Dan's Reading Journal

The Illiad by Homer (translated by Samuel Butler)

There are some serious gaps in my education.  I never finished Joyce's Ulysses, I had huge problems with Faulkner, and choked on Flannery O'Connor.  I was not an English major, thus did not confront Milton or Sir Walter Scott.  I managed to get to Steinbeck, Hemingway, Styron, as well as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky but really fell down on the classics.  Thus, I decided to load my Kindle with The Iliad and give it a go.  Well, I gave it a go, and I am gone.  First, what led me to expect I would be reading about the Trojan Horse?  Because I am an ignoramus, that's why.  The Trojan Horse shows up in the Aeneid by Virgil (I think) -- Yup, that's right, I haven't read that either.  What a dummy.

Second, no one warned me that the Iliad's closest literary rivals (at least in style) are either the Book of Lists or the generations section of the Book of Genesis.  My guess is that fully 50%  of the Iliad is made up of the litany of who killed who, with what weapon, by what gruesome wound, and what lineage just got cut short. Not a few, not tens, but hundreds.  With a sword though the jaw, with a sword through the stomach, with a sword through (or above, below or next to) the nipple.  I think Homer (or his translator) has a thing for nipples -- it is the most frequently mentioned location for where swords (or pikes, or staffs, or whatever) puncture the human (male) body.

Achilles is an arrogant sort, supremely confident but only focused on himself and his due. Just a bit of an ego, to say the least.  Agamemnon is apparently a grasping, pecuniary sort -- abusing his position as King to enrich himself.  Homer also does not lack for ego, sees himself as a hero, and plays to the part   right up until he ends up mano-a-mano with Achilles which prompts Hector to run like hell around the walls of Troy with Achilles in hot pursuit.  Paris appears only in a supporting role, portrayed as a lover, not a fighter (a coward, in fact) and a kidnapper to boot.  Helen plays a bit part...beautiful, but little else.  Odysseus (Ulysses) appears as a courageous fighter, wise counsel, albeit with a temper.  The Gods flit in and out, playing favorites with the humans, determining their fate, influencing human behavior, and arguing, scheming, and fighting amongst themselves

There is more, but I must admit I was not engaged.  I am truly sorry.  I know it is a tremendous story. I would like to blame it on the translation, but that would be unfair.  It is me. I'll wait awhile and try The Odyssey - a story I adored as a child.

Wanting: A Novel by Richard Flanagan

The practitioners of (good) historical fiction are a multi-talented lot.  They possess the ability to write plot and character, a deep knowledge of their chosen period, and a creative spark and insight to tie the two together in a way that intrigues but does not stretch the readers' credulity.  Richard Flanagan demonstrates his virtuosity in Wanting: A Novel.  Flanagan gives us two very different stories of the nineteenth century:  In Tasmania (Van Dieman's Land); an aboriginal tribe fights for its existence and one of its daughters, Mathinna, is adopted by the new Vice-Regent (Governor General) and his wife - the explorer Sir John Franklin and his wife, Lady Jane.  Years later, Lady Jane implores Charles Dickens to write a defense of her husband (lost in an Artic expedition) that Dickens turns into a play where Dicken's plays the main character.  In the casting and presentation of the play, Dickens meets, falls in love with, and then must deal with his marriage and his desire for the actress Ellen Ternan.

Flanagan does a magnificant job of asking the question (and answering it with his plot creations and his prose) of what is savage and uncivilized and what is cultured and civilized.  The cultured Franklins, particularly Lady Jane, are enthalled by the aborigine Mathinna and tear her away from her people and her culture to live with them in Hobart (the capital), where Lady Jane embarks upon her "education".  When she fails to become the cute, black, Christian child Lady Jane envisions, Mathinna is, at the end, abandoned. As the Franklins leave Tasmania (forced out by politics), they leave things worse than when they arrived.  Mathinna's people are  mistreated, their culture unappreciated and dismissed, with their aspirations and desires as a people demeaned and disregared by the civilizing British.  If anybody had ever thought to ask, they would have discovered that neither Mathinna nor the Aborigines have seen fulfilled any of what they might have wanted.

Years later, as Dickens writes his impassioned defense of John Franklin and his Artic expedition (without any evidence accused of cannibalism), burying himself in his work to take his thoughts away from the death of his daughter Dora, he recognizes that his marriage is empty; unfulfilled and unfulfilling.  He meets Ms. Ternan
while casting his play and falls in love -- but can not fully remove himself from his marriage.  He loses himself more and more in his play, in his acting -- where he has written John Franklin as the conquering hero, the civilized (and civilizing) British gentleman; erudite and cultured who would certainly die honorably if the choice were between that and resorting to cannabilism to survive in the unforgiving Artic.

In the end, Flanagan has given us a terrific insight into desire -- the cost of possessing it and the cost of its lack of fulfillment.  Lady Jane wants, but can not have, the conversion of Mathinna she so desparately wants. Just like she must work so hard to ensure her husband's (and thus her own) reputation.  Mathinna desires a return to her people, but she has been changed and cannot go back.  The result is a devastation of the individual.  John Franklin wants greatness, but is defeated in politics, and ultimately is killed by his ambition.  Dickens can not have his daughter back, nor can he produce (nor receive) the love and affection in his marriage he so fervently desires.  Nor, once he finds love, can he have it and share it with the world.

Flanagan is incisive and powerful.  He intrigues us and creates strong emotions.  This is worth reading.

Public Enemies by Brian Burrough

First, an admission.  I could swear I have reviewed this book before....I just can't find the writing anywhere.  So, at the risk of repeating myself or, alternatively, here is what I imagined I said.

It is hard to imagine making Bonnie & Clyde, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, and J. Egdgar Hoover boring, but Brian Burrough manages the task in Public Enemies.  Made into a movie starring Johnny Depp (as Dillinger), the book reads more like a PhD dissertation than an exciting piece of writing. 

Now, it is possible you wanted to research the FBI's 1930s flowering as a crime-fighting institution and/or wanted all the facts on the various travel activities and lodging locations of the era's most wanted criminals.  If so, Burrough has nailed it for you.  The research underlying this book is extensive, exhaustive and impressive. The recitation of minutia is often overwhelming.  While Burrough does provide information on the key players, I often found myself thinking he could have provided more interesting insights into the personalities, motives, and/or back-story on the characters.  Lots of facts, little excitement.  Peeking out in between all this detail, on occasion, are interesting events and occurances, but they are not enough to lighten the load.

One thing that Burrough did a very good job of was illuminating the incompetence, puffery, buffoonery, and althogether unsavory beginnings of the FBI as the nation's crime-fighting force.  Exposing J. Edgar Hoover for the paper tiger that he really was is the one major saving grace of Public Enemies.  Hoover's posturing machinations to make himself and his institution look even remotely effective is unnerving because it worked in the 1930s and up through the 70s.  It is so patently obvious that the man was a phony, malevolent, power-hungry incompetent in retrospect that is easy to forget how much damage he really did while in power.  Burrough does a good job of reminding us of both the charade and the unfortunate result.

Burrough writes, "but while the FBI's "socially positive" role was on public display during 1933 and 1934, so too can the seeds of the FBI's later abuses be seen:  the beating of suspects, the "kidnapping" of Verne Miller's girlfriend, Vi Mathias; tbe conviction of Adam Richetti on perjured FBI testimony; and the arrest and trial of Roger Touhy for the Hamm kidnapping.  The War on Crime bestowed upon Hoover's FBI something close to absolute power, and the day eventually came when Hoover's FBI was corrupted absolutely by it.  The Bureau wrestles with its legacy to this day". 

I would add that the hypocrisy that Hoover represented personally would almost by definition create an institution that reflected the glaring deficiencies of its leader.  The FBI is much better off out from under the leadership and legacy of J. Edgar Hoover.

For no other reason than Burroughs documentation of the FBIs reality at its beginning, it is worth wading through some less than exciting details in Public Enemies.

The Professional by Robert B. Parker

Spenser, Hawk, Susan Silverman, Sgt. Belson, Captain Quirk, Vinnie Morris and Bernie Marcus -- after 36 Spenser novels, these characters are good friends that I very much look forward to visiting.  The Professional is Parker's best Spenser novel of the past few years. Quite frankly, the plot hardly matters.  Spenser and Hawk live by their very unique codes of honor and conduct, trade quips, and outwit the bad guys.  Susan continues her career as a therapist, loves Spenser unconditionally, and trades quips with the guys. Quirk and Belson keep Boston safe from the bad guys, grudgingly lend a hand to Spenser when he needs it (because he has earned their respect) and trades quips with each other and with Spenser.

Oh, yeah and in The Professional, Spenser tries to figure out how an apparently sex-addicted good-looking nebbish name Gary has managed to successfully blackmail a significant number of rich women.  The plot thickens (well, at least there is a noticeable increase in viscosity) when some of the women start turning up dead.  Spenser discovers that not all the women are rich, Gary isn't all that bad a guy, and some of the husbands are dodgy.  Susan lends a hand by contributing her insights and Hawk watches Spenser's back.  

Needless to say, all's well that ends well.  Parker and Spenser provide much entertainment.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

There have been a rash of books purporting to explain everyday human behavior and its consequences.  Nassim Taleb has shown us that most of the stock market performance that creates a following is more randomness than actual performance (see Fooled by Randomness) and that most of the real money made on Wall Street is due to the rare and unpredictable rather than "playing the odds" (see The Black Swan).  Malcolm Gladwell has become a staple on The New York Times bestseller lists with The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink, each of which explains some aspect of human performance or human phenomena.

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein wrote Nudge...discussing how our psychological quirks can be exploited by government policy and businesses to nudge us in the right direction and correct (or prevent) some of the damage inherent in totally free markets.  They call it "libertarian paternalism" -- they favor "nudges" over laws, bans, and edicts.

Where Thaler and Sunstein focus on the political, Dan Ariely focuses on the more mundane, more everyday reality of human behavior and its implications for public policy in Predictably Irrational.  Ariely, an Israeli behavioral economist now at Duke University, shows us how our perceptions of reality, our expectations, emotions and acceptance of social norms all combine to help us make irrational decisions.  By bringing hard science and hard facts to the study of human decision-making, Ariely demonstrates that our irrationality is truly predictable.

Want to stop teenage pregnancy and/or prevent coerced sex?  Well, Ariely's research will conclusively demonstrate that "just say no" is worthless because male decision-making under conditions of arousal is dramatically less rational than when not aroused (i.e., like when answering a survey).  For example, when aroused, almost half of men say they would keep trying to have sex even when their partner says "no" - up from only 20% when not aroused.  Slip a woman a drug to increase the chance of having sex?  Only 5% of men said yes in the survey....but 26% said yes when aroused.  So, if you are a woman and want to ensure that you won't be pressured into sex....never put yourself in a position where you are negotiating with an aroused man..because he will not make rational decisions.

How about this --  everyone cheats...Ariely proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt (the experiments Ariely designed and executed to determine this are just plain fascinating)...but if you want to significantly reduce the incidence of cheating or stealing...just have people try to write down as many of the 10 Commandments as they can remember.  It works even if hours in advance of the opportunity to cheat.  We humans have strange minds, eh?

Ariely and his team does it again and again...why we would pick a beer laced with balsamic vinegar rather than regular beer...why we will cheat less when cash is at stake, but more when things that can be used as cash are at stake...why the price of the painkiller influences our evaluation of effectiveness...and on and on.

Ariely writes with a terrific sense of humor, an entertaining sense of wonder, and occasionally with tongue firmly in cheek.  Predictably Irrational is readable, entertaining, and incredibly interesting.  Have fun and learn something, give this a try.