Who Killed Nadia? Who Cares?

Well, I finally finished Jackie Robinson, and I now know why Arnold Rampersad's biography was more than 500 pages.  Jackie Robinson lived life to the fullest.  It seems there wasn't a day in the man's life that wasn't dedicated to some higher purpose, despite the many setbacks and sorrows he experienced in his 53 years.  And though impulsive, outspoken and quick to anger, Robinson was an admirable man, I think.  I'm very glad I got a chance to learn about him and refresh my memory of the twentieth century and especially of the civil rights movement and all the people who were involved, for good or ill.  Jackie Robinson was there at the center of it all, even in his final years when his health deteriorated and he struggled just to get around.  I would recommend this biography highly, but if you read it, be prepared for the full meal deal!

I've now moved on to another murder mystery, Body Work, by Sara Paretsky, famous for her detective character, V.I. Warshawski. (Kathleen Turner plays her in a 1991 film by that name: V.I. Warshawski.)

Victoria Warshawski is a private investigator of the old-school, hard-boiled detective variety.  I haven't read many books in this series (I think this is the second), so I don't know much of the character's history, but I remember liking the one I did read, as well as another Paretsky novel (Bleeding Kansas) that wasn't a Warshawski installment and wasn't a mystery per se. 

This time, though, I'm not so sure.  The plot of Body Work seems a bit complicated and so far I'm finding it cumbersome and hard to get into.  As any mystery fiction reader knows, a good mystery should above all be gripping.  If the writer keeps me dawdling along, unable to understand who the people are or why I should care about what happens to them, I won't enjoy the book as much as one that has me hooked from the start.

I'm afraid Body Work is shaping up to be of the non-gripping variety.  The plot centers on a murdered artist who paints pictures on the nearly nude body of another artist, a woman who sits on stage in a bar and invites customers to paint on her.  Both murdered woman and body artist are unpleasant characters, and I find myself not caring much about them.  In fact, all the characters I've met so far, suspect or no, are unappealing, including the P.I. herself.  She's been hired to find out what she can about the accused murderer of Nadia (the dead artist), but she's pretty crabby about it.  The police's only suspect is an Iraq veteran suffering from PTSD.  His father, V.I.'s client, thinks he's innocent, but Victoria is not so sure. Though I'm 1/3 the way through the book, neither she nor the readers have learned much about her client (she hasn't even interviewed him yet), but he might turn out to be the most sympathetic character of the bunch.

It seems that the writer is leaning a bit heavily on the titillation factor of the nude artist, hoping that will keep her reader's attention, but I find it a bit distracting, especially when we keep returning to the bar and the body artist's rather boring act night after night.  All the people we meet there are hostile and I want to stop hearing about them or find out a little more quickly whether or not they're involved in the crime.

Nevertheless, I'll plug along and maybe finally get interested in who killed Nadia and why.  I'll let you know how it's going in my next post.

Spring Break

This past week, I must confess, I took a break from the intensity of Jackie Robinson's life story and read a murder mystery, the latest from Michael Connelly: The Fifth Witness.

I enjoy Michael Connelly's novels, and this one was particularly good. It features one of his continuing characters, Micky Haller, a defense attorney.  There's usually a current events angle in his plots; this one featured the recent mortgage foreclosure mess--the banker who is foreclosing on a home loan is murdered and the woman who is losing her house is the accused. 

Connelly gives readers an unlikable defendant and an attorney who wants to believe she is innocent.  There are many twists, some involving unscrupulous business men with ties to the Mafia, as well as a couple of romantic subplots.  I won't spoil it by telling you how it ends, but believe me, it was a quick, enjoyable read.

This coming week I intend to finish up with Jackie Robinson then move on to the next book.

By the way, I'm afraid the closing out sale at a local Borders Books store snagged me last weekend--at $2.50 a book, how could I resist?  I now have about fifteen additional books in my library!  But there's no problem.  Having plenty to read? It's all good.

Third Base . . . Won't Be Long Now!

I'm getting close to finishing Robinson's big life as told by Rampersad in his big book, and I must say that the amount of living Jackie packed into his short life is staggering! Before, during, and after baseball, Jackie showed that he would always "drink / Life to the lees" (Tennyson, "Ulysses").  Rampersad makes the connection to the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses, and I think it's quite apt. ( Here's a link to the poem for those who want to take a look: Ulysses. The poem is one of my favorites.)

It's no wonder Rampersad needed 512 pages to tell Jackie's story, because it's America's story as well.  I'm finding that there's very little in the first half of our century that Jackie was not involved in, especially with respect to civil rights.  He was there struggling with Jim Crow and its effects from the twenties to the seventies, with dignity and passion and respect for anyone who cared and was willing to help, no matter their creed or color.  The book reminds me a little of Forrest Gump, though in Jackie Robinson, all the main character's brushes with history really happened.

By the time I'm finished with this biography, I'm going to feel like I know all these people.  Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, and I wonder if people really understand the man they're paying tribute to in baseball stadiums across the country.  He paved the way for that one area of integration, but he didn't stop there. He dedicated his life to achieving racial equality and harmony.  He was a controversial guy, and far from perfect, but he was larger than life.  Just reading about all the many things he got into and the many people he knew in his life has been exhausting. What it must have been like to know him!

Jackie died in 1972, and right now I'm in the mid-sixties, so it won't be long.  And when I reach the end of this book, I'm going take a nice break with a mystery novel, simple and short!

Halfway to Home

I'm about halfway through Jackie Robinson's biography now, and I continue to learn about the man's life.  It's now the early fifties, when Jackie has established himself as a professional ballplayer and more people of color are entering major league baseball. But while the story of his ordeal in getting there was riveting, it was also hard to read about; what Jackie had to put up with from the time he signed with the Dodgers' minor league team through his first season in the majors was appalling.  I'm deeply impressed that he managed to get through it.

By the fifties, the vocal opposition to integrating baseball has not stopped but has lessened--publicly, at least.  What was interesting to learn about the late forties period, though, was that Jackie didn't make as much money as some other star ballplayers were making at the time, so he had to take other jobs to increase his income.  He frequently went on barnstorming tours following the baseball season, and did some endorsements and work on television.

Also interesting was the fact that Jackie testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in response to Paul Robeson's statements about black Americans' patriotism.  He managed to stand up for black Americans (including Robeson) while making it clear that he did not share Robeson's views.

Right now in the book Jackie's life story is being made into a movie, The Jackie Robinson Story, which came out in 1950.  Jackie has reached the point where he is treated well by most everyone he meets, though Jim Crow continues for the rest of black America, even his wife when he is not with her. This is troubling to him, says the author.  There may be more on this subject later in the biography.

I'm still enjoying the book though sometimes the details get a bit overwhelming and I find myself "fast forwarding" through some sections.  I'm also picking up on the author's purpose in writing the book.  Much like the author of The Bounty, Arnold Rampersad seems to want to rehabilitate the reputation of his subject.  Since I know little of Jackie Robinson's reputation for other than playing baseball, I don't know what assertions the author's countering when he emphasizes again and again Robinson's restraint, kindness, good nature, and friendliness.  To Rampersad, it seems, Jackie's the model baseball player, husband, father, business man, friend, and associate.  No one could be that perfect, so it makes me think Rampersad "doth protest too much"--is he failing to tell us the bad things because he doesn't want to give the stories about Jackie credence?  Or is it true that Jackie Robinson was simply a good guy?  I don't know, but in order to find out, I'd have to read the past stories about Jackie, which I don't want to do, at least not now.

So I'll go along with Mr. Rampersad a bit further, skip over some of the details and try to take his protestations of Jackie's perfections with a tiny grain of salt.

And I'll keep you posted!

From Rain Gods to Baseball Legends

Well, I guess it's been a while since I've written about my reading adventures! Since my last post, I finished the novel about the Angel family, The Rain God, and started a biography of Jackie Robinson, by Arnold Rampersad, entitled Jackie Robinson: A Biography, published in 1997.

The Rain God was an excellent book, and much better, I thought, than its sequel, Migrant Souls. Perhaps part of the reason Rain God was a better book is that it was largely autobiographical. The story is told mostly from the point of view of Miguel Chico (little Miguel), a gay man who drinks too much and suffers from intestinal cancer. The author is also a gay man with a difficult family and so is writing from his own point of view in this first book (as opposed to the sequel, where Islas is writing from the point of view of the women).

The Rain God is also better because it is better written, technically speaking.  I was much more able to get involved with the characters, I think, because of how smoothly the novel flows. The writing style enhances rather than obstructs the imaginative process.  I guess it's hard to explain!  By the time I finished this novel, I felt like I knew the people I met there.  And I learned a lot about the desert and Mexican Americans whose families have a long history of living in the borderland region (going back to the 1500s). I recommend both books highly.

So, now it's back to non-fiction, this time with a hefty biography by Arnold Rampersad, the biographer of Langston Hughes and other noted African Americans. (I've read the one about Langston Hughes.)  Jackie Robinson is 512 pages long and densely packed with factual and anecdotal information about the famous ballplayer, from his humble beginnings in Georgia to his late life business success.  It's written in chronological order; so far I've gotten to his World War II years.

I've found from reading just this small part of the book that I previously knew virtually nothing about Jackie Robinson; what I've learned so far is impressive.  What stands out more than anything is that Robinson was tremendously gifted athletically and incredibly disciplined and determined mentally.  What he was able to accomplish against formidable odds is astonishing.

Jackie was skilled in a wide variety of sports--football, basketball, baseball, track, tennis, table tennis. He lettered in four sports at UCLA, despite being there less than two years.  If he had been white, he would have been famous when he was in high school.  He would have been signed to a professional team as soon as he was eligible. He would have been celebrated across the country and treated with dignity, instead of being ignored or passed over for honors, and made to submit to Jim Crow humiliation everywhere he went.

So, this is a very interesting biography by a writer I enjoy.  I've had the book a number of years and started to read it once before, but got overwhelmed by its size. So I'm looking forward to getting to the end . . . sometime around May, I figure.  Stay tuned.

What Happens Next in Texas

Early this week I finished Migrant Souls and found myself at work with an opportunity to get the earlier Islas book, The Rain God, at the library.  So that's what I did, and started reading it.  The "sequel," if you will, is equally short, so I expect to finish it before the end of the week.

The Rain God is a very different book than its prequel, Migrant Souls. Its tone is different and even its style is different.  I found it more readable than the other, partly because it's the first book about the Angel family, and the relationships among the many members of the family are explained.  That was a problem with Migrant Souls--I couldn't keep the characters straight.

I'll have more to say about this book in my next post.

What We Know and Don't Know about Others

This week I've been reading Migrant Souls, by Arturo Islas, a Mexican-American writer and poet who died in 1991.  Here is a web article that tells about the writer as well as his novels: Islas. After reading about the book, I now know that it is a prequel to his first successful novel, The Rain God.  Both books are concerned with the lives of a family living in a small town on the Texas-Mexico border.  The people in the story struggle with each other and with their conception of what it means to be American.

I've been enjoying reading it; its pace is leisurely on one hand but quick on the other.  The narrator jumps whole decades from time to time, then settles into detailed scenes that reveal character and the problems the members of the family struggle with. The effect is to make me care about what happens to the people.  Many issues are dealt with--religious doctrine, homosexuality, divorce, women's place in society, "proper" behavior, inter-racial and -cultural marriage--through the actions and thoughts of the characters.

The narration is from the perspective of one or two characters in the story, but despite getting a lot of information about the people in this story, I have many questions that are unanswered about what happens to them. For instance, early in the book we learn that the main character, Josie, is getting married to an Anglo soldier.  Then ten years later, she comes home divorced, but with very little explanation (to us) about how it happened.  The fact that we are not told does not mean that the family are not told. I wonder if the author's intention is to keep readers in the semi-dark about the characters' lives to keep us in suspense. 

But another thought occurs to me: perhaps the characters are keeping the information from themselves and we are only seeing things they allow themselves to see.  There is quite a bit of discussion in this novel about not discussing uncomfortable truths; maybe the writer is making us experience this first hand by having us puzzle through the gaps in the narrative.

I'll have to think some more about this theory and get back to you. Meanwhile, I plan on putting The Rain God on my list to read at a future time; I want to see what happens to these people.

Home Comes the Sailor

Well, I've finally come to the end of the saga of Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian.  In the final chapters, the author tells us what happened to all the principals, how they fared in their lives and careers, and how they died. 

It's a great story, but in the end somewhat sad.  I kept hoping Bligh would regain some of his reputation and be sufficiently rewarded for his efforts, or that Peter Heywood (the man largely responsible for the alternate version of the mutiny) would finally be exposed as a fraud.  None of that happened, of course, and we're left with the Hollywood version of the story (itself taken from a novel) and with most people these days being unaware of "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey would say.

But fortunately, Caroline Alexander took an interest, and thanks to her we now have not only the story in all its complexity, but a different, more balanced way of looking at this seafaring tale.  I recommend The Bounty highly. 

And now, on to the next!  This time I'm reading a short novel, Migrant Souls, by a Chicano writer, Arturo Islas.  I started it today and already I'm involved in the characters' lives. It's about a Mexican-American family living near the border between Texas and Mexico, written from the point of view of two of the daughters.

(A side note: I first tried the novel A Feast of Snakes, by Harry Crews, thinking it might be light, but it was anything but that.  The main character is completely unsympathetic--violent, criminal, cold-hearted.  It's going into the give-away pile.)

Fletcher Christian: Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles

I'm almost done reading The Bounty, and I must say that I've learned a great deal from the book.  Since I last posted, I've read about the court martial, the aftermath for those accused, and the eventual discovery of where the mutineers who were never caught ended up. 

The court martial was interesting in that the British Navy's method of conducting the trial was very different from how we conduct our courts martial today.  One thing that struck me about the process was that the accused had to conduct their own questioning of witnesses, though they could solicit help from lawyers. The descriptions of what the various defendants asked each other was kind of strange and at times amusing. (Throughout the book, Alexander quotes from actual records.)

One thing that was also strange was that Bligh was not present at the court martial to testify against or for any of the accused.  He was off on a second expedition to collect and transplant breadfruit, this time successfully.  So at the court martial, the various defendants could lie without being contradicted by the chief witness, and it seems they all did, to one extent or another, judging by the number of different accounts of the events all of them took part in.

Another aspect of the court martial that seemed odd to me: of the six who were eventually convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death, three were allowed to seek pardon from the king.  And as it turned out, all three were granted pardon.  That means that despite being convicted of a capital crime, three of the mutineers walked away completely free men. (The others were hanged.)  Imagine if we had that possibility in our Uniform Code of Military Justice.  Or imagine the president being able to pardon murderers or kidnappers.  Would that ever happen in our country? Don't think so.

But probably the most interesting part of the entire story was what happened later, once the mutineers were judged and sentences carried out.  Over the course of 100 years or so, the original heroes and villains in the story became, in the eyes of the public, quite the opposite.  Captain Bligh, who at first was praised for his extraordinary strength and skill in getting his men back to England, and who received sympathy from other ship's captains for what the mutineers had forced him and his loyalists to endure, began to seem the villain.  And Fletcher Christian, who was at first seen as the evil leader of the mutiny, was gradually transformed into a hero, along with all his fellows.

The author of the book, Caroline Alexander, has her theories about how the switch occurred.  She gives a detailed account of the campaign waged by the families of both Christian and Peter Heywood, who was one of those pardoned.  Both Christian and Heywood came from prominent, wealthy families, with ties to powerful members of Parliament.  Their families were intent on rebuilding the reputations of the young men, thereby saving themselves from disgrace.  But in order to succeed in that endeavor, they also had to tear down the reputation of William Bligh. 

Their strategy apparently worked, thanks in part to the public's willingness to see rebellion in a new light.  Don't forget, the late 1700's was an era of revolution, and people were changing their minds about duty and the infallibility of those in power.  Alexander also believes the change to the Romantic ideal with its brooding Byronic hero (epitomized in Shakespeare's Hamlet), made it possible to see Fletcher Christian as such a hero, standing for freedom and against tyranny, despite all evidence to the contrary. (Bligh was actually a fairly restrained disciplinarian compared to his fellow captains.) Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, this version of the mutiny on the Bounty has held, giving us movies and plays with a Romantic interpretation of the events and the people involved.  But Caroline Alexander's book shows the story for what it was, in all its complexity, and makes the case that William Bligh was unjustly maligned.

In my next post, I'll talk about what happened to the mutineers and the end of the book.

What Hollywood Missed

I've read about half of The Bounty now, and as I had hoped, the author goes back to the beginning to tell the story of how all these unfortunate events took place.  Like all such accountings, the mutiny's story benefits from hindsight in that incidents that seemed minor or unconnected at the time are shown to have contributed in a major way to the outcome.

Caroline Alexander's purpose in writing this book, it seems, is to correct the misconceptions many people have about the mutiny on the Bounty, mostly derived from the movies that were made about it. She has certainly succeeded in that, at least with me.  It was, I have learned, a much more complex affair than Hollywood has portrayed. Its complexities are brought out through Alexander's detailed descriptions of the time and place of the mutiny along with plenty of quotes from diaries, letters, records and other documents of the era.  William Bligh's own journals and ship's logs make up the centerpiece of her sources, but many other primary sources are quoted, including reports in the London Times, that show all sides of the issue.  And of course there are a number of pictures to help us visualize the late 18th century and the story's principal players.

One of my responses to this book was almost immediate: I had no idea!  I thought I knew this story but it turns out I was wrong.  It is not a simple story of mutiny against a tyrannical captain, but an entirely different tale, one that involves the British Navy, 18th century class distinctions, imperialist policies, scientific exploration, international conflict, global weather patterns, even theories of medical treatment.  A much more interesting tale, in fact.

I've learned quite a bit so far, though the trial for the mutineers has barely begun. As I read along, I find it difficult to judge who are the villains and who the heroes in this tale.  For the actual judges, it was probably a no-brainer: a mutiny occurred and those who mutinied should be punished according to law. All that remained to be decided was their relative degree of guilt.

But for the public, then and now, it's not so easy.  We want answers: why did this happen?  Hollywood gave us its answer, but we no longer have to accept it.  Caroline Alexander has given us the tools to come to our own conclusions.

One conclusion I've come to already is that the mutiny on the Bounty was not a tragedy.  In fact, for most of the people involved, things worked out pretty well.  But I may have different ideas by the time I've finished the book.  I'll keep you informed, in any case.