Monday, March 18, 2024

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (novel #227)

…her people were newcomers to their land – but since they arrived things had been changing. They seemed to bring change with them.

 

Clan of the Cave Bear is a novel set in prehistoric times on the north coast of what is now the Black Sea. It follows the lives of the Cave Bear clan and the introduction into the Clan of an orphaned female child of the “others.”

 

The Cave Bear are likely Neanderthals, and the Others are Cro-Magnon, though the author makes no such distinction in the context. This is the first in Auel’s six-book Earth’s Children series.

 

The story opens when the child Ayla is left homeless and orphaned by a severe earthquake. She wanders aimlessly and is attacked by a cave lion. She survives by sheltering in a crevice too narrow for the predator to reach her. She is near death from exposure, loss of blood, and starvation when the Clan finds her. They are indifferent and sure to leave her until the aged medicine woman, who has some status, gives aid and is allowed to carry the child with them as they search for a new cave. They were also left homeless by the earthquake.

 

Most of the clan are indifferent, and some are hostile to the strange child, but Ayla has two allies. The medicine woman Iza, and her brother Creb who also has special status as the shaman or mog-ur. Creb convinces the tribal leader, Brun, that Ayla is lucky and should be allowed to remain with them. Over time, she is accepted by most, even loved and admired by some, but she always has one fearsome enemy, Broud, heir apparent leader.

 

Creb is not only mog-ur, he is The Mog-ur, the most revered mog-ur amongst all Cave Bear tribes. He senses that Ayla’s coming portends upheaval.

 

As Mog-ur sat alone on the open plain watching the last of the torches sputter and die, he thought of the strange girl Iza had found and his uneasiness grew until it became a physical discomfort. Her kind had been met before, but only recently in his concept of reckoning, and not many of the chance meetings had been pleasant. Where they had come from was a mystery – her people were newcomers to their land – but since they arrived things had been changing. They seemed to bring change with them.

 

Of course, he isn’t wrong.

 

This was a fascinating and enjoyable read. I empathized with Ayla immediately. I’m confident that was Auel’s intent, Ayla being the more “modern” human. Just as Creb sensed change, the reader senses the process of natural selection at work on the cusp of a change in human history.

 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars



 

This novel satisfies the “NFL Team” category (title must contain the name of an NFL team) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

.

 

 

Sunday, March 10, 2024

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

The Winter’s Tale is a comedy by William Shakespeare, written in the early seventeenth century.

Or is it a tragedy?

 

It could be either. It is one of my least favorites, primarily due to this ambiguity.

 

Leontes, King of Sicilia, is hosting his childhood friend Polixenes, now the King of Bohemia, for some nine months. When Polixenes declares he must return to his realm, Leontes tries to dissuade him but fails. He sends his queen, Hermione, who persuades Polixenes to extend his visit. The queen’s success evokes suspicion in Leontes, which in turn produces tragic consequences. But by the fourth act, in true Bardic fashion, a series of comic capers set all things right.

 

Excepting the dead prince.

 

Meh, For me, it mostly didn’t work.

 

I probably missed them, but I didn’t notice any of Shakespeare’s aphorisms that have become part of our current vernacular. Though there is one delightful stage direction…

 

Exit, pursued by a bear

 

That didn’t turn out well.

 

The title doesn’t say much either. It is taken from one character stating…

 

A sad tale’s best for winter: I have one of sprites and goblins.

 

.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino

One of the blessings of being a reader is that people give you books as gifts. Or is that a curse? My “to be read” list is literally over 2,000 titles, and the gifts are often not something I would pick up on my own.

 

Cinema Speculation is such a book: a gift from a friend and not in my normal wheelhouse. But it is a blessing because it is sometimes good to get out of one’s comfort zone.

 

Cinema Speculation is Quentin Tarantino’s examination of a select group of movies from the 1970s. At first, I thought they were his favorite films from the era and his adolescence, but while some are probably among his favorites, others are not. I think they represent films that were formative for the future Oscar winner and that represent, in his speculation, a new era in Hollywood filmmaking.

 

Some are Oscar winners (Bullitt, Deliverance, Taxi Driver), others obscure (The Outfit). Some are iconic (Dirty Harry), others all but forgotten (Sisters, Hardcore). Some I’ve seen, others I’ve not, but with one exception, I now want to.

 

I’m not a film buff (reader after all), and I feared this book would be quite esoteric. But it’s pretty accessible. Tarantino does drop a lot of names I’m unfamiliar with, and he refers to many other films for comparison, often films I’m not familiar with. Still, it was a pretty easy read. He does a good job of speculating what made a film work or fail – almost always a combination of screenwriting, casting, acting, and directing. Things that, for me, a casual filmgoer, are largely transparent and not something I give a lot of thought to.

 

For example, after discussing Martin Scorsese’s gritty masterpiece Taxi Driver, Tarantino speculates on what the film would have been had Brian De Palma directed it. In Scorsese’s version, the cabbie is perceived as a bit of a nut but also a sympathetic hero. Tarantino speculates that in De Palma’s version, he would have been more of a deranged killer.

 

Tarantino brings out many points I’ve never considered, like Taxi Driver was a thematic remake of John Ford’s The Searchers. I see it now.

 

Well, there’s much more: lots of anecdotes about changes in actors, screenwriters, and directors and how they changed a film. Or how a movie almost wasn’t made and how and by whom it was rescued. Again, this is mostly stuff I’d never thought of before, and much of it insider stuff I couldn’t know unless someone like Tarantino writes about it.

 

A very thought-provoking read. Warning: this shouldn’t shock anyone, but Tarantino drops the F-bomb…A LOT.

 

And as the friend who gifted this to me said in his inscription, it…”will also make you want to rewatch these 70s classics.”

 

Indeed!

 

.

 

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (novel #226)

The Screwtape Letters with Screwtape Proposes a Toast

 

The Screwtape Letters is an epistolary novel: a series of letters from Screwtape, a senior demon, as he mentors and advises his nephew, junior tempter Wormwood.

 

It is commonly referred to as a Christian allegory or apologetic, but I don’t agree with either designation. I don’t believe Lewis was describing something unreal to explain something real. I believe he was describing something quite real, with fictional characters, that occurs very nearly as he describes it. Oh, I doubt there are physical letters exchanged between demons, but I believe the methods of deceit, confusion, despair, and temptation they use are very similar to what takes place in the unseen spiritual realm. Neither does Lewis seem to be making a defense of Christianity.

 

Further, I don’t think of this as a novel even, at least not in intent. I think it is more of an instructional warning of the intents and wiles of the demonic hordes.

 

I don’t feel adequate to synopsize beyond one central point: Screwtape does not take much satisfaction when Wormwood gets his ‘patient’ to merely sin. The senior demon is more concerned with getting humans to disbelieve.

 

Excepts, all the words of Screwtape to Wormwood:

 

Do remember you are there to fuddle him [the patient]. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

 

Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False.

 

Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous – that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

 

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.

 

Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours.

 

Looking round your patient’s new friends I find that the best point of attack would be the borderline between theology and politics.

 

We thus distract men’s minds from who He [Jesus] is, and what He did. We first make Him solely a teacher, and then conceal the very substantial agreement between His teachings and those of all other great moral teachers.

 

…you soon have merely a leader acclaimed by a partisan, and finally a distinguished character approved by a judicious historian.

 

…the strongest and most beautiful of the vices – Spiritual Pride.

 

What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity and’. You know – Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform.

 

So inveterate is their appetite for Heaven that our best method, at this stage, of attaching them to earth is to make them believe that earth can be turned into Heaven at some future date by politics or eugenics or ‘science’ or psychology, or what not.

 

END Excerpts

 

I’ve wanted to read this for years. It was fascinating. Lewis said of it…

 

Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment.

 

I can understand that. He dedicates it to his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. The version I read includes the addendum Screwtape Proposes a Toast, added years after the initial publication.

 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars


 

 

This novel satisfies the “Double Letters” category (title must contain double letters) in the What’s in a Name 2024 challenge.

 

.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World

or...Foxe's Book of Martyrs

It is a grim read, though I’m glad to have read it. It may not be completely reliable in every detail, though the names of the Martyrs and their fates are generally accepted.

 

Foxe records four primary points of dispute between the reformers and the Roman Church. The reformers:

  • Denied the value of pilgrimages
  • Refused to worship the saints
  • Insisted on reading Scripture for themselves
  • Denied the physical body of Christ was present in sacramental bread

 

For these points, hundreds were put to death.

 

Foxe’s treatment of the chief perpetrators, Queen Mary [1553-1558] and Edmund Bonner Bishop of London is certainly fair.

 

According to Foxe…

 

No other king or queen of England spilled as much blood in a time of peace as Queen Mary did in four years through her hanging, beheading, burning, and imprisonment of good Christian Englishmen.

 

The Martyrs remind me of something the writer of Hebrews [probably the Apostle Paul] wrote about Old Testament Martyrs:

 

Of whom the word was not worthy.

.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (novel #225)

Oh, late-remembered, much-forgotten, mouthing, braggart duty, always owed, and seldom paid in any other coin than punishment and wrath, when will mankind begin to know thee! ~ narrative from Martin Chuzzlewit

 

As I near the end of Dickens’ works and read some of his lesser-known stories, it is not surprising that they are not up to his usual standard. This is by far my least favorite. I almost feel unfaithful to a favorite author to give it only 2 ½ stars.

 

It is pretty standard fare in some respects: there is a pompous hypocrite, several misers, an orphan, though not the typical Dickens orphan, a rich uncle, and comical secondary characters, including one who prides himself on being jolly no matter the circumstances.

 

So why did I dislike it? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m getting too familiar with Dickens’ formula, but I don’t think that’s it. Maybe I was offended by his unflattering treatment of the United States, but I hope that isn’t it. (More on that in a minute.) Nor do I think it was Dickens’ notoriously slow start and long character development, which seemed even slower and longer than usual. But I don’t know. Maybe it was a little of all of those. I never really empathized with anyone, though Dickens’ hallmark justice was still satisfying in the end.

 

My Rating: 2 ½ out of 5 Stars


 

 

As far as I know, this is the only Dickens novel partially set in the United States. Young Martin Chuzzlewit sets out for America with a faithful companion to earn his fortune. With one solitary exception, he is met with nothing but frauds, cheats, yokels, and bigots. It was not well received in the United States…shocking! Dickens added a preface first and then a postscript to the preface defending himself. He wrote:

 

The American portion of this story is in no other respect a caricature than as it is an exhibition, for the most part (Mr Bevan excepted), of a ludicrous side, only, of the American character…

 

He doesn’t mention that he had recently visited America in an unsuccessful attempt to get American publishers to honor international copyrights. So, his disdain is not without cause, but he is not without the duplicity and hypocrisy that he is so expert in lampooning in others.

 

I still love the bloke, great writer, but this is not his best work.

 

Oh and…I found this marvelously ironic. With his famous sarcasm in the narrative he quips of British parliamentarians…

 

…it is the custom to use as many words as possible, and express nothing whatever.

 

Quite apropos when ole CD uses such a prudent economy of words himself.

 

Maybe I was a little annoyed by his treatment of the U.S.A. ;)

 

.

Monday, February 5, 2024

What's in a Name 2024 Challenge

This is my fourth time taking the What’s in a Name Challenge, hosted by Carolina Book Nook


 

The title of the books must contain or refer to one of the following categories:

 

Double Letters

NFL Team

Natural Disaster

Virtue

Shape

Footwear

 

My choices for these categories:

 

Double Letters

The Screwtape Letters

C. S. Lewis

 

 

NFL Team

The Clan of the Cave Bear

Jean M. Auel

 

 

Natural Disaster

A Fire Upon the Deep

Vernor Vinge

 

 

Virtue

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton

 

 

Shape

Hangover Square: A Tale of Darkest Earl’s Court

Patrick Hamilton

 

 

Footwear

Pippi Longstocking

Astrid Lindgren

 

.