The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel, by Sherman Alexie

Author Sherman Alexie’s has brought us an important story and meaningful look at real life today. This is a great book for everyone

Arnold Spirit Jr. tells us about his life as an Indian on the Spokane Reservation.  He was born with excess spinal fluid on the brain which he survived but he was left with a lisp and a stutter. He was far-sighted in one eye and near-sighted in the other. He is considered a geek. The other kids have bullied him growing up.  

Everyone was poor on the reservations, but Arnold said of his parents: “My parents came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people.”

As a 14-year-old high school freshman rather than going outside where he was teased and beaten up, he spends a lot of time in his room drawing cartoons which illustrate much of this story. “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods,” he says, “and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

A teacher at school is the cause of Arnold being suspended from the reservation school. The teacher goes to his home and gives him a piece of advice: He tells him to get out of the reservation school saying  that he can do better. “The only thing you kids are being taught is how to give up,” the teacher says. Arnold transfers to Reardan High, 22 miles away in a small town full of wealthy white kids.

He excels in the new school, getting good grades and doing well on the basketball team.  He is half in a white environment and still half on the reservation dealing with its everyday realities

The author* shows us what hope is and why it grows with encouragement and environment.  A great book.

• Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, was born in 1966. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington.

Quotes

“I grabbed my book and opened it up. I wanted to smell it. Heck, I wanted to kiss it. Yes, kiss it. That's right, I am a book kisser.  Maybe that's kind of perverted or maybe it's just romantic and highly intelligent.” 

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,' I said. 'By Black and White. By Indian and White. But I know this isn't true. The world is only broken into two tribes: the people who are assholes and the people who are not.” 

“Do you understand how amazing it is to hear that from an adult? Do you know how amazing it is to hear that from anybody? It's one of the simplest sentences in the world, just four words, but they're the four hugest words in the world when they're put together.
You can do it………….I can do it……………………………………Let's do it.”

No Middle Name, The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories, by Lee Child

Why Lee Child? See note at bottom of review

A collection of 12 stories with 2 from Reacher’s teenage years—especially good is the one in which 13-year-old Reacher finds himself an army brat newly arrived with his family in Okinawa faced with a neighborhood bully. That ends as expected but then he also saves his father and brother from problems and finds time and occasion to give a neighbor girl her first kiss. She asked how she did, and he told her it was a better kiss than the four other kisses he had previous experienced from 2 other girls.

For those who have not followed through so many books our hero is ex-Army. He is a ex-military policeman, 6 foot 5 inches in his socks, 220-250 lbs. an a 50-inch chest. Hair: dirty-blond. Eyes: ice-blue.  (This is Not Tom Cruise so erase that image if you have it)

The twelve stories include Too Much Time, Second Son, High Heat, Deep Down, Small Wars, James Penny’s New Identity, Everyone Talks, Not a Drill, Maybe They Have a Tradition, Guy Walks into a Bar, No Room at the Motel and The Picture of the Lonely Diner.

I like the complete longer novels, and I think Child’s skill in building up tension and anticipation is actually better suited for them, but these short stories were great.

See Literary Section re Lee Child and his work and links to all the books reviewed here. Click Here

Quotes

“Waste not, want not, make do and mend, don’t make an exhibition of yourself.” 

“I was in the 110th MP,” Reacher said. “I’m not scared of PTSD. PTSD is scared of me.” 

“Without breaking stride Reacher head-butted him full in the face. Left, right, bang. A perfect ten, for style and content, and power and precision.” 

See Lee Child Literary Section

See Literary Section for Lee Child and also see links to all his books. Click here

The Literary Section will show that I read a lot of Lee Child Books. I also read a lot of John Steinbeck, C.S. Lewis , Maya Angelou, Stepehen King and other books. I have to ask myself on occasions why do I keep reading these Jack Reacher novels? Well Stephen King can be explained in part because he is such a good writer, and I like his approach. Lee Child seems to be a master at plot. That is my excuse and I will stick with it.

James Baldwin, a biography, by David Leeming

Is James Baldwin an intellectual? See note at bottom of review

James Baldwin became a literary giant with his writings exploring racism, class distinction and sexual difference in America. He was best known for his books: Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanmi’s Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time and The Evidence of Thing Not Seen.

“Blackness and whiteness do not matter,” was at the core message of James Baldwin confrontation of the black alienation in American society. He felt that race forced and shaped ever aspect of African-American life. His writings were accepted by the white community because of his view that racism hurt both sides. It not only softened their view but hardened some fellow black writers such as Langston Hughes who said: “Jimmy, I fear you are becoming a 'Negro' writer,”

Baldwin personalized the issue of race, transforming the issue of local conflict into one of individual conscience. He defended the arts saying they should not be reduced to tools of political writing. Baldwin’s approach resonated and led to his being the best known black writer of his times.

David Leeming was close to Baldwin and wrote the story of his life tying his thoughts and growth with the books and essays Baldwin was so well known for. Leeming is a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Connecticut. He personal closeness allowed him to include and focus on Baldwin difficulty in accepting his homosexuality, his attempted suicide in Paris in 1956 and his relationship with his unloving stepfather.

The book did a good job of seeing the development of Baldwins life and how it was part of his various writings but left many questions on who Baldwin really was.

Quotes

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” 

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” 

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” 

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

 “Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be” 

“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

Is James Baldwin an Intellectual?

James Baldwin approached race issues differently than most who spoke out in his time. He was out front on the idea that discriminating and hate hurt the haters as much, or even more , than the ones that were hated and discriminated against.

The question is does this insight really make him into a intellectual? Was his comments the result of intensive reasoning and deep thinking? Did he study our humanness, as Shakespeare did?

He did respond to conclusions about his own human condition but wouldn’t a better question have been “why do we hate others” rather than focusing on how we go about hate and why it hurts us?

Nobel Lectures from the Literature Laureates, 1986 to 2006

This book will be of interest to those with a deep interest in writing or reading. The acceptance lectures are from 21 Nobel Literature Laureates, from 21 different countries, considered among the greatest minds in the world of literature.

Bloomsbury Review wrote of this book when it was first published that it “gives us a glimpse into the experiences, memories, and most passionately held beliefs of the past quarter century.”

The first Nobel Prize for Literature was presented in 1901, six years after Alfred Nobel drew up his last will and testament. He stipulated that the Prize for Literature was to be presented to the person who had produced “the most outstanding work in an ideal direction, as determined by the Nobel academy in Stockholm Sweden. The award celebrates the work of a writer whose contribution to literature consistently transcends national boundaries to connect with the human condition,

The book is as different as those receiving, he awards are and the chapters shown on the contents page are listed below. Maybe not for everyone but it offers some deep thought.

Table Of Contents

My father's suitcase / Orhan Pamuk

Art, truth and politics / Harold Pinter

Sidelined / Elfriede Jelinek

He and his man / J.M. Coetzee

Heureka! / Imre Kertész

Two Worlds / V.S. Naipaul

The case for literature / Gao Xingjian

To be continued ... / Günter Grass

How characters became the masters and the author their apprentice / José Saramago

Contra jogulatores obloquentes (against jesters who defame and insult) / Dario Fo

The poet and the world / Wislawa Szymborska

Crediting poetry / Seamus Heaney

Japan, the ambiguous, and myself / Kenzaburo Oe

The bird is in your hands / Toni Morrison

The Antilles: fragments of epic memory / Derek Walcott

Writing and being / Nadine Gordimer

In search of the present / Octavio Paz

Eulogy to the fable / Camilo José Cela

Mankind's coming of age / Naguib Mahfouz

Aesthetics and language / Joseph Brodsky

This past must address its present / Wole Soyinka

Laureates, 1901 to 2006.

Overcoming Addiction, The Spiritual Solution, by Deepak Chopra

Does it make sense to talk about a spiritual solution and then define spiritual as mystical? See note at end of review

Deepak Chopra, M.D. sees the addicted individual as one having potential, and one who is just a misguided seeker.  The true object that we are all seeking he tells us is transcendence and he wants to show us how to reach this condition in his book “Overcoming Addiction, The Spiritual Solution.”

He suggests that addiction is manifest in a variety of mood-altering substances and that they can include alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, drugs, and even just food. Traditional approaches in dealing with addiction are negative, instilling fear as a motivator. Chopra guides the reader to replacing addiction with lasting sources of joy and spiritual fulfillment.

The spiritual is explained as being mystical, an advanced sense of self, beyond our normal self and reaching a point where we abandon the self. * (See note at end) To do this we need, according to Chopra, a new medicine: one in which mind, consciousness, meaning and intelligence work together to conquer self. He believes that a person may attain "perfect health".  He further develops this theme in another book, “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old.”

The ideas in the book are interesting but didn’t really address what the human spirit is, in this reviewer’s opinion.

Quotes

“If you want to do really important things in life and big things in life, you can’t do anything by yourself. And your best teams are your friends and your siblings.” 

 “Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.”

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” 

 “The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself.” 

 “The highest levels of performance come to people who are centered, intuitive, creative, and reflective – people who know to see a problem as an opportunity.” 

“Meditation makes the entire nervous system go into a field of coherence.

Does it make sense to talk about a spiritual solution and then define spiritual as mystical?

Maybe Chopra means what he says when he suggests that the spiritual “can be explained by the mystical” suggesting the spiritual apprehension of knowledge inaccessible to the intellect, may be attained through contemplation and self-surrender? Calling the spirit mystical seems like he is dodging his own issue?

Is he saying the intellect itself is only physical? If we can take what we learn with us into the next life then the intellect needs to be spiritual as well.

Mysticism is a belief that union with, or absorption into the Deity, is possible; but that implies that the spiritual is not already within us as humans?

If our spirits are within us then we can find the solutions buy building on our spirits to overcome weakness.

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I'd Rather Be Reading, The Delights And Dilemmas of the Reading Life, by Anne Bogel →

 

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This is a little book that we ought to read once or twice a year to really reinforce our love of books. Not that reinforcement is needed, but it is.

No surprise here: Anne Bogel tells us that the most common question she gets is, “Can you recommend a great book?” The question comes because, she says, “Because I’m a writer, certified book nerd, and all-around bookish enthusiast, people ask me the question all the time.” Her book reminds us that there are “few one-size-fits-all prescriptions for reading life.”

The book offers 21 chapters. I was surprised at how interesting the one on “How to Organize Your Bookshelves” was. Her chapters on “The Readers I Have Been” and “Coming of Age” offer interesting insight into how we change because of what we read, and the one on “Again for the First Time” discusses why a good book, when we return to re-read it, will always have something new to say. It’s not the same book, and we’re not the same reader.

“A good book, when we return to it, will always have something new to say. It's not the same book, and we're not the same reader.” 

I suspect that when I re-read this book, I will find it different and that it will have a new, updated message for me, so I plan to do just that.

Quotes

“When we share our favorite titles, we can't help but share ourselves as well. Shakespeare said the eyes are the windows to the soul, but we readers know one's bookshelves reveal just as much.”

“Yet she wondered if her experience was cheapened because she’d read it before she lived it,” 

  “A “great” book means different things to different people.” 

“C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” 

Gone Tomorrow, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

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Early one morning, on a nearly empty Manhattan Lexington Avenue subway car, Jack Reacher notices a woman passenger he suspects is a suicide bomber. She matches the 12-point profile perfectly, but he dismissed the thought. “Not because of racial profiling. White women are as capable of craziness as anyone else.”  He thought the timing was wrong and had “tactical implausibility.”

He was wrong, and it led to him finding himself on the trail leading back to the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The story takes place mainly in New York City and has urban poetry that analyzes the streets and buildings as if they were just a jungle to traverse, using strength and guile to win.

Child continues to surprise us with the twists and turns of his plots, but “Gone Tomorrow,” book 13, introduces in an unexpected way how we see evil manifest itself.

See Literary Favorites Section: Lee Child click here

Quotes

“Delta is full of guys who can stay awake for a week and walk a hundred miles and shoot the balls off a tsetse fly, but it’s relatively empty of guys who can do all that and then tell you the difference between a Shiite and a trip to the latrine.” 

“Look, don't see, listen, don't hear. The more you engage, the longer you survive.”

“Delta is full of guys who can stay awake for a week and walk a hundred miles and shoot the balls off a tsetse fly, but it’s relatively empty of guys who can do all that and then tell you the difference between a Shiite and a trip to the latrine.” 

“Look, don't see, listen, don't hear. The more you engage, the longer you survive.” 

"Before criticizing someone, you should walk a mile in his shoes. Then, when you start criticizing him, you’re a mile away, and he’s got to run after you in his socks." 

Will The Real Jack Reacher Please Stand Up

Ulysses, by James Joyce →

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A review in the Economist of Ulysses by James Joyce said: “There are two kinds of people. Those that have read "Ulysses" and those that haven't.” Both sides have extreme viewpoints and plenty of passion to fuel their position.  The extreme of one side might remember and celebrate June 16th, the day in which the story of "Ulysses" takes place in Dublin in 1904.  Others criticize the book, saying it is pornographic, too long or, too dense, or both.

Much like Shakespeare, it appeals to both the highbrow and lowbrow with an ongoing study of what it is to be human. The language, which might be called a feast of words, also becomes almost noise and patter but still resonates as poetry. The sheer length of the book is daunting, but it allows for ongoing diversities of experiences within the overall story. 

The three main characters are Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, and his wife, Molly. The characters and events of the novel loosely parallel those in Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War.

The book is about a single day and begins at 8:00 AM when Stephen prepares for the day and heads out. He teaches at a boy’s school, receives his pay and a letter from Deasy, and then walks on the beach.

Bloom serves his wife Molly breakfast in bed, brings her the mail, and goes to the post office to pick up a letter. At 11:00 AM, Bloom attends the funeral of Paddy Dignam with Simon Dedalus, Martin Cunningham, and Jack Power.

Bloom wants to publish an advertisement and goes to a newspaper office. Stephen arrives with Deasy’s letter, and the editor agrees to publish it. Bloom walks through Dublin for a while, chatting with Mrs. Breen.

In the National Library, Stephen stops and discusses his theories about Shakespeare and Hamlet with a poet. Bloom arrives, looking for a copy of an advertisement he had placed, and Buck shows up. Stephen and Buck leave to go to a pub as Bloom also departs.

Several meet Simon in the Ormond Hotel bar, and Boylan arrives later. Bloom had seen Boylan’s car earlier and followed it to the hotel where he dines. Boylan leaves on his way to his affair with Molly.

Bloom leaves the beach and finds Stephen and several friends drunk. He joins them, and when the bar closes, Stephen and a friend head to a brothel. Bloom later finds Stephen there getting into trouble, and he takes him with him. Later, they take a cab and head for Bloom’s home, where Stephen is invited to stay, but he declines and leaves. Bloom goes to bed with Molly and tells her of the day.

Quotes

“Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” 

“Love loves to love love.” 

“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”

 “Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”

“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.” 

“I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.”

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.” 

Apt Pupil by Stephen King →

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Kurt Dussander had been at Bergin-Belsen, Auschwitz, and commandant at Patin.  He was now in his 70’s and living in Todd Bowden’s neighborhood.

Todd “looked like the all-American Kid as he pedaled his twenty-six-inch Schwinn with the apehanger handlebars up the residential street.” His 4th-grade teacher had written on his report card that he was an “apt pupil.”  His parents cared deeply about him; he seemed a fine young man.

Todd had found some old magazines about the Holocaust and became fascinated and obsessed with knowing more. He went to the library and read all that he could find. He learned about Kurt Dussander, the torture, the death, and the decades-old manhunt. He also discovered that this man lived near his home, using the name Denker. Todd doesn't want to turn him in; he wants to know more. Lots more.

Todd has leverage over Dussander and uses it to learn all he can, but after enough time passes Dussander gains leverage over Todd for hiding his knowledge of him.  Todd doesn’t exactly change, but his harder side seems to be more present. They seem to bring out the worst in each other.

The irony of this story is that it shows that what you read and dwell on changes you and can hurt you.  Is this a message that Steven King wants to tell us?

see literary favorites for more on Stephen King and links to all of his books reviewed on this site

The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams →

Henry Adams was born in Boston in 1838 a great-grandson of the Second President John Adams and grandson of the 6th President John Quincy Adams. He was a professor at Harvard and editor of the North American Review.

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 The book ‘The Education of Henry Adams” is an autobiography that focuses on his own and the countries, development from 1838 to 1905. It is a critic of the 19th century approach to education as well as well as many of the political and technological changes that took place between the civil war and the first world war.  

In Chapter 25 he says, “Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts” He then adds that “historians undertake to arrange sequences, called stories or histories, assuming in silence a relation of cause and effect.

 Of the year 1862 and the civil war Henry Adams “could never bear to think without a shudder.'' His father had been appointed as Minister to Great Britain and Henry went with him as a secretary and he experienced first-hand the English governmental feeling that strongly favored the Confederacy.

 ''Resistance to something was the law of New England nature; the boy looked out on the world with the instinct of resistance; for numberless generations his predecessors had viewed the world chiefly as a thing to be reformed, filled with evil forces to be abolished, and they saw no reason to suppose that they had wholly succeeded in the abolition; the duty was unchanged. That duty implied not only resistance to evil, but hatred of it. Boys naturally look on all force as an enemy, and generally find it so, but the New Englander, whether boy or man, in his long struggle with a stingy or hostile universe had learned also to love the pleasure of hating; his joys were few.”

Quotes

• “Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” ...

• “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

• “Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.” ...

• “No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.”

Never Go Back, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

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Book Photo Disclaimer: I refuse to post any picture with Tom Cruise in it. How he got to play Jack Reacher in the movies is beyond logical understanding.

“Never Go Back” refers to Reacher’s former Northeastern Virginia headquarters, where he served as CO of an elite military police team. However, the real reason for going back started four books back, in “61 Hours,” with a flirtatious telephone call to the woman who currently has Reacher’s old job, Maj. Susan Turner.  

This book starts with his return, but it turns out to be a trap. Someone knew he was coming, and he was forced back into the military, arrested, and charged with homicide and even a paternity suit. At first, this seems to just be aimed at getting him to run and never go back. The message is delivered by a couple of tough guys who fail to intimidate Reacher—of course!

Major Turner is also arrested shortly after Reacher arrives. Her replacement seems unqualified and allows a soldier in Afghanistan to be killed.

Both Turner and Reacher find themselves locked up in adjacent cells and escape together. They quickly learn that they are both attracted to much more than just their phone voices. Turner's thoughts about Reacher seem to reveal a level of lust not seen before in the prior books.

Their escape sends them with little money fleeing West Virginia and going cross-country to Los Angeles, where they investigate the paternity charge. Reacher meets the child who has some striking similarities to him. She is very tall for a teenage girl. They meet in a diner, and her backtalk and way of thinking are very much in Reacher's style.

The plot is spread from a planned meeting with an Afghan tribal leader to LA neighborhoods and points between.

see Literary Favorites Section for Lee Child for more on this author and also links to all his books reviewed on this site

Quotes

• “If you can't acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk.” ...

• “How much do you work out?" ...

• “Like they were puppets, and the puppeteer had sneezed.” ...

• “A person either runs or he fights. ...

The 8th Habit by Stephen R. Covey →

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Covey tells us we move from effectiveness to greatness when we find our voice. That happens when our body, mind, heart, and spirit are all fully engaged in what is most important to us.

If we use our own natural talent it will follow that we will love what we do, and it will be of more interest to us. We will know we are on the right track because an inner voice, our conscience, will confirm it to us.

Covey’s view is that many in business today have either not found their voices or have lost their voices. This happens he says when they don’t serve the whole man only requiring a token of the skills of those who work there. One example of just coasting along is when people just work to fill a bodily need or even addiction. This approach often leaves out the need to fully use one’s talent and creativity.  

For Covey our voice is a good metaphor for understanding.  When we allow our voice to be heard in an organization fully engaged then we resonate our values and goals and it attracts support and builds synergy.  

Quotes

8th Habit Dedication: “To the humble, courageous, “great” ones among us who exemplify how leadership is a choice, not a position.”

“We can take one of two roads in life: One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other the road to greatness and meaning.”

“To know and not to do, is really not to know.”

“people are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope...with all of their might.” 

When all you want is a person's body and you don't really want their mind, heart or spirit, you have reduced a person to a thing.”“To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground” 

“what is most personal ,is most general.”

 “No matter how long we’ve walked life’s pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths. Always. It’s never too late. We can find our voice.” 

The Innocent Man by John Grisham →

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The Innocent Man, by John Grisham, is based on the true story of Ronald Williamson, an Oklahoma man who had narrowly escaped execution, only to die of liver disease. Williamson's was a star pitcher and catcher on his high school team, drafted by the Oakland A's only to have his career end 6 years later with an arm injury.  John Grisham found this of interest as he had aspired to be a baseball player before dropping out and going into law and then writing.   

Ron returned to his hometown and lived with his mother always believing he would someday return to the big leagues.  Debra Sue Carter was a cocktail waitress who was raped and killed after Ron’s return. The case went unsolved for over 3 years but Ron and a friend of his, Dennis Fritz, were finally arrested for the murder. The only evidence was a statement from Glen Gore who was the person who put Ron at the scene of the crime. Ron was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, while Fritz received a life sentence.

DNA placed Glen Gore at the crime scene, but it didn’t happen until 5 days before the planned execution. Five years later Ron died in a nursing home from cirrhosis of the liver.

Grisham said he bought rights to the story after reading it in the newspaper and it became his first nonfiction book. The story has many of the common themes of Grisham’s novels but the experience of reading it is very different. You miss the dialog of the characters and depend on the updates and reports of what has happened.

Doubleday’s president Stephen Rubin said of the book that it was a natural story for Grisham to write since it had many themes like those in his books, such as wrongful conviction, the death penalty and it was a legal thriller.

I didn’t think it qualified as a legal thriller because the plot wasn’t revealed in dialog through the characters but as news reports of what had happened. 

Quotes

“No star fades faster than that of a high school athlete.” 

“A hundred years earlier, in Hopt v. Utah, the Supreme Court ruled that a confession is not admissible if it is obtained by operating on the hopes or fears of the accused, and in doing so deprives him of the freedom of will or self-control necessary to make a voluntary statement. In 1897, the Court, in Bram v. United States, said that a statement must be free and voluntary, not extracted by any sorts of threats or violence or promises, however slight. A” 

“There’s an old adage in bad trial lawyering that when you don’t have the facts, do a lot of yelling.”

See Literary Favorites Section under John Grishman for more information on this author and links to all his reviews on this site

The Art of T.S. Eliot by Helen Gardner →

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The Art of T.S. Eliot by Helen Gardner focuses on the poetic style and images of Eliot’s work. The author sees his earlier work only as preparing him for his masterpiece, “Four Quartets”, which she identifies as a turning point in his work.

The real world did not reflect all that Eliot believed about the spiritual world where he saw hope for redemption. His poems were about art, old age, regret and redemption. His hope, in a religious sense, was that the making of art was the highest justification of human life. These are poems of self-examination and regret where art helped fill the need for penance.

Gardner's says of Eliot’s earlier work that he often imitated the voices of other poets but then moves on to a more independent style. He wrote “The Waste Land,” in a way that underscored the musicality inherent in natural rhythms.  This thematic evolution did not overshadow his core ideas which seem best understood in the Quartets.

Eliot’s famous quote: “We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time,”,

This leaves a question: Did Eliot move onto plays after his poetry because after the Quartets he had nothing left to say? Maybe he really did feel he arrived at where he started?

T.S. Eliot Quotes

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

The True Life of J.S. Bach, by Klaus Eidam →

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician best known in his day as a virtuoso organist as well as a composer. Church music was very important in his day and his music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom, despite its immense complexities. The music fit together in a way that left many amazed, but others seeing in it reinforce the idea that music is actually revealed.

Klaus Eidam wrote “The True Life of J.S. Bach” and challenges other writers’ thoughts about Bach presenting his image and music as a progressive consequence of the German Enlightenment.

Musicologist Jules Combarieu believed, much like Bach, that music is the “science of thinking in tones” and that harmony is derived from mathematics. Bach implied, and Eidam went further in his writings saying, that harmony comes from mathematics, even before it came into being in music and is defined as a hidden arithmetic movement.

Eidam was deeply moved by Bach’s organ piece, “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.” The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire and does leave you wondering how anyone could have written it.

The book concludes discussing musical relationships and suggests that they parallel the rhythm of the cosmos within the deep structure of music.

Quotes

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.