percival Everett, Tim Gautreaux, Allan Gurganus, Aleksander Hemon, Kathleen Hill, Ha Jin, Marilyn Krysl, Jhumpa Lahiri, Walter Mosley, ZZ Packer, Edith Pearlman, Annie Proulx, Frances Sherwood. Some of these writers were not as famous in 2000 as they would later become. Juno Diaz, for instance, is now well known and the winner of prestigious writing prizes, but in 2000 he had not yet produced a novel. A few others, however, have not gone further in their careers, despite early acclaim. One such writer is ZZ Packer, whose debut short story collection was highly praised. She continues to have difficulty following up that early success.

I read Ragtime and one other book by Mr. Doctorow. Both were very good. I was sad when he died last year from lung cancer.

Now on to the next "D" book, although I'm not sure yet which one it will be.

Five Books Considered; Three Make the Cut

I did finish Making Gray Gold and found it to be very informative and a little bit scary, especially when I got to the part where the author talks about how nursing homes make their money, treating care of the elderly as a commodity, using "beds" as shorthand for the people who were being cared for as if they were objects to be sold. This book was published more than twenty years ago; some things have gotten better, thanks to patients' rights advocates and changes to laws, but other things have stayed the same. And with the tsunami of baby-boomer elderly looming, it's likely that states will not be able to afford to care for those who need it. Those who sell these services may find that they've priced their customers out of the market. It's going to be interesting to see how this problem will be solved.

After that book, I began reading Jared Diamond's Pulitzer prize winner, Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was well received when it first came out in 1999. After a while, though, the book seemed a bit dated and perhaps just a tad too scholarly for a popular history, so I decided to let it go and moved on.

Granite Quarry

Next I turned to a couple of small volumes dealing with Deer Isle in Maine--both historical accounts. One is an Images of America: Deer Isle and Stonington, the other a history of granite quarrying in Stonington and other towns of the island, Stone Slabs and Iron Men. Both were interesting, especially the book about granite, since it contained more history than the other. I learned a lot that I didn't know about stone quarrying. It is much more complex and intensive than I had imagined. I gained more respect for those who did this work, especially before the introduction of powerful machines. Both books are worth reading.

Following the Deer Isle books, I turned to A Book of Common Prayer, a novel by Joan Didion, a famous writer of the 20th century. It started out interesting enough, but ultimately, the characters failed to elicit my sympathy. All seemed rich and whiny and deserving of their fates, so I put it down about half way through. I've never read any of her books before, but I know that she is popular among some readers, so if you are a fan, you will probably enjoy this book. As for me, I won't be returning to Ms. Didion's work.

Alexandre Dumas

Finally, I thought I'd check out a classic novel I'd never read but heard much about: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, who also wrote The Three Musketeers. Monte Cristo was published in serial format from 1844-1845 in France and later translated into English. The book has a historical backdrop: the post-Napoleon period in French history. It is already quite entertaining and that's a good thing, because at 783 pages, it's very long!

So, as you can see, though I haven't written here for more than a month, I've been very busy! Until next time, happy reading!

Mysteries, Puzzles and Alchemy

The Jeffery Deaver book went fast, as all his do. He's a master craftsman of the clever twist, and there were plenty on offer in this novel. Check the synopsis at this link: The Mistress of Justice. I won't reveal any more than that because I really do recommend you read this book if you're a murder mystery fan.

The next book I started to read, The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws, by Margaret Drabble, was less engaging. Apparently a memoir, it started out well with the introduction giving me hope that I would learn about how jigsaw puzzles helped her with her depression. But I quickly got lost in a meandering, confusing journey through the history of games and the writer's childhood in England.  I gave up trying to make sense of it after only about 30 pages. I was disappointed, as I had hoped to learn something. The book got good reviews, so some people must like that sort of approach to telling a story. I've never read any of her novels, but this book left me wondering if her technique in those is similar.

Dr. Timothy Diamond

Now I'm reading a much more interesting book by another "D" author, Timothy Diamond: Making Gray Gold: Narratives of Nursing Home Care, published in 1992. I bought the book some years ago when I was considering writing a history of nursing assistants and read a part of it. Taking it up again, I'm struck by how interesting and well written it is. The author, a sociologist, tells the story of the current state of nursing homes and the people who work and reside there. Part of his research involved actually working full-time for more than a year as a certified nursing assistant in a variety of care facilities, during which time he interviewed and collected stories from the workers, most of them fellow nursing assistants. He also visited many facilities to get a broader view of the industry. At the end, he gives his recommendations on how to improve care homes. I'm looking forward to that.

My recent experience with care homes makes me realize that some of his observations would still be accurate today. Nursing homes have changed for the better in many ways since 1992, but some things have gotten worse. Certainly the impending wave of baby-boomer elders will have a significant impact on how care homes evolve. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on what I learn!

The End of an Era - "At Last!" Say the Whales

Taken from the Whaling Museum website

Well, I've finally finished Leviathan, and I must say it was a very good book! The section about the Civil War was very interesting; not surprisingly, the war took its toll on the whaling industry. Dolin focuses primarily on how the whaling ships were subject to being raided and destroyed by Confederate ships tasked with disrupting shipping and damaging the economy of the North, since most whalers were based in the northern states. One captain in particular made it his special mission to destroy as many whaling ships as possible, although he did spare the crews, allowing them to be transported to a nearby island. He attacked whaling ships around the globe and did particular damage to those in the Arctic, as they had no where to go to escape the attacks. He even continued his destructive mission well past the end of the war, claiming that he didn't know it was over. (That claim is suspect; he saw the newspapers in California and heard reports from sailors, but supposedly didn't believe them.)

After the Civil War, whaling in the old way started a serious decline. Not only were lamps being lighted by the cheaper kerosene, but the discovery of petroleum left the whaling industry with no market. Even the market for whalebone was diminishing. The early 20th century, however, gave the industry a temporary boost. Women's corsets were still in fashion, and baleen was being used for other manufactured products, including practice bayonets for soldiers. World War I provided a market for a while, too--whale oil was used to lubricate machines and people began eating whale meat as a substitute for beef and other meats that were in short supply because of the war effort.

By the 1930s, though, whaling was over as an American enterprise. It was done on a more industrial scale after that, by countries such as Norway, but for the US, whaling fades to a memory, its glory days captured in films and novels--and history books like Leviathan.

I recommend this book highly.  It is well-written and very informative, although the stories of wholesale destruction of whales are sometimes hard to read.  The writer does warn us of this in the beginning of the book, saying that his purpose is to give us the history of whaling, and not the sad, bloody saga of the ill-fated whales. He leaves that task to another author.

Next:  back to fiction with an early Jeffery Deaver novel: Mistress of Justice.

Sailors Are Happy, Whales are Blue

Taken from Whalingmuseum.org

Leviathan is proving to be a very interesting book, full of all kinds of information about whaling and the times, especially in New England.

So far I've learned that the War of 1812 devastated the whaling industry for a number of years, due mostly to the attacks on shipping from the British, and blockades of harbors. Whalers couldn't fish or sell their fish with all the hostilities on the water. After the war, though, the whaling industry started up again full force, with Nantucket leading the way, followed by New Bedford, MA, the busiest and most commercially successful port for whaling for many years. Checking the 1850 census for New Bedford shows most of the jobs were related to whaling: sailors, captains, pilots, carpenters, riggers, boat makers, block makers, and especially coopers to make the many, many barrels they would need to store the whale oil.

I learned about how the whaling industry expanded to all possible waters, including the Arctic Circle. Whales were being taken with no restraint, to the point that some began to worry they would all soon be gone. There was a letter published in a newspaper of the time, quoted by the author, that was from "Polar Whales" to whalers asking them to please stop fishing for them as they feared they would soon disappear forever--early conservation appeals that went largely unheeded.

Interesting, too, were the reports at the time that whaling ships would sometimes fill their cargo holds with slaves, bought in Africa and sold in South America, since by the mid 1800s the slave trade had been outlawed. On the other hand, crews from Nantucket often included black sailors, as the whaling Quakers of Nantucket believed in equality of opportunity as well as pay for their crews. One noted captain was black, commanding a mostly black crew; they sailed one of the most commercially successful ships of their era.

It had never occurred to me that the Gold Rush of 1849 would disrupt whaling, but it did. Crews on whalers were so attracted by the dream of getting rich quick that they abandoned their jobs in great numbers, especially those whaling ship crewmen working off the coast of California.  The captains of those ships had no choice but to go into port and abandon the enterprise until gold fever was over.

By now, late 1850s, things are starting to wane.  Soon the use of gas to light houses will supplant the use of whale oil and I expect the Civil War will have an effect on fishing of all kinds. But that remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted!

World War to a Whale of a Tale

Eric Jay Dolin

Well, I finished the novel about the unfortunate football players who, except for the narrator, all lose their lives in WWII.  It turned out to be pretty good and got me interested in wartime propaganda and in-house reporting and the real people who inspired the novel. I'm not sure I will read anything else by the author, but I can recommend his books to anyone who likes that sort of stuff.

I've started on a new "D" book: Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, by Eric J. Dolin. As the title claims, it is a history of the whaling industry, from its earliest beginnings before the colonies were established, through its heyday in the 19th century, to its current diminished state. I've read about a third so far and it's pretty interesting, despite its rather detailed descriptions of whales, boats and whaling procedures. I'm learning a lot about the types of whales considered good to hunt (right, for one) and what sorts of commodities whalers would extract from the unfortunate giant beasts. I'm looking forward to learning more in the days ahead.

Football and War

Ivan Doig

Going down the list of books written by authors whose last names start with D, I'm in the middle of a book called The Eleventh Man, a novel set in WWII about members of a Montana college football team who volunteered for the service.  The eleventh man is the chronicler of their adventures, Ben Reinking, one of the team who happens to be a journalist.  The story was inspired by real events, a Montana State College team that suffered the loss of 14 football players during the war.  Here is a link to that story: Everybody's All-Americans.

So far I'm enjoying the book, although it is a little too detailed at some times and a little slow at others. The author seems to write in the "western romance" tradition--think Louis L'Amour. But the premise is interesting, and I'm eager to see what happens to the players.

The author, Ivan Doig, has written many books, but unfortunately, died April 9th of this year from multiple myeloma.

Spices and Suspense

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, is a fabulous book! It was riveting from beginning to end. It's a story about a witch/healer from India who is learning to cope with modern life in San Francisco and with the restrictions that come with her powers. One of those is that she must not mingle with the mortals she is trying to help.  But mingle she does when she falls in love with a customer, with interesting consequences. It's very complex, but compelling. I recommend it highly. It's also a movie, apparently, that came out in 2006. I may have to check that out!

Mysteries Abound

The anthology of women mystery writers I've been reading is interesting. There is quite a variety of styles and approaches to the whodunit genre represented there.  One thing I like is that some of the writers are new to me, and of those, some are quite good. I'll be checking those women out in the future, I think.

One thing I've concluded from reading this anthology is that it isn't easy to write a mystery in the short form. Some of the stories seem to be wrapped up a bit too abruptly, featuring the Deus Ex Machina type ending, or so it seems to me.  The two who are already my favorites, Sara Paretsky and Nevada Barr, have done the best job of writing a good, short mystery, not surprisingly. Both are accomplished writers.

Matthew Pearl

I've already started another book in between stories, a novel by Matthew Pearl, The Last Dickens, also a mystery. It's very interesting, but then I like a book with a literary historical point of view!

Dark Tide of Greed

Stephen Puleo

Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, was a very good book, filled with interesting information about the era surrounding the beginning of World War I, 1915, when the molasses holding tank was built in the Boston wharf area. It was intended to hold molasses that would be trucked to a nearby plant where it would be made into industrial alcohol that would be used to make munitions.  The company was selling the alcohol to other countries involved in WWI, and then eventually, when we got into the war, to our manufacturers.

I didn't know that there were all these anarchists in our country then who were against the war and against government as well, I guess, exploding bombs that damaged property and sometimes killed people.

But the anarchists were not to blame for the disaster that killed 20 people and injured many more, some seriously, in January 1919--greed was.  But that's not surprising at this time (not surprising at any time, really), when there were not enough regulators to enforce laws that might have saved people if they had been paid attention to.  A hastily built tank that was shoddily made could not safely contain 2.3 million gallons of molasses, especially when it started to ferment and release gases. The miracle is that it stayed upright for three years, continuously leaking, before it ruptured and spilled its contents across a wide swath of Boston.  The spill was more like a tidal wave, really, like a tsunami of molasses; a 25-foot-high wave moving at 35 mph can do a lot of damage.  It sounds comical, but when you read about the suffering of the injured and dying, you know it must have been terrifying.

Reading this story can make you angry--be forewarned! But it's a worthwhile read just the same, because the story has been forgotten, at least by everyone except Bostonians. One person I know who grew up in the Boston area said he was told that parts of the city still smelled like molasses 40 years later.  Fortunately, the guilty were made to pay for their actions, but that didn't help all the people who were devastated by this avoidable accident.

Next I'm reading an anthology of mystery stories written by women, edited by Sarah Paretsky, Women on the Case.  So far, the stories are mostly well written, especially those by Ruth Rendell and Nevada Barr.