There's No Cure For This Scarlet Fever: A Study in Scarlet Review

A STUDY IN SCARLET

A Study in Scarlet is the very first Sherlock Holmes story, one that I encountered when I was in middle school.  With the revival of Sherlock Holmes (via bad Guy Ritchie movies and two television programs: the BBC's Sherlock and CBS' Elementary) and as primer to reviewing the Sherlock adaptation (A Study in Pink) I decided to revisit my favorite detective.  My love for the great detective does not waver, and A Study in Scarlet, while more a novella than a full-fledged novel, is a great introduction to characters that will become iconic.  However, it's clear that a reading of A Study in Scarlet also reveals that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also writing in the traditional Victorian style, with all the melodrama and idealization of the Innocent Girl that comes with it.

The book is divided into two parts: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department, and The Country of the Saints.

John Watson, M.D., late of the Afghan Campaign, has returned to London to recover from his war wounds.    An old friend guides him to Sherlock Holmes, a man of great intelligence but who also, to Watson's horror, was unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  Holmes justifies this by saying that such information is useless to him and his work, so should he learn such things, he will quickly dismiss them if they serve no purpose.  Why clutter his attic with junk, he argues, and since he sees his mind as an attic, such things as the Earth's rotation is unimportant.

Holmes, Watson discovers, is what the former calls a 'consulting detective'.  People, including the police, come to him to help them out in solving mysteries, all the hush-hush, for which he is paid handsomely.  He does it more for the pleasure of the work than for the actual money.  Now, he gets a corker of a case: a murder.

His police contact Inspector Gregson has brought him to help solve this particular crime: the murder of Enoch Drebber, American.  There is no mark on the body, but the word "rache" in blood on the wall.  Holmes, with his magnifying glass, does his work, while Gregson and his colleague Inspector Lestrange sort out their theories, which we find are wrong. 

Now Holmes and Watson set a trap for the killer, but the killer tricks Holmes by doing a drag act.  Holmes, now infuriated by being fooled and determined to find him, continues on the case.  A few days later, Gregson arrests someone but that theory goes out when we find that Drebber's travelling companion, Joseph Stangerson, has been found murdered.  However, Holmes has already discovered the murderer's identity, and with the help of street urchins Holmes has dubbed "the Baker Street Irregulars", our murderer, Jefferson Hope, an American who works as a cabbie, is arrested.

It's here that we get Part II.  Out in the American West, Joseph Ferrier and a little girl named Lucy are the only survivors of a pioneer group.  They face certain death in the desert, until they are miraculously discovered by the Mormon pioneers.  Brought before Brigham Young himself, the Prophet agrees to bring them into their group on the condition that Joseph and Lucy adopt the Latter-Day Saints faith.  They readily agree, and in Utah the Ferriers (as Joseph had adopted Lucy) prosper. 

However, the pressure for Joseph to have plural marriages grows.  He resists, but he knows that his Lucy, that Flower of Deseret, runs the risk of being forced into this immoral union to a Mormon.  Complicating matters is that Lucy, that Flower of Deseret, has herself fallen in love...with Jefferson Hope, non-Mormon.  Brigham Young himself comes to inform Joseph that he must surrender Lucy, that Flower of Deseret, to one of two suitors: Joseph Stangerson or Enoch Drebber.  He has 30 days.  Each day Ferrier finds a written number somewhere, counting down the days.  Finally, close to the end date, Hope literally arrives.

They flee into the mountains, aiming for Nevada, but while Hope is away searching for food the others are overtaken.  Lucy, that Flower of Deseret, is forced to marry Drebber, while Stangerson we find had killed Joseph when they were captured.  Lucy, that Flower of Deseret, dies of a broken heart, and Hope swears revenge. 

Now we get back to the present, but while Hope is captured, his heart condition allows him to escape prison, even though he really had done the right thing in avenging Joseph Ferrier and Lucy, that Flower of Deseret.  Holmes finds that Gregson and Lestrange received credit for solving the crime, while Holmes gets barely a notice.  For his part, Holmes doesn't care, but Watson determines to credit his roommate for solving this most curious case.

It's curious that Conan Doyle, early in A Study in Scarlet, has Holmes show contempt for his contemporary 'fictional' detectives such as Poe's Dupin or Emile Gaboriau's Monsieur Ledoq.  I can't say that it reflects Doyle's own views on the detective mysteries that had come before, but it does add two things to our understanding of author and creation.  One, it shows that the character of Holmes takes his position very seriously, and two, it shows Conan Doyle was fully aware that he was drawing from a newly-discovered well.  It also is a mark of the giant shadow Sherlock Holmes casts in that with the exception of Poe almost all detective writers pre-Doyle are now largely forgotten.

When was the last time Monsieur Ledoq appeared on the screen?  Gaboriau and Ledoq are all but forgotten today, while Doyle and Holmes are now seen as the standard to which all detectives post-Study in Scarlet are measured.  Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, right down to The Mentalist's Patrick Jane and even Encyclopedia Brown all are descendants of Sherlock Holmes (in regards to Wolfe, perhaps more direct than perhaps we imagine).

A Study in Scarlet has all those twists and turns a good detective story has: the surprise of finding an old woman rather than a youngish man coming to collect the ring, the strange clue of 'rache' in blood written upon the wall.  More than that, though, A Study in Scarlet set up the importance of science and analytical thought to solving a case.

Dr. Doyle would have some background in this.  All doctors have to play detective to a point.  You have to analyze the symptoms in order to come up with a diagnosis.  Doyle was perhaps the first detective writer to understand that one can't just guess or have a clue or witness just miraculously pop up to discover the criminal.  Instead, he (or she) has to observe everything to find whodunit.

Look at when Holmes goes to the crime scene.  Watson is amazed that Holmes doesn't charge into the room where the body is; instead, he looks outside, studying the wheel marks and footprints left in the mud.  Holmes does what other detectives did not: he looked, he studies, he observed.  From that, he drew conclusions which invariably proved right.  "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence," Holmes tells the good Doctor.

Sadly, today that bit of streets-smart is all but forgotten.  In particular the press is quick to find motives and criminals without all the evidence.  Instead, we start speculating to where we make the facts fit the theories rather than the theories fit the facts.  Doyle understood that we need to look at what is presented before us before we can say for certain what the truth is.

Sadly, what he didn't understand was Mormonism.  I'm not a Mormon, but the portrayal of the Latter-Day Saints as this group of virtually sex-crazed murderers both dates and stains A Study in Scarlet.  It's a curious thing that if Conan Doyle had made the religious group that threatens this innocent pair with forced marriages wild-eyed pursuits Muslims, it's pretty easy to imagine that A Study in Scarlet would probably be banned and/or go out of print.  Because the group he portrays so badly is the Mormons, Doyle could get away with it and we don't think too much on that, given that the popular concept of Mormons now is that of non-threatening young men and women coming to our door with ties or skirts.  I imagine Doyle would be surprised to see that these neo-savages he had written are now seen as some of the most docile members of society. 

The negative images of Mormons is a mark against A Study in Scarlet, but what really shows when the book was written is in the character of Lucy.  While rereading A Study in Scarlet, I couldn't help think on what Oscar Wilde said about a character from The Old Curiosity Shop: "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing".  Dickens' novel was published a good forty-seven years prior, but Lucy Ferrier might as well have been named Little Nell.  Both girls are portrayed as sweet darlings, angels of purity really, who suffer greatly and die tragically.

This is I imagine part of what makes Victorian writing a bit overwrought: the creation of female characters as delicate flowers who wilt away at the cruelties of life.  I kept referring to Lucy as That Flower of Deseret because she was so delicate, so sweet, so pure, that at times she was not real.  Instead, she was just an idealization of innocent young womanhood, smeared by the evil Mormons.

In this this, I won't fault Doyle too much.  He was writing as a Victorian author, and as such was versed in the style of the times.  He wasn't going for some epoch-changing work of literature, he was going for a good detective story that would earn him some money while contributing what I imagine he thought was superior work in the growing detective genre.  A Study in Scarlet did do that, and it introduced the now-iconic magnifying glass and the scientific method of investigation to the genre. 

All detectives following Sherlock Holmes owe their existence to the resident of 221 B Baker Street (which I have visited and spent many a happy hour at).  It suffers today from two flaws: a negative portrayal of a religious group that in others would be condemned as bigotry and a rather cliched Victorian female character (Lucy is no Irene Adler, that's for sure).  Minus those bits, A Study in Scarlet is a good introduction to those not familiar with the Sherlock Holmes mythos, a strong mystery with a logical conclusion.  It is a Victorian work, but it is one that has stood the test of time.

The pleasure one gets from A Study in Scarlet is more than elementary.           

     

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1859-1930

DECISION: A

Some of Them Want To Abuse You, Some of Them Want to Be Abused: Fifty Shades of Grey Review

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY by E.L. James

I figure that I, as a man, am not the target audience for Fifty Shades of Grey.  In fact, of all the people requesting the novel, I was about maybe ten men at the most (and that was out about over a hundred, maybe two hundred requests).  I was not interested in the book, but I was fascinated by all the fascination Fifty Shades of Grey was unleashing across the literary world.  My curiosity was piqued, which was enough for me to dive in and see what all the fuss was about.

As I continued to go into the first part of the Fifty Shades Trilogy (the second and third parts being Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed), I marvelled at how something so silly and clichéd could have the publishing world in a tizzy. If you strip (no pun intended) the story of all the whippings and bondage, what you have is basically Twilight With S & M.   

Young, inexperienced Anastasia Steele is railroaded into conducting an interview on behalf of her friend Kate.  She would have gone but was terribly ill and asked Ana to substitute.  There was no way to reschedule since the interviewee was a powerful businessman whose time is tightly controlled (pun slightly intended).  Moreover, it had taken a great deal of time to negotiate THIS interview and the chance would not come up again (though other things in the future would--can't help myself).

Ana goes to interview the mysterious and powerful Christian Grey, and wouldn't you know it: she trips and falls as soon as she walks into his office.  Ana can see that this man is a virtual Greek God: beautiful, handsome, rich.  However, his arrogance puts her off.  However, despite the bungled interview we discover that Christian has become fixated on Anastasia.

What turns him on more than anything is the fact that she bites her lips.  This unbeknown to her sends him into organic fits.  Ana, meanwhile, continues her work: finishing up her studies on literature (Tess of the D'Ubervilles being a particular favorite), working at a hardware store (where the owner's son, not surprisingly, is in love with her) and living life with her friends Kate and Carlos (who, not surprisingly, is in love with her).

Jose happens to be a photographer, so with some work the trio convince Grey to be photographed for the article.  Now Christian's fixation for Ana turns into a passionate romance, but at the same time doth protest too much that he isn't the man for her.  Ana is more than willing to be with this perfect man, but there's is a snag or two

For one, she discovers he is into bondage, sadomasochism, and all that.  He even shows her his Red Room of Pain.  Now, normally this would put off some women, but he's Christian Grey, Perfection Itself.  She's not going to let this opportunity go by.  Now is where we hit Snag Two.

She is still a virgin.  Obviously, Christian is shocked and does for Ana what he doesn't do for anyone one: have 'vanilla' (read regular) sex with her so as to introduce her to something even more pleasurable.  Christian obviously would like this to be a sexual relationship (friends with benefits sans friendship) but Ana wants more. 

The rest of Fifty Shades of Grey goes between her forever-wavering between signing the agreement to be his Submissive and the various sexual encounters they have.  Ana goes back and forth about Christian Grey: she wants him (as do all women and men too, even straight men I imagine) but doesn't really want to be submissive.  Christian Grey gives in to her more often than she gives in to him.  Finally, after a particularly rough spanking that was more about punishing her than pleasuring either of them, she does the unthinkable: she walks out on Christian Grey, Perfection Itself, even as he asks her to stay. 

Thus ends our trashy romp through whips, ropes, and ties.

What is amazing to me, as a casual reader, is that in an age where we have so many powerful and influential women, from Angela Merkel to Hillary Clinton, the majority of women enjoy reading books where they come across as weak, stupid, and almost gleefully submissive (in every definition of the word) to a man so long as he is perfect.

Fifty Shades of Grey borrows heavily from Stephanie Meyer's equally revolting Twilight books in a few ways.  Like Meyer, James copies her almost incessant habit of referring to the male protagonist by his full name.  More often than not, everyone calls him "Christian Grey".  It isn't often that other characters call him "Christian" or even "Chris".  This was something I noticed when it came to EDWARD CULLEN: he was almost always called EDWARD CULLEN.  For me, it seems ridiculous to keep calling a character by his full name again and again.  He's never called "Sherlock Holmes" on almost every page.  This trend in modern literary circles is just moronic.

Second, James takes the first-person approach.  Twilight and its follow-ups are told from Bella Swoon's (I mean, Swann's) perspective.  This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that Bella and Anastasia are pretty much the same characters (they even live in the same area: the Seattle setting isn't that far from Forks, Washington State).  Both are people who would describe themselves as remarkably ordinary, plain, even perhaps unattractive women.  Neither Bella or Ana would ever use the term "bathing beauty" to describe themselves.  They even share a sense of clumsiness.

Third, they both appear totally zombified by this perfect man.  As readers of Twilight know, EDWARD CULLEN is Perfection Itself: he is so achingly beautiful to look at, and has something of a damaged soul.  He is also the scion of wealth (although one could say he is 'adopted' by the Cullen clan) and is a man who would be perfect if not for one defect: he's a vampire (but one with a heart...even if said heart doesn't actually beat).

Likewise, Christian Grey is Perfection Itself: a Greek god, with perfect abs and an incredible penis (also, has anyone noticed that both of them play the piano remarkably well, and usually it's the tenderest of music when either plays).  Like EDWARD CULLEN, Christian Grey is adopted (although in his case it is literal), and is also from a wealthy family.  In many ways Christian Grey is also a damaged soul with one small defect: he likes to whip his sexual partners for pleasure.

I even have another comparison between Twilight and FIfty Shades of Grey: both Bella and Anastasia had their virginities taken by these Perfect Men who wanted them but didn't think THEY were worthy of the women.  Each saw their respective broads as they really were: beautiful, true objects of desire to which they could pour out their dysfunctional love onto.

Fourth (I think we're on fourth), both Bella and Ana may not have thought of themselves as beautiful, but almost every other man they met was passionately in love with them.  Bella had an early suitor in Mike, and Ana has her thwarted lover Jose and her boss' son.  There is something egocentric in downplaying the attractiveness of the female lead but also having so many men wanting them.     

I refer to the female protagonist in Twilight as Bella Swoon because of how easily she is overwhelmed by the beauty and perfection of one EDWARD CULLEN.  Same goes for Anastasia Steele: she is similarly overwhelmed with the beauty and perfection of Christian Grey.  Truth be told this isn't a new device: Jane Eyre was similarly drawn to the beautiful but damaged Mr. Rochester, but I think the difference between Jane Eyre and Twilight/Fifty Shades of Grey is that Jane was a woman of substance who managed to create a life for herself despite all her setbacks.  Bella and Ana on the other hand, are willing, even eager, to submit themselves to the man. 

The big draw in Fifty Shades of Grey is that it involves graphic descriptions of a certain sexual persuasion: sadomasochism (S&M).  You have dumb Ana tied up, you have her whipped, you have her spanked (and always for her benefit as well as his).  We get a lot of sex but obviously no love.  Christian can't give any and Ana won't demand anything else but is too drawn to Christian to actively seek it out.

I'm endlessly fascinated with why women would identify with a character who is so remarkably weak and stupid as to agree to be a man's submissive, to be his virtual slave in body and thought.  So much for women's lib.

I'm also perplexed why so many people think that Fifty Shades of Grey is considered well-written.  The dialogue is laughable (just like in Twilight) and I found the characters to be extremely inconsistent.  As much as Ana protests that she will be submissive, she certainly continues to contradict and disagree with Christian on many fronts, even on the sex.  Moreover, Christian appears to readily agree to doing as Ana wishes.  She wishes to have him in bed with her, the Dominant does as the Submissive asks.

One wonders who exactly is the Dominant and who is the Submissive.

One thing I found irritating is in the device of moving the story forward via e-mail messages between Christian and Ana.  It's not so much the constant use of it (although that was frustrating) but that if one looks at the times marked on the e-mails, the reply time was very quick: usually less than a few minutes took place between when one was sent and the other replied.  It didn't seem to matter when: it could have been at one or two in the morning and Christian, ever dutiful, would reply to Ana.

I'd argue that when it comes to that relationship, Christian was the one who was whipped.

Terrible writing tinged with only risque elements of S&M is what pushes a second-rate romance to heights real books don't usually obtain.  You have cliched characters (the beautiful, perfect but troubled man and the 'average' yet highly intelligent woman who can change him and help him find perfect love...obviously with her) and a story that has wealth to ease the difficulties of real living, and you get a lousy book that has only the tawdry and salacious to push it to the best-seller list.  

In the final analysis, if there were any justice, E L James would have called her novel Fifty Shades of Twilight. 

My name is E L James, and I write garbage.

DECISION: F

The Curse of Love That Won't Forget: The Great Gatsby Review

THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Modern Library Ranking: #2)

I rarely read novels before watching a film, but I have made a few exceptions.  One was the first book in the Twilight series, Twilight.  I thought it trash.  I simply could not get through it for its sheer banality.  Another was The Great Gatsby.  It was short, it's considered a classic, and I had spent my whole life without reading it. With the film being released at year's end (and I suspect a strong contender for Oscar nominations in Costume and Art Direction), I decided at long last to look over this book and see what all the fuss is about.  The Great Gatsby is a marvelous read, something one can enjoy for pleasure and see that sometimes love is not worth waiting for.

We begin with our narrator, Nick Carraway, from whose point of view The Great Gatsby takes place.  He is by no means rich but is comfortably well off.  He becomes fascinated by his next door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby.  Gatsby is the richest man in East Egg, who has the biggest house, throws the biggest parties, and is the least known man on Long Island.  Nick soon reconnects with a distant cousin, Daisy Buchanan, her husband Tom, and their friend, the female golfer Jordan Baker.  Nick and Jordan began a sputtering affair.

Nick soon finds entry into Gatsby's frivolous world, and the fascination with the Great Gatsby grows.  Gatsby is rich, beautiful, and seemingly perfect.  However, as time goes on, we learn the truth about Jay Gatsby.  He wasn't born into wealth, he wasn't from the upper echelons of society.  He is really James Gatz, son of poor farmers who has basically recreated himself.  He is quite wealthy, but his fortune is most likely from being a criminal (bootlegger and all). 

Jay Gatsby is also in love with Daisy Buchanan...still.  Long ago, before the First World War, our James Gatz had romanced Daisy, and they had fallen in love.  However, due to his poor background and the distances of miles and times, she married Tom Buchanan.  She is unaware that Tom has a mistress (well, I figure he has many, but I digress): Myrtle Wilson, wife of local mechanic George.  Nick detests the deception to Daisy, but he doesn't feel it right to tell either Jay or Daisy, who have rekindled their own affair.

Jay is determined to win Daisy over, but ultimately she won't leave Tom.  After leaving a tense party at the Buchanan home, Nick finds that Myrtle has been killed by a hit-and-run driver.  While it was Gatsby's car, Jay tells him Daisy had been driving.  George, destroyed by his wife's death, tracks down the owner of the car...and kills him.

Jay is buried, unmissed save for Nick, Jay's father Henry Gatz, and a man Nick calls Owl Eyes, whom he'd met at the first party of Gatsby's who loved his book collection.

I can only go into what I got and understood from The Great Gatsby, but for myself, I saw it as a cautionary tale of the myth of self-reinvention for the wrong reasons.  Jay Gatsby was not a real person.  He was an invention of James Gatz, who longed more than anything to, in a familiar refrain, "be somebody".  Gatsby wanted to be anything other than who he was, and above all else, he wanted to be rich.

He didn't want to be rich in order to indulge any passions or because he wanted power.  Far from that.  He wanted to be rich because by having lots and lots of money, he could achieve the one thing he truly yearned for: the love of The Woman.

For me, this is at the heart of the tragedy of The Great Gatsby.  It was his love for Daisy that led to his ruin.  He truly loved her, but I think that Gatsby also loved what she represented: respectability that comes with wealth.  She was His Perfect Love, but there is no such thing. 

This is where The Great Gatsby hit me on a strong level.  We all have loved at least one person for whom we think by changing into something/someone more like them, they might love us back.  If I were...fill-in-the-blank...they would love me.  It doesn't work out this way.

Gatsby was not interested in the fact that he had to turn to crime to make his fortune.  It was a means to an end, but by going into bootlegging to finance a lifestyle that would win back The One, he was ruining himself.  Even if Daisy had left Tom for him, she wouldn't be leaving Tom for James Gatz, farmer's son.  She'd be leaving him for Jay Gatsby, multi-millionaire. 

Gatsby lived in a fantasy so strong he took it to be the truth.  He would not let Daisy go, even after he should have known that she was not going to be with him.  At the end of The Great Gatsby, I felt so much sadness for Jay.

His life was a fraud, a beautiful fraud perhaps, but a life so empty and hollow.  All those wild parties, all those fun times--they were as vapor in the wind, one might say.  I think about all those people who went to Gatsby's soirees.  They were there for a good time, for frivolity, but not for him.  They neither knew or cared for him. 

Some things never change.  How many people today are hangers-on to rich and famous people just for their own selfish needs?  Even today, how many people "follow" non-entities or are "fans" of people who have money but nothing to offer their legions other than entertainment?  Once their notoriety ends, so does interest in them, and those who were once sought after are forgotten.

Since Nick is the one narrating the story, The Great Gatsby is as much Nick's story as it is Jay's.  I'd say far more.  Nick is our Everyman, who is drawn to this world but who sees in the end how shallow it all is, how empty.  He'd rather be himself, even if it means turning away from the lights and the spectacle, than surrender to the moral bankruptcy of these people's lives.  For Nick, people still matter.  He could never be so hurtful towards Daisy as Tom is by fooling around on her, or turn away from a friend like almost everyone did once Jay was dead.

I think The Great Gatsby asks us to examine what kind of sacrifices we would make for love, or for status.  Gatsby was a prisoner the past, someone who thought that by changing into what he thought Daisy wanted he could get the love he so longed for from her.  In truth, while Daisy loved him, her fear kept her from going with Jay.  He should have learned to let go, to be himself. 

Of course, this is something we will never learn.  People will always change something to get love.  Nick escaped from it.  Jay died for it.

The Great Gatsby is a beautiful book, and while I was disappointed that the line, "rich girls don't marry poor boys" wasn't in it, it is still a sharp truth.  Sometimes we can love and lose, but the real tragedy is when we keep loving that which is lost, never to be...

DECISION: A+

  

Back In MY Day...Of Thee I Zing Review

OF THEE I ZING: AMERICA'S CULTURAL DECLINE FROM MUFFIN TOPS TO BODY SHOTS by Laura Ingraham with Raymond Arroyo

There are times when I agree completely with Laura Ingraham.  Then there are times when the woman drives me absolutely bonkers.  Of Thee I Zing has a little of both.  On cultural issues, I tend toward the conservative side.  However, Of Thee I Zing doesn't address the core issues as to why America is in a cultural decline.  Rather, it becomes Ingraham's way of channelling her inner Andy Rooney...except Rooney was never as crotchety as Ingraham. 

For ten chapters, we get to read how Miss Ingraham doesn't like the world we live in.  It doesn't meet with her approval.  From boorish behavior to inappropriate dress to tattoos, Ingraham thinks the country is going in a bad direction.  People throw excessively lavish birthday parties for their children (perhaps as atonement for giving them ridiculous names and when they're not doing their children's homework.  People spend too much time on their laptops at the Starbucks (for which, she tells us, they pay far too much for their coffee).  People reveal far too much: either in what they wear at church (where the priest, to her displeasure, is performing stand-up while the music has--horror of horrors--guitars and drums) or what they write on Facebook (for the record, Miss Ingraham has a Facebook page herself, though whether she has one for her private friends I do not know).  Movie stars are dumb, pop stars are untalented, and people in general cannot speak properly.

She regales us with truly horrifying stories.  There was the time she went to Walt Disney World with her two children.  She didn't enjoy riding a bus from the Disney hotel to the parks.  She was outraged that the park was crowded when she visited (the week between Christmas and New Year's).  People riding in Rascals especially met her ire.  This trip ended with her being temporarily separated from her daughter, who in the maelstrom of the crowds was pushed, cutting her lip.

Allow me to digress for a moment to recall my own experiences at Walt Disney World.  I have the benefit of taking my vacation at any time, and I chose to go the week after Labor Day.  I took the shuttle from my hotel to the parks, and even in the off-season, they were at times crowded.  However, I rarely had to wait to board a ride.  Most of the time, I just walked in and got on board.  There were a few exceptions: Soarin' at EPCOT took 45 minutes (the second time I got on), the Rock-and-Roller Coaster at Disney's Hollywood Studios took 15.  Barring those, the average wait time was between seven to ten minutes: in fact, at It's A Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean I didn't wait even five minutes.  There probably were people who were riding in wheelchairs, but to be honest I didn't notice.

What astounds me about her whining (yes, I call it whining) is how incredibly short-sighted Ingraham and Company were.  What would possess them to go on one of the busiest times of the year?  I'm not as well-travelled as Miss Ingraham, but even I know enough to avoid heavy-traffic times like Christmas and mid-summer.  I knew from the get-go that I would have to face some crowds, but I opted to go when I figured the crowds would be at their thinnest.  My theory proved correct: most people go on vacation before Labor Day, when they can take their tykes to Disney World.  I knew that by going after Labor Day, I would avoid most children.

I should point out I don't have children (yet) and furthermore I would never take my children to Disney World until they were at least ten at the earliest.  The reason, Miss Ingraham, is simple: kids tire easily.  One Disney Park would simply exhaust them, and there is nothing more tiresome than a tired child.  If one did take their children, I would split a park in parts.  With the exception of Animal Kingdom (which I think a child could tackle in one day), I would take the child/children to a few rides in a section of the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT, go back to the hotel for a nap, then return to a few more rides.  Trying to take on the parks in one day with minors is madness, and why she thought it was sensible is simply astonishing.

Now, on the point of her riding on the shuttle, well, frankly my dear, don't be so cheap.  The shuttle worked for me because I didn't have to drive and it was part of the package (and I got a good one, being as I always travel with the economy tour).  I imagine Miss Ingraham and Mr. Arroyo make far more than I do, so as I read about her miseries, I kept wondering why didn't she simply rent a van to drive herself and her brood to the parks.  If she didn't want to drive, why not hire a driver?  I'm sure she could afford it. 

Miss Ingraham is an icon of modern conservative thinking.  As such, she should be fully aware that she needs to take responsibility for her actions.  She chose to take the shuttle, she chose to go between Christmas and New Year's (by the way, a holiday she doesn't care for, along with St. Patrick's Day, St. Valentine's Day, President's Day, Groundhog Day, April Fool's Day, Earth Day, and Halloween, and she disapproves of aspects related to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  She also disapproves of referring to Independence Day as 'Fourth of July').  In short, Laura opted to take children to a park during a high-traffic period, so she should just admit it was a bad decision, not the fault of people riding around on Rascals.

There are things in Of Thee I Zing which she and I are in total sync.  I don't like President's Day either (it's a made-up holiday, part of this odd American obsession to have three-day weekends).  I also find tattoos rather ridiculous.  I know evangelical Christians who literally wear their faith on their arms.  One believer has two tattoos on his forearms: one on, it reads, "He died for me", on the other, "I live for him" (him is not capitalized, which I would argue is incorrect given it's referring to Christ, but again I digress).  I admire the sentiment, but tattoos to me have always looked vulgar.  I tend to associate tattoos with criminals (given my time working at a probation/parole violators center), and there is something tacky about marking your body. 

Miss Ingraham would be amused to know that I have met the Grandma With the Dragon Tattoo.  I've met a woman in her seventies with tattoos on her ears, her neck, her hands, her legs (yes, she wore shorts), and even her cleavage.  I thought she looked ridiculous (although I think she would have looked ridiculous in her twenties), and a sign of what I always refer to as The End of Western Civilization.

Yet this gives me an opportunity to state why Of Thee I Zing was more a way for Miss Ingraham to whine than tackle the serious rot invading our culture.  The Grandma With the Dragon Tattoo thought there was nothing wrong with her looking the way she did, and I think it is because of another curious American aspect: the idea that the individual is so important, so special.  Again and again I encounter this sense in America that people are entitled to do and say whatever they want because they exist.  People are being raised to believe that they simply have the right to do anything they want, get anything they want, and get it now.

She is right to take parents to task for caving in to their children's whims.  Parents today don't want to make decisions, and when they do, they make ghastly ones.  When Ingraham writes about parents taking their children to R-rated films, I was metaphorically shouting, 'Amen; preach it'.  I am astounded that parents will spend over fifty dollars in tickets and snacks to take their children to watch The Hangover Part II but wouldn't dare spend twenty dollars to get a babysitter for a couple of hours. 

Here, I would argue that it is people's selfishness, the need to put their needs over those of the children, that brings about this sorry situation.  I think the best thing to do is to have actual enforcement in just not selling tickets to minors for an R-rated film.  You have to tell people 'no', and I can imagine adults will be up in arms.  However, if you cut off the adults, you will force them to do one of two things: either not see the newest Adam Sandler comedy or find someone to watch their little ones for a few hours.  You do not have the divine right to watch Grown Ups.  Oddly, that film seems perfect for the way many parents act and think.

At the heart of all the troubles in Of Thee I Zing is the American sense of entitlement.  I shouldn't be, but I am perpetually astounded by how often people think they have the right to this-that-or-the-other because of who they are.  People have grown up thinking they should get whatever they want.  I blame so-called reality shows, coddling parents and cowardly adults.  A simple 'no' works wonders.  No: I won't do your science project because I don't need the grade.  No: I won't buy you an X-Box because I can't afford it.  No: we won't go to Disney World because you are far too young.  No: I won't issue you a library card without proof of address (that one's my own pet peeve).  No: shorts and flip-flops are inappropriate church attire.

Here, though, I will take Laura Ingraham to task.  We will not go back to people wearing suits and dresses at services.  My church attire consists of dress pants, polo shirt, and, yes, tennis shoes or Converse.  In my defense, I wear dress shoes five days a week at work (and I sometimes work on Saturdays), so after dressing well for work, I'd like at least one day when I don't have to dress so well.  I can compromise on the shoes (people shouldn't be looking down at service), but somehow people in football jerseys to me isn't so much disrespectful as it is lazy.  Church is not home, so people coming to church as if they're going to a cook-out looks lazy and sloppy (to quote one of my mother's favorite words). 

One thing I especially dislike about Ingraham's rather snobbish take on modern worship is the issue of musical instruments.  Frankly, the woman's stupid.  She really objects to guitars and drums at service?  I wonder if she wants to have Mass in Latin and have the women in veils.  Allow me to tell a story.

Once, at Christmas, a choir director wrote the melody to a song written by the parish priest, to be accompanied by...a guitar.  Blasphemy, Laura Ingraham would state.  We can't have a song with guitar at church.  If Laura Ingraham had her way, she would ban Silent Night from churches.  She also would not allow music written by Chris Tomlin, Matthew West, Michael W. Smith, or Casting Crowns among others.  Laura Ingraham, I imagine, would not allow Contemporary Christian music to be played in churches (or radio) merely because they have instruments.  So much for that "sing unto the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the voice of a psalm/with trumpets and sound of cornets make a joyful noise unto the Lord, the King" (Psalm 98: 5-6).  If David had no problem with musical accompaniment to glorify the Lord, how is Laura Ingraham wiser than a man after God's own heart?

Ingraham is Catholic, and maybe Catholic service has changed since I was a member.  However, given that practicing Catholic Matt Maher is a Contemporary Christian music star (for lack of a better word) who writes music for the church (and the Church), she really should tell him how wrong he is for writing music to honor and praise his God.  Maybe Maher should write music in the style of Cee Lo Green or Pitbull.  Whatever would we do without Laura Ingraham telling Matt Maher how wrong he is for writing music used at church.  Shouldn't he know we all should stick to the Gregorian chants?

Again, I agree with some things Ingraham writes in Of Thee I Zing, but she never talks about the root cause of boorish behavior: a warped sense of entitlement, a belief that people should get what they want because they are who they are, a belief that people simply cannot be wrong.  Instead, she spends a great deal of the time complaining about how people are today.

Ever wonder why...

DECISION: C-

I Do Expect It To Be Amazing

It certainly has been a long time since I've been to this particular site, much to my shame. Frankly, I'm a notorious slow reader, not to mention that I have been devoting what time I can spare to my movie reviews. However, that is no excuse to leave the written word out. Words are important: after all, that is how the world began.

In any case, I have not forgotten the goal of The Index of Forbidden Books: to do what others in the world cannot, namely, read just about anything I damn well please. The only censor I have is myself. I don't need anyone telling me what is forbidden or what I can or cannot read. However, I should expand my goal to do something that Americans, tragically, are not doing: reading for sheer pleasure. Reading, for reasons I do not understand, is not popular. In truth, people are becoming so illiterate that adults can no longer tell the difference between 'to', 'too', and 'two'. I've seen people spell the word as 'h-a-v-e-i-n-g' and think it's correct. Contrary to popular belief, it hasn't been THAT long since I have been to high school, but don't people teach them about 'dropping the E and adding I-N-G' anymore?

I know: it takes time to read, and today, we are hard-pressed to find time to do so, what with 'texting' (or its oddball cousin, 'sexting'), Facebook, satellite multi-channels, and so forth. However, my personal failings, mercifully, can be rectified by simply carving out no more than fifteen to thirty minutes a day. That would equal 3 1/2 hours a week, which in the long run isn't that much to ask of anyone.

With that in mind, I've decided to go back and find something I haven't read before but have heard much praise for. In this case, it will be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by the man above, Mr. Michael Chabon. The only thing I know about it is that none other than Seth Cohen on The O.C. was passionate about it, so that's a plus, right? The Cool Nerd who had a far more active sex life than most nerds I knew loved the book, so it must be good. Perhaps I'm being a bit facetious, so forgive my tone. I actually know very little to nothing about it, but I think it has something to do with comic books (a genre I don't care for--never read them as a kid). What is great about picking this title for my own Book-of-the-Month is that I go into it with no preconceptions, so I embark on a great adventure of my own.

It should be good, given the press it's gotten as a masterpiece. Frankly, I tend to be wary of anything that is labelled unimpeachably brilliant. For example, while I thought The Social Network was a well-made film, I am astonished that most of my fellow critics appear to masturbate to it, declaring it "the film of a generation" or "this (my) generation's Citizen Kane". What film did THEY see? Same goes for the comedic 'genius' of Russell Brand or Kanye West and yes, Jackson Pollack, damn it (a damn bunch of squiggles as far as I can tell). I'm always willing to reexamine my views on things. Growing older has made me more tolerant of things I do not understand or may have failed to appreciate at first viewing. Case in point: Fellini's 8 1/2. Therefore, I am going into The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay with a hint of trepidation. However, I hope to learn something about writing.

As I begin to read this book, I go into it a bit suspicious but optimistic, hopefull that all the hype will be justified. Sometimes it is (example: Precious), sometimes not (example: The Social Network). All right, then. Let the reading begin.

Rapp It Up: Act of Treason Review

ACT OF TREASON

Author's Note: This review will contain some spoilers, so be warned that certain plot points will be revealed. I find it difficult to avoid them since they form part of my critique. You have been warned. Thank you.

I've never been a big fan of thrillers. It could be that the action dominates the story at the expense of everything else. We concentrate on the shootings, the blowing up, rather on characters. Still, since I can't recall having read any suspense thrillers I decided to give it a try. Therefore, I selected a popular author: Vince Flynn. I also selected a book at random: Act of Treason. Given what I heard (it was the audio book), I am reluctant to tackle another adventure with MITCH RAPP.

We're in the closing months of a Presidential campaign. Incumbent President Hayes declines to run for re-election due to his Parkinson's Disease, and the Democratic Party has nominated Georgia Governor Josh Alexander and Connecticut Senator Mark Ross. Their motorcade is attacked with a bomb, which injures them but kills Alexander's wife and seriously injures Agent Rivera, who headed up security for the candidates. Almost as a form of protest, the public votes Alexander and Ross in. Still, the mystery of who is involved is still unknown. Enter MITCH RAPP.

He uncovers that this was not the plot of Islamic extremist. Instead, nefarious forces are at work. An American in exile in Switzerland is desperate to return to the United States, but what he needs is a Presidential pardon. In exchange for assisting a certain Vice-Presidential candidate to win the election, this candidate will grant him said pardon. Of course, there's no way MITCH RAPP will allow this. MITCH RAPP is a special kind of counter-terrorist agent: a bit like Jack Bauer without a sense of humor.

It may strike you as silly to keep referring to MITCH RAPP as MITCH RAPP, but Flynn has his characters almost always call him MITCH RAPP. He's not Mitch or Rapp or Mitchell or any nickname. He's always MITCH RAPP. I'm a bit surprised that MITCH RAPP doesn't refer to himself as MITCH RAPP. It's terribly reminiscent of how Stephanie Meyer always has her characters refer to one of the leads as EDWARD CULLEN, not Ed or Eddie or Edster or Cullen, but always as EDWARD CULLEN. Have I missed the trend of having a major character always called by his full name in today's literature?

Just getting some information about MITCH RAPP from Act of Treason, I find him a rather sad and unhappy being. Yes, we are informed that his wife and unborn child were killed in a previous story, so Act of Treason is his first major mission post-tragedy. I couldn't help think of James Bond, because something similar happened to him in On Her Majesty's Secret Service: his wife was also killed at the end. We usually have these stories where our hero has some major tragedy, so Flynn isn't tackling any new major territory. Of course, MITCH RAPP has the benefit of work, and nothing takes the mind off losing your family than in shooting a Belarussian in the hands and knees.

MITCH RAPP has no life outside the CIA. He has no hobbies, no outside interests. He doesn't play any instruments, follow any sports, read any literature. He doesn't paint. He doesn't collect coins or stamps or postcards. He doesn't study cheetahs. He doesn't follow Star Trek or Doctor Who or have a passion for Bette Davis or Sandra Bullock movies. In short, MITCH RAPP has absolutely nothing that will mark him as human. That's because he isn't suppose to be human. He's suppose to be a hollow, empty being. MITCH RAPP wouldn't like any of those things since that would make him a wimp, and if there's one thing MITCH RAPP is not, it's a wimp. Well, that's not entirely true: he does know several types of combat. To me, MITCH RAPP isn't real, so I had no interest in anything to do with him. Flynn is making the argument that we need people like MITCH RAPP--someone who isn't too bothered with the technicalities of the law to get those who would do us harm.

In terms of Flynn, writing, I found it at times curious. His style is straight and to the point. Just as there is nothing excessive about MITCH RAPP, there is no attempt to have a certain prose style in Act of Treason. Take when Flynn first describes Mrs. Alexander. She is suppose to be an incredibly beautiful woman. Flynn could have described her in any number of ways: her body was temptation for every man; she inspired lust merely when her expensive perfume was felt in the air; she bore the burden of desire and knew how to make men fall to her considerable invitations of pleasure. None of this for Flynn. Instead, he described her thus: She had a body to die for. For me, this is rather a second-rate description: weak and of little interest. Admittedly, I was trained to be a bit more elaborate in my descriptions, but couldn't Flynn try to ratch it up a notch? Also, there is the scene when MITCH RAPP and his team arrive back to the United States from their mission on Cyprus. The omnipresent voice compliments the British by saying thus, "They know how to keep their mouths shut". When MITCH RAPP speaks, he compliments the British by saying thus, "They know how to keep their mouths shut". FLYNN ACTUALLY USED THE EXACT SAME PHRASE TWICE. I would never allow a writing student to try to pull that off, and I was stunned that someone with Flynn's experience and popularity would not have had an editor call him out on that.

I also was bothered by what to me seemed certain stock characters, like Agent Rivera. She's this super-tough broad, whose greatest pleasure is in taking down men...sometimes literally. When MITCH RAPP comes to her dojo to question her, she won't speak to him but instead with her hands challenges him to fight. I would imagine that this kind of scenario would only happen in movies and MITCH RAPP books, not in real life. I am of the worldview that people actually behave much more rationally than Flynn appears to think. Then we have Senator Ross--this villainous hypocritical liberal. I suspect that MITCH RAPP is Flynn's alter ego, but they seem to share a dislike for left-wingers and their politics. This is especially true in Flynn/MITCH RAPP's contempt for the reporter for the New York Times, whom MITCH RAPP refers to as a 'lefty'. Finally, we have a red herring in the fact that Mrs. Alexander is having a torrid affair with one of her Secret Security detail, down to where explicit pictures of a liason were taken. We could have had this as a motive, but really it was not important in the overall plot that she was humping around on Josh when her car got blown up.

This isn't to take away what I did like about Act of Treason: the ending, and I'm not saying that in a sarcastic tone. Flynn is best when describing action, and when MITCH RAPP takes care of the American criminal who put out a hit on the candidates Flynn is a master. I give Flynn credit in that MITCH RAPP has at least a code of honor about who he kills, though his superior, Director Kennedy, is not so discriminating...even if it means assassinating the Vice President-elect of the United States.

I'd like to take on another action/suspense thriller. I do think Vince Flynn has a great ability in imaginative plots. However, Act of Treason did not hold my interest since MITCH RAPP was entirely too much of a machine than a man to care about.

DECISION: C-

A Kells of A Tale: How the Irish Saved Civilization Review

HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION

I often talk about The End of Western Civilization, but after finishing Thomas Cahill's How The Irish Saved Civilization, I see this is not the first time our world has faced total extinction.

It's a short book, easily readable and could be finished within a week, two at most. Cahill starts with the fall of Rome and the ensuing chaos that it unleashed. With the barbarian hordes overrunning the remnants of the Western Roman Empire (Byzantium still hanging on, though shrinking and shrinking), it isn't just the actual knowledge of the ancients that is lost. Cahill argues that in a nutshell, people did not have time to think on great things. The struggle for survival took precedence over pondering the great mysteries of life.

Enter the Irish. There, in the wilds of Hibernia, the barbarians didn't seem interest in going--namely because the Celts were already wild, pagan, and dangerous. Their heroes slept around, were shape-shifters, and the population had deities all over. They also had slaves and abducted people into slavery. Among these abducted was a young Romanized Briton named Patricius. He lingers in Eire for several years, until he escapes, guided and protected by God, he is brought back home. However, he feels it in his heart to go back and bring Christianity to the Emerald Isle. With that, the future St. Patrick goes back to be a missionary.

His conversion efforts succeed, and scores of monasteries arise, not only to be thriving, but they now send missionaries back to Europe to convert the barbarian horde, founding monasteries as far as Scotland and Italy. With them, they bring their books. These books are a curious thing for the Irish to bring because before the monks Gaelic had not been written down. It was the Irish monks who began to copy down the works of the Greeks and Romans, and they copied down everything: not just the philosophical works of Aristotle or Cicero but the Aenid and Celtic legends along with the Scriptures. To them, all knowledge was valuable, all literature was worth writing down and preserving.

However, as Rome began to pull itself together and start dominating all branches of Christianity, Irish Christianity began to give way to the power of the Bishop of Rome. By a curious twist of fate, while it was the Irish monks who brought knowledge and a sense of civilization to barbarian Europe, once the Europeans regained civilization they clamped down on the more 'unorthodox' aspects of Irish Christianity, such as having WOMEN as heads of church or not banning pagan celebrations like Samhain (which would eventually evolve to the American Halloween). Eventually, Europe took what the Irish had given them and in a sense, ostracised them.

As I read How the Irish Saved Civilization, I was amazed at certain themes that emerged. For example, I am amazed that it was Christianity that brought civilization and a strong sense of peace to the warring Celts of Ireland. What makes it curious is that so often in today's 'post-Christian' world, faith in general and Christianity in particular is seen as backward, anti-intellectual, intolerant, narrow-minded, even dangerous to thought. We're constantly given the examples of the Inquisition or the creationist debate as proof positive that Christianity is against thinking itself. The book argues that it was the peace brought by Christianity, a faith that objected to violence as the solution to problems, that created the requirement for study.

This is the most important theme in How the Irish Saved Civilization: that is it PEACE that brings civilization and a flowering of thought. When there is war, conflict, and destruction, you can't have a space where thoughts and intellectual expressions can grow. To bring a modern-day context to it, this may be why the Middle East has not had a Renaissance since before the fall of the Ottoman Empire. There are other factors: dictators who want one thought and one thought only to be given (much like the barbarians like the Goths and Vandals who weren't interested in having their subjects question their authority) and a true anti-intellectualism (how else to explain how the Taliban can justify blowing up the Buddhas of Bamyan or the destruction of the National Museum of Afghanistan).

However, when the struggle to survive is dominant, those needs take the place of giving over to think, to contemplate, and the interest of knowledge is lost. In post-Roman Europe, people lost the ability to read and to a larger extent the interest to think. These books, this literature, weren't necessary to daily living, so they were discarded and in danger of being lost forever. The idea that knowledge is important was kept alive only by early Christians (the Jewish nation also has that idea that the Word must be preserved to keep their civilization alive), because they felt it important that the words and life of Christ and the letters of the apostles (especially Paul of Tarsus), so they began to write and copy them down. The Irish did that once the nation had been converted, but they expanded it to include the works of the ancient Greek and Roman pagans and their own literature. Without their work, so much would have been lost forever, and that would have changed the world we live in today. In effect, history turned with every one of those pen strokes.

I felt a sense of joy that the idea that words, thoughts, ideas, should be preserved was important. As someone who works in a library, I love words, I love literature, and am working to expand my worlds (and yes, my words). However, as I ended How the Irish Saved Civilization, I felt a certain sadness, because I think we're entering another post-Roman world, but this time it isn't the barbarians at the gate that are bringing civilization down (although we are facing an actual war against a certain mindset that distrusts individual thought and feels compelled to have group-think). It is apathy, laziness that will bring about the end. People are reading less and less for pleasure. It is a flaw of modern-day education, that gives the idea that reading is a task to be endured. People are now abandoning reading itself after their formal education ends. Instead, we go and rely on television, movies, the Internet. I love all those things, but newspapers are closing down partly because people are taking less interest in reading. Americans are having a harder time spelling because they are relying on 'text-style' writing to communicate (Side Note: sometimes I look at a text message and am baffled because I find it virtually indecipherable).

I won't be too critical: sometimes I make the same spelling mistakes because no one is perfect. However, Americans are having a harder and harder time thinking out an argument. "Literature" such as the writings of Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw or Jack London appear to be foisted on students who look on with horror while James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, and Stephanie Meyer are looked on as new Ovids or Homers. (Side Note: I find it hard to critize Patterson or Sparks since I haven't read their works--I may end up liking them--but I do wonder how the former can crank out so many books within a short amount of time while the latter appears to tell the same story if I judge by the film versions. I have read Twilight and found it utterly awful). We now have a sense that books are, instead of dangerous or necessary, rather boring and useless, so there's no need for them. As a result, we are in danger of slipping into a state of semi-civilization if not downright idiocy.

Let my digress to say we are facing a similar situation today when it comes to 'orthodoxy'. The Irish Christians didn't get into twists about pagan celebrations or vernacular literature. Today, some elements of Christianity are in fits about Halloween and Harry Potter, believing them so dangerous they must be burned or even banned, and of keeping women from being pastors. I find myself on the left of these issues, but I think my bretheren should be more concerned about how and why people are abandoning Christianity itself than whether a child dresses up as a princess or Batman and eats too much candy one day of the year.

How The Irish Saved Civilization is a short, fascinating read. We understand just how close we came to losing the foundations of Western Civilization...and by extent, world civilization, and how a small group of Irish monks kept the light burning while the world was plunged into darkness. I can only hope that we do not let it burn out due to apathy.

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