The Wizard's Daughter, Barbara Michaels
I don't read a lot of ghost stories, because I am a wimp. The first time I read Barbara Michaels' Ammie, Come Home, I slept with the light on for the next couple of nights, and all these years later, I still don't read it after dark. The Crying Child scared me so badly that I gave my copy away. "Barbara Michaels" is a pen name of Barbara Mertz, who also writes as "Elizabeth Peters." Her Elizabeth Peters books, some set in the 19th century, others in the 20th, tend to be straight-forward mysteries, with an occasional hint of the occult. As Barbara Michaels, she has written Gothic novels, as well as stories about witches, ghosts, séances, spirit possession, and exorcism, sometimes centered in a crime to be solved, one that may have taken place years or even centuries ago. Under both names, her books often have a romantic element, and they can be really funny (even in the midst of the creeps).
From the back cover, I expected The Wizard's Daughter to be one of the ghost stories. Instead, it turned out to be a Gothic novel, or rather a spoof of a Gothic. A brief prologue tells of a séance conducted in Paris by the famous American medium David Holmes. Then the story shifts to Yorkshire, where Marianne Ransom, a ravishingly beautiful young woman, has been left an orphan, and a penniless one, at the death of her father. In 1880, the options for a gently-bred eighteen-year-old are few. Marianne is initially thrilled when a friend arranges for her to go to London, to a refuge run by a distressed gentlewoman for girls in her situation. Rather than a career as a governess or companion, Marianne dreams of life on the stage.
Through the kind of coincidence common in Gothic novels, she manages to find work as a singer, though in her naiveté she does not realize that the "theatre" is actually a gentleman's club of bad repute. Resisting the advances of one of the members, she flees that job to accept one as governess to a budding psychopath and his sister. She is rescued from this intolerable situation by the arrival of Roger Carlton, a lawyer who escorts her to the luxurious home of the Dowager Duchess of Devenbrook. The Duchess welcomes her as a long-lost daughter. Marianne gradually learns that the Duchess was the patroness and close friend of the medium David Holmes. Holmes disappeared several years ago during a visit to the Devenbrook estate in Scotland and is presumed dead. The Duchess believes that Marianne may be his daughter, and that she may have inherited his gifts. Desperate to contact Holmes again, she pressures Marianne to try a séance. Though the results are not conclusive to others, the Duchess is convinced, and she carries Marianne off to Scotland, hoping to make the final contact as the anniversary of Holmes' disappearance approaches.
There is a lot going on in this book, which has a large cast of characters, including the household of the Scottish estate. Michaels has fun spoofing the Gothic genre (in which she herself has written), from the orphaned heroine, to the miseries of a governess's life, to the ancient Scottish castle of the Devenbrooks, with its ruined cobwebbed wings, hidden passageways and eccentric occupants (one of them a crazy cat lady). She also has fun with the trappings of spiritualism, the séances with their rapping and table-turnings, the attempts by Carlton and the Duchess's friend Dr Gruffstone (such a Dickensian name) to debunk it all. One spirit guide has the most inappropriate name of "Pudenzia." The very susceptible Duchess claims to remember an early Roman virgin martyr of that name, which to her mind fully proves the guide's authenticity. Marianne also meets various eligible and ineligible gentlemen, and here again if you've read enough Michaels/Peters books, you can spot the hero pretty early on.
In the end, the story turns on what happens in the séances: does Marianne have the gift, or is someone playing deadly tricks? I admit, the answer took me by surprise.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
An Irish country childhood
To School Through the Fields, Alice Taylor
The subtitle of this book is "An Irish country childhood." I used to collect books about Ireland, under the influence of Maeve Binchy and Maura Laverty, as well as the books Niall Williams & Christine Breen wrote about moving from New York to a small town in County Clare in the 1980s. But it's only with the TBR challenge that I got around to reading this book, which according to the cover is "the biggest bestseller in Ireland's history" (it also features an admiring blurb from Maeve Binchy). I see from googling Alice Taylor that she has published four other volumes of memoirs, as well as novels and poetry.
Taylor sets out the theme and tone of the book in the first chapter:
To me, much of this felt like familiar ground, and the anecdotes seemed unconnected, even by chronology. I can understand though how this would appeal to many people as a warm and nostalgic look at country life and childhood.
The subtitle of this book is "An Irish country childhood." I used to collect books about Ireland, under the influence of Maeve Binchy and Maura Laverty, as well as the books Niall Williams & Christine Breen wrote about moving from New York to a small town in County Clare in the 1980s. But it's only with the TBR challenge that I got around to reading this book, which according to the cover is "the biggest bestseller in Ireland's history" (it also features an admiring blurb from Maeve Binchy). I see from googling Alice Taylor that she has published four other volumes of memoirs, as well as novels and poetry.
Taylor sets out the theme and tone of the book in the first chapter:
"This is the story of a childhood. In its day it was an ordinary childhood but, with the changing winds of time, now it could never be. . . Ours was a large family in a close-knit rural community that was an extension of our home. . . The old were never alone as the neighbors joined hands around them and the young, too, were included in the circle. . . Sharing was taken for granted, from the milk in the winter when some cows went dry, to the pork steak and the puddings when the pig was killed. Work was also shared . . . So please come back with me, to where we had time to be children and life moved at a different pace."Taylor, who was born in 1938, is writing about the Ireland of the 1940s. Her book is less an autobiography or memoir than a series of anecdotes, linked by her blank verse poems. She tells stories of her family and neighbors, of work on the farm, of her mother's cooking, of school and church. Hers was a happy childhood and this is a serene book. Her family was not rich. Everyone worked hard on the farm, whose crops and animals provided much of the family's food. The detailed descriptions of the farm work reminded me of Maura Laverty and Flora Thompson. One section about her father's moving machine, with its gleaming "diamond-shaped edges called sections," took me straight back to Laura Ingalls Wilder and A Long Winter, where Laura and Carrie go to town to buy a new section after Pa breaks one in the mowing.
To me, much of this felt like familiar ground, and the anecdotes seemed unconnected, even by chronology. I can understand though how this would appeal to many people as a warm and nostalgic look at country life and childhood.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Accessing the Aspern Papers
The Aspern Papers, Henry James
For my introduction to Henry James last year, I started with The Turn of the Screw (which I reviewed back in December). My Penguin Classics edition includes a second novella, The Aspern Papers, and since they were paired together I was expecting another supernatural tale. What I found instead was an amazingly modern story, which though it was originally published in 1888 perfectly fits our world in 2012. Even the language feels more modern, simpler and less baroque than in The Turn of the Screw.
The story is set in Venice. As it opens, the unnamed narrator is plotting with his friend Mrs Prest to make the acquaintance of the Misses Bordereau, aunt and niece, who live in self-imposed isolation within an ancient palazzo. The elder Miss Bordereau was once Juliana, the muse, the beloved, perhaps the mistress, of the famed American poet Jeffrey Aspern (now deceased). The narrator, more a disciple of Aspern's than a mere scholar, hopes that she has letters, manuscripts - perhaps the last undiscovered cache of his writings, which the narrator and his fellow dedicat can edit and publish.
Accepting Mrs Prest's suggestion that "the way to become an acquaintance was first to become an intimate," he succeeds in becoming their lodger, renting a set of rooms in the palazzo. He does so under a false name, prepared ahead of time with a calling card. On his first visit, he meets the younger Miss Bordereau, Miss Tina, shy and socially awkward but simple and honest. It is with her that he begins his campaign to gain access to her aunt's papers.
The narrator has no qualms about his campaign. In his view, the ends of access to this treasury of his idol's writings justify any means. Nor has he any qualms about opening every aspect of Aspern's life to the public gaze. "He had nothing to fear from us because he had nothing to fear from the truth, which alone at such a distance of time we could be interested in establishing." There is no mention of a family, parents or wife or children, who might have something to fear from such exposure. The narrator refers to Aspern as a celebrity at one point, and I could not help comparing the narrator himself to a paparazzo, worming his way into the household under false pretences, scheming to score a scoop. I was also reminded of A.S. Byatt's Possession, where the papers of two poets play such key parts. The narrator here has much in common with Byatt's American collector Mortimer Cropper, making his illicit copies of letters he cannot acquire honestly.
Juliana Bordereau's connection with Aspern dates from the 1820s, and the narrator is surprised simply to find her still alive. She is the last of his contemporaries: "we had not been able to look into a single pair of eyes into which his had looked or to feel a transmitted contact in any aged hand that his had touched." Yet there she is, living quietly for decades in Venice. "But it was a revelation to us that self-effacement on such a scale had been possible in the latter half of the nineteenth century - the age of newspapers and telegrams and photographs and interviewers." Just add the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, and you have the celebrity industry of the early 21st century.
In discussing the papers, the narrator tells Miss Tina,
For my introduction to Henry James last year, I started with The Turn of the Screw (which I reviewed back in December). My Penguin Classics edition includes a second novella, The Aspern Papers, and since they were paired together I was expecting another supernatural tale. What I found instead was an amazingly modern story, which though it was originally published in 1888 perfectly fits our world in 2012. Even the language feels more modern, simpler and less baroque than in The Turn of the Screw.
The story is set in Venice. As it opens, the unnamed narrator is plotting with his friend Mrs Prest to make the acquaintance of the Misses Bordereau, aunt and niece, who live in self-imposed isolation within an ancient palazzo. The elder Miss Bordereau was once Juliana, the muse, the beloved, perhaps the mistress, of the famed American poet Jeffrey Aspern (now deceased). The narrator, more a disciple of Aspern's than a mere scholar, hopes that she has letters, manuscripts - perhaps the last undiscovered cache of his writings, which the narrator and his fellow dedicat can edit and publish.
Accepting Mrs Prest's suggestion that "the way to become an acquaintance was first to become an intimate," he succeeds in becoming their lodger, renting a set of rooms in the palazzo. He does so under a false name, prepared ahead of time with a calling card. On his first visit, he meets the younger Miss Bordereau, Miss Tina, shy and socially awkward but simple and honest. It is with her that he begins his campaign to gain access to her aunt's papers.
The narrator has no qualms about his campaign. In his view, the ends of access to this treasury of his idol's writings justify any means. Nor has he any qualms about opening every aspect of Aspern's life to the public gaze. "He had nothing to fear from us because he had nothing to fear from the truth, which alone at such a distance of time we could be interested in establishing." There is no mention of a family, parents or wife or children, who might have something to fear from such exposure. The narrator refers to Aspern as a celebrity at one point, and I could not help comparing the narrator himself to a paparazzo, worming his way into the household under false pretences, scheming to score a scoop. I was also reminded of A.S. Byatt's Possession, where the papers of two poets play such key parts. The narrator here has much in common with Byatt's American collector Mortimer Cropper, making his illicit copies of letters he cannot acquire honestly.
Juliana Bordereau's connection with Aspern dates from the 1820s, and the narrator is surprised simply to find her still alive. She is the last of his contemporaries: "we had not been able to look into a single pair of eyes into which his had looked or to feel a transmitted contact in any aged hand that his had touched." Yet there she is, living quietly for decades in Venice. "But it was a revelation to us that self-effacement on such a scale had been possible in the latter half of the nineteenth century - the age of newspapers and telegrams and photographs and interviewers." Just add the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, and you have the celebrity industry of the early 21st century.
In discussing the papers, the narrator tells Miss Tina,
"It isn't for myself, or that I should want them at any cost to any one else. It's simply that they would be of such immense interest to the public, such immeasurable importance as a contribution to Jeffrey Aspern's history."I can't share his easy assumption that the public's interest outweighs everything, or that every aspect of Jeffrey Aspern's history must be made public (or acquit him of wanting his idol's papers for himself). Yet as an archivist, and a student of history, I know how vitally important letters and other personal papers can be, as primary sources. In one of the volumes of Queen Victoria's letters that I read last year, her daughter the Crown Princess of Prussia asked permission to burn their letters, which her mother refused. Except for purely personal letters that might embarrass individuals, she wrote, "I am very much against destroying important letters, and I everyday see the necessity of reference" (March 1874). As a Janeite, I mourn the loss of so many of Jane Austen's letters, particularly those sent to her sailor brothers, as well as those her sister Cassandra destroyed. But what would Jane Austen think of her letters being read almost two centuries after her death? She did not write with an eye to history, as Queen Victoria may have done. Where do we draw the line? It's not always easy to decide. But in the case of the Aspern papers, while I can sympathize with the narrator, I must side with Miss Bordereau.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The play's the thing
Ha'penny, Jo Walton
This is the second in Jo Walton's trilogy of books, set in an alternate world where the course of the Second World War took a very different turn than in our own. While America sat out the war, England made peace with Germany in 1941, the "Farthing" treaty negotiated by political and social leaders with fascist leanings themselves. Hitler now rules the Continent, though the Reich is still at war with Stalin's Russia (there is no mention of Japan or the situation in the Far East). The first book in the series, Farthing, which I reviewed back in November, evokes a classic Golden Age mystery: Sir James Thirkie, the leader of the "Farthing" set, is murdered during a country weekend at the home of Lord and Lady Eversley.
Ha'penny opens with a compelling first line: "They don't hang people like me." The speaker is Viola Larkin, one of six sisters, the famous (or infamous) daughters of Lord Carnforth, who are clearly meant to invoke the Mitford sisters. One married Himmler because she couldn't get Hitler, another is a communist, the youngest married the Duke of Lancashire. The oldest, killed in the Blitz, was the first wife of the now-murdered James Thirkie. Viola has escaped her family and its constraints to a successful career on the stage. As the story opens, she is offered the role of Hamlet in a cross-casting version of the play. The director confides that the opening night will be a gala, with Adolf Hitler himself in the audience. Later that day, Viola learns that the actress chosen to play Hamlet's mother Gertrude has been killed by an explosion in her home.
Assigned to investigate the explosion is Inspector Peter Carmichael of Scotland Yard. Carmichael solved the murder of Sir James, but he was forced by his superiors to help frame an innocent man for the crime. These superiors now know that he is gay, and in their virulently homophobic society this makes him vulnerable to pressure and even blackmail. As in Farthing, the story is told in chapters that alternate between Viola's first-person narration and third-person from Carmichael's point of view. He investigates the actress Lauria Gilmore, who the evidence suggests was building a bomb in her home, which exploded and killed her. Viola, meanwhile, finds that there is more than just the play connecting her to the dead woman.
To say too much about the plot risks spoilers. Unlike Farthing, though, this book is more a thriller than a mystery. It reminded me so much of John Le Carré's The Little Drummer Girl, also centered on an actress, Charlie, who is recruited for a very different and difficult role. Like Le Carré and like Josephine Tey, Walton vividly evokes the world of the theater, and I found the play itself unexpectedly fascinating. The director casts Hamlet as a woman:
This is the second in Jo Walton's trilogy of books, set in an alternate world where the course of the Second World War took a very different turn than in our own. While America sat out the war, England made peace with Germany in 1941, the "Farthing" treaty negotiated by political and social leaders with fascist leanings themselves. Hitler now rules the Continent, though the Reich is still at war with Stalin's Russia (there is no mention of Japan or the situation in the Far East). The first book in the series, Farthing, which I reviewed back in November, evokes a classic Golden Age mystery: Sir James Thirkie, the leader of the "Farthing" set, is murdered during a country weekend at the home of Lord and Lady Eversley.
Ha'penny opens with a compelling first line: "They don't hang people like me." The speaker is Viola Larkin, one of six sisters, the famous (or infamous) daughters of Lord Carnforth, who are clearly meant to invoke the Mitford sisters. One married Himmler because she couldn't get Hitler, another is a communist, the youngest married the Duke of Lancashire. The oldest, killed in the Blitz, was the first wife of the now-murdered James Thirkie. Viola has escaped her family and its constraints to a successful career on the stage. As the story opens, she is offered the role of Hamlet in a cross-casting version of the play. The director confides that the opening night will be a gala, with Adolf Hitler himself in the audience. Later that day, Viola learns that the actress chosen to play Hamlet's mother Gertrude has been killed by an explosion in her home.
Assigned to investigate the explosion is Inspector Peter Carmichael of Scotland Yard. Carmichael solved the murder of Sir James, but he was forced by his superiors to help frame an innocent man for the crime. These superiors now know that he is gay, and in their virulently homophobic society this makes him vulnerable to pressure and even blackmail. As in Farthing, the story is told in chapters that alternate between Viola's first-person narration and third-person from Carmichael's point of view. He investigates the actress Lauria Gilmore, who the evidence suggests was building a bomb in her home, which exploded and killed her. Viola, meanwhile, finds that there is more than just the play connecting her to the dead woman.
To say too much about the plot risks spoilers. Unlike Farthing, though, this book is more a thriller than a mystery. It reminded me so much of John Le Carré's The Little Drummer Girl, also centered on an actress, Charlie, who is recruited for a very different and difficult role. Like Le Carré and like Josephine Tey, Walton vividly evokes the world of the theater, and I found the play itself unexpectedly fascinating. The director casts Hamlet as a woman:
"Consider Hamlet, daughter and heir to Denmark. How much more likely that her uncle would usurp? How more more difficult that she assert herself? Hesitation would be much more natural than for a man. Her relationship with Gertrude, with Claudius works perfectly. Horatio wishes to be more than a friend . . . Laertes too, Laertes is Hamlet's true love, which makes the end sing. In fact, the whole play makes much more sense this way."I enjoyed watching the cast work out this version of the play, as they thought through the different emphases, the changed relationships. And this book made me want to re-read both Hamlet and The Little Drummer Girl. I have the third book of the series, Half a Crown, already on the TBR stacks (and I recently added a fourth of Walton's books, Tooth and Claw, which Claire from A Captive Reader described as "Trollope with dragons" - but that one will have to wait til the end of the TBR challenge).
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Literary crushes, and chapters in a traveller's life
A Traveller's Life, Eric Newby
I have a new literary crush. Does anyone else get those? It might be an author, or a character, or even a historical figure. It leads to spending as much time as possible with the crush (which usually means buying lots of books), trawling the net for their life history, and going on and on about it to friends who are probably thinking, "There she goes again." Sometimes the crush settles into long-term relationship (Peter Wimsey, Lymond, Terry Pratchett, Abraham Lincoln); sometimes I wake up one day and realize that the magic is just gone (Elizabeth George, Julia Spencer-Fleming).
Last year's set included Elizabeth von Arnim, George Templeton Strong, Cornelia Otis Skinner's family, and Ulysses Grant. I met my latest, Eric Newby, thanks to the TBR Double Dare. I'd had his book Round Ireland in Low Gear on the TBR stacks for years and never got around to reading it until now. I added A Traveller's Life last year, just from the back cover blurb:
Like any book of short stories, some chapters are stronger than others. I enjoyed the early ones about his childhood and school days. Two chapters cover his apprenticeship in 1938-1939 on a grain ship sailing round-trip from England to Australia. I don't think two short chapters can do justice to a voyage like that, and in fact Newby wrote a book about the trip, The Last Grain Race (currently sitting in my shopping cart on Amazon). There are chapters on his World War II service in the Middle East, including time as a prisoner in Italy (Love and War in the Apennines, already awaiting the end of the TBR challenge), his celebrated travels through the Hindu Kush (which inspired his first book) and down the Ganges, and his varied career choices (like his father he worked in the fashion industry, before turning to journalism, which he also chronicled in a book). In his later years, he and his wife Wanda bought and restored a house in Tuscany. The book he wrote about their experiences apparently started what I think of as the "Year in Provence" trend.
Newby definitely wasn't one for the safe packaged tour. The penultimate chapter recounts a trip to Haiti in 1972. Even more perilous was a trek one year earlier, to the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula (home of the marvelous Biblical texts discovered by the Sisters of Sinai). Travel through the desert was dangerous enough, but tensions were high as Egypt and Israel clashed over Sinai. Though there were only eight monks in the monastery at that time, Newby felt the pull of the place: "The longer I remained within the walls of the monastery . . . every day I became more disinclined to leave it. . ."
I feel equally disinclined to part company with him, and I'm already looking forward to the next chapter.
I have a new literary crush. Does anyone else get those? It might be an author, or a character, or even a historical figure. It leads to spending as much time as possible with the crush (which usually means buying lots of books), trawling the net for their life history, and going on and on about it to friends who are probably thinking, "There she goes again." Sometimes the crush settles into long-term relationship (Peter Wimsey, Lymond, Terry Pratchett, Abraham Lincoln); sometimes I wake up one day and realize that the magic is just gone (Elizabeth George, Julia Spencer-Fleming).
Last year's set included Elizabeth von Arnim, George Templeton Strong, Cornelia Otis Skinner's family, and Ulysses Grant. I met my latest, Eric Newby, thanks to the TBR Double Dare. I'd had his book Round Ireland in Low Gear on the TBR stacks for years and never got around to reading it until now. I added A Traveller's Life last year, just from the back cover blurb:
"Eric Newby's life of travel began with strange adventures in prams, forays into the lush jungles of Harrods with his mother and into the perilous slums of darkest Hammersmith on his way to school. Such beginnings aroused his curiosity about more outlandish places, a wanderlust satisfied equally by travels through the London sewers, by bicycle to Italy and through wildest New York."Newby writes in the introduction, "This book is not an autobiography." The first chapter comes closest, telling the story of his birth in 1919, and placing it in a very specific context: what people were doing, how they were living, where they were working and shopping and what they were earning, particularly in his corner of southwest London. From there, the book becomes a series of episodes centered around travel, moving chronologically through his life. It was published in 1982, five years before Round Ireland, and the last chapter is dated 1973, when Newby left his position as travel editor of The Observer.
Like any book of short stories, some chapters are stronger than others. I enjoyed the early ones about his childhood and school days. Two chapters cover his apprenticeship in 1938-1939 on a grain ship sailing round-trip from England to Australia. I don't think two short chapters can do justice to a voyage like that, and in fact Newby wrote a book about the trip, The Last Grain Race (currently sitting in my shopping cart on Amazon). There are chapters on his World War II service in the Middle East, including time as a prisoner in Italy (Love and War in the Apennines, already awaiting the end of the TBR challenge), his celebrated travels through the Hindu Kush (which inspired his first book) and down the Ganges, and his varied career choices (like his father he worked in the fashion industry, before turning to journalism, which he also chronicled in a book). In his later years, he and his wife Wanda bought and restored a house in Tuscany. The book he wrote about their experiences apparently started what I think of as the "Year in Provence" trend.
Newby definitely wasn't one for the safe packaged tour. The penultimate chapter recounts a trip to Haiti in 1972. Even more perilous was a trek one year earlier, to the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula (home of the marvelous Biblical texts discovered by the Sisters of Sinai). Travel through the desert was dangerous enough, but tensions were high as Egypt and Israel clashed over Sinai. Though there were only eight monks in the monastery at that time, Newby felt the pull of the place: "The longer I remained within the walls of the monastery . . . every day I became more disinclined to leave it. . ."
I feel equally disinclined to part company with him, and I'm already looking forward to the next chapter.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right"
Lincoln's Greatest Speech, Ronald C. White, Jr.
I spent much of the past week reading Tom Jones. I have found it really captivating, very funny in places and touching in others, and I can't imagine where Tom's adventures are going to take him next (except into more trouble). But somewhere around p.460, my interest started to flag. I realized that I was counting the pages rather than following the story (my Penguin edition has 851 pages of fairly small print), and I decided it was time to take a break.
This past week I also had the opportunity to see an exhibit on the Civil War at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It consists primarily of material from the collections of the National Archives, and the main draw for visitors last week was the addition of the Emancipation Proclamation, on display for only a few days. As thrilled as I was to see that, the highlight for me was something that many visitors may have missed. In a case with several small photos of soldiers, both individuals and groups, was one of a woman soldier who enlisted in disguise as a male, in order to serve with her husband. The label referred to the more than 400 women who have been identified as serving, a topic that I've become very interested in after reading DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook's book They Fought Like Demons.
Seeing the exhibit led me back to the Civil War section of the TBR stack, and to Ronald C. White's book on Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. As the title states, White considers this the greatest of Lincoln's speeches. Like the Gettysburg Address it is short, but it conveys profound and powerful ideas in its 703 words (you can find a text of it here). The epigraph of the book is Frederick Douglass's statement to Lincoln: "The address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper."
White, a professor of history at UCLA, has written several books on American religious and intellectual history. In this book, he analyzes the Second Inaugural as both a state paper and a sermon. The first chapter, "Inauguration Day," sets the stage in March, 1865. Though the war has not yet ended, victory seemed near, with Grant's campaign against Lee in its final stages, and Sherman marching through South Carolina. At the same time, though, Americans had suffered through four years of a brutal civil war with appalling casualties and destruction on a scale never seen before. As people flooded into Washington to celebrate, they faced questions about how the war would end, how the rebel states would be brought back into the Union, and the fate not just of the soldiers who fought the war but also of millions of former slaves. Many expected Lincoln to address these questions, to lay out his plans for what was already called "reconstruction," or to trumpet the victories of the Republican party and the Federal armies.
What Lincoln did instead was to trace the history of the conflict, to indict both the North and the South for the sin of slavery, and then to call the country to repentance, to reconciliation, and to care for those most affected by the war, the soldiers, their families, and the freed people. White devotes a chapter to each section of the speech, to analyze its historical context, how it fits it with Lincoln's other writings, and its careful grammatical structure. He pays particular attention to the religious context of Lincoln's words, including his background in the "Old School" wing of the Presbyterian Church. White argues that Lincoln affirmed in this speech his belief in a providential God who was present even in the terrible events of the war, and that the address follows the familiar structure of a 19th century sermon, with indictment followed by imperative: we have gone astray and sinned, we must make amends.
In addition to the speech itself, White's analysis incorporates many other interesting elements, including the reaction to Lincoln's words, in Europe as well as America. I had not realized that, according the political calendar of the time, Congress would not come back into session until December 1865, which meant that Lincoln would have had a free hand for months in "reconstruction." Unfortunately for the country, among those in the audience at the Inauguration was John Wilkes Booth, clearly visible in photographs, who would assassinate Lincoln 41 days later. White also looks at the place of the Bible in Civil War America, and the work of Bible societies (north and south, Protestant and Catholic) who distributed copies to the soldiers. There are many accounts of soldiers' lives saved by their pocket Bibles, which deflected or stopped a bullet. The exhibit here in Houston includes one of those Bibles, gouged with the track of a bullet.
I see from Dr. White's website that he has written a full-scale biography of Lincoln and is currently working on one of Ulysses Grant. I look forward to reading both.
I spent much of the past week reading Tom Jones. I have found it really captivating, very funny in places and touching in others, and I can't imagine where Tom's adventures are going to take him next (except into more trouble). But somewhere around p.460, my interest started to flag. I realized that I was counting the pages rather than following the story (my Penguin edition has 851 pages of fairly small print), and I decided it was time to take a break.
This past week I also had the opportunity to see an exhibit on the Civil War at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It consists primarily of material from the collections of the National Archives, and the main draw for visitors last week was the addition of the Emancipation Proclamation, on display for only a few days. As thrilled as I was to see that, the highlight for me was something that many visitors may have missed. In a case with several small photos of soldiers, both individuals and groups, was one of a woman soldier who enlisted in disguise as a male, in order to serve with her husband. The label referred to the more than 400 women who have been identified as serving, a topic that I've become very interested in after reading DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook's book They Fought Like Demons.
Seeing the exhibit led me back to the Civil War section of the TBR stack, and to Ronald C. White's book on Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. As the title states, White considers this the greatest of Lincoln's speeches. Like the Gettysburg Address it is short, but it conveys profound and powerful ideas in its 703 words (you can find a text of it here). The epigraph of the book is Frederick Douglass's statement to Lincoln: "The address sounded more like a sermon than a state paper."
White, a professor of history at UCLA, has written several books on American religious and intellectual history. In this book, he analyzes the Second Inaugural as both a state paper and a sermon. The first chapter, "Inauguration Day," sets the stage in March, 1865. Though the war has not yet ended, victory seemed near, with Grant's campaign against Lee in its final stages, and Sherman marching through South Carolina. At the same time, though, Americans had suffered through four years of a brutal civil war with appalling casualties and destruction on a scale never seen before. As people flooded into Washington to celebrate, they faced questions about how the war would end, how the rebel states would be brought back into the Union, and the fate not just of the soldiers who fought the war but also of millions of former slaves. Many expected Lincoln to address these questions, to lay out his plans for what was already called "reconstruction," or to trumpet the victories of the Republican party and the Federal armies.
What Lincoln did instead was to trace the history of the conflict, to indict both the North and the South for the sin of slavery, and then to call the country to repentance, to reconciliation, and to care for those most affected by the war, the soldiers, their families, and the freed people. White devotes a chapter to each section of the speech, to analyze its historical context, how it fits it with Lincoln's other writings, and its careful grammatical structure. He pays particular attention to the religious context of Lincoln's words, including his background in the "Old School" wing of the Presbyterian Church. White argues that Lincoln affirmed in this speech his belief in a providential God who was present even in the terrible events of the war, and that the address follows the familiar structure of a 19th century sermon, with indictment followed by imperative: we have gone astray and sinned, we must make amends.
In addition to the speech itself, White's analysis incorporates many other interesting elements, including the reaction to Lincoln's words, in Europe as well as America. I had not realized that, according the political calendar of the time, Congress would not come back into session until December 1865, which meant that Lincoln would have had a free hand for months in "reconstruction." Unfortunately for the country, among those in the audience at the Inauguration was John Wilkes Booth, clearly visible in photographs, who would assassinate Lincoln 41 days later. White also looks at the place of the Bible in Civil War America, and the work of Bible societies (north and south, Protestant and Catholic) who distributed copies to the soldiers. There are many accounts of soldiers' lives saved by their pocket Bibles, which deflected or stopped a bullet. The exhibit here in Houston includes one of those Bibles, gouged with the track of a bullet.
I see from Dr. White's website that he has written a full-scale biography of Lincoln and is currently working on one of Ulysses Grant. I look forward to reading both.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The murder of a prince
Island of Exiles, I.J. Parker
This is the fourth in a series of mysteries set in 11th-century Japan, featuring Sugawara Akitada, an official in the imperial Ministry of Justice. In the third book, Black Arrow, he accepted an assignment as provisional governor of the remote northern Echigo Province (today's Niigata Prefecture). As this book opens, he and his family, which now includes his baby son Yori, are still in Echigo. They have been waiting six months for his recall to the capital, and for his salary, now badly in arrears. Facing the onset of another long winter, with their resources exhausted, their situation is becoming desperate.
When envoys from the capital arrive one day, it is not with good news. Men of high rank, they carry documents from the Emperor himself, ordering an investigation into the murder of a member of the imperial family. Prince Okisada, the eldest brother of the current Emperor, had been passed over in the line of succession. Okisada later plotted to gain the throne for himself, which led to his permanent exile on Sado Island, a penal colony off the coast of Echigo. While visiting a friend's home, the Prince was suddenly taken ill and died. Poison was immediately suspected, and the son of the island's governor, a young man named Toshito who was present, was arrested and charged. Though the case against Toshito seems clear, there are larger issues at stake. There are rumors that Okisada may have been plotting another attempt to take the throne, perhaps this time by an alliance with the Ezo people of the north (who played a part in Black Arrow).
Akitada has no choice but to accept the assignment, coming as it does from the highest authority. But then the envoys add a twist: they suggest that he go undercover, alone and posing as a convict. Though he travels with secret papers identifying himself, from the moment of his arrival he is subject to brutal discipline and even abuse. Because the prevailing Buddhist ethos forbids the taking of life, executions are rare. The most severe punishment, for crimes like murder and treason, is exile. Exiles like the Prince, with financial resources, find life on Sado pleasant, if a bit restricted. For a convict like "Taketsuna," the newest arrival, life is likely to be brutish and short, hard labor on short rations, particularly for those assigned to the island's silver mines.
"Taketsuna" quickly finds allies. The governor, advised of his arrival and anxious to clear his son, appoints him a clerk, sparing him from manual labor. He is assigned to assist a provincial tax inspector on his rounds, which will give him the chance to meet the Prince's inner circle and to ask questions. But his investigations draw the attention of Kumo, a rich landowner and the province's high constable. Returning to the capital of Mano one night, he is set upon by armed men who beat him senseless. When Akitada awakes, he is imprisoned deep in one of Kumo's mines, with his investigation stalled and many questions unanswered. What is the connection between Kumo and the Prince? Is Toshito being framed for the murder, perhaps because of conflicts between his father and Kumo? Most importantly, how can he escape the brutal slavery of the mine? His disappearance alarms his family back in Echigo, and his faithful retainer Tora travels to Sado to find him, arriving just in time to help him escape and finally resolve the case.
As I have said before, I don't know much about 11th-century Japan. Each story in the series has introduced me to a new place, a new level of society. Even so, this story's setting is unique. And in this story, Akitada is completely out of his element. While he does have allies, he is on his own for much of the story, without the protection of his position or his household. He endures the humiliating and dangerous conditions of life as a supposed criminal. He risks his life to pursue the investigation, driven by his sense of duty, and also by stubbornness and curiosity. I'm looking forward to seeing where they take him next.
This is the fourth in a series of mysteries set in 11th-century Japan, featuring Sugawara Akitada, an official in the imperial Ministry of Justice. In the third book, Black Arrow, he accepted an assignment as provisional governor of the remote northern Echigo Province (today's Niigata Prefecture). As this book opens, he and his family, which now includes his baby son Yori, are still in Echigo. They have been waiting six months for his recall to the capital, and for his salary, now badly in arrears. Facing the onset of another long winter, with their resources exhausted, their situation is becoming desperate.
When envoys from the capital arrive one day, it is not with good news. Men of high rank, they carry documents from the Emperor himself, ordering an investigation into the murder of a member of the imperial family. Prince Okisada, the eldest brother of the current Emperor, had been passed over in the line of succession. Okisada later plotted to gain the throne for himself, which led to his permanent exile on Sado Island, a penal colony off the coast of Echigo. While visiting a friend's home, the Prince was suddenly taken ill and died. Poison was immediately suspected, and the son of the island's governor, a young man named Toshito who was present, was arrested and charged. Though the case against Toshito seems clear, there are larger issues at stake. There are rumors that Okisada may have been plotting another attempt to take the throne, perhaps this time by an alliance with the Ezo people of the north (who played a part in Black Arrow).
Akitada has no choice but to accept the assignment, coming as it does from the highest authority. But then the envoys add a twist: they suggest that he go undercover, alone and posing as a convict. Though he travels with secret papers identifying himself, from the moment of his arrival he is subject to brutal discipline and even abuse. Because the prevailing Buddhist ethos forbids the taking of life, executions are rare. The most severe punishment, for crimes like murder and treason, is exile. Exiles like the Prince, with financial resources, find life on Sado pleasant, if a bit restricted. For a convict like "Taketsuna," the newest arrival, life is likely to be brutish and short, hard labor on short rations, particularly for those assigned to the island's silver mines.
"Taketsuna" quickly finds allies. The governor, advised of his arrival and anxious to clear his son, appoints him a clerk, sparing him from manual labor. He is assigned to assist a provincial tax inspector on his rounds, which will give him the chance to meet the Prince's inner circle and to ask questions. But his investigations draw the attention of Kumo, a rich landowner and the province's high constable. Returning to the capital of Mano one night, he is set upon by armed men who beat him senseless. When Akitada awakes, he is imprisoned deep in one of Kumo's mines, with his investigation stalled and many questions unanswered. What is the connection between Kumo and the Prince? Is Toshito being framed for the murder, perhaps because of conflicts between his father and Kumo? Most importantly, how can he escape the brutal slavery of the mine? His disappearance alarms his family back in Echigo, and his faithful retainer Tora travels to Sado to find him, arriving just in time to help him escape and finally resolve the case.
As I have said before, I don't know much about 11th-century Japan. Each story in the series has introduced me to a new place, a new level of society. Even so, this story's setting is unique. And in this story, Akitada is completely out of his element. While he does have allies, he is on his own for much of the story, without the protection of his position or his household. He endures the humiliating and dangerous conditions of life as a supposed criminal. He risks his life to pursue the investigation, driven by his sense of duty, and also by stubbornness and curiosity. I'm looking forward to seeing where they take him next.
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