A couple of weeks ago, I did some minor revamping, and I added a section for "Reactions" to the end of each post. Feel free to select one, if there's one that applies. The standard reactions from Blogger -- things like "fun," "cool," etc. -- were mundane in the extreme, so I created the options for "whimsical," "perspicacious," and "scintillating."
I haven't yet decided on the best words for negative responses, but given that I'm still getting stupid, you-have-no-taste-in-literature, you-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about comments on that review I did of Ender's Game ages ago, I'm not sure I want to just yet. (Seriously: it's an opinion. Let me try again: it's my opinion on my blog. I'm allowed to lambaste the book if I so choose.) With that in mind, I've also removed the option for anonymous commenting. If you have a comment, take credit for it with some kind of screen name.
One more thing, still along the vein of this being my blog: I'm happy to engage in discussion with people who (not anonymously) post thoughtful remarks. These remarks don't even have to be positive, if you have a different opinion. I don't mind if you disagree with me or feel like you have something to add that I overlooked. That's great. It's called a dialogue. What I don't like are passive-aggressive comments from immature twits who feel the need to undermine my opinions without offering anything substantial of their own. Go away. I reserve the right to delete any comment I don't like. It's not a democracy; it's a personal blog.
Once again, I love dialogue. I loathe borderline ad hominem attacks that are wrapped up in the victimized overtones of the passive-aggressive. I also know how to recognize the difference.
This was an impulse read. I saw it; I was interested in reading more Tey; this one jumped out at me as potentially fascinating. And it turned out that expectation lived up to reality.
When I picked up the book, this was the description I read on the back:
Robert Blair was about to knock off from a slow day at his law firm when the phone rang. It was Marion Sharpe on the line, a local woman of quiet disposition who lived with her mother at their decrepit country house, The Franchise. It appeared that she was in some serious trouble: Miss Sharpe and her mother were accused of brutally kidnapping a demure young woman named Betty Kane. Miss Kane's claims seemed highly unlikely, even to Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, until she described her prison -- the attic room with its cracked window, the kitchen, and the old trunks -- which sounded remarkably like The Franchise. Yet Marion Sharpe claimed the Kane girl had never been there, let alone been held captive for an entire month! Not believing Betty Kane's story, Solicitor Blair take up the case and, in a dazzling feat of amateur detective work, solves the unbelievable mystery that stumped even Inspector Grant.
I read this description, and, oh yes, I had to read the book. I don't know why it fascinated me, but I suspect it's because I like finding out that the impossible can be made logical. This teenage girl, Betty Kane, claims that Marion Sharpe and her mother lured her to their run-down home, attempted to persuade her into working for them as their maid, and then beat her and imprisoned her when she refused.
The whole thing sounds fairly absurd. Then again, it sounds so absurd that it raises the question of why someone would make it up. According to all reports, Betty Kane is not made of imaginative stuff: she's the adopted daughter of a couple who took her in during the war (the book was published in 1949) and then made her part of their family after her parents died. They have a biological son to whom Betty is devoted, and for all intents and purposes she seems to be a normal girl of minimal interest.
So why make up such a thing? That's the question that faces Robert Blair as well as Alan Grant. For Grant, it's Betty's word against the Sharpes', and with no corroborating information he lets the case drop. Blair isn't sure what to think until an area tabloid gets hold of the story (courtesy of Betty's adopted brother Leslie) and turns the event into a character assassination of the Sharpes. In other words, how dare the police do nothing, see the photo of this innocent young thing, what evil is in the world -- that kind of nonsense, from journalists who themselves have almost no moral compass. (It's amazing how journalists apply ethics at will. But that's a rant for another occasion.)
Grant remains in a spirit of delayed action, not sure what to think, inclined to believe Betty's lying but willing to accept any support for her story if it comes along. Meanwhile, the Sharpes live in an atmosphere of terror. They claim vociferously that they have done nothing wrong, that they don't know the girl, that they have no idea why she's telling this story. The locals don't believe them and proceed to torment them with graffiti, personal attacks, and the such. The police do what they can, but they have limited numbers. So it's up to Blair to offer his support, as well as his friendship. He also determines to do what he can to find out the truth. For him, it's a question of where Betty Kane really was. As far as her adopted parents knew, she was visiting an aunt. But that aunt proves to be a poor chronicler, and Blair discovers that Betty spent most of her time riding buses and visiting the cinema. And then there was the pesky period of a few weeks when Betty would have been traveling back to her family. The mail is slow, and the letters passed slowly. (Ultimately, Betty's adopted parents didn't think much of her disappearance until she came back disheveled and bruised.) In other words, Betty could very well have been at the Sharpes'; she could also have been doing, well, goodness know what.
The story starts out with Robert Blair acknowledging a certain boredom in his life. He's a village solicitor, so he spends his day drawing up wills and doing other minor legal work. The Sharpe case infuses a much-needed excitement into his life, and he discovers just what he's made of, as a lawyer and as an amateur sleuth. He journeys around the area, asking questions and piecing together a riddle that confuses everyone. It boils down to two things: why did Betty Kane disappear, and what was she doing? For Blair, it's not enough to prove that the Sharpes had nothing to do with it. The real goal is to find out where Betty really was and to make a public meal out of it. It's difficult to fault him entirely. Yes, there's an attitude of vengeance about it, and, yes, he takes on the Sharpes' case with vim and vigor. But he believes, without a shadow of a doubt, that Betty is lying and that she's doing so to cover her tracks. Basically, he concludes that she decided to pick on the Sharpes because they're an easy target: a strange mother-and-daughter combo who live alone in a strange house far outside of town. It doesn't look like anyone can prove Betty wasn't at The Franchise, so Blair wants to show where she actually was.
And, yeah, it's pretty good :)
The case goes to court, and Blair delights in the chance to undress her (metaphorically, of course) in front of those who have supported her and abused the Sharpes. In the end, the victory proves to be less than sweet, but at least there's victory. And don't worry if it sounds like I've given something away. At no point in the story did I believe the Sharpes were guilty, and I suspect Tey intended it that way. The real mystery isn't in their actions but rather in Betty's, as well as in the development of the case as a whole. It's worth waiting for. I packed this book in within a couple of days, and only because I couldn't put it down. This is what I get for starting a mystery in the evening before going to bed. (In addition to weird dreams.)
I'm becoming more and more a fan of Tey, and I definitely recommend this one. I'll need to read a few more before becoming a member of the fan club, but I'm on the way. Her writing is unlike that of any other mystery writer that I've read, and I like her interest in discussing facial features as a clue to a person's character. It might not be the most scientific method, as far as some are concerned, but it certainly supports the idea that you can look at someone and be able to say, you can always tell. Well, I don't know about you, but I've had good luck with this.
This isn't the sort of book about which one has a conventional "book review" opinion. It's not about whether or not I liked it, whether or not I recommend it. Of course, I liked it; of course, I recommend it. This is an exceptional book that everyone who has the slightest bit of inclination toward the subject matter should read.
So why review it? Honestly, it's more because I need to get some thoughts out of my system. This book has been part of my reading routine for the last month or so. It's long, close to 600 pages (without the index), and it's pretty dense. The focus, as the book cover indicates, is the music of the 20th century. If you think about it, that's a pretty tall order. Consider everything that has happened in the 20th century, and think about the evolution of music over the decades. I'm rather happy to say that Ross focuses specifically on the music that might be generally referred to as "classical," so don't expect to see much from the Beatles and Def Leppard in here. Even with this narrowed focus, however, there's a lot of ground to cover. And Ross doesn't scrimp.
He starts out strong with Mahler and Richard Strauss. Mahler, for me, was the most interesting discovery, partly because I hadn't really listened much in the past. (And partly because my most immediate reference comes from Frasier: "Niles, you hate Mahler! Apart from Maris, who doesn't?") From here, Ross winds the reader through the decades, taking one step forward and a couple of steps backward, as necessary. In some cases, there is overlap when one composer meets another, but then Ross must go back and discuss the overlapping composer in more depth. The result is a well-organized and rich appreciation of the overall development of music during the 20th century. Ross interweaves the applicable moments in history as they occur, making the music fit relevantly into what is happening over the years. In other words, it makes sense for Stravinsky, Copland, and Messiaen to write what they do, when they do. Of course, there are always the slight anomalies (Messiaen fitting somewhat into this category), but even in this Ross makes sense of it all.
My personal favorite discovery was Shostakovich, whom I have roundly ignored for decades, assigning him to the category of "Soviet composers who wrote propaganda to appease the Communist authorities." To some extent, this is true, but as with the majority of history there is more to it -- much more. In fact, Shostakovich jumped off the page to me as someone who struggled intensely with his own musical interests as they were pitted against the political duties expected of him. This is a tough place to be, particularly if you hope to survive. At various times in Shostakovich's life, several people close to him died at the hands of Soviet policy. That certainly makes one consider the value of discretion and sacrificing a little of the personal to the collective.
But Shostakovich is only one chapter, and there are many others that work toward creating the larger tapestry. I'll admit that the last few chapters, those indicating the progress of the century toward the '60s and beyond, lost my interest. This isn't Ross's fault, of course, and he does a good job of getting what minimal value he can out of much of this music (much of it in the personalities of the composers rather than their compositions). Those atonal composers who worked toward the destruction of any kind of form or even purpose in music left me wondering why I should even care. So you composed a piece of music that required you to shatter a violin...great. (Hope it was insured.) So you presented a composition that was entirely made up of four minutes of silence...um, congrats. (Apparently, many have pointed out to the composer of the latter piece that anyone could have done that, to which he responded that they could have, but didn't. Pompous idiot.) I have the feeling that I should give pieces like this more of a chance, like there must be something more to them, and I'm just very stupid for not getting it. But then I try them out, and they give me a headache, attacking all of my HSP qualities and leaving me feeling physically and emotionally ill. Maybe I'm asking too much, but I don't go out of my way to hunt down music that does this. I like some semblance of structure, focus, or anything resembling a basic concept. If not tonal, then occasional harmony. Something. Let me know that you didn't just vomit out a composition and call it art because...you came up with it? Yeah, this doesn't do anything for me.
On the other hand, there were a few composers featured toward the end of the book that I feel like I should consider listening to, and I appreciate Ross's painstaking effort in explaining their role in developing 20th-century music. I'll give him particular credit, because it felt a little like he was scrambling toward the end. Whether or not you like Mahler, it's difficult to discount his value; it's a little tougher to find value in some of the music that's more recent, but Ross at least indicates its relevance and significance within the 20th-century psyche.
At the end of the book, Ross wraps things up with a brief epilogue that left me a little unsettled, not so much because I think he's wrong but because it was strange to see someone admitting frankly what I've suspected for some time. In short, Ross suggests that we can't go back. He gets this close to saying the best of classical music is behind us for good. The beauties of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, etc. -- they've had their day, and that day is unlikely to return. Music like that belongs to a different day, and we might never see anything like that again from a modern composer (modern, in this case, suggesting someone of our time). I'm not suggesting, of course, that people are incapable of reproducing what those composers did but rather that people today don't have inside them what it takes to create that kind of beauty that surprised and moved the listeners of their day: in other words, the qualities that made them pioneers in their day aren't a part of the modern mindset, and the current pioneers will always produce a different kind of sound, darker and more intense but without the hint of good underlying it all.
And then I started to think about the modern mind and what that means. Think for a moment about what happened during the 20th century. How can we look at that and blame people for seeing the glass half empty? I can't say that my life has been anything but largely free of drama, but I'm old enough to remember some of the fears that lingered from previous decades. I turned thirty this year. I was eight years old when the Berlin Wall came down, and I remember the anger that led up to that moment. I was ten years old when the Soviet Union collapsed, and I recall the suspicion with which we viewed Russia before and for a few years after. I remember the shift from when Leningrad became St. Petersburg again. This was only twenty years ago. It seems like a lifetime now, like we should be able to move forward and not look back. But those things are still there, the events, the moments, the potential. It's not as simple as turning a page and forgetting the past. When my sister was still dating her current husband, I recall when she introduced him to my grandparents. They were happy to meet him, but my grandfather's first question was whether or not his last name is German. It might seem silly, but it's not so silly to someone who remembers.
Ultimately, I realized that I can't blame modern composers for what they write. Were I a composer, I probably wouldn't be much better. Some time back, I watched a documentary about Beethoven, and one of the commentators noted that part of the impact of Beethoven's music is the belief he had in such intangible qualities as hope, love, freedom. And joy. Beethoven didn't just say he believed them; he believed them to the extent that they inhabited his music.
O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Sondern laßt uns angenehmere an stimmen,
und freudenvollere.
Freude!
Freude!
Freude, schöner Götterfunken
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.(And so on...)
Do I believe these things? I believe in the possibility for them, and I love the idea of them. I have no doubt in their potential, their reality in some contexts, their significance. But I think that the events of the past, and the 20th in particular, have left people suspicious of getting too excited about such qualities. I also suspect that any music I wrote, apart from being mediocre to the point of absurdity, would also incline toward the ambiguous. I want to believe in such ideas as love, peace, and joy. But the conviction can be difficult to manifest.
Despite everything I've just written, the book really isn't a total downer, and it's eye-opening to much about the 20th century that I hadn't considered. Equally important (to me, at least!) is the fact that Ross is a highly skilled writer. He tells his story thoughtfully and effectively; he employs great metaphors, includes solid examples, and knows when to stop. This ensures that The Rest Is Noise is as enjoyable as it is informative. Just keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily have the happiest of endings. But neither does the century.
A final note, the Third Movement of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. This was his response to the political struggles that he faced, but for me it's also the voice of a century.
(And if you're not interested in the music, at least give it a try for the sake of seeing the conductor. He really gets into it.)
This is several months old now, but I couldn't help posting it. Apparently, a news team in Norman, Oklahoma, decided to find out about the traditional Easter celebrations at the local Orthodox church. They interviewed several people there and discovered a number of interesting things. As it turns out, they also got some of these things wrong, perhaps making them even more interesting.
See if you can spot the typo in this quote from one of the church members, Edward Adwon:
"During Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, we will have services every night. On Holy Friday, we will reenact the burial of Christ. We do that by having a beer, which is the representation, and we will come outside and we will make a procession around the building. We also do that on Palm Sunday. That is representing Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, which he did on the Sunday before his Resurrection,” Adwon said.
Did you catch it? I laughed for a good 15 minutes. Boy, those Orthodox Christians sure know how to celebrate!
"This present opera was Parsifal... The first act of the three occupied two hours, and I enjoyed that in spite of the singing...
"...In Parsifal there is a hermit named Gurnemanz who stands on the stage in one spot and practices by the hour, while first one and then another character of the cast endures what he can of it and then retires to die."
~Mark Twain
I'll agree with Twain on one thing: the music itself is very beautiful. I've never been a huge fan of Wagner, but I have to admit that this particular piece, the Prelude of Parsifal, is worth hearing (even if enjoying the rest of it requires a little more effort from me).
This isn't usually the type of book that I'd go for, but my grandmother recommended it, and the premise sounded interesting. The writing isn't the best, the storyline gets repetitive in a hurry, but it has just enough in it to keep the reader going and to offer a hint of a cliff-hanger toward the end.
What fascinated me the most is the set-up. This is a story about a wealthy cattle-ranching-turned-oil family in Texas. Their last name is King. This may or may not mean much to other readers, but it got my attention. I grew up in South Texas, fairly close to the King Ranch. This isn't a story about that King family, nor do there appear to be any intentional similarities, so I haven't quite decided what to make of it. The author is from Texas, so it's unlikely he's unfamiliar with the King Ranch. I have to assume that he decided to use the name for his own purposes. What's more the name of the ranch in the story isn't King (that's just the family name); it's Eden. And it's meant to be ironic in some ways.
To put it bluntly, this is a completely dysfunctional family. These people don't get along. They don't love each other. They don't like each other. They wish they did, but their upbringing made it impossible for them to develop anything other than indifference for one another. Five children of Lee and Helen King, and not one of them cares much for the others. The majority of the problem, at least from the perspective of the King children, lies with their mother. Lee King died fairly early, so it was up to Helen to take up the responsibility of raising her children. It would seem that she was more concerned about ensuring their long-term well-being than on ensuring their ability to emote, so she avoided emoting as much as possible and just spent what money it took to take care of them. In all fairness, her children want to love her, to love each other, to live normal lives. But they don't know how, and now they're all adults. The opportunity is long past. All they have for one another is an annual Fourth of July visit to Eden, which they endure with large volumes of alcohol.
The story opens with the final Fourth of July visit, when Helen informs her children that she's dying and explains to them the contents of her will. Helen King is a wealthy woman, and the number $200 million is bandied about from time to time. So there's money to be had, and the King heirs want what's theirs. It turns out that Helen isn't yet ready to quit controlling them. Rather than dividing up her wealth equally among her children, she gives it to them and the grandchildren in the form of trust funds. The rest of it is locked up in investment accounts, with her eldest son Howard acting as administrator.
Even before Helen King has died, her children are arguing among themselves about this plan. Several of them try to have her declared legally insane, but the judge throws this out. One of them, Tommy Lee, threatens his eldest brother, claiming that Howard is simply trying to control it all and keep their money from them. Then it's discovered that Howard just might be up to something shady after all. There are hints of embezzlement, with Martha digging around and finding some questionable investment choices among Howard's activities, and there's a final confrontation over the phone as Matthew, next in line to administer after Howard, tells his brother that he knows about the embezzlement. And then Howard is murdered.
This is where shades of Dallas appear, with Howard shot mysteriously in his Dallas home and the police at a loss to explain who is responsible. Well, they know who it might be -- any of the King siblings who were angry at their brother. But they cannot seem to pin down which one or how it happened.
All of this is told in the first person and through the voice of Matthew. He's the gentle one in the family, an attorney by trade and one of the few who has managed to carve out a measure of normalcy for himself. The author manages to find the balance between having Matthew tell the story to the readers and having him keep the juiciest bits of information to himself, for a while at least. I wouldn't call the writing in the story all that great; it's artless in some places and just downright repetitive in others. Ultimately, though, it's a clever story with a nice twist of an ending. For some readers, I suspect there might be the question of whether or not justice is done. In purely legal terms, probably not. But for the family and what it needs, the ending seems like the best -- and maybe the only -- way to wrap things up.
This was fun, entertaining, a bit dark in places, and all in all a great filler book when I needed a break from deeper things. It had meaning for me, because I'm from Texas, and the places mentioned were familiar. For other readers, though, it's hard to say. If the storyline strikes your fancy, go for it. It might be a little too Texan for others, though :)
It's probably just as well that I started reading (and became engrossed in) this book before I found out that it was an Oprah recommendation. I would certainly have missed out. Come to think of it, maybe I've overlooked other great Oprah recommendations. Maybe I should give her another chance. I just might learn to love myself, discover my own authenticity, find divinity in the wonders of my soul...*cough gag retch*
Or maybe not.
Anyway, Oprah notwithstanding, this is an exceptional read. And on this one point (and probably this one point only) I'll agree with the mighty O. A Mountain of Crumbs is beautifully written and well-paced from start to finish. Gorokhova is the type of writer who hands her readers a thoughtful metaphor on each page. I aspire to this kind of writing, because honestly it's not easy. There are good metaphors and bad metaphors. Bad metaphors are painful for me, almost physically painful in some case (unless they make me laugh). Good metaphors give me an adrenalin rush. This book had me on an adrenalin high from the moment I opened it.
If the author's name didn't tip you off, she is Russian and is writing about growing up in the Soviet Union in the '60s and '70s. But she doesn't just tell a story about what was certainly a difficult life: she creates an extraordinary parallel in the description of her relationship with her mother. Russia, the Motherland, becomes a counterpart to Gorokhova's own mother. She (in both cases) is controlling, overbearing, desperate to keep an eye on everything that is going on, excessively protective to the point of stifling, and so forth. Gorokhova loves her mother; she makes that clear. She also loves Russia and being Russian. But at some point, it becomes too much. Ultimately, she does the only thing she can to get away. She marries an American and moves to the United States, where she now lives.
But the end of the book is not what captures the reader's attention. It is the development of the story over time. If truth is stranger than fiction, then sometimes it's also more interesting. Gorokhova starts the story long before she was born. In fact, the opening statement is about her mother's early years:
I wish my mother had come from Leningrad, from the world of Pushkin and the tsars, of granite embankments and lace ironwork, of pearly domes buttressing the low sky. Leningrad's sophistication would have infected her the moment she drew her first breath, and all the curved facades and stately bridges, marinated for more than two centuries in the city's wet, salty air, would have left a permanent mark of refinement on her soul.
But she didn't. She came from the provincial town of Ivanovo in central Russia, where chickens lived in the kitchen and a pig squatted under the stairs, where streets were unpaved and houses made from wood. She came from where they lick plates.
Lest readers think that thus begins a diatribe against the failings and cultural naivete of Gorokhova's mother, that's not the point of this statement. Instead, it is to embed in the reader's mind from the start the differences between them. Gorokhova's mother is not from Leningrad, but she moves there, and her daughter is born there. Thus, her daughter inherits and absorbs the tastes of the city that her mother can never really understand or care to pursue. But more than that, it's about a chasm that is always between them, a difference that the mother cannot appreciate and that the daughter cannot explain or explain away. Over time, Gorokhova develops a fascination for things her mother finds worthless, namely the study of English. She attends an English school in Leningrad, gets a degree and teaches English to other students, and finds herself drawn to something unfamiliar. Those who know the call of wanderlust cannot ignore it; those who don't know it can never understand. Gorokhova's mother does not understand and could not care less.
This is also a story of identity, of the individual against the collective, of finding a way to stand out in a society that revolves around the concept of everything for the good of everyone. I'm all for helping your neighbor, but there really is something asphyxiating about the way that the ideas of Communism imprinted themselves on the Soviet Union. As Gorokhova comments:
...neither my mother nor my motherland knows anything about the important things in life: the magic of Theater, the power of the English language, love. They're like the inside of a bus at a rush hour in July: you can't breathe, you can't move, and you can't squeeze your way to the door to get out.
(I particularly love this description, so I had to work it in somewhere.)
In addition to these motifs, Gorokhova also speaks frequently of the culture of vranyo that is embraced in the Soviet Union. It is a world of make-believe, of saying one thing when you know it means another or of pretending yes is no or black is white because that's what everyone does. It's basically like the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes." Everyone knew the emperor wasn't wearing anything, but they knew they were expected to pretend that he was, that they could get in trouble for saying anything, that the truth was not as important as the obligation to be part of the game. Vranyo. The title of the book reflects a version of vranyo. During a great famine in 1920, Gorokhova's grandmother had to use creativity to feed her children. Two of them accepted their meager slice of bread and small cubes of sugar with no questions, but the youngest in his hunger demanded more. So his mother ground the bread and sugar into crumbs and announced that he had more than the others: a mountain of crumbs. Apparently, this small deceit worked. And Gorokhova plays the game of vranyo with everyone, with her mother, her other family members, her colleagues, her nation. There's no choice, of course. One badly timed joke could have the authorities knocking on the door. One incorrect comment could end everything. We're not talking about discretion; we're talking about marching to the same beat, to avoid any hint of individuality.
Here's a thought: during the Soviet era, there was no word for privacy in the Russian language.
So if you can look past the Oprah recommendation, I certainly have one of my own: A Mountain of Crumbs is worth reading. It's sweet, charming, dark, frustrating, and occasionally agonizing. But ultimately, it's very satisfying without ending in simplicity. My favorite kind of book.
