Driving away from a stop on a ridge above 'The Pastures of Heaven', a beautiful valley near Carmel, on California's Monterey Peninsula, a tour bus driDriving away from a stop on a ridge above 'The Pastures of Heaven', a beautiful valley near Carmel, on California's Monterey Peninsula, a tour bus driver says: "I guess it sounds kind of funny to you, but I always like to look down there and think how quiet and easy a man could live on a little place."
These dozen linked short stories tell of the quiet and easy lives of some of the people and families who had lived there over the centuries, often starting with ambition, hopes and dreams, but ending in madness, disappointment, or other tragedy.
One of Steinbeck's earliest efforts, it was an excellent choice to read on a recent trip to Monterey, which also included a visit to the outstanding National Steinbeck Center in nearby Salinas, the author's birthplace....more
We were grinders and scrappers. Showbiz may seem glamorous, but each battle is won in the trenches with heavy doses of perspiration and preparation. WWe were grinders and scrappers. Showbiz may seem glamorous, but each battle is won in the trenches with heavy doses of perspiration and preparation. We spent our nights doing two sets of homework: our assignments for school and our run-throughs of the next day's lines with Dad.
I'm a couple of years older than Ron Howard and grew up watching him on The Andy Griffith Show, in the movie The Music Man, and on Happy Days. It was a pleasure to read this well-written, dual memoir by Ron and his younger brother Clint, which focuses on the lives of their parents, their childhoods, and the beginnings of their adult careers. Their dad, Rance, and mom, Jean, both actors with realistic aspirations for Hollywood success, generously and without missing a beat, shifted gears to support and coach Ron and Clint as child actors, and to keep them grounded. Ron worked hard to transition from acting into directing in his twenties, while Clint struggled with addictions to alcohol and drugs, but overcame them and achieved a successful, lifelong career as a character actor. Highly recommended, especially for anyone who's watched the boys on screen....more
And up in the Rampart Mountains there's a curious kind of bear called the 'side-hill grizzly.' That's because he's traveled on the side-hills ever sinAnd up in the Rampart Mountains there's a curious kind of bear called the 'side-hill grizzly.' That's because he's traveled on the side-hills ever since the Flood, and the two legs on the down-hill side are twice as long as the two on the up-hill. And he can out-run a jack rabbit when he gets steam up. Dangerous? Catch you! Bless you, no. All a man has to do is to circle down the hill and run the other way. You see, that throws mister bear's long legs up the hill and the short ones down. Yes, he's a mighty peculiar creature, but that wasn't what I started in to tell about.
This collection of adventure stories for young adults, published after London's death by his wife Charmian per his intentions, draws heavily on his own experiences as a young man. Several stories are based upon his teen-age service on the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland along the coast of Japan. The quote above is taken from a tall tale of the Yukon, while London's familiarity with California shows in stories set in Yosemite, the Sacramento River, San Francisco Bay, and Oakland. The final story, "Whose Business Is To Live", is an action-packed tale of escape during the occupation of Veracruz, Mexico by U.S. Marines in 1914. The writing is of its time and some language and views expressed could offend a contemporary reader....more
A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves-and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.
Hoffer was a longshoreman in San Francisco and self-educated philosopher who published a dozen books and received honorary doctorates and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This, his first book, published in 1951, is a fascinating analysis of the psychological and social conditions, types of leaders, and techniques that give rise to mass movements, whether religious, revolutionary, or nationalist, with special focus on the several which had just exploded across the globe, i.e. fascism, nazism, and communism. While there are striking relevancies to recent American politics and the rise in authoritarian movements worldwide, that have brought renewed interest in the book, it doesn't provide support for any particular polarized position. Instead, it clinically describes how the rise and fall of mass movements is the inevitable result of multitudes of people feeling frustrated with their lives under certain conditions. Recommended....more
Anita Loos led a fascinating life as an actress and writer, with a career spanning more than 80 years, working with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, Anita Loos led a fascinating life as an actress and writer, with a career spanning more than 80 years, working with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., William Randolph Hearst, Jean Harlow, Carol Channing, Helen Hayes, and a Cast of Thousands, the title of one of her memoirs, but she is best remembered as the author of this comic Jazz Age classic, which inspired a Broadway musical and two movies.
The novel in the form of the diary of blonde flapper Lorelei Lee, of Little Rock, Arkansas, reports on her seemingly innocent conquest of nearly every wealthy "gentleman" she encounters, in New York City and across Europe, accompanied by her "unrefined" friend Dorothy Shaw. The free LibriVox audiobook is perfectly narrated by Jenn Broda, verbal gymnastics, malapropisms, and all, and I recommend it. ...more
What I appreciated about this book was the journey, but the destination eluded me, as tragedies often do. A dozen different Indian main characters strWhat I appreciated about this book was the journey, but the destination eluded me, as tragedies often do. A dozen different Indian main characters struggle with their identities, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, rape, violence, and other benefits of their lives in America, in eponymous chapters relating their inexorable progress towards the Big Oakland Powwow. The character I liked most was Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, who is raising the three boys her sister's late daughter left behind.
Ever since they were in her care, Opal had been openly against any of them doing anything Indian. She treated it all like something they could decide for themselves when they were old enough. Like drinking or driving or smoking or voting. Indianing....more
This 1903 collection of essays about the flora, fauna, and people of the Owens Valley, along the California/Nevada border, reminded me of Henry David This 1903 collection of essays about the flora, fauna, and people of the Owens Valley, along the California/Nevada border, reminded me of Henry David Thoreau's Walden and Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, but never quite captured me the way they did. Like the prospector Austin charmingly portrays, I found nuggets of great description and anecdote, but I think I might have enjoyed the book more as a text than an audiobook....more
The hill we climb, if only we dare it: Because being American is more than a pride we inherit - It's the past we step into, and how we repair it.
If everThe hill we climb, if only we dare it: Because being American is more than a pride we inherit - It's the past we step into, and how we repair it.
If ever a poet and a poem met a moment! As I held my breath against an assassin's bullet, now a tradition after these past four inaugurations, it was so refreshing to be unexpectedly inspired.
This sparse but lyrical novel tells the story of the picture brides who sailed from Japan to California in the early decades of the 20th century, likeThis sparse but lyrical novel tells the story of the picture brides who sailed from Japan to California in the early decades of the 20th century, like the husbands they met having previously seen their fiances only in photographs. Otsuka tells this tale in the first person plural:
On the boat the first thing we did-before deciding who we liked and didn't like, before telling each other which one of the islands we were from, and why we were leaving, before even bothering to learn each other's names-was compare photographs of our husbands.
This polyphonic chorus relates the voyage across, the often painful consummations of the marriages, work in fields or the houses of white families, childbirth, children growing up American, the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and forced relocation. I'm not sure what the unusual voice would have been like on the page, but I found the audiobook compelling on my walks. ...more
What's this bird, this falcon, that everybody's all steamed up about?
Well, sir, you'll find out when you read this Dashiell Hammett classic. Hard boilWhat's this bird, this falcon, that everybody's all steamed up about?
Well, sir, you'll find out when you read this Dashiell Hammett classic. Hard boiled private detective Sam Spade has his hands full keeping a step ahead of a bunch of crooks who've been chasing the falcon and each other from Constantinople, to Hong Kong, to Spade's foggy San Francisco in 1928. Even the cops are after him for the murder of his partner Miles Archer, with whose wife he's been having an affair.
Like many, I came to the book after watching John Huston's 1941 film noir classic, and there was no way for me not to see and hear Humphrey Bogart as Spade, Mary Astor as femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, and Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman. And I didn't mind it a bit....more
It's 1948, the war's been over for a few years, and ex-GI Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins has a house in Watts that he's very proud of, but he's just been fireIt's 1948, the war's been over for a few years, and ex-GI Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins has a house in Watts that he's very proud of, but he's just been fired from his job at the Champion Aircraft plant for not being willing to kiss his boss's butt the way he thinks a black man should, and the mortgage payments are going to be a problem. So it makes sense for him to take the job his bartender friend Joppy lines up for him, tracking down a beautiful white woman who likes to hang out at black jazz clubs where the white client wouldn't get his questions answered. What could go wrong, right?
Turns out, quite a bit, and in the course of relating it all, Mosley gives the reader a sense for what life in post-war LA was like for a black person. By the end of the book, Easy's reconnected with Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, a dangerous friend from back in his Houston days, and set out on a new career doing private investigations. I'm looking forward to reading some of the other 13 novels Mosley did in this series....more
Right off the bat, struggling black writer Dana Franklin gets an unwelcome 26th birthday present when she's jerked away from moving into a new home wiRight off the bat, struggling black writer Dana Franklin gets an unwelcome 26th birthday present when she's jerked away from moving into a new home with her white husband Kevin in 1976 Los Angeles, and finds herself instead on a riverbank overlooking a drowning boy in 1815 Maryland.
Although Butler is known as a science fiction writer, and this is billed as a science fiction novel, the unexplained time travel is the only sci fi element. Instead, the juxtaposed experiences of Dana and Kevin in the two times and places permit Butler to depict and explore the horror and depravity of slavery in the antebellum south, including the insidious way it sometimes forced even its victims into complicity with its twisted race and gender power dynamics.
Dana's shocking dislocations evoke those of slaves sold down the river, away from their families and friends, but also of our own reluctant recall to the scene of the crime of American slavery.
I highly recommend this gripping, unsettling and thought-provoking book....more
Jack London got off to a busy start in life. Born in 1876, before he took off from Oakland CA to be a 17-year-old hobo, he'd worked 12-hour days at a Jack London got off to a busy start in life. Born in 1876, before he took off from Oakland CA to be a 17-year-old hobo, he'd worked 12-hour days at a cannery, owned his own boat as an oyster pirate, and sailed to Japan on a sealing ship, among other things. By the time these tales of his adventures crossing the country by rail in 1893-94 were published in 1907, he was already famous for his novels Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang.
The nine sketches are a mix of training manual for life riding the trains and anecdotes of London's own experiences among the horde of hoboes driven to the rails by the Panic of 1893. He covers in some detail the jargon, rules of the road, and physical techniques for jumping on and getting off moving trains, while evading the "shacks", i.e. brakemen, and other railroad crewmen, and explains the mindset necessary for successful begging for food and clothes at houses and on the street in between trains.
Generally not given to waxing eloquently about the vast swathes of the country he passed through, London was quite taken with Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, his visit resulted in a sentence of 30 days in the Erie County Penitentiary for vagrancy. His account of his arrest and trial has an almost humorous tone, but there's nothing funny about his time in the "Pen", and as corrupt and violent as he describes it being, he also confesses he's passing lightly over "unprintable" and unthinkable" horrors.
As a native Hawkeye, I found his description of travelling across Iowa with Kelly's Army, from Council Bluffs, on the Missouri River, to Keokuk, on the Mississippi, to be fascinating. The 2,000-strong Army of unemployed had jumped trains from California to Omaha, but the railroads said no more free rides. Following an unsuccessful effort to hijack a train, the Army headed east on foot and the plot thickened.
There's not really a narrative arc to The Road and it just ends, without much development or resolution along the way. For having already published "How I became a Socialist" in the March 1903 issue of The Comrade, London doesn't get very political in the book, either. He uses several racist terms for blacks, but otherwise doesn't express racist views.
The free LibriVox audiobook I listened to was a good choice for my daily walk, but there were a few mispronunciations....more
Early in this semi-autobiographical first novel, the narrator reminisces about one of the series of San Diego apartments she and her family lived in aEarly in this semi-autobiographical first novel, the narrator reminisces about one of the series of San Diego apartments she and her family lived in after fleeing Viet Nam as "boat people" in 1978, when she was six.
In the shade of the evening, as you looked over the second-floor railing into the swimming pool below, the shapes of things that had happened would slowly take form and come into focus. The day would return to you, and with it, like a school of fish, all the other days. You could lean against the railing then and watch, with wonder, as the people, places, and objects from all the days gathered.
In lyrical prose, rich with striking similes and metaphors, lê thi diem thúy (she does not capitalize her name) records these gathered impressions of the people, places, and objects remembered from, or imagined out of, her family's odyssey.
She describes placing a paperweight on a stack of letters and receipts:
It pressed down on the paper the same way my Ba's heavy head pressed down on the pillow at night, full of thoughts that dragged him into nightmares when all he wanted was a dream as sweet and happy as the taste of jackfruit ice cream.
She listens to her parents on the roof above her bedroom, making up after a fight:
Slowly and firmly, they pressed against my sleep, the Catholic schoolgirl and the Buddhist gangster, two dogs chasing each other's tails. They have been doing this for so long, they have become one dog, one tail.
lê has acknowledged the influence of Coming Through Slaughter, Michael Ondaatje's fictionalized sketch of jazz musician Buddy Bolden's life, on this book, and it is there in the disjointed narrative and poetic language. Don't look for plot or character development here, but if you enjoy beautiful imagery and observations, or want to know how it felt to be a Vietnamese immigrant in San Diego after the war ended, you should give this short novel a try.
Bill on GR Sabbatical
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