The Wandering Hill. Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster, 2003. 320 pages. Book 2 of 4 in The Berrybender Narratives.
The wildly eccentric English noble family, the Berrybenders, continue their western odyssey in the early 1830s. The winter has forced them to abandon their riverboat and to seek refuge in a winter outpost near the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, alongside real-life mountain men who led the American exploration of the West. Historical figures like "Pomp" Charnonneau, the son of Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau, Hugh Glass (the inspiration for "The Revenant"), Kit Carson, and Jim Bridger are also sheltering there, and they find very quickly that dealing with the Berrybenders may, in fact, be more harrowing than their routine clashes with hostile Indians and grizzly bears. Tazmin Berrybender takes center stage in the book as she prepares to give birth, along with her father's mistress, and struggles to make her marriage to mountain man Jim Snow work. Snow, meanwhile, fears that the headstrong and independent Tazmin may be too much for him to handle. Amidst all of the melodrama, the outpost is threatened by a Lakota band of 200 warriors led by a war chief named Partezon, while the Berrybender group of family members, servants, and employees continues to shrink, both in number and in body parts.
The World of Tomorrow. Brendan Mathews. Little, Brown, and Company, 2017. 560 pages.
This is the story of the three Irish Dempsey brothers in 1939: Martin the struggling musician trying to support his family in New York City, Francis the glib wheeler and dealer of black market items serving prison time, and Michael the sensitive youngest who goes into a Catholic seminary following his first broken heart experience. Francis and Michael are brought together at their father's funeral and use the opportunity to escape from their respective prisons. During the escape, they are unwittingly entangled in the operations of the Irish Republican Army, and a series of unfortunate events unfolds. The result is that Michael suffers serious injuries and Francis ends up in possession of a large sum of money contributed to the IRA by a powerful backer in New York. Francis decides to take Michael to the US to reunite with Martin, escape the IRA, and seek medical help. That puts the whole family in the crosshairs of the IRA patron who wants his money back and to punish Francis Dempsey. The book got a lot of attention when it was published, and I liked the story well enough to finish, but I have to say I would only give it a generous 3 out of 5 stars. It's very melodramatic. It's a perfect example of a horrific case of editing. IT'S TOO LONG! The author's philosophy is why use two sentences to say something when you can say it in twenty sentences? There are whole pages, storylines, and characters that are totally superfluous and only serve to slow things down. In the middle of an action scene - such as they are - a character will go through what seems like pages of flashbacks to childhood. More bad editing: the title is pretty irrelevant. The 1939 New York World's Fair is supposedly the backdrop for the book, but it's actually pretty irrelevant, important only for about an hour of book time, at most.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Christopher Moore. William Morrow, 2002. 464 pages.
Two thousand years after his death, Levi bar Alphaeus from Nazareth, known to all as Biff, is resurrected by an angel named Raziel who sequesters him in motel and orders him to write a new, fuller testament of the life of Jesus Christ. Why Biff? Biff was Jesus', that is Joshua's to use his actual Hebrew name and not the Greek version, best friend from the moment they first met, when they were around 6 years old. They were together almost continuously from that moment until the crucifixion as Joshua grows to accept his role as the Messiah, with assistance from Mary of Magdala or Maggie. In their teens, Joshua and Biff set out to on a trek to the East to find and to learn from the Three Wise Men who had visited Joshua as a baby, hoping to get guidance from them about how to fulfill his divine role. Over the next twenty years, they learned a great deal about the world and themselves through a series of madcap adventures. Joshua learned how to hone and to use his powers and adopted bits and pieces of various philosophies to shape the message that he had to deliver to the world. The more worldly and sarcastic Biff is there by his side the entire time, balancing Joshua's idealistic, even naive personality. Lamb is a hilarious, irreverent, and satirical masterpiece, the best biblical-era comedy since The Two Thousand Year Old Man and The Life of Brian. I'm sure some readers would call it sacrilegious, and, yes, the humor can be earthy and crude, but, at its core, Lamb is true to the basic truths of Christ's real teaching, love and compassion. Definitely a 5-star read.
Author Talk
Tocqueville's Discovery of America. Leo Damrosch. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010. 304 pages.
Every student of American history is familiar with Alexis de Tocqueville. Two hundred years later, his work is still quoted, often more often than it is read, regularly invoked by historians, documentarians, authors, and political commentators from across the spectrum, and he is regarded as an oracle who defined America and American democracy during the Jacksonian era. In 1831, Tocqueville, a lawyer and minor French government official, and a colleague hatched a plan to preserve their careers during a particularly tumultuous time in French political history, basically by escaping observation and supervision while appearing to make themselves look useful and productive. (You know, typical government workers) They proposed a fact-finding mission to the United States, ostensibly to gather information about the Auburn and Pennsylvania penal systems. For nine months in 1831 and 1832, the pair traveled through the US. While much of their time was spent attending balls and dinners with the upper crust, they also met and interacted with Americans of all classes and with Native Americans and enslaved people, and they made astute observations about American government and culture and why American society was different from European society. Generally, they were impressed with America and found much to admire, but Tocqueville and Beaumont did see worrying issues, and they made cogent predictions about the future that seemed to be extremely accurate. In this book, Damrosch uses a wide variety of documents and letters, some of which had not been translated into English before, to trace their journey. He paints a vivid picture of Jacksonian America and provides great context for Tocqueville's work, while illuminating the life and personality of the man himself. It is an excellent introduction or supplement to Tocqueville's original work. However, it's a great read for America250 whether you've ever read Tocqueville or not.
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. Ned Blackhawk. Yale University Press, 2023. 616 pages.
This is a phenomenal book that very nearly achieves its author's incredibly lofty goal: to reshape and reset American history by recognizing that Native Americans and government policy toward Native Americans have been essential to understanding the evolution of modern America. It is destined to become a classic, and it would easily be a 5 out of 5 read for me, except there is one glaring factual error that I think is beneath a Yale University history professor and his editor(s). (He refers to Henry Knox as "the future Secretary of State." He was the first Secretary of War, never State.) But otherwise, it is an incredibly informative retelling of American history from the Native American perspective, an overview painted in broad strokes and covering five centuries. Native Americans and government policy toward them have been both affected by and have affected every major period and event in American history. It is a suitable companion to Dee Brown's iconic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I highly recommend it.
The Superman Wars: A Battle For Truth, Justice, and an American Icon. William Bernhardt. Permuted Press, 2026. 416 pages.
The history behind the creation of Superman is even more gripping and interesting than any Superman story ever conceived in a comic book or movie. During the Great Depression, two shy and socially awkward first-generation Jewish-American kids in Cleveland become best friends, bonded by their mutual love of science fiction, fantasy, and movies and by their shared dream of one day dominating the comics industry. Jerry Siegel was the writer and visionary, and Joe Shuster was the artist who brought his creations into existence. After repeated false starts and nonstarters, one character finally catches: an alien baby adopted by an Earth couple who grows into adulthood with superpowers and dedicates himself to truth, justice, and the American way. As Superman became an international icon, Siegel and Shuster encountered what some cynical people might call the true American Way. Enter two low-level mobsters and pornographers who hijack Superman and found the modern DC Comics company based on their ill-gotten proceeds. In the process, they strip Siegel and Shuster of all creation credit, cheat them of their fair pay and share of Superman-derived profits, ruin their reputations, constrain their ability to work, and render them destitute. For the next 8 decades, Siegel and Shuster and their families battle, often seemingly in futility, battle for real life truth and justice. It's one of the best books that I've read so far this year.
By Sorrow's River. Larry McMurtry. Simon & Schuster, 2003. 347 pages. Book 3 of 4 of The Berrybender Narratives.
The British aristocratic Berrybender family continues their year long odyssey through the American West in 1833, albeit missing even more members of the original entourage and more fully functioning limbs and body parts than they had when they started. The harsh natural elements and hostile Indians continue to take their toll. Tasmin, the eldest Berrybender child, continues to be the center of things in this novel. As headstrong and independent as ever, she realizes that she has at least four males in her life that are clueless about how to handle her, and she is equally confused by her feelings about them. There's Jim Snow, the "Sin Killer," her husband who keeps leaving her for the trails but always returns, her toddler son Monty, mountain man Kit Carson who worships the ground she walks on, and Pomp Charbonneau, the son of Sacajawea whom Tasmin desires but doesn't seem to match her desire, Meanwhile, she's pregnant with her second child. Domestic chaos aside, the Berrybenders and the mountain men in their company encounter Le Partezon, the feared rampaging Sioux war chief, a mixed renegade group of slavers led by the equally deadly Obregon, the Ear Taker, an Indian who sneaks into camps to slice ears off of sleeping victims, two European journalists crossing the plains in their hot air balloon, and a group of Pawnee youths out to become warriors. Another fun McMurtry adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment