I usually like to write around a central theme, and there isn't one to be had today. However, as Obama has recently stated, we shouldn't "let the perfect be the enemy of the good," so I'm going to relax and ramble a bit. Here goes:
The Problem with Historical Fiction
I finished reading Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank" two days ago and I'd like to give the novel a qualified thumbs up. Why the qualification? Let me explain.
A novel that is loosely historical and extremely well written can be highly successful. The book's page-turning story captivates readers, who learn a little about the time period involved without concerning themselves with the literal accuracy of each event and conversation that is articulated from page to page. Horan's novel, however, is more than "loosely historical." Horan is a journalist by trade, and the book smacks of fact-based veritas. As for her writing, it's solid, but I wouldn't rate it as an exceptional piece of literary prose.
Ultimately, therefore, "Loving Frank" ends up in a perplexing "literary limbo." You pick up the book because you want to learn more about Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah (pronounced May-muh) Cheney, but the book isn't really a biography -- it's marketed as fiction heavily interspersed with facts (but which is which?). Conversely, if the book is truly a work of literary fiction, you expect more writing skill from the author. (You don't expect an official biography to be filled with lush prose or page-turning sizzle, but you do expect such characteristics to be present in outstanding fiction.)
Nonetheless, I recommend Horan's book for the insight it provides into the societal restrictions, changing mores and competing lifestyles that were fighting for legitimacy at the beginning of the 20th century.
Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting With Jesus:"
Joe Bageant focuses an uncompromising lens on "his people," the white working poor of Winchester, Virginia, and ends up producing a book that is both a scathing send-up and a loving tribute to his family, friends and neighbors in that neck of the woods.
Bageant doesn't pull any punches: "Here, nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems, credit ratings rarely top 500, and alcohol, Jesus, and overeating are the three preferred avenues of escape." He calls it as he sees it, even at the risk of straining family ties. Joe's brother is a Baptist pastor who claims to cast out demons, but that doesn't stop Joe from writing that "The 2008 elections, regardless of the outcome, will not change the fact that millions of Americans are under the spell of an extraordinarily dangerous mass psychosis [religion]."
None of these people ever had a fighting chance to achieve the American Dream, and yet they are its most enthusiastic, bellicose, flag-waving proponents. Every November, they proudly march to the ballot box and vote for the very policies that will push them further into debt, poverty, and ignorance. Bageant warns that neocon operatives "understand that the four cornerstones of the American political psyche are (1) emotion substituted for thought, (2) fear, (3) ignorance, and (4) propaganda." Grossly substandard public schools, shameful health "care," parochial resistance to progressive ideas and independent thinking, unconscionable lending practices, and the "Jesus palliative" all contribute to tragically squandered lives that the rest of us ignore at our own risk.
Bageant's political views and conceptions of reality couldn't diverge more from those of his Winchester neighbors, but the depth of his compassion and empathy for the plight of these "invisible victims" as he relates their personal stories will make you want to cry. Anyone who has ever recoiled at the thought of NASCAR, tent revivals, or the NRA should read this book. How can you contemplate the experience of a man who performs forty years of physically debilitating menial work without complaint, cherishes a "dream" of someday owning a prefabricated modular home in a former industrial park, and goes home each night to a wife on oxygen support (asbestos lung), and then proceed to mock him for going out and popping a few raccoons in the butt over the weekend for a momentary distraction? I'm telling you, this book will change your perceptions, and you'll be the better for it.
Endangered Pleasures, by Barbara Holland
The sybaritic subtitle of this book hooked me in like a bigmouth bass: "In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences." Other pleasures covered by Ms. Holland include bare feet, coffee, staying in, and undressing (for comfort, not sex -- think flannel bathrobe).
I have to quote a passage from her piece on "Happy Hour." If it doesn't make you want to bolt from your office chair and head for the nearest watering hole, I'm sorry for everyone involved:
"For the perfect happy hour, it should be summer, blistering hot, the street clogged with ill-tempered rush-hour traffic and the melting asphalt soft underfoot. Our workday should have been frantic but ultimately successful. After the glare outside, the bar should be almost pitch dark, icily air conditioned and smell of black leather banquettes, and we should be meeting someone there . . . Then, knees touching, neck muscles relaxing, brows drying in the cold dry air, we should drink. Certain things were put upon the earth for our enjoyment, and it's wasteful and wicked to contemn them."
Bravo, Ms. Holland.
A Note On the Origin of the Phrase "Flotsam and Jetsam."
It struck me as odd that these two nouns never stand on their own, so I decided to get to the bottom of the matter by visiting a
Flotsam and jetsam are indeed distinct things: flotsam are those items (natural and manmade) which float and bob on the surface of the water as a consequence of the action of the sea (floatsom, get it?); jetsam are those items which have been intentionally jettisoned into the water by a ship's crew (of course, they may float, too). Apparently these two words were traditionally used in conjunction with a third term, lagan, which denoted goods or wreckage at the bottom of the sea. Lagan was rudely booted out of bed by flotsam and jetsam in the early 1800's, never to gain egress again.
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