Review:
Walking in the door, this was going to have to be a marked departure from Steve Martin for me not to enjoy it. I thought it was great. Really enjoyed it.
Review:
This is a dystopian future novel and I really enjoyed it! It is largely done in a patois that is unfamiliar, but familiar within the trilogy. It helps create a distance--a separation from the characters that also brings you into their world. This book does not really stand on its own, it is the second book, so it is important to have read the first in order to understand the back references. I am really looking forward to the third.
Review:
This is a novelization of a true story. It looks like most of the novelization comes from internal dialog and actual discussions between characters. It is a hard read remembering that the events actually happened. It was a third perspective (I've read of these events from the Union Army perspective a bit and from Lincoln's perspective) from the hostages and I would still like to read an account from the Sioux. In general it looks like the perspective from the Union Army is likely to be the least reliable.
Review:
This is a hero story. It is interesting that I listened to this book at the same time as I was listening to Joseph Campbell's, Hero With a Thousand Faces, and this book tracks with the general description of a hero from Joseph Campbell with remarkable detail. It is different in that almost everyone in this story is homosexual or bisexual. I know that this is a trend in fantasy (maybe lots of authors are taking the chance to explore sexuality in novels where it normally is minimal--"rescue the princess" is about as close as most of these come to talking about sexuality or, perhaps, abusive relationships). The world is really engrossing and the approach to magic and gods makes internal sense. The visceral descriptions were so clear that I nearly vomited with the characters on more than one occasion. This also made the violence so detailed as to make me miserable.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the constantly changing first person views. Particularly on an audio version this was remarkably disconcerting as characters seemed to speak differently at some points and then become first person narrators in the narrator's normal voice. It was hard to feel the transition. This was particularly true with gender change, it was very difficult to pick up on who was talking at any given moment. On the other hand, this left an immediacy to the book that was extremely immersive despite being very disorienting. I don't even want to try and begin to talk about people reading other people's minds in the first person.
Finally, the number of different perspectives from which the story was told were simply jaw dropping: a child listening to his grandmother's stories, a person watching a play, players on the stage, people involved in the action that is behind the play, etc. I found myself on several occasions unaware of the perspective from whom the first person narrative was coming and had to go back in order to figure out where I was. Forget the when, it is just too difficult to try and figure out the sequencing mid-flight and better to complete the portion of the story and then try to figure out where it fit in the overall novel.
Review:
This is a a pretty good overall look at the Supreme Court in its current configuration. Biskupic inserts herself into the description a couple of times which is mildly distracting, but serves to establish when she is not using second hand information. I honestly do not think of any of the justices as "leftist," "left," or even progressive. I think it is highly likely that, upon review, they will be found to be centrist. The whole court has been so powerfully pulled to the right, however, that centrists are now viewed as "left." I do not think that this bodes well for the court as a whole or for our government in general.
There is a great article here, but I will quote a bit from it because time is not friendly to links:
Democratic decisions require a body of factual evidence respected by all sides as true. Spiritual beliefs are compelling but they do not constitute empirical evidence. For this and other reasons, the abortion issue has created collateral arguments over church and state, and how we see each other as skeptics or believers.
OK, so that gives us a starting point when talking about most things, but especially abortion. It also explains the huge rift in the court right now. Nobody agrees on the facts of the case. If decisions are built based on different and conflicting facts it is impossible to move forward. When the chief justice talks about an individual praying alone on the 50 yard line despite pictures (in evidence and in the dissent) that show it was not someone praying alone, but a school leader praying amongst a large group of students complete disregard for facts is going to cripple the court and delegitimize the court. I would think that it would be essential to work from the facts at the highest level of justice (and, yes, this is a rather small example, but it is a critical hinge in the case referenced). That facts are simply ignored seems like a huge problem.
Review:
Since I was a boy reading about the flying wedge, I've had an interest in Jim Thorpe. Frankly, I thought of him only as a football player, had no idea he was Indian, and did not realize he was called "The Greatest Athlete of All Time." I have been to Cancun and seen his bust in the NFL Hall of Fame, but I was so overwhelmed by the number of exhibits (and my father's desire to move on) that I had not time to read any of the stories. I was also aware of the Indian schools and how those had been devastating to so many families and the horrors that some (if not all) children endured. This book was eye opening in many ways. Thorpe played professional football, basketball, and baseball; was an Olympic champion; and a colligate track and field star.
This book is simply mind numbing in its details. It felt like every box score from every game was discussed (surely this was not the case) and the extreme violence of early football (where dying seemed to be a regular occurrence) was another area that seemed to have surprising intensity in this biography. Maraniss included the details of love letters between Thorpe and his second wife which also seemed a bit much (some of the details such as pet names and repeated comments of desire could probably have been omitted without any damage to the story). Beyond those over detailed portions, the portions that dealt with the details of living as an Indian in a society that viewed Indians as, at best, a lower class of human (better than blacks) was appropriate and insightful because this framed Thorpe's life. His familial relationships were stunning, though not surprising given his tumultuous upbringing.
I found the epilogue insightful and sad. Most of Thorpe's life left me sad. It seems like the people around him could have done better by him in so many ways, yet, it is hard to call out individuals beyond the individuals called out in the book. To suggest that his children should have done more (particularly his daughters) seems wildly inappropriate. His sons were also abandoned. In part this was due to his inability to hold down a job for any length of time and that seems to keep going back to drinking. In short, however, here was a flawed individual who was unable to overcome his own character flaws despite enormous effort to do so. As with most heroes, looking at the portion of their life that is heroic is vastly inadequate and often overshadows many other problems. It seems, however, that Thorpe, exceptional though he was in many ways, is an astounding example of how America mistreated Indians. Surely, more could have been done to help him, particularly during his second marriage when he sought to get rid of drinking, but circumstance seemed to grind him down.
