Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Link to "The Cat in the Hat & Don't Forget the Oatmeal" at bottom

Theodor Seuss Geisel  (Dr. Seuss) wrote over 60 books. He bet his publisher that he could write a book with only 50 words, and the results of that bet became Green Eggs and Ham. It was published in 1960; by 2016, it had sold 8 million copies.

The books were funny, but Seuss said of his writing that he did not want to write stories about modeling good behavior and even called himself "subversive as hell.” In his books, if you were an obstacle to children overcoming fear and standing up to authority, you were considered a Grinch.

Green Eggs and Ham encourages trying something new. The story begins with Sam declaring, "I am Sam, Sam I am.” Sam's mission is to get Joey to try a new dish, green eggs, and ham. Joey wants nothing to do with them and says: "I don't like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am." Sam asks him to try them in eight different places. A house, box, car, tree, train, dark, rain, and boat and then with a mouse, a fox, and a goat. 

Joey gives in and tries the green eggs and ham, and he likes them: "I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you. Thank you, Sam-I-am.   

The message was one that China's Cultural Revolution considered to be bad and counter to the goals of their goals of eliminating Western Influence and capitalism in China. It was the 4th best selling English language children's book so that may have added some symbolism for the Chinese to ban this book in China shortly after it was published. The book was taken off the banned list after Dr. Seuss died in 1991.

Thoughts about "I Am"

Exodus 3:14  God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM.  The phrase "I Am" is often uses to refer to God.  I am Sam, Sam I am. is the start of this book.  Did Dr. Seuss intend to add divine direction? Is Sam short for Samuel another biblical reference, maybe? Is this just so much over analysis? Did Seuss just want kids to try something new?

Dr Seuss Quotes

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." 

"The more you read, the more things you will know."  

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"  

Quotes on Kid's Books

C.S. Lewis said, "A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."  

Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

Click books (Oatmeal and Hat Books) above for other Reviews

All Quiet On The Western Front

Paul Bäumer joins the German army, with a strong push from his high school teacher, shortly after the start of World War I. Many from his high school class also join and they make up a cross section of society. He quickly finds himself on the Western Front and he and many of his friends look to an older soldier, Stanislaus Katczinsky, for some guidance.  

The author, Erich Maria Remarque says on the first page "This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped, were destroyed by the war."

The book starts out five miles behind the front where they have had a short relief and their bellies are full.  As the battles rage on, Paul faces not just war, but the time between battles where they search for food. The author refers to these young men saying: "We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing from ourselves, from our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces."

Paul has a short leave to go home and, even thought the town hasn’t changed, he finds that “he doesn’t belong here anymore”. He spends some time with his dying mother and feels she is the only one he still feels connected too.

When Paul returns he is glad to be back with his comrades and they go on patrol.  Paul for the first time kills a man. It is hand-to-hand combat and he winds up watching the man slowly die, after hours of pain. He feels broken and asks the dead man for forgiveness.

Soon he is assigned to help guard a supply depot. It is considered a good assignment because now, rather than starving in the trenches, he now has easy access to food.  The depot is soon destroyed by artillery and he is reassigned back to the front.

In the Autumn of 1918 the war is nearing its end and the German Army is retreating.  Paul is one of only 7 left from his class and they are talking about the peace and an armistice.  Paul accidently swallows some gas and it leads to 14 days of rest for him. He starts to believe that the end will really come.  He returns to the front on a remarkable peaceful day; one that is reported from the frontline with the simple phrase: "All quiet on the Western Front." Paul is shot on this day and his body displays a calm expression on its face, "as though he was almost glad the end had come."

Erich Maria Remarque captures the realism of this book, “with searing attention to every small moment of terror and tyranny, of filth and meanness, of savagery and tenderness, of cowardice and grandeur the experience, of a group of bewildered young German soldiers.”

Reviews

From Germany: The greatest war book that has yet been written-Redakteur Stour

From England" Surely the greatest of all war books. It stands pre-eminent- Manchester Guardian

From France: It shoud be distributed by the million and read in every school. - Monde

From Sweeden: It is a great document. A powerful work of art. All books about the war become small and insignificant by comparision.- Albert Engstrom

From America: It is to me the greatest book about the war I have ever seen.- Christopher Morley, Saturday Review

From America: Unquestionably the best story of the world war.- H.L. Mencken

All Quiet on the Western Front

By Erich Maria Remarque

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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

Jon Meacham’s book, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, focuses on the balance of a practical politician, and those of an inspiring philosopher. He was presented as a man of principle, and given credit for the inspiration of the Declaration of Independence. What seems remarkable is how his sentiments were measured, with no regard to the lack of inclusion in those ideals that women and slaves held. The power and strength of his intellect has not be disputed to this day.

President John F. Kennedy assembled the Nobel Prize winners of his day in a dinner at the white house. His comment in addressing these intellectuals at that dinner is included at the beginning of the book. It declared, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Meacham shows Jefferson as willing to comprise principles when required, and at the same time he was seen as upholding his position in all sincerity. The author praises Jefferson’s talent for this, but the contradiction, or elephant in the room, is the issue of slavery. He was born to a rich father and he was referred to by the author as a “fortunate son”.  He was cared for by slaves from the day he was born. He had a relationship with Sally Hemings, one-time slave and mother of several of Jefferson’s children.  The only slave Jefferson every freed was Sally Hemings and it didn’t happen until after his death.

John Adams was politically an opposite from Jefferson and his comment about Jefferson is also included in the beginning of the book. He said, “A few broad strokes of the brush would paint the portraits of all the early Presidents with this exception- Jefferson could be painted only touch by touch with fine pencil, and the perfection of likeness depended upon the shifting and uncertain flicker of its semi-transparent shadows.

Looking closer at Jefferson’s work the author feels that he left America, and the world, a better place than it had been when he first entered the arena of public life. He was key in putting together the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the creation of the University of Virginia. He loved his home at Monticello and he loved Paris.

Jefferson was shown as a man who sought out the latest art and science accomplishments. He loved to converse with the leaders of his day, as well as with beautiful women on both sides of the Atlantic.

Click here to see John Adams Review

Jefferson died on July 4th,1826.  Six hundred miles away, John Adams, ninety years old, had also died the same day. Both died in their own beds. On his own death bed Adams final words were said to be about his old rival and friend, Thomas Jefferson. Both Adams and Jefferson were felt, at the time of their death, to be remembered mostly for the Revolution of 1776.

Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever. 

When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither. 

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

By Jon Meacham

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The Last Wild Men of Borneo by Carl Hoffman

published 2018

Carl Hoffman was doing research for his book, Savage Harvest, which was about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, in New Guinea, in 1961. He made two trips to New Guinea and spent several months there living with former headhunters in a small village that could only be reached by boat.

It was on these trips that the story of Bruno Manser became known to him. In 1984 Bruno had left his life as a sheepherder, to avoid Switzerland’s mandatory draft, and had gone to Borneo where he wanted to meet the indigenous Penan nomads. He learned their language, hunted with them using a blowpipe, and lived with them. 

Money was not a motivator for Bruno because he was looking for something to make a difference in his life. He found something that mattered to him, when he found the Penan, and saw the threat that the logging industry efforts to clear-cut and destroy their lands was, to their culture and lives. 

He taught the Penan to resist the loggers, but what fascinated the author most was how their efforts to do so were seen and embraced around the world. Unfortunately, the forests are now mostly gone, and Bruno eventually just walked into the forests and disappeared. 

Hoffman was just learning about Bruno during a visit to Bali, when he met an American named Michael Palmieri. Michael was older than Bruno, had left America also to avoid the draft, and he too had migrated to the rain-forests of Borneo. Both were stories that Hoffman felt he should follow. Both were looks at Borneo, and how two people had seen it as a destination where the primitive culture of an unconquered people could help them fulfill their own dreams and escape their own past cultures. 

Michael’s story makes up the other half of this book. Michael learned quickly and understood what had value in the art and scared items. He was willing to go deep into the country, and if needed go alone. He knew the language and gained trust among the people. 

Other traders had not sought out the old wooden carvings, but he was one of the first to understand their value. Even though art was part of the peoples lives, he was patient and built relationships, which lead to much success. 

Beginning in 1974 he made over 150 trips in and out of the country, loading up each time with art and native crafts, and then selling all that he had. He had bought from the source, knew his art, and much of it made it into the world’s greatest museums. Michael told Hoffman that he had met Bruno once in 1999 in Borneo. 

Bruno cared deeply about the people he found and devoted his life to helping them. Michael spent his life trading in the Dayak’s art, he loved the art, and made a fortune. Perhaps they were two halves of the same whole-Both obsessed with Borneo’s people and their cultures. 

Pictures: Bruno, far right. Hoffman in the 1st & 3rd pictures

“The Last Wild Men of Borneo is the best book about the ‘Western hunger for Eastern solace,’ as Carl Hoffman neatly puts it, you’ll probably ever read. ... Eloquent.” — William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Barbarian Days

 “Compelling. … A first-rate adventure story. … Part of the magic of this book [is] that in the hazy equatorial air of a place peopled by such outsized characters, anything was possible.” — Outside magazine

The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure

By Carl Hoffman

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Duma Key by Stephen King

See article on Stephen King as a literary influence and also links to  "The Stand", "On Writing", "Under the Dome", "IT", "End of Watch", "11/22/63" / "The Gunslinger, the Dark Tower", "Joyland" , the Outsider, and Salem's Lot Click Here                                                                           

Before Stephen King wrote Duma Key, his wife said to him, “Are you ever going to write about anything besides characters who were writers?”—so in Duma Key his artist is a painter.

Edgar Freemantle is a successful contractor in St. Paul, Minnesota but one day at a job site his truck is crushed by a crane and, he loses his right arm, has severe head injuries, and serious mood changes. His rage destroys his marriage and he, based on a travel brochure, decides to a small island off the coast of Florida and stay for a year. To fill his time, he decides to try to revive an interest in painting that he once had. 

When he arrives at the island he moves too Salmon Point and names his pink house, Big Pink. The closest neighbor is Elizabeth Eastlake, and elderly women, who has spent her entire life on the island and owns half of it. He becomes friends with her  and her live-in helper, Jerome Wireman. He learns from Elizabeth about many of her family, who lived on the island before and had violent endings.

His paintings all include scenes from the island, but his psychic influences him, and he brings parts of his family into the pictures and eventually the paintings also reflect Elizabeth’s memories. When he paints he seems to feel his lost arm and when that feeling is strong the paintings come fast and reflect things that he did not know about his family, and the past on the island.

Elizabeth tells him of losing her two sisters when they were young, almost 90 years ago. She tells him that the island is no place for daughters, when she learns that one of Edgar’s daughters is coming to see him.

Edgar begins to understand that his paintings allow him to change events, places, and people. Miss Eastlake, even though normally not conversant because of her Alzheimer's, does have clear spells and encourages Edgar to paint, and then to use a local gallery to sell them. She cautions him to make sure they are sold and taken off the island where she fears that they might do harm.  

The local gallery loves the paintings and arranges a show. Edgar’s family and past friends all come. Elizabeth gets well enough to attend the show, but she dies right after the show, and Edgar’s daughter is killed by a women who bought a picture at the show. It becomes clear that those who have his painting are in danger.

 Edgar learns that as a child Elizabeth had the same experiences painting at Duma Key and she even painted many of the same paintings. The paintings point to an influence named Perse. That name had been on some of the paintings. Edgar finds paintings from Elizabeth’s youth and understands what has happened. She also had her reality changed with her paintings and she lost loved ones.

Edgar, along with Wireman and Jack go to the house Elizabeth lived in as a child. At this point Edgar knows what Perce’s weaknesses are and how to fight back against the forces of evil she unleashes. They find Perce and destroy her.

Edgar and Wireman both leave the island. Edgar continues to paint, and his final painting is of a storm destroying Duma Key.

Quotes

“We fool ourselves so much we could do it for a living" 

 “Life is like Friday on a soap opera. It gives you the illusion that everything is going to wrap up, and then the same old shit starts up on Monday.” 

 “A person's memory is everything, really. Memory is identity. It's you" 

“The truth is in the details.”

 “Do the day and let the day do you.”

Duma Key: A Novel

By Stephen King

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Jacob's Hands, A Fable by Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood

In the 1940’s Aldous Huxley had already published and become known for his book, Brave New World. He was then living in Hollywood and “Jacob’s Hands” came about as he collaborated with Christopher Isherwood, who also wanted to make the book into a screen play. The play was not produced, but Isherwood narrated the story as it was presented on CBS Radio Workshop. Both British authors had been fascinated with the fame and fortune found in America, and Isherwood’s strong interest in Hinduism and faith healing, was something that attracted Huxley.

The story is about Jacob Ericson, a humble, simple man who works for Professor Carter and his crippled daughter, as a ranch hand in the Mojave Desert. Jacob is an honorable and good man and he is first noticed by his employer when he heals a dying calf with his hands. Jacob can sense the real feelings of others and can also can heal people with his hands.

He heals his employers young crippled daughter, Sharon, who he is infatuated with and he then follows her to Los Angeles where she pursues a career as an entertainer. He felt they loved each other but she betrays him, and their relationship does not continue.  Jacob’s is sought out by a minister of the Church of the Primitive Pentecostal Brotherhood, then with some promoters who want to make him into a vaudeville show.

He is compromised both ethically and financially by his promoters and it forces his to deep introspection. With those challenges and things not working out with Sharon, Jacob goes back to the desert.

Huxley lived in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963.  His approach to Brave New World and other successes shows him as a hedonist seeking control through using pleasure. His time in LA show him as a critic of social mores, norms and ideals. He wrote about spiritual subjects and philosophical mysticism and was well known intellectual of his time. 

Christopher Isherwood Quotes

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.” (Goodbye to Berlin)

If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in"

 “Never mind. Never mind. In this brief life, one cannot  always be counting the cost.” 

 “Most of the time, thank goodness, we suffer quite stupidly and unreflectingly, like the animals.” 

 "California is a tragic country – like Palestine, like every Promised Land." 

 "I'll bet Shakespeare compromised himself a lot; anybody who's in the entertainment industry does to some extent."

Jacob's Hands

By Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood

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Camino Island by John Grisham

Camino Island by John Grisham

Princeton University really does have some original F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts, probably in a high security vault, and they are Grisham's target for of a gang of thieves who plot to steal them in this book.

Their plan works and then they have to find a way to sell them. The manuscripts are reported to be priceless, but 25 million is a starting value.

The thieves vanish, and the FBI’s Rare Asset Recovery Unit starts to investigate, and so does the insurance company. Both know that Bruce Kable, a successful book dealer who has a well known book store on Camino Island could be involved. This business is a dark business but Bruce likely knows the players.

Mercer Mann is a young woman, collage English teacher, and a struggling writer, burdened by debts. She had spent many summers as a kid on Florida's Camino Island in her grandmother's beach cottage.

Mercer receives an offer she can't refuse: to return to the peace of the island, to write her novel - and get close to a certain infamous bookseller, and his interesting collection of manuscripts.

Mercer and Bruce get to know each other and it leads to findings that without her would not have been found. Her time with the book dealer is an interesting sub story.

No lawyers or judges in this book.  This fact is unusual for John Grisham, since the law, lawyers, and judges are a key part of his formula for success, but it is a very exciting book without that element.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

It is interesting to look at Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and 1984, by George Orwell, and compare the way they see the future. Orwell felt people would be controlled by inflicting pain and Huxley thought inflicting pleasure was the way. Orwell looked back at history and wanted to rewrite it and Huxley was more flexible. Orwell feared those who would ban books and Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. 

See thoughts about Orwell by Huxley in a letter Huxley sent in 1949 right after the publication of 1984 in Daily Comments Section.

The novel opens in the future, 2540 AD, in London which is called a World State City. The population is engineered in artificial wombs, into one of 5 different life states, and childhood indoctrination programs prepare these predetermined classes for their planned lives.

Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, works and has a relationship with Bernard Marx, a psychologist. Bernard does not approve of the state keeping its citizens peaceful with the forced consumption of a drug called "soma" and subliminal indoctrination, and gets himself in trouble talking about it. 

Bernard and Lenina come up with a way to get away from repercussions and too much scrutiny, and plan a trip to a Reservation in New Mexico where they plan to observe natural-born people, disease, the aging process, languages, and religious lifestyles. They find a woman, Linda, formerly from London where she had known Bernards boss and a young man, John, her son, living on the reservation. 

John grew up on the reservation and was taught to read by his mother using just two books, a scientific manual and the complete works of Shakespeare. His communication, feelings and thoughts reflect much of Shakespeare’s writings. John and Linda want to return to London, feeling out of place on the reservation. On return, Bernard becomes the "custodian” for John who is now treated as a celebrity, but considered a savage. 

Linda finds her interest in the state sponsored mood drugs and goes into a permanent "soma" state, while John refuses to attend social events, organized by Bernard, appalled by what he perceives to be an empty society. Lenina and John are physically attracted to each other, but John's view of courtship and romance, based on Shakespeare, is utterly incompatible with Lenina's freewheeling attitude towards sex. 

John’s mother eventually winds up on her deathbed and when he rushes to her side it become a scandal because he is not reflecting the correct attitude about death.  Bernard is exiled to an island because of their antisocial activity and John asks to go with him pleading his “right to be unhappy”. His wish is denied, and he tries to isolate himself, but he just attracts sightseers. Eventually depressed he hangs himself. 

Huxley felt that the Brave New World, failed to consider man's “almost infinite appetite for distractions” and that by doing so it would lead to a regime that would break because it could not bend. 

Quotes

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

“If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.” 

“I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.” 

“I am I, and I wish I weren't.” 

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them" 

“...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.” 

I shall not be moved by Maya Anglou

Maya Angelou’s birthday is April 4th, 2018 when she would have been 90 years old. Her book “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” is well known. Freedom resonates, and her life resonates with many who have struggled and have compassion.  She writes with a passionate intensity and her book of poetry, “I shall not be moved”, touches our hearts with the collection of poems it presents.

She captures the pain and progress of being black and struggling to be free. Her poems are deep with wisdom, reflecting the feelings of spirituals, jazz and the blues. They celebrate life and reflect the true nature of forgiveness. Old people look back at life and laugh at what it did to them, and the young still suffer. The phrase, “I shall not be moved” is from her poem, “Our Grandmothers” . A slave mother is running away with her children, because her master wants to sell them and split up the family. The more modern day working poor have their place in the poem, standing and waiting for welfare.

Her poems seem to offer forgiveness for slavery and she uses the beauty of nature to soften her tone and message. The book has several poems. Some show, like the blossoms in nature, a blooming of a better day. She overcomes. She is indeed not moved, and hopefully we will not be moved from the poignancy and relevance of her messa

See the Literary Favorites Section for more on Maya Angelou

She used her skills to leave people feeling different because of what she wrote. Her writing approach has been sometimes labeled "autobiographical fiction" because it went beyond some traditional bounds....................................more on this in Literary Favorites section

Quotes

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.  Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
 

I Shall Not Be Moved

By Maya Angelou

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Educated, a Memoir, by Tara Westover

Thank You, Tara Westover for your "like" on my Twittter @ConnectedEvent3

Tara Westover’s father was a committed anti-government survivalist. They lived near "Buck Peak" in Idaho.  His paranoia deepened with the coming of Y2K and with the news of the news of Ruby Ridge in the early 1990’s. He wanted to be off the grid and didn’t believe in doctors or birth certificates. Her mother was committed to her husband, or at least afraid of him. She was an unlicensed midwife and herbalist.

The family attended the Mormon church, but were not mainstream, and they mixed many of the fathers beliefs into their religious viewpoint. An Authors Note page in the book points out “that the book is not about Mormonism, or any other religious point of view.”

The author starts out a chapter titled “Educated” saying: “When I was child I waited for my mind to grow, for my experiences to accumulate, and my choices to solidify, taking shape into the likeness of a person.” The book does just that. It is a unique look at the strength of the individual, and likewise the strength of environment.

Tara's first school experience was with Brigham Young University, BYU, where she earned a BA and was admitted on the strength of claiming she was home-schooled, and on her high ACT score. She graduated magna cum laude. 

She went to Cambridge for a summer program where a professor saw in her the strength of her intellect. He said of her that he could see the real advantage that not attending public schools had been for her. He encouraged her to apply to Cambridge, and she was awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. 

She was invited to Trinity College where she gained a MPhil Degree, which is a postgraduate advanced research degree with the prerequisites required for a Master of Philosophy degree. She ten went on and received her PhD in history, in 2014, from Cambridge.

Cambridge, Brigham Young Univeristy, Trinity Collage

Tara’s family was split down the middle. 3 of the children earned PhD’s and 4 had no high school diploma. The 4 became dependent on the family business.

Tara, as a girl growing up, was not just a tom-boy, she was doing the work of a man from childhood. She could drive a fork lift before she could drive a car. The family lived during those years off the junk yard that surrounded their house. The father did construction work and the children were required to help. It was dangerous and the work they did would scare anyone. Tara’s transition into a young woman, with the years of being on the crew, are interesting and her intellectual look at herself about this time was insightful.

After Tara left, and after her father’s life changing accident, her mothers herbal business took off and became a major area employer.  It was a good example of how a little scripture can really sell a product.

This is a compelling and important memoir. The writing is excellent, and the purity of thought and honesty is a powerful reason for why this book is so important.

Quotes

"Getting an education had changed me. I couldn’t go forward, because my parents couldn’t go forward with me, and I couldn’t go back, because that person didn’t exist any more."   

"An education isn't about making a living; it's about making a person."

 “Choices, numberless as grains of sand, had layered and compressed, coalescing into sediment, then into rock, until all was set in stone." 

“First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.” 

---

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Educated: A Memoir

By Tara Westover

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The Stand, by Stephen King

Biological weapons have only become more of a potential world-wide threat since “The Stand” was re-released in 1990. With all that has happened since then this novel may be more relevant today. 

The story starts with an accident on an Army base. The virus, called “Captain Trips”, kills 99.4% of the entire world’s population. The few survivors left dream about two leaders that now represent good and evil, Randall Flagg, The Dark Man, and Mother Abagail, who represents God.

All at the Army base are killed but one person gets past the quarantine guards and goes to get his family and they take off to Texas. They don’t get any father than a gas station where they stop infecting everyone they meet. The super flu type plague kills everyone who breaths the air, unless that person has a natural immunity - soon it spreads throughout America and then the world. 

We meet other survivors on the roads trying to get away. Along the way we meet many who were just stopped in their tracks suffering gruesome and awful deaths. One man, Stu Redman, lived in Texas but was found to have immunity, so he was taken to a disease control center in Vermont where a special team worked to find a cure for others using him. The settings don’t offer any hope, just different views of how people deal with death. Some make it through New York and go on toward Maine but eventually they go West.

When the only ones left alive are the immune ones, they hit the roads most of which are full of cars just sitting with those inside dead. Travel is by walking, motorcycles, bicycles and a variety of vehicles. 

Some survivors feel a pull to go to Boulder, Colorado and many have seen Mother Abigail in dreams and heard her voice telling them to come. She is felt to be God’s representative on earth. The community wants to plan a new society and when they are gathered they talk about setting rules for behavior. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all discussed. The question of whether America even exists, or is just an idea, is debated. 

Good is mostly found in Boulder but Las Vegas attracts evil and, according to Mother Abagail, also attracts people who like order and stability, as well as the weak ones, the lonely ones, and those who have left God out of their hearts. 

Randall Flagg is the Satan like leader referred to as the “Dark Man” in Las Vegas, Nevada (seems a natural destination). Flagg controls all that happens there and keeps the people in line using, rank and position for following, and crucifixion and torture, for disobedience. Flagg is very aware of those in Boulder Colorado and Mother Abigail.

Boulder is referred to as the “Free Zone”, and spies from Boulder are sent to Las Vegas to gain information on Flagg. The spies are captured and about to be executed when one of Flagg's military experts named "Trashcan Man" drives into town after weeks searching the desert around military bases for a nuclear weapon. He has found a warhead and brought it with him as planned to use against Mother Abigail's people. Instead he detonates the bomb and he destroys Flagg and his people. 

Stephen King has said that longer novels like this one give him a chance to let us really get to know the characters and see them mature. That certainly does happen. Two of the key characters, Stu and Fran decide to return to Maine. (Interesting the way Maine makes it into King’s books, one way or another) They also ponder what humanity has learned? 

The Stand is never dull, hard to put down, and one of King’s best stories.
 

Quotes by Stephen King

“The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.”

“People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad.”

 “A person can't change all at once.”

 “You couldn't not like someone who liked the guitar.”

 “Your first impulse is to share good news, your second is to club someone with it.” 

“Even the company of the mad was better than the company of the dead.”

 “If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.” 

Stephen King's The Stand

By Stephen King's the Stand

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1984 by George Orwell

This novel introduces many terms that have now are in common usage in our language. Orwellian, Big Brother, Doublethink, 1984, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, 2+2 =5, and Memory Hole are now common terms.

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It takes place in  Oceania in a town called Airstrip One where London once was and during the time of an ongoing war. The government oversees their lives with surveillance and cameras. Even the language is being changed to further insures loyalty and devotion. Condensing the speech and writing leads to the complete subjection of every thought, action and word and then  even to the elimination of truth and history. Newspeak is replacing Oldspeak and the “Thought Police” enforce it, and watch for other thought crimes. Things are run by the Party and the Party is run by Big Brother.

Winston Smith is not a Party member. He works in the Ministry of Truth and works on historical revisionism, but he justifies what he does because he has been told he is correcting mistakes. He secretly hates the Party and wants to get away from it.  He begins a sexual relationship, a rule violation, with Julia, who works in the Fiction Department. He makes friends with O’Brien who he believes has the same thoughts as he does, but he is a double agent, and he is arrested.  O’Brien works at the Ministry of Love and his main job is torturing those he catches being disloyal. The most feared torture is Room 101 where people are confronted with their worst fears. He confesses and betrays Julie. For the balance of the story he evolves, and the book ends with him watching a TV story about Big Brother and his strong feelings of love for him. 

The novel was considered one of the top 100 of the last century. The very term, 1984, has taken on an influence of its own pointing to the entire book and the total control of the mind that takes place.  

"1984", a dystopian novel, vs's "Animal Farm", an allegorical novella, are both satires on society. They both focus on corruption of power and the adoption of collectivism-Stalin's Russia inspired much about both of them.  Link to the review on Animal Farm & Orwell's book on book covers click to link or use Past Reviews. 

Quotes by George Orwell

“Big Brother is Watching You.” 

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” 

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” 

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” 

“In the face of pain there are no heroes.”

 “We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”

“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” 

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1984

By Gorge Orwell

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Imagine, How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer

Jonah Lehrer tells us: “For most of human history, people have believed that the imagination is inherently inscrutable, an impenetrable biological gift. As a result, we cling to a series of false myths about what creativity is and where it comes from.”

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Lehrer tells us that the brain is hard wired with creative impulses and is constantly forming associations that lead to creativity. Using neuroscientists and psychologists research and interviews, he attempts to get inside the minds of Bob Dylan, Yo-Yo Ma, and others, as well as circumstances that are found in Silicon Valley, Shakespeare’s London, Pixar and others.

Shakespeare's London, according to Lehrer, was a place where some key things came together to spark creativity. The critical density of population and an explosion of literacy brought people together to collaborate, and the collective effort was an example of the brain seeking new connections.

Bob Dylan’s story explores his radical change in style from presenting, serious lyrics on serious topics, to an opposite approach, of celebrating vagueness.  Dylan changed and focused on finding a way to make something new from a list of varied influences. The exact word didn’t carry the message anymore, but instead it was his connection and focus between words.

Lehrer says that something very special happens when you when you concentrate talent in one area, as well as when you add new people with new backgrounds. Fresh viewpoints help spark those individuals that are stuck in their ways. He suggests changes in immigration laws to attract more people, and discussed and the fact that immigrants invent patents at double the rate of non-immigrants.

An introductory quote to this book is taken from T.S. Eliot’s, Introduction to Dante’s Inferno: “Hell is a place where nothing connects with nothing”.  That message seems to define the book as an effort to see connections in everything and show how creativity happens.

Instead of being born with creativity skills and just being stuck with that, Lehrer shows that imagination is inspired by the everyday world, by its flaws and beauty, and that we are able to see beyond our own sources and to imagine things that exist only in the mind.”

Qutoes

“And so we keep on thinking, because the next thought might be the answer.” 

“...the imagination is unleashed by constraints. You break out of the box by stepping into shackles.” 

“Every creative story is different. And every creative story is the same “It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry -- if they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere, how to keep on working until the work is done. Woody Allen famously declared that "eighty percent of success is showing up."

“Every creative story is different. And every creative story is the same. There was nothing. Now there is something. It's almost like magic.” 

“The great ages did not perhaps produce much more talent than ours,' [T.S.] Eliot wrote. 'But less talent was wasted.” 

 

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer (2012-04-01)

By Jonah Lehrer

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Every Note Played, by Lisa Genova →

(see links at the bottom of this post to Lisa Genova's other books)

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This novel by Lisa Genova focuses on ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). It captures the sequence of events that the body goes through as its life is taken away, beginning with paralysis and progressing to death.  The experience that the disease presents in loss of muscle control and degeneration is so clearly shown that it alone may leave the reader in tears, but Genova brings Richard Evans the person, clearly into focus.

Richard is a famous concert classical pianist, known for his technique, and he loses any use of his hands early in the story. Every finger of his hands was like a finely calibrated instrument, and his music was exact and flawless.

His ex-wife, who is also an accomplished pianist can clearly relate to what those losses mean, but their marriage ended years ago and she and her daughter, Grace, have only had a distant relationship with Richard for years. Their relationships have ample issues and faults that must be dealt with as Richards’s life comes apart.

The emotional strain on Richard, his wife, and his daughter, is met head-on in dealing with this disease, and in some ways, their life's issues seem to be the more important message of the book. The step-by-step debilitation of Richards’s body and the treatments and life-sustaining equipment challenges seem to fold into situations that force him to deal with his failed marriage, estranged daughter, and unresolved feelings towards his father.

The thought of Richard having to be left with nothing but these unresolved issues and only the blink of an eye to communicate and hope to resolve them is an additional level of terror that this disease offers. Somehow, they do find some resolution.

It might be possible that ALS was the only way he had to resolve his more significant life issues, but that seems beyond fair.

This may be Lisa Genova's best book yet.

Quotes

“What’s the saying? Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." 

“Everything begins and ends. Every day and night, every concerto, every relationship, every life. Everything ends eventually.” 

“Love isn’t measured by the number of hours a person logs.” 

Lisa Genoa

Neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author

Link to reviews of books below by clicking on the book

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

Love and compassion is found among those that live in poverty-"the miserable" ones.  This is the most important gift that one person can give another in life & this is the clear message of Les Miserables, the book.

It was one of the greatest novels of the 19th century and it starts out with Jean Valjean just released from 19 years' in prison, for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family. He can't find a place to stay because of his prison time is clearly marked on his passport.

A church bishop helps him and he narrowly escapes being arrested again. Valjean steals again, is discovered and he leaves the area with the police on his trail. 

He establishes himself with another name, in another town, where during the 6 years he spends there, he becomes a wealthy factory owner, and is appointed mayor of a town. One day he is walking down the street and he stops and lifts a loaded cart, to free a trapped man. This raises the curiosity of the local police inspector who knew Valjean years ago-he remembers how strong he was.

A women named Fantine had been abandoned, with her young child Cosette, years earlier in Paris. She had made her way to this same small town and left her daughter in the care of a local  corrupt innkeeper and his mean wife. Unlike the play where this couple was in some ways funny they were pure evil in the book. By working at a local plant owned by Valjean she is able to pay the innkeeper and his wife to take care of Cosette. Fantine doesn't know how bad it is for her daughter with these people. She loses her job in the factory and she is living on the street with no money to pay for her daughters care. She sells her hair and her front teeth to get money and then is forced to becomes a prostitute.  She knows she can't continue this way as she is dying from a disease. She is arrested and taken to a hospital.

The mayor, Valjean, learns where she is and feels bad that she is in this trouble, having had to fire her, so he tries to help. He gets Cosette at the innkeepers, and they go to the hospital.

This story has many twists and turns. Before long Valjean  is identified & imprisoned. This is such a shock to Fantine that she dies from it. Valjean escapes, but is  recaptured, and  sentenced to death.  While imprisoned he saves a sailors life. He then fakes his own death by appearing to have drowned. He goes to get Cosette and they run. 

Years later Cosette has grown up. He has helped many people as well as helping the young revolutionaries of his day.  When he is finally found out again it is the kindness he has shown to so many over the years that saves him. 

Song: I Dreamed a Dream

The play, Les Miserables, has so many great songs.  The song “I Dreamed a Dream” is a favorite of mine. It is sung by the character Fantine, in the first act of the play.  She has just been fired from her job at the factory and thrown onto the streets. She thinks back to happier days and wonders at all that has gone wrong in her life. The song touches us, as we all think about our lives past and future

Quotes

“And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God.” 

“Nobody loves the light like the blind man.”

“Dying is nothing; what’s terrible is not to live.” 

 “People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them.” 

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo is one of the greatest and best-known French writers. Outside of France, his most famous works are the novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Les Miserables (Signet Classics)

By Victor Hugo

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Click here to link to Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T.S. Eliot the book that the play Cats was based on