More to Come Soon!

I'm afraid I've been remiss in posting to my blog these last couple of weeks.  I have a pretty good excuse: I was on vacation, and busy with traveling, so I wasn't able to do much reading, except for a couple of mysteries which I may discuss later.

I've returned to work this week, however, which means bus rides and reading.  I'm still working on River Horse.  Mr. Heat-Moon and his pilot are now traveling down the Ohio River, sometimes through locks and dams, past a variety of towns and cities where they encounter interesting places and people.

I'll write more about this book this coming weekend.  So stay tuned!

Dispatches from Nikawa

Well, it turns out that River Horse is a very interesting book! It's a travelogue of sorts, being the chronicle of William Least Heat-Moon's journey across America by watercraft (mainly his C-dory he has named Nikawa, an Osage word meaning river-horse).  He starts at the mouth of the Hudson River and ends at the mouth of the Columbia River, staying on rivers the whole way except for two places where he portages his C-dory for some miles, in New York and in the Rocky Mountains.

So far I've read about the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, Lake Erie, and the Allegheny River. The author describes the trip down (or up) each waterway, bringing in history and geography about the river and the surrounding areas. The first surprise I got was that the Erie Canal is still open, although no longer being used for commercial shipping.  There were interesting descriptions of how the locks work and what the towns along the way look like.

I was also surprised to learn that Lake Erie was rough sailing.  Heat-Moon and his pilot had such a tough time going across it, in fact, that they decided to get out of it sooner than they had planned.  The reason, apparently, is its relative shallowness, along with the winds that rake across it constantly.

As someone used to traveling by car or plane or train, I was struck by the different perspective one gets from a watercraft--seeing the backsides of towns, as it were.  And also striking was the realization that the country is no longer set up for water transport as it was long ago; the car has taken over as our means of getting from one place to the next, and all the commerce is geared toward attracting motor-vehicle-borne travelers.  I would imagine that in the old days, billboards and other signs could be found just outside a town, but facing the river!

Heat-Moon gives us all the details of the trip, from the technical aspects of sailing through locks to his more poetically-expressed thoughts about what he sees.  He's a man who loves words, so he uses plenty of them, yet I never get the sense that his prose is wordy in the pejorative sense. And since I love words too, I don't mind!

Next is the Ohio, which is a long river with many towns and cities along the way. Should be interesting!  Stay tuned for more dispatches from Nikawa.

From Murder Mysteries to Nature's Mysteries

I finished Body Work this week and while it did have a slow start, it picked up after a while and I got involved in the plot and some of the characters, once they were finally introduced.  It remained a plot that had trouble hanging together, though.  Loose ends were finally tied up, but by then my interest in those plot segments had waned.  I would recommend this book only to dedicated mystery readers.

So now I have to choose a new book, and I'm thinking about River Horse, by William Least Heat-Moon.  All the current talk of rivers and flooding has got me interested in reading about them.  River Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America chronicles a journey the author took from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, all by river.  I bought the book quite a while ago, and have been wanting to find the time to read it.  But now it seems I have run out of excuses. The book's not short, though: 528 pages. Perhaps that's what discouraged me from reading it before; like Jackie Robinson, the daunting heft of River Horse kept it on the shelf all these years.

But no more.  River Horse will fall like the others, and I will be better for it.  And so, I hope, will you!

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.