Rise Above It

Eiffel's Tower for Young People: the Story of the 1889 World's Fair by Jill Jonnes ; adapted by Rebecca Stefoff.

New York : Triangle Square, 2019.

xi, 354 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

World's Fairs offer excellent subject matter for history writers.  Think of Eric Larson's macabre and fascinating bestseller about the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. World's Fairs offer a glimpse into the way the dominant culture/s of the time viewed themselves, including who and what was celebrated.  The fairs featured extravagance, spectacle, celebrities and adventure.  The 1889 Paris World's Fair was no exception.  There were bitter rivalries between artists, the spectacle of the Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a hall of inventions, superstar guests like Thomas Edison, and international rivalries, too. Above all there was the now iconic Eiffel Tower at the center of it all - and at the center of this accessible history - an adaptation for younger readers of Jill Jonnes' Eiffel's Tower. 

I like that this adaptation of Eiffel's Tower moves chronologically, but also builds on storytelling by giving ample time to central characters in the fair: Gustave Eiffel (of course), Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, the painters James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Paul Gaugin.  Vincent Van Gogh even gets a mention.  Yes, so much was happening at that moment in history.

The book also presents the racism & colonialism running through the fair - exhibits of "model villages and streets" of Frances colonies and targets for colonization. The book also lightly touches on the contradictions of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show whose company included many Sioux Indians who Cody treated well as workers, but who were also part of the propaganda of the show celebrating the "taming of the US west." 

I'd recommend this book for any student interested in history, especially late 19th century history - a fascinating time when Europe dominated the world not long before descending into the murderous self-destruction of WWI, a period covered in much more detail by Barbara Tuchman in The Proud Tower.   

     

Monstrous Beauty

Mary's Monster by Lita Judge

New York : Roaring Brook Press, 2018.

312 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

I finally got around to reading Frankenstein back in 2011, and - after reading this fine book - I want to read it again! The reason is indicated in this book's full title Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley created Frankenstein. 

Judge's book is an superb retelling of the courage, grit and brilliance of the young Mary Shelly with a focus on the years that lead to her creation of the classic novel, Frankenstein, published in 1818.  The author tells the well-researched story in easy free verse that moves the story along at a breathless clip.  We see Mary Shelly live the shock of her widowed father's remarriage to a very unlikable stepmother, her surprisingly lovely exile from family to an extended family in Scotland, and then her return and scandalous elopement with the already married Percy Bysshe Shelley - a passionate but troubled Romantic Poet.

It is during a Swiss exile with Percy and Byron that she begins writing her masterpiece. The success of this biography is that it is able to create a very clear narrative out of the tumultuous time that Mary Shelly wrote the novel. During the period covered she leaves home, returns, leaves, has two daughters who die and one son who survives, marries, is widowed, and sees her controversial novel become famous.

Additionally, the book is illustrated with evocative (haunting) illustrations of which the cover featured here is one.

I would definitely recommend this book to students.  It humanizes famous authors and makes their painful and passionate lives very real and very compelling.    

What Brown's Gonna Do With You

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

New York : Riverhead Books, 2014.

458 p. ; 21 cm.

When a book wins the National Book Award (2013), that definitely puts in on one's radar - and so I brought home The Good Lord Bird with me during the spring and summer pandemic lock-down.  

This novel is a rollicking, funny, provocative and hard to put down read.  It follows the adventures of Henry, an enslaved 12 year old freed in Kansas by the passionate and violent abolitionist, John Brown.  Mistaking Henry to be Henrietta, a girl, Brown "adopts" him into his band and nicknames her "Little Onion." The novel is told by Henry who - with his maturing over about three years, his change from enslaved to free, and his passing as a girl - allows McBride to explore many angles of John Brown's movement and eventual assault on Harper's Ferry.  McBride is able to present shifting and complex takes on fanaticism, recklessness, posturing, violence, racism, slavery, sexism, opportunism, danger, and sacrifice by giving his smart-alecky, wry and cynical main character center stage.

The cover of the book has a quote from the New York Times referencing Mark Twain, and I definitely felt the sensibilities of Twain's character Huck Finn in McBride's Henry.  

The novel is not without provocation.  Henry - suffering the harsh, spartan life of being with a paramilitary band on the frontier - at times wishes he were back being enslaved.  Fredrick Douglass comes in for some harsh treatment as a "diva" of the antislavery circuit and as an intemperate sexual harasser.  But all in all, the novel is a brilliant run through a historical episode in US history that still reverberates to this day.  I would definitely recommend it to a reader who wants a good literary read that will grab them and not let go.

An Unnerving Ride

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
New York : Anchor Books,  2018.
1st Anchor Bks. ed.
313 p. ; 21 cm.

This was supposed to be Spring Break week, and instead it has turned into the start of an extended period of school closings and home isolation for weeks (no one knows how many) as the Covid-19 pandemic picks up the pace of its global onslaught here in the US.

I am so glad that one of the novels I brought home with me for the break was Whitehead's The Underground Railroad.  The novel was published to huge acclaim - winning the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and I heard it described as a fantastical tale of historical fiction where the figurative Underground Railroad is turned into an actual subterranean working railroad.  I was a bit skeptical - but - wow! - if you haven't read this novel, it is a must read.

Whitehead has also won one of those MacArthur "genius" grants and all I can say is "Yes!" and admire the foundation for recognizing him way back in 2002 when he had only written two novels. He writing is a thing of wonder.   He manages to do so many things right in such a complicated and yet accessible way.  He can create history that never was in order to make the history that was come alive in eerie and unsettling ways.  He made me mull over the (literally) tortured history of this country and the nature of human cruelty and courage in ways that go right to the heart.

Yes, Whitehead's Underground Railroad has real tunnels, tracks and locomotives - but you never for a moment doubt it.  And his narratives of enslaved life and the escape narrative will have your heart racing as you turn the pages rooting for the heroes of the novel.

It is such a thrill to read a writer's work when they are in their prime and to know that you are reading someone whose works will be read and admired long after you are gone. It is a thrill and an honor.

Can you tell I loved this novel?  Recommend it. Read it.  Sit with it and let it work its magic on you.  You won't be disappointed.

 

Brilliant Fade

Tesla: Inventor of the Modern by Richard Munson
New York : W.W. Norton & Co., [2018]   
306 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

I've wanted to read about Nikolai Tesla for a while now.  Someone told me how Tesla had developed plans for harnessing and distributing low-cost (if not free) energy - and so had his career quashed by powerful oil/gas interests and even had his papers seized by the government after he died.  Given Tesla's revolutionary inventions and discoveries, I had to wonder if there was something to this.

This biography does a great job of conveying just how brilliant and visionary Tesla was in both his thinking and his development of applied science.  He is the towering figure behind the modern use of electricity in industry and in its wide distribution.  By figuring out how to harness and use alternating current (AC) through generators and AC motors, he triumphed over the Edison devotees of direct current.

However, much of his life was spent pursuing fruitless dreams of using high-frequency electric current to send and receive wireless energy and signals through the earth.  In spite losing himself in the pursuit of these earthbound visions, he also developed the airborne transmission of signals and has been credited with the invention of radio - though Marconi became its most famous developer and inventor.

This biography led me to believe that there is not a lot of substance to the belief that special interests shut down Tesla's potential.  Instead his own visionary brilliance seems to have trumped a more practical approach that would have greatly benefited Tesla.  He was terrible with money and contracts and did not reap the fabulous riches that his work should have earned for him.  Nevertheless, he did have years of great fame and huge financial backing, but was unable to develop that into a lifelong success with research and income.

All in all, it is a fascinating biography that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in late 19th century science and technology - especially electricity and wireless communication.
   

The Uncivil Dead

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2018]
451 p. ; 22 cm.

This really is a humdinger of a creative novel for YAs.  It's an alternative history, a thriller, and a zombie novel all rolled into one with a great heroine and lots of subtext (racism, walls to keep outsiders out, political corruption and lies, etc.) Could be right out of today's headlines instead of a few decades after the Civil War.  Oh, and this Civil War didn't end at Appomattox with the defeat of the Confederacy - it came to an uneasy end at Gettysburg when the dead on the battlefield got up and started eating the living.

That grisly twist did end the war and ended slavery (just like the real Civil War) but not racism (just like that real war again!) African Americans instead were freed to become fighters against the shamblers, Justina Ireland's great name for the zombies. That's just part of the story.  The engine of this novel (in addition to the unending hunger of the shamblers, is the resurgent attempts by white supremacists to reassert their power and control in the devastated landscape of  the US.  They achieve this with migration west, deception, corruption, harsh religion, and brutality.  Let's just say that Jane McKeene - the heroine of this tale - isn't just going to sit still and accept this.

I'm not the only one who liked this book.  It has received a lot of critical acclaim.  I'd say it's definitely a recommended read.     

Fiery Brown

A Volcano Beneath the Snow: John Brown's War Against Slavery by Albert Marrin
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2014]
244 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Like many of the history non-fiction books published with the high school audience in mind, this book has an appealing layout with lots of great photos, reproductions, etc.  It makes for a readable history.  I also like that the length of these non-fiction books is long enough for a substantive treatment of the topic, but not so exhaustive as to be daunting.

I read this book because I really wanted to learn more about John Brown and his passionate fight against slavery in the US and his willingness to die for the cause. 

Marrin does a good job describing the life of Brown and the back drop of slavery - especially the way in which slavers decided that they had to expand slavery in the US to keep their power.  He also illuminates the way in which Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry pushed the coming Civil War even closer.  But I think the biggest weakness is that Marrin tries to highlight the radical and "terrorist" nature of John Brown's actions (for example his execution of unarmed prisoners in Kansas) without fully illuminating the absolute horrors and terrorism of the slave labor system.  Having read The Half Has Never Been Told, I am aware that the cotton-slavery system that evolved after 1820 was an even more vicious, brutal and horrid system of torture/slavery that what already existed before 1820.  I think it is a good thing that Marrin wants students to really wrestle with the complexities of when or if illegal, violent action is acceptable.  But to do that you have to really be honest about the system that that action was targeting - and I don't think Marrin succeeded in that.

I would still recommend the book since it is a thorough treatment of Brown's life and conveys a lot of the dynamics of the time.     

Insanely Plotted, but Complusively Readable

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
New York, NY : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.
376 p. ; 22 cm.    

There is a lot to like about this revenge tale of murder and mystery set in the late 1800s.  The writing is smart, the characters are interesting and the novel has a dark edge that will appeal to readers who don't like their plots sweetened with syrupy romances and neat, happy endings.

The main character, Grace, is a striking figure - a young woman of a wealthy, influential family who is imprisoned in a Boston insane asylum because she has become pregnant.  The author has done a bit of research into the treatment of the "insane" and of women declared insane and developed a disturbing and satisfying novel out of the material.  If you want to see the benign asylum where Grace escaped to in Ohio, you can check out this page from Ohio University.

A lot of the plot springs out of the fact that Grace is an incest survivor who - having escaped Boston - wants to protect her younger sister from the perpetrator, and wants to exact revenge on him.  Did I also mention that she works undercover with a doctor in order to solve (by profiling) murders, particularly a murder involving a serial killer.  Her victimization, escape, hopes for revenge and protective zeal for her sister all come together in a dramatic conclusion that strains credibility, but is satisfying nonetheless.

Overall, I wasn't crazy about A Madness, but I will recommend it - with its historical background, strong female characters, and grim storyline it has a lot to offer a reader.

Shining a Light on the Shadows

In the Shadow of Liberty: the Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives by Kenneth C. Davis.
New York : Henry Holt and Co., 2016.
xvii, 286 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

I was interested in this book as soon as I saw a review of it.  The Shadow of Liberty seemed like a great addition to the limited resources that we have on the period of the American Revolution and early history of the republic - and one that students might actually pick up and read.  As the book's subtitle indicates, it also might have a nice resonance with the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. But what finally motivated me to read it this summer was seeing that one of our history teachers launched a Donors Choose page in order to get enough copies of the book for his class so he could use it as a central text.

This is a great young adult history book.  It's very interesting, has succinct chapters, and relates a history that is rarely told - the role of several of the first US presidents in keeping people enslaved.  It's also great in that it does not in anyway minimize the criminality and cruelty of enslaving people, but it also tries to wrestle with the complicated relationships that developed within that awful system.  Davis often just lets the actions of people speak for the conflicted loyalties, humanity and inhumanity that resulted from slavery.  He allows us to hear from former enslaved people when such texts exist, and lets us reach our own conclusions about why some enslaved people escaped when the opportunity arose and why some did not when the same circumstances existed.  He also tries hard to contextualize comments positive and negative that enslavers and the enslaved made.

I also really appreciate his introduction where he lays his own moral judgements on the table, and where he explains why he is so careful to use the word enslaved to describe those held in bondage instead of the word "slave." It is a powerful semantic tool, one which another writer on the history of slavery in the US also uses to great effect.

I'm glad that I read this book.  I'm pleased that it is going to be taught in our school.  I will definitely recommend it.

His Last Battle

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant
New York : Barnes & Noble, 2003.
xxx, 820 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

I've been wanting to read this memoir ever since I saw a quote of Mark Twain's praising it as one of the finest pieces of American writing.

The back story of this book (which is told in the introduction of this volume) is also pretty amazing.  Retired from the military and from being President, Grant had lost all his money and so set about writing the book to raise money for his family.  About the same time he began writing he was stricken with throat cancer and so began his race against death to finish his work.  Like his campaigns in the Civil War, he was successful - dying three days after finalizing his manuscript, and making his widow and survivors wealthy with the royalties from his book which ended up being a huge bestseller.

But how is the book? I would agree that it is very well written, and reveals Grant's subtle, but sharp intellect.  It is also very interesting to see Grant carefully praising and criticizing some of the generals of both sides.  He also has a well argued discussion of why the war was so difficult for the North to win.  The only downside for me was that much of the book is taken up with detail after detail of tactics and troop movements.  The maps are not very clear or helpful.  But aside from these issues, I'm glad I read it and it made me curious to learn more about Grant's presidency - which is not covered at all in the book (and is considered to be one the most corrupt in US history).

Probably one of the most compelling aspects of Grant's life, is that he really was a "nobody," from a modest background and with no early signs of being successful as a leader or tactician.  His memoir can serve as a testament to the potentials that are often hidden within individuals - especially those who have not had great successes in their past.  In this vein, Ta-Nehisi Coates gives a spirited endorsement of Grant's Memoirs - especially noting the unfounded suggestions that it was written by Mark Twain.

A great historical read, but probably best for students with a keen interest in the Civil War.

Battle Cry Is Great History

Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era by James M. McPherson
Oxford [U.K.] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2003, c1988.
xix, 909 p. : ill., maps, music ; 24 cm.

If you are looking for a one volume history of the Civil War instead of reading five or six separate Civil War histories, then you can't go wrong with McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom.  It's a masterful handling of the war that ripped the US apart for four extremely bloody years.  Given the quality and clarity of the narrative, I'm not surprised that the book was a huge bestseller and won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History.

McPherson begins his book with the US-Mexican War and builds a sound case for considering enslavement (and the unyielding defense of slavery's expansion and power) as the ultimate cause and fight of the war.  McPherson also gives great attention to the cultural and political movements involved before, during and immediately after the Civil War.

It's not a short book (about 900 pages), but it is well written and illustrated with interesting photos and a number of very clear maps.

I read this book this summer as a prelude to reading the Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant.  It was a really helpful preparation for Grant's long work.  I would highly recommend it.

Which Way?

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy
New York : Signet Classics, [2009]
xvii, 236 p. ; 18 cm.

I'm glad I finally got around to reading this 19th century Utopian novel. Looking Backward is really a wonderful artifact of 19th century Utopian hopes and philosophy.

I have to say that reading it now, was in some ways depressing - not because it naively overlooks the dangers of totalitarianism - as this old 1988 NYT review claims, but because of how little progress has been made toward eliminating the savage greed, violence, mercilessness and competition that undergird the market economy that Bellamy was critiquing and under which we still live in the 21st century.

The novel's weakest points are it's narrative dullness and drab characters.  In many ways the literary and narrative quality of the novel takes a back seat to the economic and humanistic philosophy of the novel. The plot is really a device to serve up Bellamy's Utopian thinking, but as Eliot Fintushel exclaims in the afterword, what a lovely Utopia it is that Bellamy has dreamed up.  It's hard not to enjoy shimmering dream that we get in Looking Backward.

Tortured to Life

The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepard
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.
420 p. ; 21 cm.

On a positive note, I'd say that The Madman's Daughter is creative and kind of fun to read.  It also made me want to read H. G. Well's The Island of Dr. Moreau.  But beyond that the novel didn't really didn't hit the target for me.

Shepard reimagines the story of Dr. Moreau from the vantage point of a character she creates, Juliet, the 16-year-old daughter whom Moreau abandoned to the harsh fate of being an orphan in Victorian England.  Juliet finds her way to the island in the South Pacific where her father is carrying out his hideous operations aimed at creating humans from animals.  But, as the positive Booklist review notes, "this is a romantic-triangle book first and foremost, as Juliet trembles, blushes, and heaves her bosom at both Moreau's hunky assistant and a dashing castaway." I didn't mind the romance but it just was overwrought for my tastes.  Combined, with the rather ludicrous animal-human metamorphoses that occur at the end of the novel, I at times just felt like the novel was silly, rather than thrilling.  For me that is too bad, because I think if it had been toned down a bit, it would have been both exciting, romantic, and thought-provoking.

However, I still would mention it to a student looking for some kind of romantic, thrilling adventure with a bit of the grotesque and science fiction thrown into the mix.

A Graphic Novel Becomes a Graphic Novel

Octavia Butler's Kindred: a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
New York : Abrams Comicarts, 2017.
vi, 240 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 25 cm.

Almost two years ago, I read Butler's novel Kindred for the first time, and as I noted then, I loved it.   Therefore, about a year ago, I was excited to learn that two comics artists [Damian Duffy who lives in Urbana and John Jennings who used to live here] were in the middle of creating a graphic novel version of Butler's classic.  

If you are unfamiliar with Butler's novel, its hero is a black woman in the 1970s who finds herself suddenly dragged back in time to the antebellum enslaved world of Maryland - where she becomes tangled up with slaves and enslavers that are family connections from the past.  It is a brutal and dangerous world which she quickly has to figure out as she bounces back and forth from present to past.

Duffy and Jennings faced great challenges converting the novel to a graphic novel format, but they really have outdone themselves - and the reception to their work has been extremely positive - landing them on the NYT bestseller list.  With shifting uses of color and skilled condensing of narrative, they have preserved the power of Butler's work, while opening it up to a new generation of readers and fans of graphic novels.

The publisher Abrams has a nice page web page for the novel - allowing you to see samples of the gorgeous artwork of Duffy and Jennings.

This is a work that I will definitely be recommending.

A Righteous and Harmonious Fist Bump

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang
New York : First Second, 2013.  
328 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 21 cm.

Yang's American Born Chinese continues to circulate well with readers at our high school, and I hope that Boxers will do the same. With both fiction and graphic novels, the challenge of having historical events as the subject is finding the heart and power of that event and translating it to the genre being used.  I think it is a difficult challenge for any author, but especially for author's of young adult readers - where the desire to get lost in a book is a powerful appeal for readers already surrounded by informational text.  But it can be done, and I think Boxers proves it!

One never forgets that the power of Yang's book is the story and the characters involved in it. There is romance, danger, humor, wistfulness, longing, justice and magic propelling the story forward.  The comic artwork is clear, powerful, and interesting to look at.  Not convinced?  Take a look at some sample pages provide by Macmillian Publishers.

I was struck, after reading Boxers, at how cleverly the story made me want to know more about the actual history - and - at how pathetically little I know of Chinese history.  I had heard of the Boxer Rebellion, but knew little about it.  Furthermore, in reading some of the history that preceded it, I came across references to the Taiping Rebellion - a 14 year civil war that killed an estimate 20 million people!   And this is history that I knew nothing about.

So do I recommend this book? Absolutely.  It is a wonderful work of literary and visual art, and for teachers who might want to include it in a history class, there is even an extensive online teacher's guide to accompany the book.

A Shot of History

The Duel by Judith St. George
New York, N.Y. : Speak, 2016.
99 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

This is a wonderful little book of history that should have wide appeal.  How can you not be interested in a fatal duel between a sitting US Vice President and history's most famous US Treasurer (who graces the $10 bill and was founder of the Bank of the United States)?  Not to mention that one of the men in this notorious duel is now at the center of one of the most popular and successful shows on Broadway - Hamilton!

In less than 100 pages, St. George is able to convey the amazing adventures that were the lives of these two US revolutionaries, one who began his life without the benefit of money or a legal father and who was orphaned at a young age.  The other was from a well-to-do family, but also was orphaned early in his life.  Both men, close in age and similarly intelligent, brave and ambitious - have lives that crossed each other during and after the American Revolution.  Their two stories came crashing together in a climatic duel in 1804 across the Hudson from New York City.  Only one of the walked away from the duel.  Who?  Well, you'll have to read the book to find out, and you won't be disappointed.

Definitely a US history book to recommend.

I Think I'll Skip the Movie

Yellowstone River

The Revenant by Michael Punke
New York : Picador, 2015.
262 p. : maps ; 21 cm.

Given that the movie version of this book was critically acclaimed, I decided to give it a read.  I'm glad I did.   It's not a great book, but it is a good one.  Punke has taken the mostly true story of Hugh Glass, an 1823 frontiersman, and fictionalized it into a solid revenge and survival tale.

I found The Revenant a compelling read, hard to put down, as Glass manages to survive harrowing experience after harrowing experience.  Beginning with his near fatal mauling by a grizzly to his almost being killed in an ambush toward the end of the novel, Glass is a fascinating figure - damned to experience shocking pains and injuries, and yet charmed in that he always walks away from them a survivor.  The revenge aspect was less interesting to me.  Part of what fuels Glass' survival is his determination to live and bring retribution to the men charged with watching over him, who instead robbed and abandoned him.  It's not a noble pursuit, but it feels realistic.

Along the way, there is some subtle and fascinating changes in Glass' attitudes about satisfying his desire for revenge.  But the power of the novel lies in Glass' remarkable skills, grit and ability to make quick and risky decisions that ultimately save his life.

The movie on the other hand, seems to have opted to bump the violence levels up several notches and to make revenge and gore the heart of the film - "pain porn" one reviewer calls it.  I think that's too bad, since in a more compassionate director's hands the film really could have wrestled with the troubled spirit of the frontiersmen and the ultimate emptiness of revenge attained.  That is at the heart of Punke's novel and is why I'll stick with the book and let others suffer through the film.    

Rough Cotton

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist
New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2014]
xxvii, 498 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Read this book!  If you love history, read this book. If you want to see US history in a very new way, read this book.  If you want to have many of your assumptions about slavery and the Civil War turned on their heads, read this book.  The Half Has Never Been Told is long, complicated, riveting, and incredibly well written - read it!  For me this book brought to mind the books - Slavery by Another Name and Guns Germs and Steel - for it's power to tilt one's understanding of history and how power works.

I can't say enough about what an important and interesting book this is.  I'll be recommending it to any students who love history, and to any teachers interested in history.

Lastly, I'd be remiss not to note that I first heard of this book on a list of recommended books from Ta-Nehisi Coates who's book Between the World and Me is another book to recommend again and again!  

Making His World a Little Colder

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
New York : Signet Classic, [1999]
xv, 428 p. : map ; 18 cm.   

I have a soft spot in my heart for Hardy, and I've wanted to re-read Jude the Obscure for a long time - for over thirty years in fact! With some time off this winter break and a bit of travelling to do, I took Jude along with me and read it. It is a masterful novel, but incredibly bleak and depressing.  Did I mention that it is really depressing?

The plot revolves around the tragedies that strike two individuals who dare to break with the conventions of marriage and class in 19th century England. Jude of the title is a young man who is seduced by and marries a woman to whom he is physically attracted, but with whom he has nothing in common, and then falls desperately in love with a cousin who shares his passions for learning, thinking, and defying convention.  Jude is also in love with the intellectual life of the university, but finds it closed to him because of his rural, working-class status.  Throw in another marriage, an unwanted child, another lifeless marriage, and the censure of community and you have all the elements for a disastrous tragedy - and that is what Hardy gives us.

As bleak as the novel is, it really is stunningly modern, and is considered by many to be one of the great novels in the English canon.  Though Hardy is very circumspect about sexual matters - sometimes you have to re-read a section to realize that two people have been intimate with each other - he is ruthless in his dissection of the hypocrisies of religion and marriage.  They are both shown as institutions that offer little but constraint and unhappiness to individuals.

I enjoyed reading Jude again after all these years, but I'm not sure high school students would enjoy it so much, unless they are already fans of Hardy - like me!

Terrific Fair, Fairly Terrible

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
New York : Vintage Books, 2004, c2003.
1st Vintage Books ed.
xi, 447 p. : ill., maps, music ; 21 cm.

This is a fantastic and haunting book about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Larson's book manages to convey just how incredible the feat of Chicago's hosting the world's fair was (having just over 2 years to organize and build the entire fair venue) - while also telling the story of serial killer Henry H. Holmes and his immense frauds and scams that helped him elude capture for so long.

The book is a wonderful glimpse into the turn of the century world of the US and Chicago, which had been destroyed by fire only a little over twenty years before.

The reader gets to learn so much about the founding architects of Chicago, the landscaping prowess of John Olmsted - creator of NYC's Central Park - the amazing invention of the Ferris Wheel and the massive turnout of visitors to the fair (including a one day attendance total of over 750,000 people!).  Following the story of killer, H.H. Holmes, also gives the reader a feel for the fast and loose business dealings of the day, the ease with which people could assume false identities, and the plodding nature of police investigations at the turn of the century.

I will definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Chicago history, true crime stories, and just an amazing read.