The Case of the Late Pig – 3/5
“The main thing to remember in autobiography, I have always thought, is to not let any damned modesty creep in to spoil the story.”
This middle of the road mystery by Margery Allingham (I mean middle of the road in the sense that she is eight books into the series with this particular detective and about 10 books into her career) from 1937 begins with our narrator, the detective (erm criminologist) Albert Campion. He is called out into the country where he finds the recently discovered body of Pig Peters, a man who was buried some months earlier thought to be dead then. Well, he’s dead now. And so the mystery must go from there trying to figure what all has happened in both the death and mishap and mystery of the death. One of the funny and not so funny things here is the near constant reference to the fatness of the decedent who is among other things called Pig. I have to believe that if we were to see Mr Peters, he wouldn’t look particular fat as we might have it, and regardless, we probably wouldn’t feel all that comfortable calling him “Pig”.
Notes from China – 4/5
“This is what I vowed I would never do–put ephemeral journalism between the covers of a book.”
The opening line quoted above refers to Barbara Tuchman’s professionalism as a historian, where she tends to be exacting and precise with her research and history. I know this in part comes from her sense of wanting to establish credibility in her writing because she is trained as a historian through journalism and practice. She discusses as much in her collection of essays “Practicing History”.
This book is of special note then because it’s more travel writing and personal reporting on a trip to China she took in the early 1970s, following Nixon’s meeting with Mao. The book concludes with a previous essay about an envoy Mao led to Washington DC to attempt to secure a meeting with FDR (something that was avoided by FDR to skirt the issue of the US recognizing the Mao regime.
This book also follows Tuchman’s serendipitous writing of a book on 20th century US/China relationships just two years earlier, which was not planned to coincide with Nixon’s trip, but then offered her a chance to visit China.
The small essays and sketches go into her impressions on the country.
Conscience of a Conservative – 1/5
“I have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative instincts feel compelled to apologize for them.”
I have never once heard a Conservative apologize for their beliefs, but I have heard plenty of Conservatives whine that once they expressed their beliefs, people treated them with disdain and distrust. Richard Hofstadter discusses the Conservative penchant for playing the victim (among other things) in his book “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, the title essay of which, but also subsequent essays detail this play-acting.
Today it continues obviously.
This book, well, it doesn’t quite start it or lay it out. Instead, this book acts as cover for certain of the critiques. I know that Barry Goldwater was a true believer, but he was not as radical in his beliefs or his actions as say the John Birch Society or other right-wing groups of the same time period. But in presenting the “reasonable” case for conservatism he’s more dangerous in a lot of ways. Rather than a set of beliefs, this is a book of policy and cultural goals, worked backward to create justifications and rationalizations. Some of those goals: extract wealth from workers to give to corporations and their owners, and destroy unions along the way; maintain white supremacy especially through segregation policies and maybe destroy public education along the way, punish the poor for being poor and making sure that all societal status be seen as meritocracy, maintain American military dominance of the world, but especially through the glut and surfeit of private military industry contracts, fight Communism, but mainly because you got to fight something.
In plain language, and in fake folkiness, he gives the rhetoric to the lies, and makes sure that his adherent know what to repeat for the next sixty years — though being sure to add evangelical dogma for the latter 40.
On Cussing – 3/5
The introduction to this short book is from Gus van Sant who was a friend and neighbor of Katherine Dunn for many years. She’s most well-known of course for her novel Geek Love, but that book came out in the mid 1980s, and she continued to write weekly (apparently anonymous) columns for city media, and this is one of those pieces. The piece is presented as a set of advice for writers in how to use and handle “cussing” in their writing, and so far as that is the goal, it’s successful. As a broader treatise on cussing (apparently she was not a cusser, which does make this funny), it’s more impressions than history. I think my main takeaway here was, if she wrote so much on so many different topics, why are we only getting the one piece and not a collection? Alas.
Narrative of William W Brown, Fugitive Slave – 4/5
“The friends of freedom may well congratulate each other on the appearance of the following Narrative. It adds another volume to the rapidly increasing anti-slavery literature of the age. It has been remarked by a close observer of human nature, “Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws;” and it may with equal truth be said, that, among a reading people like our own, their books will at least give character to their laws. It is an influence which goes forth noiselessly upon its mission, but fails not to find its way to many a warm heart, to kindle on the altar thereof the fires of freedom, which will one day break forth in a living flame to consume oppression.”
William Wells Brown in addition to being the writer of this narrative and an abolitionist activist for much of his life is also known for writing the novel “Clotel” which was the first novel published by an African American writer, and is about the “fictional” mixed race children of Thomas Jefferson and their descendants.
This narrative details some of Brown’s experience of enslavement, including what he now recognizes as personal failures and degradations that he himself took part in and the regrets that felt after and how he sought forgiveness. Part of this speaks to the idea of slavery being a corruptive force for all involved and only through liberation was he able to really face the world and understand how to be a person within it.
An Unspeakable Crime – 4/5
This is I suppose a YA historical account, but it’s pretty harrowing. It’s a harrowing story, but the author does not pull any punches about the history details, the awfulness of all the events, and the horrors of the violence, racism, and antisemitism involved.
Recently in the news, white supremacist domestic terrorists disrupted productions for the show “Parade” which covers these same events and since I was not entirely familiar with the case, I picked up this book. I chose a YA book because I figured I wanted a crash course before looking into it further. The case also has later historical echoes partly in the lynching murders during the Civil Rights Movements of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
Here we’re in 1913 Atlanta. Mary Phagan was a 13 year old girl who worked in a pencil factory. She apparently went to work on day on a day off to secure wages from the week before. Hours later she was found murdered in the cellar of the factory, beaten, and choked. After investigating the events of her death police began to circulate around a number of possible suspects. Two primary suspects ultimately emerge, Jim Conley, a Black maintenance worker, and a manager Leo Frank, a Jewish man born in Texas, but who moved to Atlanta by way of New York City and Cornell University. Conley eventually “confesses” that he was paid by Frank to help move the body from the hallway near Frank’s office to the basement. Leo Frank denies all involvement and knowledge. In the Kafkaesque ways that all justice systems work, by denying the crime and by working through a lawyer, he’s seen as less credible and hiding something. Of course being Jewish and the North, he’s further suspected. Through prosecutorial malfeasance such as paying off witnesses, suppressing evidence, and lying, Frank is brought to the grand jury where he’s indicted. His defense becomes a somewhat cause celeb, and he’s afforded a good defense (which seems to enrage plenty who stand against him). A growing mob outside the courtroom intrudes into the proceeding through shouting and threats, and when Frank is found guilty, he’s not even in the courtroom, removed by the judge for his safety. He spends several months on death row before he’s granted a clemency hearing with the governor, who hears the case, clearly believes Frank is not guilty and commutes the sentences, and subsequently ends his political career. Local corrupt media continues to pump rage into the populace and Frank is kidnapped from prison by several connected citizens who lynch him by hanging that night. Attempts to find out the names of the lynch mob are thwarted legally (though plenty of people knew) in part by some of the mob being on the grand jury during the inquest.
The book is not as detailed as it could be and sometimes hedges just a little too much, but for a book about injustice written for teens, it’s relatively unsparing.
The Pedant in the Kitchen – 4/5
This is a short collection of essays by Julian Barnes specifically about being a late onset cook and how his pedant nature fights against his getting much better at it than he otherwise might. He actually sounds like he’s being a little too hard on himself, but his point is taken. Part of his issue is that he’s a consummate recipe follower, which is great for baking, and not so great for cooking as having a bit of a “touch” in the kitchen is often needed to deal with the variables in any given kitchen.
The essays cover topics like the imprecise measurement of onions in recipes. What kinds of cookbooks to buy and what to avoid. How to annoy your friends who have written cookbooks. And other topics. It’s a quaint and charming book that reminds me of how generally amiable I find Barnes’s writing.
