The Great Stone Face, by Nathanial Hawthorne
As a boy, Ernest had wondered about the Stone Face that was formed by the rocks far up on the side of the mountain near his home. He often sat with his mother talking about the face. Once he asked if she thought they would ever see such a man with such a face and she shared what her mother had told her. Some day it was destined that a great one, who was noble and kind, would come and he would have that face.
Ernest spent years studying the face each day looking up. He saw deep love in the face and he learned to recognize that in others. Ernest hoped to see the man who would come and he waited for him throughout his life. As he grew older many came and many brought some nobility even being felt by the people to be the one at first but never was the right one found.
Often the people would shout saying, at last he has come, and what Ernest never understood is how they were so deceived. Eventually the people would come to know they had been wrong.
Near the end of Ernest's years a poet came and spoke to the people. Ernest stood and added his own thoughts to the poets strong words. He spoke from his heart and mind and his words had power and depth, because they harmonized with the life he had always lived. The poet, seeing Ernest's face as he spoke, saw the grandeur it had assumed and shouted, "Behold!" Ernest is the likeness of the Great Stone Face."
The people saw it was true and they all felt that the prophecy was fulfilled. When Ernest was finished he took the poet's arm and walked home, still hoping himself that some wiser and better man than himself would come eventually, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.
Thomas Monson, the last President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was a lover of literature. He said of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic account,"The Great Stone Face, we adopt the mannerisms, the attitudes, even the conduct of those whom we admire — and they are usually our friends."
Some more thoughts on "Who do we Admire" and "The Great Stone Face" in the Daily Comment section in this blog.
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute
Jean Paget is a young woman living in England after WWII who is left a great deal of money by a distant relative. She wants to use the money to build a well in a village in Malaysia that was so important to her during the war. She tells her solicitor, who is the trustee, why she wants to do this, and this forms the first part of the book as her life as a prisoner of war.
She was working in Malaya at the time the Japanese invaded and was taken prisoner together with a group of women and children. The Japanese marched them from one village to another rather than take responsibility for them. None of the villages would take them. During this time Jean met an Australian soldier, Sergeant Joe Harman, also a prisoner.
Harman steals five chickens from the local Japanese commander to help the women. The thefts are investigated and he takes the blame full blame to save Jean and the rest of the group. He is beaten, crucified, and left to die by the Japanese soldiers. The women are marched away, believing that he is dead. This happened in the very village where Jean, after the war, wanted to go back to to give them a well.
After her return to the Malaysian village she discovers that Harman had survived his ordeal and returned to Australia. Her trip to Australia takes her to a town she knew Joe had lived before the war called Alice Springs. They eventually find each other and the book ends with their effort to build a special town and place to live.
This book was first reviewed in 2009 by this reviewer. It was first read in 2005. It is a short book and easy to reread and gives a little different message each time. issue of racism. The books characters are English, Australian, Malaysian, Japanese, and Aboriginal. Racism is clearly an issue but not the books message.
Nevil Shute upper left. Jean searched for Harmon when she went to Australia and went to the town of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. She was impressed with the town. Picture shows the town and the spring it was named for.
Quotes by Nevil Shute
“People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had, she said quietly, staring into the embers. they don't know what it was like, not being in a camp.”
“Men' s souls are naturally inclined to covetousness; but if ye be kind towards women and fear to wrong them, God is well acquainted with what ye do.”
Falling Leaves, The Memoir of a Unwanted Chinese Daughter, by Adeline Yen Mah
1st Reviewed in 2009
This book is a look at a culture, a country, a family and relationships that just didn't work for any of the children, especially for one young girl, Adeline Yen Mah. She was born in 1937 and grew up in a wealthy Chinese family. Her mother died when she was born and her new mother was Eurasian, with her own children.
Her respect for and commitment and effort to be part of a family, presents an insight into the culture. Her relationships with her siblings as a young girl, and later as a successful women, added a dimension to the cruelty she suffered from both of her parents.
This Chinese proverb described her life. "When leaves fall down they return to their roots". It was hard to understand why she would have even wanted to return to her roots. It seemed that the real roots in this family was her strength.
The time setting was in 1949 during the revolution in China. The impact of Mao on society was insightful and interesting. Her father's success under both the old and a new government in Hong Kong suggested that times might get better for the family but it didn't get better for Adeline. She did not find love with either her dad or her stepmother or really with any of her 6 brothers and sisters. An aunt offered her love and encouragement to leave and she did and came to the United States where she was able to have a happy marriage of her own. It was her insights and her successes, seemingly against all odds, that was fascinating.
A well told story about a young girl and a successful woman who, after it all was completed, the only strength found was in her.
This book is one that I didn't want to put down. It left me anxious to find out what was coming
Quotes by Adeline Yen Mah
“Please believe that one single positive dream is more important than a thousand negative realities"
“I read because I have to. It drives everything else from my mind. It lets me escape to find other world."
“But you can vanquish the demons only when you yourself are convinced of your own worth.”
Einstein, His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson
Some reviewers suggest that Isaacson was pushing the virtues of the founding fathers in this book, since his prior book, about Benjamin Franklin, and all that he had written about those great men were likely on his mind.
Well good news, with America's influence, he did become a supporter of much of what is great in America.
He first visited the United States in 1933. He was Jewish, and Adolf Hitler was coming to power. He could see the problem coming and decided to settle in the United States, where he became a citizen in 1940. He warned in a letter to President Roosevelt about the dangers of the new type of bombs that Germany was experimenting with.
A review in "The Guardian" quoted Isaacson suggesting, "we should regard Einstein not as an august scientific priest, but 'as a rebel with reverence for the harmony of nature', a scientist who rated imagination far higher than knowledge and an individual whose motto, at least in his early years, was 'Long live impudence! It is my guardian angel." Sounds like an American to me.
Isaacson said of Einstein that we are still living in a universe largely defined by him,“one defined on the macro scale by his theory of relativity and on the micro by a quantum mechanics that has proven durable even as it remains disconcerting to some.”
"Life is like a bicycle, to keep your balance your must keep on moving". This is the caption under a picture of Einstein on a bicycle near the front of the book. The book shows clearly a life that indeed just kept on moving.
America should embrace and claim citizen Einstein as one who has taken American Ideals and influenced the world.
A Few of Einstein Quotes
"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot."
"Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted, counts."
"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."
"A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be."
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
"So far as the theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain, they are not about reality."
"The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas."
"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them."
When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge
"Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself any more."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
Obsessive Genius, the Inner world of Marie Curie, by Barbara Goldsmith
The title "Obsessive Genius" refers to many different sides of Marie Curie's life. Some may have considered her story to be somewhat of a feminist message but the title describes the "person", not just the woman behind the research and the life that went with it.
Marva Salomee Sklodowska, Marie Curie, was born in Poland and a naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She went to Paris and got her degrees at the Sorbonne and then spent most of her life in France. Her singular passion was for her work but that changed when she met Pierre Curie. Her obsessive passion for work, studies, research, and her husband, were complex and present a very interesting woman. Their first Nobel Prize in 1903 was a mutual effort but her second came later in her life and was clearly something that she could not be denied. She was denied the opportunity to co-accept the first award and sit in the audience. She had done much if not most of the work.
Like the book Einstein, by Walter Isaacson, this book lets you see a life through the lens of a particular science. In both cases you learn about both the person and the science. This type of biography lets you see the historical events you thought you knew all about very differently through the lens of a particular person and the science that fills their life. The book is well done and well worth reading.
Quotes By The Author & Marie Curie
"The rare female scientist was depicted as masculine, coarse, ugly, careworn and industrious but making no significant contribution.- Barbara Goldsmith
”Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas"-Marie Curie
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less" - Marie Curie
"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained." - Marie Curie
Lincoln's Greatest Speech, The Second Inaugural, by Ronald C. White Jr.
Lincoln Second Inaugural Address is a stunning example of leadership, and it is indeed an important part of what has made America such an influence for good over so many years. It is obvious that, at any point in time, things are not all in perfect balance in America, and things take time to work through, even the parts of the whole. Lincoln, like today, had two sides both claiming the moral high ground. He wondered what God's will might have been in allowing the war to come, and why it had assumed the terrible dimensions it had taken.
He clearly stated that the cause of the war was slavery, and said it constituted a peculiar and powerful interest, yet he did not proclaim that he had God on his side. Rather than review the book I have just included he short speech, a masterpiece in influence. See the full speech below
Fellow-Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, a Novel by Mark Haddon
The book portrays the point of view of a 15-year-old autistic boy, Christopher, who sees himself as a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties. He is the narrator of the book and he seemed so matter of fact and sure of his opinions, that I was tempted to rate the book lower, just based on that.
It leaves you feeling that you might just really understand what autism really is and if you have had much exposure to it you know that it is not easy to define.
My own experiences suggest that this boy's emotional range and response is just one vantage point of how a autistic young man would approach this plot. I think it is better to just say that this is not a book about Asperger's really but it is a clever story with much to ponder.
Christopher is an outsider, someone who is different and sees the world in a different and interesting way. The author doesn't say that Christopher has autism or any disorder but the book covers and promotional material do mention Asperger, high-functioning autism, and savant syndrome.
In some cases the incidents that take place in the search for the dog are funny. At the same time the focus on emotion and feelings are so well done that, rather than funny, it might be said that it is chilling.
Quote by Mark Hadden
“I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them”
“On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.”
“All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are.”
“I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.
John Adams, by David McCullough
America’s influence is best understood if you know more about the founders. David McCullough brings the life of one of the countries great ones into focus with his book, “John Adams”. In many ways the 2nd President is overlooked, but this novel draws from diaries and letters and shows us much about who John Adams was.
Adams felt divinely inspired to take so many personal risks as he worked to reach past his home in Massachusetts to bring the colonists into focus with the revolution.
He was devoted not just to the cause of the new country, but to his wife Abigail. Their story is a love story within the story. When the war was over George Washington was the natural leader and Adams was a full supporter and became the 1st Vice President. He helped the new country feel the influence of the New England States in the new government that was very much dominated by Virginians.
Thomas Jefferson was a challenging Virginian for Adams. He had always been, and would remain, a nemesis. The two were very different in character. They differed in the way they treated the slavery issue and this author showed Jefferson as lazy and always in debt which was very different from Adams. Even so they were also good friends and the book does a lot to explore that. Both men were idealist, loved learning and books, and most interesting they both died on the same day, 50 years to the day, of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The strong character of Adams is clearly shown in this book. His letters to and from his wife show a genuinely good man. His goodness is what you would expect would lead in forming a great country and Jefferson’s intellectual strength is also clear. Reading this book brings a special light and dignity to the founders and is an amazing book.
John Adams Quotes
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people."
''A government of laws, and not of and not of men."
KOREA 3 Books
REGARDING BOOKS: NOTHING TO ENVY BY BARBARA DEMICK & VEGETARIN & HUMAN ACTS BY HAN KANG
These books have been reviewed before but I am listing them together in this post to focus more on Korea. Han Kang is a Korean author that has written several books and is a talented author. I hope to profile more Korean authors and books.
Click on each book separately to take you to the review or use the Past Review Tab
Why Read Moby Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick
Nathaniel Philbrick has read the novel Moby-Dick more than a dozen times, so it seems believable that he says he thinks this is the greatest American Novel ever written. Too bad Melville didn’t get this feedback during his lifetime. Melville admired Nathaniel Hawthorne and dedicated the book to him. Hawthorne and other writers of his day did see the book as masterpiece, but it didn’t outsell even his earlier books.
Philbrick’s book seeks to show why Moby-Dick has been so enduring. There is much that resonates with the world when it was written and even still today.
The civil war was yet to break out, but the books crew was so diverse that the respect for racial diversity stands out. Ahab, Pip, and other characters were inspired by a 7-set volume of Shakespeare’s plays that came into Melville’s possession just before he started writing this book.
Philbrick sees, not just ongoing relevance ,but a level of understanding of human relations. Melville is praised for his skill in getting reality to show up on the page. He explanation of how Ahab takes control of his crew and gets them to buy into his own plan has lots of real world comparisons.
Even though there are ample events that have symbolic relevance it is interesting to have this author bluntly tell us that the white whale is not a symbol. He says it is “as real as you and I. He has a crooked jaw, a humped back, and a wiggle-waggle when he is really moving fast”.
I have read Moby Dick twice but wish I had read this book first.
Quote by Nathanial Philbrick
“Melville's example demonstrates the wisdom of waiting to read the classics. Coming to a great book on your own after having accumulated essential life experience can make all the difference.”
Joyland by Stephen King
Devin just went through a bad breakup, and to get away, he takes a summer job at a carnival named Joyland. It is located along the coastline of North Carolina and is run by a strange old man who embodies much of an old-style carnie era.
Devin shares a room with a veteran worker, in his late 50’s, that knows some of the secrets of the area, but even so he can’t explain why so many young women have turned up missing around Joyland. One murder still lingers as the ghost of Linda Gray, who was thrown from a car on the tracks that ran through the tunnel of love.
Yes, the park is haunted, and Linda even shows up in photographs. Devin finds the ghost mystery to be a good distraction from the girl he left behind, and really tries to get to the bottom of what happened with Linda Gray’s murder.
He learns the trade mojo from some carnie masters and eventually he finds a new relationship with a worldly older woman. He excels as he cheers up the kids posing as a huge fury dog.
The loss of the old-time carnie style is one focus that King weaves into this novel. The manipulation of wiling customers seems to be sincere and honest because of the old established rules of the game. The comparison to the Disney approach is obvious. King may have used the changes in this industry to be symbolic of the changes form old style pulp fiction approaches to writing?
Eventually the villain is unmasked, and o yes there are evil clowns.
Quotes by Stephen King
"When it comes to the past, everyone writes fiction.”
"We stopped checking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside of us"
"Nobody likes a clown a midnight".
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen introduces his book, Hatchet, saying: “Hatchet came from the darkest part of my childhood. I don’t think I ever realized that before. But now, as we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the book’s publication, it is what I see the most clearly. The three most important parts of my life are reading, the woods, and writing and they came together in Hatchet”.
Brian Robeson was a 13-year-old city boy when he spends two months alone in the Canadian wilderness. He was on the way to spend time with his father in a Cessna 406 as the only passenger. The pilot did show him how to steer but then had a heart attack and died. Brian spends hours steering the plane and trying to determine what to do. He eventually crashes, and the plane sinks into a lake in a remote forested area. His mother had given him a hatchet before he left, and he had attached it to his belt. It was the only thing he had other than the clothes on his back after the crash.
It is a survival story where he builds a shelter and learns, through trial and error, how to find food, build a fire, and much more. His way of looking at what is around him and how to face the challenges, by learning from his mistakes, are the big lessons that the story teaches.
The plane had crashed through the forest and sunk into the lake but almost two months later, after a tornado hit it the lake, the plane surfaced with its tail sticking out of the water. He has mixed feelings when it happened. He knew he needed to get into the plane and find a survival pack, but he also knew that somehow this would change who he had become. It would help, but that very help would reduce his reliance on what he had learned from the environment. He recovers the survival kit from the plane and faces much more than he expected in the plane. The survival kit contains a "Emergency Transmitter” which appears to not work but even, so it is switched on. Even before he can prepare a meal from the freeze-dried banquet, a plane who has heard the transmitter lands on the lake to rescue him.
The experience taught him many lessons. Waiting, thinking and doing things right was a critical lesson as was knowing that feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help.
His rescue came 54 days after the plane had gone down.
Quotes about Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
“the most important rule of survival, which was that feeling sorry for yourself didn’t work.”
“Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience - waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.”
“Not hope that he would be rescued--that was gone. But hope in his knowledge. Hope in the fact that he could learn and survive and take care of himself. Tough hope, he thought that night. I am full of though hope.”
Thinking in Pictures, My Life With Autism, by Temple Grandin
Dr. Temple Grandin is a well-known professor of animal behaviors at Colorado State University. She describes her autistic mind as one that does not think in words like most people. She says it is like a video library where memory is stored in pictures that she can retrieve as images, from her own memory, and even combine and reshape them
Rather than using social skills, she relies on logic and rules she has learned along the way to guide her behavior. Because human’s relationships have been challenging she has especially enjoyed, and made major findings by using her unique empathy, working with animals. She especially loves working with cows and originally this book was going to be titled “A Cow’s Eye View” instead of “Thinking in Pictures”. Cows move from yard to yard and to truck by chutes. She found that a squeeze machine calmed the cows and then learned that it worked for her, so she made one that she uses daily to calm herself. This approach has revolutionized the livestock business, and today almost half of the cattle in North America are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed.
Grandin’s goal has been to improve animal welfare and “Thinking in Pictures” has been, for her, a key to doing just that. The information she shares about herself gives insight into the value of having the right teachers and thinking past school to a career that will be the “right career niche”.
In 2017, Grandin was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
Quotes by Temple Grandin
“Children who are visual thinkers will often be good at drawing, other arts, and building things with building toys such as Legos.”
“I get great satisfaction out of doing clever things with my mind, but I don’t know what it is like to feel rapturous joy.”
“My thinking pattern always starts with specifics and works toward generalization in an associational and nonsequential way.
“I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent life and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”
The Call of The Wild, by Jack London →
FIRST PARAGRAPH: “Buck did not read newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal”
Like most of Jack London’s writing, his own life was as dramatic as the fiction he wrote. The Call of The Wild was an instant sensation from the moment it was released in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush when strong sled doges were the way the work was done.
Buck is the novels main character and he is stolen from his comfortable home in Santa Clara Valley, California. His father was a huge St. Bernard, his mother was a Scotch Shepard dog and he weighed 140 lbs. He is eventually sold as a sled dog in Alaska. He learns fast and is much smarter than the other dogs and many of his handlers. As he learns to fight for survival and dominance he senses his own primeval influences that take him back maybe even the beginning of time. He seems to master the life as a sled dog but the feelings he has for the wild call him and he eventually emerges as a leader in the wild.
London’s story from Buck’s point of view is masterfully done.
The Call of the Wild Quotes
“He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.”
“He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time.”
“The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life.”