Mark’s Reads

Mark’s Book Reviews – Chapter 1

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe – 1958

I have been trying to get my mitts on this book for many moons. It was  written by Nigeria’s foremost man of letters, a prolific novelist, short-story writer and essayist, Achebe was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria. He began lecturing worldwide and accepted posts at various universities in the United States including the University of Massachusetts while he continued to write extensively. He has won a number of awards for his work and writing. Achebe is recognised as one of the greatest of all Nigerian writers and was still lecturing in 2013 in the United States when he passed away at 83 years of age.

My connection is my Aunt Dorothy who was a missionary in Nigeria when I was a lad. She used to send us stories and information about her strange new/old world. One of her favourite narratives was about Stanley the Ant. There was nothing quite like getting these air-mail letters from my Aunt Dot full of Stanley stories. Now that I have read one of Nigeria’s best authors, I can see where some of her anecdotes and perspectives came from. I only wish that I had read Achebe when my Aunt was alive but alas, some things are not to be.

This book is about a proud Nigerian Chief named Okonkwo who is trapped in the past. In fact, T.S. Eliot would have loved this book because Okonkwo’s present is his past while most of his people and particularly the white newcomers to his village and district exist in a present that ignores his past and points directly to a new, much-altered future. In other words, the befuddled chief can’t let go of what had come before.

Achebe provides a sometimes crude portrait of a people in transition with the emphasis on an obstinate, brutal, macho and racist man who is clinging to his power that is being eroded by social progress. The harsh life of the Nigerian people can be grippingly graphic. And, the bloody end is not hard to guess.

I found myself shuddering throughout the book worrying about (albeit long after the fact) what my Aunt Dorothy must have had to endure as a Caucasian woman trying to bring religion and music to a people that were caught in a type of time warp. She survived but I am certain that there was much that she avoided telling us.

One of the charming features of this disarming book is the Nigerian clichés, anecdotes and witticisms that are sprinkled throughout.

I will leave you with a few of my favourites.

“An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.”

“A toad does not run in the day-time for nothing.”

“When mother cow is chewing grass, its young ones watch its mouth.”

“There once was a man who went to sell a goat. He led it on a thick rope which he tied around his wrist. But as he walked through the market, he realized that people were pointing to him as they do to a madman. He looked back and saw that what he led at the end of the tether was not a goat but a heavy log of wood.”

Things Fall Apart is still, all these years later, considered to Achebe’s finest novel.

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die – Willie Nelson – 2012

I don’t know quite what to call this book. I guess it is a kind of long song in book form, as opposed to a song book. In a nutshell, Willie provides some winsome memories from his long, strange, sometimes sordid past.  They pop up like signposts as he rolls “On the Road Again.” Some are catchy reminisces and others are just fleeting and tattered glimpses of life. Of course, there are hilarious stories throughout. It is as though Willie wrote a book, or spoke one into a tape recorder is more like it, that is really just a extended tune complete with a few refrains. That’s right; he tells a few stories twice. I can only believe that the editors left those in to make “light” of Nelson’s smoking preferences or when they pointed the double references out to Willie he said something like, “Ah, leave ‘em in, people will understand.”

Basically, it’s pure Willie and you can really hear him telling every story from falling out of a tree when he was working for the county clean-up crew to how much he loved and respected his Grandparents.

He includes a lot of jokes and he also provides some of his own kitchen or back-of-the-bus philosophy. Here’s a Willie joke:

A man dies and goes to heaven. Suddenly he smells his favourite dessert, chocolate chip cookies. He wanders down the hall and finds a kitchen and sure enough there they are fresh from the oven. The man reaches out to grab one when his wife slaps his hand. “No honey, those are for the funeral,” she says.

Here’s a Willie-ism: “Remember, you’re not happy until you’re not happy.”

My personal favourite is his story about playing poker in Hawaii. There’s a laid-back kinda guy he knows who owns and runs the local watering hole in a secluded little beach town. Willie Nelson is a neighbour as are Ziggy Marley and Woody Harrelson (what a crew). Anyway, the owner, Willie, Woody and Ziggy play poker out back till dawn sometimes. The stakes can get pretty high. Twice Willie has won the whole bar but he always gave it back…

By the way, I take umbrage at the fact that Willie stole my alias – you know the one you have to have in your back pocket when the cops pick you up. Mine’s Bill Jackson, as most folks know and so is Willie’s!!!???

Anyway, the subtitle to this book is Musings from the Road.” If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone knows and loves Willie so much, this could have been “Mucous from the Road.” Giddyup and smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em pardner.

Gould’s Book of Fish – Richard Flanagan – 2001

This is the most irreverent, giddy, bombastic, glorious and disgusting book I have read in an elongated time. And here’s the rub, I picked it up completely on a whim because there was fishing in the title! Like many great angling books, it isn’t really about fishing.

I will make a very weak attempt I am sure, at describing the kaleidoscope-like plot.

Here goes something!!! One William Buelow Gould (a.k.a. Billy) has the profoundly horrific misfortune to be sentenced to life imprisonment in the worst penal colony in the British Empire, presumably Macquarie Harbour, in the desolate and far reaches of Tasmania (then known as Van Dieman’s Land), circa 1825. Billy falls in love with the Commandant’s concubine. This is soon discovered but Billy manages to save himself through his artistic talents by painting colour depictions of strange and often garish fish species unique to the island, under the direction of the insane penal colony physician and part-time wildlife specialist and botanist.  They range from the Pot-Bellied Seahorse and the Porcupine Fish to the Crested Weedfish and the lowly Kelpy.  The laudanum-addled surgeon is hoping to be recognized for these depictions and classifications by some Royal Scientific Society in London.

This goes well for our pitiful hero until the Dr. is eaten by his giant not-much-of-a-pet pig. Billy gets the blame. He is then placed in solitary confinement in a jail cell that is open to the sea. This results in him bobbing at the surface and treading water for a few hours each day when there is a flood tide. It gets much worse from there on.

Billy’s friend Capois Death shows up periodically, much to the detriment of everyone. The absolutely diabolical and power-mad Commandant begins to run from his senses, wears a gold mask in public and has a railway built to nowhere. His thought was that when people find it, commerce with the rest of the island will commence.  That, of course, never happens but the Commandant happily takes grand rides with his concubine in the only car on his own rail line.

The whole thing is slap-your-ass-and-call-yourself-Nancy funny. The scrapes Billy gets himself into and crawls out of are amazing, disgusting and memorable. The penal colony is waaaay beyond miserable and depraved.

It is a rough and hilarious ride and yes, the drawings of the fish appear at the start of each chapter.  If you want something to scare you and split your sides at the same time – this is the ungainly beast for you.

Here’s a taste of Gould’s Fish:

“The criticasters will say I am a small thing & my pictures that irrelevant thing. They will beat a bedlam outside and inside my poor head & and then I cannot keep time with the drum of my stripling. They will waken me screaming from my necessary dream. They will try to define me like the Surgeon does his sorry species, those cursed Linnaeans of the soul, trying to trap me in some new tribe of their own invention and definition. But I am William Buelow Gould, party of one, undefinable & my fish will free me and I shall flee with them.”

Scattering Branches (Tributes to W. B. Yeats) – Stephen Gwynn Editor – 1940

A friend of mine, Sharyn Byrne Nearing, found this for me in Dublin. It is a first edition collection of comments, reminiscences and, as the title suggests, tributes to and about, my vote for the greatest poet of the 20^th century.

The authors, anecdotes and reminiscents range from Sir William Rothenstein and C. Day Lewis to Lennox Robinson and W. G. Fay and a number of admirers and fans in between. They are all basically alternately in awe of Yeats or delightfully proud to be able to say that they knew him or have a story to share.

What I was looking for as I read this book with a vengeance were details about what he was like as a person. I know his poetry so thoroughly that I feel I know him as a poet but not as a man.  I was rewarded with a number of insights from  wide-ranging points of view:

• He was tall, polished and distinguished despite his family’s lack of money
• His eyesight was terrible
• He was the paradigm of a gentleman to the end (on his death-bead he apologized to his long-time benefactress Lady Gregory for not having shaved that morning)
• He was known to his friends as Willie (something that my self won’t let me abide)
• His occultism ran deeper than some might have guessed AND
• He took many, many lovers!

However, the single author in this precious collection that I looked forward to reading the most was Maude Gonne, his lover, muse, matriarch of his poems, and the person who declined his three offers of marriage. She was a beauty, an Irish radical, feminist, public speaker and renowned for supporting all things Irish including the tragic Easter Rebellion in the early 1900s. She even married one of the rebels and suffered domestic abuse at his hands.

Defiant to the end, she has more to say about her “cause” and Willie’s small role in it than cough up any of their secrets or shed any kind of moonlight on his indisputable genius. Sigh… Oh well, Willie might have expected as much as well.

This unique tome holds a wonderful place in my collection of first editions. Thanks again Sharyn!

Oh, and if you are interested, I looked into the going price of one of Yeats’ first editions of his poetry and was more than startled to learn that they began at about 40,000 pounds. This book was somewhat less but couldn’t be dearer to me.

The Big Red Train Ride – Eric Newby – 1978

This tome is the result of Eric Newby, the godfather of personal travel writers, deciding to cross Russia with his wife Wanda in 1977 on the Trans-Siberian railway; a trip of some 6,000 miles, through eight time zones.

He was the first to combine smooth prose with insightful, first-person accounts of far-flung places around the globe. Many writers have since followed, not necessarily in his well-worn shoes, but certainly in his footsteps.

I read most of this highly entertaining tome on the GO train, to and from work. At times, the two modes of transportation and its occupants intersected despite the distances of time and place, usually to my amusement and sometimes to my abject horror.

It is a completely absorbing, yet too bleak to be enthralling, narrative that seems to shunt from track to track between the stark and vastly overwhelming countryside and the crude and invariably inconvenient train ride.

The whole trip seems like it took place in the 1930s in terms of creature comforts, the domineering control of the (let’s not forget that they are capital “C” Communists) Conductresses and the poor and shabby locals who hang about the various train stations.

The Rossiya is the train that delivers them from one side of Russia to the other. To survive, the Newbys wisely stowed away beer and sausages purchased in Moscow, two essentials that might well have saved them from either madness or starvation or perhaps both.

In one memorable scene, somewhere in the great moonscape of Siberia, the Newbys and two companions become so stifled and shrouded in stale, dank, musky air that they actually pry a window off its hinges rather than inhale one more mouthful of suffocating so-called oxygen. They save the screws so they can close the window without the knowledge of the Big Sister Conductress.

At a train stop, Eric sprints out to get some local honey cakes or anything to add to their dwindling larder, only to “just fail to fall down an unfenced, rectangular hole in the road about five feet long and six feet wide with a sewer at the bottom, which looked like it had been originally dug for Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak, head of the White Russian Army who was taken off a train that this station and shot.”

Later he describes a hotel elevator at one of their few layovers: “We went up in a loft that made a whirring noise like a pheasant taking off and emitted electric flashes like the death ray guns in War of the Worlds.”

And, beyond the wealth of information, before computers, that Newby sometimes actually unearthed, his wry way with the keyboard and his satirical and clever perceptions, he even provided me with an explanation of how one of my favourite bands, the Decemberists, determined their name. It is a rather astounding story so with a solid salute to Eric and a thank you, here’s a snippet:

“In the nineteenth century Irkutsk became a place of political exile. The most important group to be exiled there, and one that was to bring intellectual distinction and certain elegance to the life of the city, was that of the Decemberists. In 1825, the Decemberists, who included among their number rich noblemen, officers of the Imperial Guard and men of good family, as well as men of letters, had been about to seize the opportunity presented by the three-week interregnum between the death of Alexander I and the accession of Nicholas I to bring about a coup d’état. The leaders were sentenced to death and the remainder were sentenced to exile in Siberia, with hard labour in the mines for periods of anywhere from ten years to life. The wives of these men, some of whom were princes and counts, almost all of them persons of taste, fortune and refinement, were allowed to follow them into exile on condition that they never returned to Russia, and many happily availed themselves of the opportunity.

In fact, very few of the Decemberists carried out the full sentences that had been handed down to them. After a comparatively short time had elapsed, they were allowed to take up residence in Irkutsk, where they built houses and created a social and intellectual life for themselves.”

Dads are the Original Hipsters – Brad Getty – 2012

OK, this book/blog is REALLY FUNNY. It is another one of those books that was published due to the popularity of the blog like Shit My Dad Says etc.

What makes this one so funny and worthy is Getty’s approach – taking subject areas of Dads’ 1970s greatness, proving examples of why we rocked and where possible, including photos.  Of course, I was of this era so my immediate and existing reaction is that no Dad worth his salt would look at this mini tome as anything other than a tribute to our collective coolness.

I am hoping that this is why my daughter and son-in-law purchased this book for me for Christmas (not just the photo on page 63 of a guy with a mustache smiling with his eyes closed and grooving on the floor with giant set of headphones strapped to his skull).

So, here we go – see what you think:

Read Everything –Your Dad read everything before you did and he has the collection of first editions to prove it. This flannel-clad Kerouac consumed language with a ferocity only rivalled by Merriam-Webster. The written word was an obsession and his free hours were spent getting copiously intoxicated off the eloquent arrangements of literary demi-gods. Yes, your Dad read it first and he summoned that poetically penned prose to wobble women’s knees.

Eating Local – Your Dad didn’t eat local so that he could have another thing to be pretentious about; he ate it because he knew it tasted better.

Mother Nature – Your Dad was into Mother Nature before you were and he has the tent-popping skills to prove it.

Unkempt Hair – Your Dad’s lengths were styled with motorcycle joyrides, fistfights and a touch of “I don’t give a fuck.”

Suspenders – Your Dad was so awesome that he had to strap clothes down to his body or they would explode off him.

Refusing to Participate – Your Dad didn’t participate before you did and he’s never been on a tram to prove it.

Not looking at the Camera – Women were like moths to a flame when they saw his 4x6s and never realized that his inattentive stare was intentional.

Hanging out on rooftops – Your Dad hung out on rooftops before you did and he can still scale a fire escape to prove it.

Non-conformist – Your Dad time-travelled his style from the future and was so fresh that it took twenty years for the rest of the world to catch up.

I rest my case! Dads’ coolness abides!!

More Than Sorrow – Vicki Delany – 2012

My Mum’s neighbour and our friend Vicki is a wonderful mystery writer with quite a sparkling array of books to her much-deserved credit.

This is a bit of a departure for her as it is not in the historic Klondike gold rush series starring Fiona McGillivray nor is it part of her Smith and Winter series that take place in B.C. in a small ski-town.

This one is set in Prince Edward County where me Mum lives and involves United Empire Loyalists in diary form and ultimately in phantom connection to murder.

The heroine is Hannah who is recovering from wounds she received in Afghanistan as a foreign correspondent with a Canadian daily.

She is staying with her sister and her brother-in-law and their kids on a farm. The parents are market gardeners who work hard but love their life in the country.

Hannah briefly befriends a neighbouring Afghani woman named Hila who is soon found brutally killed. Her other soul mate is Maggie Macgregor, a disenfranchised but tough young woman who is struggling to survive in the 1870s. Hannah finds her diaries in the attic of the old farmhouse. Maggie becomes larger than life and eventually she and Hannah’s paths cross in present day.

This isn’t your usual mystery tale. Delany weaves family angst, the Canadian presence in Afghanistan, some historical fiction and oppressive, blunt and brutish cops into the mix with a deft touch.

And, she captures life in Prince Edward County or the “County” with a perfect eye. She brings the historic atmosphere to life as it mixes with the new vitality that has gripped the County in a good way.  Old fashioned ways are becoming quaintly comfortable with a new dynamic.

Delany’s writing contains a concise crispness. While the bad guys are usually guys, that oversimplification of black and white in her novels lends itself to her precise prose. There are no grey areas.

For people who appreciate the County, this is a must. For mystery and Delany fans, this is a must and if you enjoy a good combination of intrigue this is also a must. Must be good!

The Rover – Joseph Conrad – 1924

The Rover is the greatest seafaring writer’s last hurrah, his final novel, last voyage and the end of the journey. As a result, I had tall-ship mast-high hopes for this one.  In a way I wasn’t disappointed. Lemme explain.

First off, as you may know gentle reader, I have always considered the great master’s marine adventure stories to be far superior to his land-lubbing tales. This one starts at sea and ends at sea with a lot of terra firma in between. And the dry land portions of this unusual story can drag, like a hot day with nothing to do.

But Conrad rises to his own challenge and presents a rather astounding drama that involves the French Revolution, Lord Nelson, burning love, intrigue, high adventure and some nasty business along the way.

Perhaps above all this is the central figure Peyrol, a recently retired French seaman who has seen it all: from fighting pirates and the English to enjoying the spoils of war and taking the sea by its gusty throat on more than one occasion. He can be brilliant, intuitive, sullen, hot-headed, sympathetic, sarcastic and profound. In other words, he is somewhat of a god on earth – a small deity in the Lord’s big pond.

In the end, he plays God himself and in so doing, some of his story is told with hindsight; a technique that works in the right hands that Conrad has mastered.

I almost gave up part way through because it was somewhat confusing and not a little frustrating but the ending saved everything. Instead of a shipwreck of a novel it is a small masterpiece, still riding high and gracefully on the waves.

Here’s the waning master, hand on the tiller, still with an eye for the ladies, love and life:

“He looked at her head resting on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and the expression on her unsmiling face was that of a delightful dream, something infinitely ethereal, peaceful and, as it were, eternal. Its appeal pierced his heart with a pointed sweetness. “

Thank you Conrad. You wrote in the eternal.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentices – Lisa Abend – 2011

Talk about a completely appetizing concoction! Take Spain’s elBulli, the only dining establishment to have been voted best restaurant in the world FIVE times! Add the explosive/genius mastermind behind it all – Ferran Adria.  Season with thirty-two stagiaires (kitchen slaves in Spanish) who are the apprentices from all over the world.   Sprinkle with descriptions of the creation of some of the most unusual and imaginative dishes on the planet.  And simmer over a low flame of passionate personalities working together in an artistic atmosphere of gastronomic alchemy.

The result is a completely intriguing look at a burgeoning style of cookery that is out on an open sea of culinary discovery, invention and even transmutation!

The subtitle is “A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria’s elBulli”.

A year ago my wife and I and some friends had one of the most memorable dining experiences of our lifetimes: we ate, drank and swooned at Tickets, a new tapas-style restaurant in Barcelona. It is run by Ferran’s brother Albert Adria. We were introduced to what has become known as molecular gastronomy, the breaking down of foods  and restructuring them to enhance the flavour and/or create new tastes.  What a revelation it was and what a night. The very first dish we tried was his famous liquid olives. They arrived in spoons like jello but without the rubbery texture. Our server explained that we weren’t to chew them for the best experience but rather push them to the roof of our mouths with our tongues. The result was like eating all olives at once. It was a full sensation that I can still taste and swoon over.

It is almost as if the culinary arts met Dada art or Surrealism or Cubism.  At one of Picasso’s first Cubist exhibitions, a critic wrote, “It was as if he invited us to drink kerosene and then swallow lit matches.” What Ferran Adria has done is something similar with his art, he has asked us to drink olives.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It is not uncommon for critics to characterize some of Ferran’s most iconic techniques – the foam, the spherification, the liquid nitrogen – as mere novelty for the sake of novelty or showmanship for the sake of showmanship. But ask him why he invented these techniques and he will always come down to the chef’s holy grail: flavour. Foam, that early revolution, was designed in the quest to make a mousse without gelatin or cream. Liquid nitrogen creates a sorbet without the sugar that would normally be necessary to keep it from forming hard, icy crystals. Xanthan allows a cook to thicken a sauce without flour or butter. Spherification permits the diner to eat liquids, not drink them. The things that chefs traditionally add to a preparation to transform its texture – butter, cream, sugar , vegetable puree, flour – may be delicious but they also dilute the flavour of the primary ingredients. Yet is you add Xanthan to chicken stock, you’ll have a sauce that tastes of nothing but chicken. Turn the juice from shucked oysters into foam using nothing more than a siphon and you’ll have a mouse that tastes solely of the sea. Freeze a mango puree with liquid nitrogen and you will get a sorbet that tastes shockingly of only ripe fruit.”

Almost an extension of its astoundingly unique place in the history of cuisine, Ferran took a step closer to the culinary heavens by officially closing elBulli at the end of the 2011 season and began the process of turning it into a kind of foundation for the experimentation and development of new dishes that would be shared with chefs, students, and food lovers world-wide.

It seems in true Spanish tradition (Dali, Man-Ray, Picasso) to be a completely absurd yet logical next step for the chef of the century, if not for all time.

When commenting on the development of the foundation at the end of the book, Ferran saved perhaps his best quote for last, “I do not have a lot of money to share but I will share what I have – creativity.”

At only 60 years of age, Ferran has much more to give but the one thing that he will supply to generations to come is inspiration.

The world is a better place for this man’s vision and love for superb food.

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party – 2011 – Alexander McCall Smith

This is actually the 12^th in this series and I know I have skipped a few because I haven’t been able to find them but I don’t care. This is such a warm and enjoyable collection of Botswana mysteries (the only one I presume) that any one of them will do. And this one is right up there with our No 1 Lady Detective at her finest. She is on the track of her long-lost white van that she loved so much, is helping Charlie, her husband’s apprentice mechanic with some serious girl problems, assisting her assistant, the sassy and sharp-tongued Mme Makutski with her upcoming nuptials, including the wedding shoes selection and solving a case of cattle destruction. Whew!

In short it has a little bit of everything that we love about this series and the fine No. 1 Lady Detective Mme Romatswe. She is in full form.

Every Living Thing – James Herriot – 1992

I haven’t read one of these for years, although I poured through all of them when they were first published. This is a later collection with all of the same great characters:  Jim the vet with a heart as big as the Yorkshire dales in which he plied his evolving craft, the fatherly veteran vet Siegfried Farnon, his mischievous younger brother, the intrepid Tristan and of course, a host of pets and their charming yet often bizarre owners.

They are all written, like the host of other great Herriot (a pen name used by Alf Wight) books, in short-story/vignette form. With these tales, the author endeared himself to pet owners all over the planet. And, you don’t have to be an animal lover to enjoy these carefully antiquated fables that draw on the emotions and the intrinsic balance of care and understanding between humans and animals. Time and again, he went right to the heart of the why man and beast have been inseparable since they first emerged from the shadows of existence. From working horses and sheep and pigs for wool and meat to show dogs and birds that talk, Herriot sooner or later touches on them all and usually has a fine tale to tell with a moral attached for good measure.

This time ‘round, we meet, once again, Mrs. Pumphrey, a rich widow who dotes on her little Pekinese Tricky Woo. In this episode, a Chinese food restaurant opens up in town (Darrowby). It has few customers until the owner beseeches Mrs. Pumphrey, due to her status in the community to try their food in the hopes that others will follow. Mrs. P. agrees but doesn’t happen to mention that she will be escorted by her darling Tricky Woo. James is confronted one memorable evening by the visage of Tricky and Mrs. Pumphrey sitting across from one another dining on noodles and chicken-fried rice.

The upshot of this tale is that Mrs. Pumphrey was delighted with the restaurant’s fare and so was T.W. As a result, the townsfolk soon flowed in the doors and the place became a success.

Jim was always eager to try new medications and methodology. In one instance he was amazed by the results of an anti-biotic for pigs. Their owner, Mr. Bagshaw, after seeing his prize piglets wasted away to their bones suddenly seemingly rise from the dead. When Herriot checked in on him later, like many of the farmers, he refused to acknowledge the “Vitnary’s” success. Jim asked, “How’s the litter getting on?” “Oh, they’re better Mr. Herriot, but you know they’ve lost a bit of ground.”

Then there’s Natt Briggs, a young farm hand who Jim, when he slipped, accidently stabbed with an abortion vaccine for cattle.  Briggs blamed the “Yon Vit” for his wife’s inability to have children.

If you haven’t read this one, pick it up and if you haven’t read any of the James Herriot vet books, pick them all up!!!

Note that the excellent and charming first TV series is still available and a new one arrived mid-Covid. It is also a lovely rendition of the original book series.

Fly Fishing and the Meaning of Life – 2006 – Wade N. Brooks

Fly fishing involves a lot of thinking because you not only have to determine where the fish are but how to get your fly there. It also causes a lot of reflection, and I am not talking about your image in a trout pool. Sometimes I go out with a purposeful stride at dawn and can do nothing wrong. The fish seem to agree with my decisions and I welcome them into my creel.

During other outings I have done everything you can possibly do wrong to spook the fish, get soaked and fill the gentle air with blue curses. The self-reflection comes somewhere in between these two streams! Wade N. brooks, not his real name, has hit upon a lot of lovely comments about this pip of a sport.

“There is something deep in the human spirit that responds well to running water. The trout fisherman knows it well.”

-AJ McLane

“A Stream is music and motion: smooth glides, turbulent riffles and deep pools, each posting a special challenge.”

-Nelson Bryant

“The two best times to fish is when it’s raining’ and when it ain’t.”

– Patrick McManus

“It was as if I were casting two lines, one to the depths of Walden pond and the other to the heavens of thought.”

-Henry David Thoreau

This is a beautiful little compendium with a fresh pond of waiting trout around every corner…

The Clash – 2008 – Strummer, Jones, Simonen, Headon

Known as the only band that matters, the Clash, as everyone should know, took their political agenda to the world stage with a searing tsunami of rock ‘n roll that may never be matched. They were punks, innovators, cosmopolitan, concerned about everything, reported to no one and aggression personified.  It was said that they slowed down just long enough to learn how to play their instruments.

In concert, I can attest that they were in charge of a battalion of sound that seemed to challenge the heavens for limitations. Their urgency was addictive.  Their sound was a typhoon with meaning. It was as though they were shaking the planet by the throat to get their message out before it was too late for everyone and everything.

Their talent was undeniable and for too few records and tours, they ruled the entire world of rock and political fusion like hyper-committed, Supernova-energized  gods from another galaxy.

Sadly, the Clash’s burning star vanished from the frightened sky too quickly. They went their separate ways, each recording memorable solo albums, culminating with the heart, guts and riveting soul of the band – Joe Strummer’s death by heart attack in 2002. Seems he had a defective heart from the start and was, like his music and vision, living on borrowed time.

I picked this up last summer in a great bookstore in Victoria B.C. for a song.

It is almost a Clash compendium, created in a unique way by the core group members. Never shy about promoting themselves, they combined to write this collective autobiography through a series of interviews, long before it was published. They wrote/spoke in selected time segments about their upbringing, how they got together, their tours, their success and their demise. You can pretty much hear  them talking – laid back and matter-of-fact about one of the greatest runs in the history of rock ‘n roll.

The book also includes set lists from all of their tours, a detailed outline of every album and their film work.

There’s even an index that features everything from Armagideon Times and Clash on Broadway to Ivan Meets GI Joe and Tappi Zuker!

Of course, there are lotsa anecdotes but two things come through very loud and ear-splittingly clear: they were damned hard workers who knew they had something beyond special so they were slaves to doing it justice and they loved each other like four brothers or the Four Horsemen! A motto they honoured was write, rehearse and record.

One of my favourite stories involves that powerful camaraderie machine that they stoked when they realized that as a team, they could drive their sound around the earth.  Early on, Joe and Mick made their first trip to the U.S.A. They flew to Los Angeles to catch some bands, investigate some studios and soak some El Lay. Topper and Paul couldn’t make it. It turned out that they cut their trip short, not because they were homesick but because they missed their mates!

In another instance, they signed on to a new record company and the top brass decided to send a load of youngish “suits” down to straighten these renegades out and try to get them to become more mainstream. The lads were rehearsing in one of their “lairs”, an old sheet metal garage surrounded by a large fenced-in concrete yard where they played some pretty tough football. So, when the suits from London caught up with them, the Clash challenged them to a quick game.  You can see what’s coming. The result was a kind of steel-cage soccer match that resulted in some bloodied, bruised and bullied record execs.

Who won was never really at issue. I mean if the lads could thunder on the stage you know they could rumble in the alley. They fought the Clash and the Clash won…

Do yourself a favour and pick this up – it’s like strapping on the headphones and turning it up to 11.

Dinner Along the Amazon – Timothy Findley – 1984

I really was quite taken with the few books I have read by Findley, so I don’t really know why I haven’t read more.  I was thoroughly exhilarated by both Famous Last Words and The Telling of Lies.

Anyway, sadly and pretty much glumly – this one is not a great example of his art.

It is a series of short stories without an avowed theme but Findley was certainly on a mission here but the attempt failed. There isn’t a tale in this book that doesn’t look at either war through a boy’s eyes or coming to terms with homosexuality at a young age, or both. There is a certain eerie John Collier thread of eternal twilight that is woven throughout but the storylines, endings, plot turns and even the dialogue is so predictable and flat that nothing really seems to work. In short, ”Ya read one of these heartfelt victim stories, ya read ‘em all.”

Obviously the author was making same series of points in each of these twelve vignettes, so he accomplished what he set out to do. It is just too bad that he forgot to take the reader with him.

I can’t really complain though, Findley signed the book and I picked it up at an annual U of T sale for a pocket change!

The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson – 1989

This is an early Bryson but it demonstrates his unique gift for travelling humbly and looking for social meaning, in this case in all the diners, motels and tourist sites/traps not to mention the roadways, radio stations and entertainment available along the way. It’s a sort of On the Road with humour and witticisms replacing poetry.

Bryson has gone on to become one of the best travel writers in a generation following the originator of the aforementioned first-person travelogue author Eric Newby and his disciple Bruce Chatwin.

Sadly, Bryson doesn’t ever really kick this one into gear. He jumps in an old Chevette and hits as many small towns in as many States as he can, circa mind-1980s. Invariably, or at least most often, he is disappointed. Either there are too many poor people in the town or too many rich people or all black people and no white folks or vice-versa. It’s too hot or the air-conditioner in the fleabag he stayed in is too cold. Most of the towns are trapped in a Twilight Zone-like existence, not unlike Pleasantville or the communities have attempted to upgrade their shops and sights worth seeing and have failed miserably.

Basically, it turns out to be a horrible vacation tour of mostly the Midwest.  However, it is worth the read for a few reasons: the names he comes up for mythical villages like Spigot or Crudbucket or Hooterville; his amazing capability to find the worst sights not worth seeing and finally, last but actually first – his introduction. It is the funniest intro to any of his books and one of the laugh-yourself-upside –down-and-inside-out intros to any book.

So, if you like Bryson you should read this one and if you don’t appreciate him, I am not sure why you are reading this. If you have never read anything by him, pick up one of his classics first (like Notes From a Small Island, In a Sunburned Country or Neither Here Nor There).

And, here’s a few lines from the aforementioned comical introduction:

“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”

“Outside town there is a big sign that says, Welcome to Des Moines, This is What Death is Like!”

“During the annual state high school basketball tournament, when the hayseeds from out in the state would flood into Des Moines, we used to accost them downtown and snidely offer to show them how to ride an escalator or negotiate a revolving door.”

“My friend Stan, when he was about sixteen had to go and stay with his cousin in some remote dusty hamlet called Dog Water or Dunceville, or some such improbable spot – the kind of place where if a dog gets run over by a truck, everyone comes out to have a look. By the second week, delirious with boredom, Stan insisted that he and his cousin drive the fifty miles into the county town, Urinal, to find something to do. They went bowling at an alley with warped lanes and chipped balls and afterwards had a chocolate soda and looked at a Playboy in a drugstore. On the way home the cousin sighed and with immense satisfaction said, Gee Stan, thanks, that was the best day of my life.”

Lord Savile’s Crime (and other stories) – Oscar Wilde – 1891

Here is a collection of wonderful tales that are timeless, enthralling and completely unique thanks to the quick wit and imaginative prowess of Mr. Wilde!

Ranging from mock horror (The Canterville Ghost) and attempted murder on the wry (the title piece) to as beautiful a fable as can be found in literature (The Fisherman and His Soul), Wilde hits notes of stunning brilliance throughout. Even when he is droll, his adeptness with language, humour and even emotion simply lifts off the page and carries us away.

When, in the Canterville Ghost, a family of rude turn-of-the-century Americans invades the castle of an old curmudgeon of a 300-year-old ghost, the ancient gossamer Lord of the Manor contrives all kinds of dastardly hijinks to scare his unwanted guests back across the pond.  But despite his best efforts in presenting himself as Jonas the Graveless or the Corpse Snatcher of Chertsey Barn, it is all gleefully good fun to his new house guests. In a beautiful manipulation of juxtaposition, Wilde has them eventually fall in together in a common cause and the day is saved for one and all. There was an excellent movie made in 1944 starring Charles Laughton.

In Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Wilde deliciously describes a central figure, Lady Windemere thusly:

“Early in her life she had discovered the truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal about her.  She was now forty years of age, childless, and with that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young.”

The Fisherman and His Soul and the Happy Prince are both really children’s stories but they are so gorgeously written that they serve as monuments to that genre.

In short, these stories are testaments to the artist’s capabilities. They are like sipping fine, cold champagne from a ringing crystal goblet. Raise such a glass to Oscar. Cheers to the Wilde!

The Blue Flower – Henry Van Dyke – 1902

This is clearly my year for the acquisition of first editions and books signed by the author.

I was attracted to this tome at one of the annual university book sales because of its ornate cover (a blue flower by some strange coincidence) and the fact that it did look aged. Sure enough, I checked it out and my $3 purchase is worth $200 – $300 to collectors. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that this is pretty much an unreadable book and it’s in English! It is one of those country kitchen philosophy meanderings with a fair amount of true religion sprinkled in among the so-called stories. Van Dyke also loves him some allegories. That may have been intriguing and clever at the time but one generation later and most folks wouldn’t know what he was alluding to.

The prose is hackneyed, the language is ornate and decorative and the meaning is pretty much missing in action.

Here’s a taste of Hank’s titillating and lofty stylings:

“His brilliant eyes were set near together under his broad brow, and firm lines graven round his fine, thin lips; the brow of a dreamer and the mouth of a soldier, a man of sensitive feeling but inflexible will – one of those who, in whatever age they may live, are born for inward conflict and a life of quest.”

Whatever age indeed.  My suggestion is that this book and potentially anything Van Dyke penned is unsafe in any age. Beware the Blue Flower for it blooms for thee!!!

Being There – Jerzy Kosinski – 1970

Most folks will probably be more familiar with the movie that starred the late and much- underrated  Peter Sellers in, arguably his finest non-comedic role as Chauncey Gardener. That’s why I picked this book up – because I so loved that film. The final scene is like watching a whole lifetime being gobbled up in a moment of serenity, sweetness and sympathy. Anyway, I digress, this is about the book.

Actually, it is more of a novelette, or really just a longish short story. It borrows from the theme originally developed by Fyodor Dostoevsky in his classic The Idiot. A Christ-like figure suddenly appears on earth but things don’t go well for him. Despite his supreme capability for good, the evil in the world seems to descend upon him no matter how many times he turns his other cheek.

Kosinski’s modern version has a mild, milquetoast guy who is mentally challenged, working as a gardener for an aging benefactor who dies suddenly. Chauncey is thrown into life. Without any identification papers of any sort, he seems to bounce around like a pinball while others pull the pins, flip the levers and shake the table.

Eventually, through a minor car accident he winds up in a rich and very politically connected man’s house as a result of his trophy wife’s sympathy. Chauncey’s simplistic explanation of everything comes down to gardening comments and watching television (his only other interest or activity). Everything escalates as he becomes a media darling and some kind of international political soothsayer.

Of course, Kosinki’s can’t hold a candle or even a paper match to Dostoevsky’s superb novel. And, he couldn’t seem to figure out an ending. He really just posed a question and answer that Dostoevsky posed and so eloquently answered in The Brothers Karamazov when the Grand Inquisitor interviews a returned Christ in his jail cell. Would Christ’s message be heard in modern times if he came back? The answer is not a chance, or not a Chauncey .

This book has its quirks but it really is just an updated version of the Idiot in Coles Notes form.

What is much more interesting is the author’s beyond bizarre life. Born in Poland in 1933, he was six when most of his family were killed in the WWII Holocaust. He survived on his own in Nazi-occupied Europe until he lost the power of speech at age nine. He didn’t speak a word for five years. After the war he was reunited with some family members and regained his speech as a result of a skiing accident.  Kosinski was able to enter the state-run university system in Warsaw and was threatened with expulsion twice for his rejection of the Marxist doctrine.

He achieved his PHD in social psychology and began to teach at the university level in Warsaw and Moscow while supplementing his income as a ski instructor (he must have been honouring a debt to skiing) in the Tara Mountains. He began plotting his escape from Communism by inventing a fictitious research group that requested he join them in the United States as a visiting Fellow. The completely bogus papers seemed valid to the university and government authorities so he was allowed to move to the U.S. having solemnly agreed to return. Somehow he was able to lecture at Yale and Princeton.

Get this. In 1962 he married a wealthy American steel heiress named Mary Hayward Weir and they traveled the world, attending parties and living like royalty. They divorced in 1966 and when she succumbed to brain cancer two years later, she didn’t leave him a dime or a kopeck.

He had to reinvent himself, this time by writing sparse but popular novels in English rather than in his native Polish tongue (again he borrowed from a  major author, Joseph Conrad who was also Polish and wrote much better novels in English).

Due to the success of Being There and The Painted Bird, he was able to survive on his written work. By the time he was in his late 50s he was being haunted my plagiarism claims and addicted to drugs and alcohol. He killed himself in 1991.

If you ask me, his autobiography could have been his greatest work.

Taking the Field – George Bowering (editor) – 1990

One of the things I’ve said about baseball, particularly to its detractors, is that if you watch the game carefully, just watch, you don’t have to study it, you will see something you have never seen before. It could be the ump being directed by the batter to remove a piece of litter from the infield and then hitting a home run. Or it could be a successful yet wasted double steal on a ball four pitch.

it could just be the wrong guy’s 40-ft. head and shoulders appearing on the monstrous video scoreboard while someone else is at the plate. Or your first experience of a grand slam or inside the park home run, the list is as endless as summer baseball games.

This book reminds me of that approach to the sport. It looks at the game’s quirks, the humour, the emotion and the fickleness. And, it is kinda cool that George Bowering collected these short stories because I am a big fan of his poetry. So much so, that when I found out that he was on a speaking tour when I was in school, I arranged through the English department to have him read at my university. He was great and now I find out he’s also big-time into baseball.

Most of these stories are not only from yester-year but yester-decades. Don’t look for stats and championship runs and powerhouse clubs that are famous. These are, largely small-town style stories with heart and imagination. Bowering, and I am not just saying this because we are, you know, pals but he did a damn fine job assembling this line up of poignant little pieces.  In other words he hit for the cycle with this one.

Here’s the team. There’s Alibi Ike, the gifted player who has an excuse for everything and I mean every possible, conceivable thing. It’s like he is the ultimate escape artist, always with an alibi in his mouth. There’s the Losers, a team that is, to a man, completely depressed despite their uncanny capability for winning. They ultimately sigh their way to the championship. The final out is recorded after the tying run is picked off at third. The opponent was distracted while listening to one of the third basemen’s sad tales.

The Hector Quesadilla Story is not about a Mexican street food but a fading player trying to regain his former crowd-appeasing prowess at the plate.

The sand-lot umpire is about a Japanese ref who never makes it to the show but lives and umps like he is Nijinsky in front of 80,000 fans.

And what a winning clubhouse of authors: from Nelsen Algren, Morley Callaghan and Daymon Runyun to Jack Kerouac, W.P. Kinsella and Mordecai Richler. It’s an all-star team with plenty of bench depth. So sprint don’t slide into your local bookstore or library and pick this one up. Don’t forget to grab some peanuts and cracker jacks.