Moby-Dick Big Read: Try It, You'll Like It

In another wonderful case of serendipity, Susan - over at You Can Never Have too Many Books - posted yesterday about the online reading of Moby-Dick being sponsored by The Guardian newspaper.  Over the course of the next few months, 135 different celebrity readers from the U.K. will read the entire book, one chapter per night, until it is all done.  I've already made it through the first two chapters and can report that I am very impressed with the experience.

I call this a serendipitous event because just a few days ago I received in the mail the Library of America Melville volume that includes Moby-Dick - plus, I was already planning to read the novel before the end of the year because of a Moby-Dick-related book I received a while back from Oxford Press called Dive Deeper.  That book, by George Cotkin, centers around a chapter-by-chapter look at Melville's most famous novel, offering insights into the author's thinking, the historical period, and the book's key plot points.  In other words, it is an excellent companion piece to the novel, but as part of a three-way reading of the novel, it is already proving to be a step beyond "excellent."

I find reading along with the online-narrators and immediately reading the corresponding sections of Dive Deeper to be an effective way to enjoy the novel and, rather painlessly, ensure a deeper understanding of the work than I would have otherwise ever attained.  Serendipity, indeed.

I encourage you to follow the link back to Susan's place and, from there, to the Guardian article to get all the detail about the project, how it came about, and who some of the readers will be.  Those of you wanting to get a quick sample of what it all sounds like can jump from here to the Moby Dick Big Read site directly.

The book's first two chapters (a total of 10 pages) are largely scene-setters in which Ishmael introduces himself and explains why he wants to return to the sea.  By the close of the second chapter, he has found cheap - very cheap- lodging for the night in New Bedford's Spouter-Inn where he will share the bed with an unusual roommate called Queequeg.

Two insights I gained from Dive Deeper:  1)  Going to sea is Ishmael's antidote to the kind of depression that makes people suicidal, and 2) The preacher in the black church Ishmael accidentally enters in the heavy fog of the evening is perhaps patterned on Frederick Douglas who was in New Bedford at the same time Melville was there.

The Headmaster's Wager

Almost exactly five years ago, I was introduced to Victor Lam’s writing through his short story collection, Bloodletting and Other Miraculous Cures.  That twelve-story collection, featuring four Canadian medical students in various combinations, reads very much like a novel in itself.  Now, however, Lam has written a very different book, The Headmaster’s Wager, a remarkable family saga that officially marks his transition from short story writer to novelist.  (Vincent Lam is also an emergency room doctor and a University of Toronto lecturer.)

In the novel, Lam uses his own family history as inspiration to explore the experiences of Vietnam’s Chinese expatriate community over the course of recent Vietnamese history.  The reader will, through the eyes of Headmaster Percival Chen, live through the 1940 Japanese invasion of Vietnam, the French colonial period, and the long war against the United States that would split the country in two.  Percival will also know firsthand the Japanese occupation of China, his home country, and will feel the pain of responsibility for what his only son endures there during Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Percival Chen is owner and headmaster of the Percival Chen English Academy housed in his former family home in Cholon, a largely Chinese-populated section of Saigon.  Percival, now divorced, lives above the school with his only son where a staff of servants attends to their daily needs.  Percival’s father earned the family fortune in the lucrative rice trade, but due to the vagaries of war (and the suggestion of a close friend), Percival now dedicates himself to qualifying students for translation jobs with the American government and military.  His is the most respected English-language school in the country, and it easily supports the headmaster’s reckless lifestyle.

Dr. Vincent Lam

Percival Chen is a gambling man.  Little bets, big bets, bets that might cost him his business or his life; it is all the same to him.  A man of large appetites, he is well known at the city’s high-stakes mahjong tables and to the high-end prostitutes introduced by Mrs. Ling.  Despite his recklessness, the school thrives, but Percival would never admit even to himself that his success is largely due to the connections of a teacher who is also his best friend, Mr. Mak.  Mr. Mak is an organizer, a Vietnamese with the business contacts, government contacts, and contacts within the structure of the Vietnamese secret police to ensure the success of the Percival Chen English Academy.  And he uses those contacts to make good things happen.

Finally, hardly realizing it, Percival makes the biggest wager of his life.  Win or lose, his family’s survival now depends on one final spin of the wheel by the headmaster.

The Headmaster’s Wager is a memorable debut novel, a piece of historical fiction within which the reader will become completely immersed.  Like Percival Chen, pity him, or despise him, this story of the love between a father and his son will not soon be forgotten. 

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Lincoln - Official Movie Trailer

I have high hopes for Lincoln, the Steven Spielberg movie that is set to open in November.  The official trailer has just been released and it certainly has "the look."  A few people are already complaining about "the voice" in which Lincoln speaks in the film, but contemporaries of Lincoln are known to have spoken of his rather high pitched voice and soft delivery, so I don't believe this is any kind of misstep on the part of Spielberg or actor Daniel Day-Lewis.  They know what they are doing.




I see that Tommy Lee Jones has a role in the movie, definitely a good thing, but I have to admit that I'm a little uneasy seeing Sally Field walking around as what appears to be Mary Todd Lincoln.  I hope I'm wrong about that and that she pulls it off but...

The Spy Lover

Kiana Davenport’s The Spy Lover is a Civil War novel with a twist.  What makes this one different is its focus on the wartime contributions of Johnny Tom, a Chinese immigrant, and Era, his copper-skinned daughter.  It is common knowledge that a large number of immigrants participated in the American Civil War, but amateur historians generally think of countries like Ireland, Germany, England, and Scotland as their countries of origin.  Few would ever consider China in this context. 

 Johnny Tom did not have an easy time of it after being snatched from his homeland and forced to work on the construction of America’s first intercontinental railroad.  Indeed, he was lucky to survive the experience and make his escape from the railroad work gang to start a new life for himself in a tiny Mississippi village.  Years later, Johnny’s world is ripped apart again when he is forcibly separated from his wife and daughter and conscripted into the Confederate Army.  But, in the confusion of battle – and all the while praying that his family is still alive - Johnny defects to the Union Army in hopes of winning American citizenship. 

Despising the Confederacy as much as her father despises it, Era agrees to work as a Confederate camp nurse in order to gather information she can trade to Union generals for word of her father.  Although the information is surprisingly easy to get, the process grows complicated when Era falls in love with a one-armed Confederate cavalryman she nurses back to health. 

The Spy Lover pulls no punches.  War is brutal and ugly, and the American Civil War was most certainly no exception to the rule despite the romantic connotations so often attached to it.  Davenport, in one graphic scene after the other, describes the horrors of the surgeon’s tent, recovery wards, battlefields, and life on the Southern home front.  She explores the impact of slavery on not only the slaves, but on the character and psyche of their owners.  She recounts the rampant racism that existed in all parts of the United States during a period in which immigrants from around the world often fought each other for a limited number of jobs.  The sheer ugliness of the picture she paints is a vivid reminder that the “good old days” are not necessarily good for everyone who lives them.

Kiana Davenport

In the interest of full disclosure, I will point out that, even though I have read Civil War history and fiction for more than four decades, I still tend to see the conflict through Southern eyes.  That tendency, however, is only part of the reason I find some of the author’s characterization of Southern culture and soldiers to be more stereotypical than realistic.  For example, every slave-owner in the book resembles Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Simon Legree.  These men delight in beating even the children of their slaves almost to death at the least slight or offense.  Even more surrealistic is the author’s contention that, toward the end of the war, Southern troops - much in the manner of Chinese soldiers of the Korean War – commonly got high on chunks of opium called “bull’s eyes” before marching into battle.  But, despite opium and morphine being more available to Union doctors, not once do I recall a similar reference to Union troops using the drug for that purpose.

I point this out because the message of The Spy Lover would have been more effectively delivered via a realistic, and even-handed, approach to the two sides doing battle.  As it is, the novel requires a suspension of disbelief from me that somewhat lessens its impact.  That said, those who read it will not soon forget The Spy Lover, and more casual fans of Civil War fiction are likely to enjoy it very much. 

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

What Your Bookshelf Says About You

A Portion of the Shelves Devoted to Old Favorites

I've confessed my weakness before for trying to read titles off of the spines of books appearing on bookshelves that just happen to be behind people whose pictures are posted in online newspapers and magazines.  I do the same thing when I spot shelves in Facebook photos or on personal blogs, regardless of why the pictures were posted in the first place.

Many of you have admitted to the same addiction.  Well, good news...now there's a website for people like us.  Peter Knox and Graham Coursey have created Share Your Shelf, a site where people can post pictures of, and describe, the bookshelves in their lives.  Admittedly, while there are definitely some interesting photos there, it is not quite the same as peeking over someone's shoulders who has forgotten exactly what is behind him when his picture is being snapped.  Good stuff, nonetheless, so do take a look.  You might even want to share your own shelves there.

Mostly Joyce Carol Oates and Ruth Rendell, Two Favorites

This is some of what Peter Knox had to say about the website in this September 7 article on The Guardian website:

Only a bookshelf can truly hold a reader's history and future at the same time, while the present is usually found in a book bag or on a nightstand nearby. A lifelong reader myself, I've always had an obsession withseeing a person's bookshelf, to get a sense of what they've brought inside their home and their head. Bookshelves are universal in that almost everyone has one, and unique in that no two collections are the same. They reflect much more than just the book-buying habits of their owner. Titles are easy to acquire and even easier to sell off or leave behind, so if it's worthy of your shelf space, I want to know why.

[...]

And a Wide Shot Catching Most of One Wall

A bookshelf's organisation, or lack thereof, can show that practicality and discoverability is the priority when shelved alphabetically by author (as is the traditional way). But if it's arranged by colour or trim size of the book spines, the owner obviously prizes appearance and display above finding the right title quickly. More likely the shelf is representative of how the reader sees their own collection: frequent favourites at eye level,grouped together according to genre/topic/theme and other commonalities.  

The article concludes with Knox's personal tips on organizing bookshelves.  Over the years, I learned his tip on having "a growth strategy" the hard way...several different times, in fact.  Unfortunately (or, perhaps, that should be fortunately), I have again reached the point where adding a new book to the shelves almost certainly means removing another one first.  I suppose that's the best way of ensuring that my shelves reflect my  reading taste most accurately - but it does make for some painful decisions.

(Feel free to snoop and comment.  Just click on the pictures to see them full-sized.)

Defending Jacob

Parents will do whatever it takes to protect their children from physical harm or to defend them from anyone, or anything, that otherwise threatens their wellbeing.  That is a given; it is just what we do – even for our adult children.  But what if a parent suspects that a son or daughter might have committed a violent crime against someone else’s child?  And what if that parent is the District Attorney charged with prosecuting the very crime his son has been accused of committing?

First District Attorney Andy Barber, facing precisely that “what if” question, never hesitates.   Jacob is the most important thing in Andy’s life, and if Andy has to place his own future in jeopardy in order to save his son’s life, well, that is what he will do.  

One of Jacob Barber’s classmates, a 14-year-old boy, has been found stabbed to death along one of the walkways of the park that numerous students cross on their way to the middle school every morning.  Andy Barber, once he gets over the shock of such a thing happening so close to home, is determined to find and prosecute the murderer as quickly as possible.  He recognizes the fear and unease of his friends and neighbors and believes that moving quickly will help restore the community’s sense of security and normalcy. 

However, Andy and Laurie Barber receive an even bigger shock when their son is arrested for the murder and Andy is forced to take a leave of absence from the District Attorney’s office.  As the investigation evolves, the Barbers and the parents of the dead boy will learn things about their sons they never could have imagined.  They will also learn things about themselves and their neighbors that are almost as disturbing as what is revealed about the boys.

Defending Jacob is a classic courtroom thriller that will remind the reader of earlier novels like Presumed Innocent and A Time to Kill, two other books that caught the imaginations of readers and sold in huge numbers.  And like the best of his predecessors, William Landay focus on nicely developed characters, plot twists, and a major surprise or two near the end to create a memorable story.  But, even though there are recognizable similarities between Jacob Barber’s case and some recent real-world teen-murderers, Defending Jacob is as much a study of family dynamics as it is a legal thriller.

William Landay

The three members of the Barber family, ostracized and hated by their neighbors - every one of whom believe Jacob is the killer – have only each other for support and comfort.  But, as the pressure of the trial mounts, with more and more evidence pointing to Jacob’s guilt, Andy and Laurie begin to sense that their son’s emotional response to his arrest is odd.  The family’s survival is in doubt in more ways than one.

Surprisingly, the most memorable character in Defending Jacob is Jacob’s grandfather, a man who moves into and out of the picture as the plot develops.  The man’s pure evilness certainly makes a lasting impression; for me, one even more striking than that made by Andy Barber’s choice to place his son’s life above the very justice system he has spent a lifetime serving.

Defending Jacob is probably a little bit over-hyped but it has its moments and will certainly be enjoyed by courtroom drama fans.  Warner Brothers has already optioned the book, so read it before the movie spoils it for you.