The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher R. Beha
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's quite the index. But since this is a star-rating system, let's index a few of those.
The book: I'll give it four stars. Had it been published a year earlier, I might have given it five. Complex characters, exercising individual quirks in a plotline that must correspond reciprocally. Well done!
The reader: one star: "****ing COVID, know what I'm sayin'?"
The reader's response: two stars: it requires some effort to dredge up sympathy for a (formerly) wealthy professional blowhard from the Manhattan three-martini-lunch set, even if he once had some insights into The Beautiful Game ... nevermind his doyenne investor wife ... or his Iraq veteran son or ...
... actually, my greatest reservations as a reader were in regard to the daughter -- something of a cipher, when it comes to her (autistic?) libidinal motivations.
In any case, had this been published just as '08 collapsed and prior to a global pandemic overseen by a gameshow host I might have given this book its proper due. It's the circumstances, dear reader -- occupational hazard, even for the most courageous and clear-sighted of novelists.
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Saturday, January 02, 2021
The Index Of Self-Destructive Acts, by Christopher R. Beha
The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through The New Culture Wars, by Meghan Daum
The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars by Meghan Daum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
There is a sub-cohort within my Gen-X cohort that, when confronted with the certitude of elders, peers, and now younger up-and-comers habitually asks, "Isn't it just a little more ... complicated?" Daum is a columnist of standing who recognizes her "day" was a short one to be sure, and just wants to leaven public inquiry with a little more doubt (and generosity) than is generally demonstrated. This isn't an air-tight intellectual platform by any stretch, but if it nudges the reader to check out her podcast and give gentle reconsideration to the most firmly held convictions ... not a bad thing, right?
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How To Think: A Survival Guide For A World At Odds, by Alan Jacobs
How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Any argument that places Bulverism as its central concern will get a passing grade from me. But this book could have been trimmed to a punchy article and not suffered the lack of material. Perhaps it reads better as an eBook -- I can imagine hyperlinks doing a superlative job of serving the content.
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The Year Of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism In An Age Of Crisis, by Alan Jacobs
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
As WWII ground to its conclusion, a number of the West's intellectual luminaries expressed a common concern: in the fight against Nazism, the West was in fact embracing similar values and methods to get the job done and "win" the war. Alarmed at the prospect of further becoming the enemy we were fighting, these gents, and Simone Weil, thought it best to examine how public education might build a surer intellectual/mythopoeic/spiritual foundation for Western Civilization.
Alan Jacobs uncovers some interesting correspondence among the various figures discussed. Some of this book traces who thought what when. But it also enhances some of the personalities involved. I was particularly drawn to W.H. Auden, a poet I've not given much consideration prior to this -- an energetically "out" homosexual decades before that was an acceptable possibility (whose memory of the trial of Oscar Wilde must have been acute) who nevertheless hewed closely to a Christian orthodoxy of sorts, and vigorously espoused poetic means to counter the functional machinist philosophy taking over academia and the market.
And this was the first I'd heard of Lewis's abject terror as the war became a reality for England -- his public writing very much advocated a "Keep calm and carry on" posture.
Jacobs doesn't hammer home any grand conclusion at book's end, which I think is for the best. Most of the figures who survived this second global war quietly succumbed to resignation that the ship of state had sailed without them, and everything they might do next to promote what sustained their souls was going to be subtle work indeed. Jacques Ellul shows up at the very last chapter to do what he does (and did) so well, but the reader can almost see him raising his hands and asking, "Hey, where'd everybody go?" The draughtsman’s room had cleared. The work was just beginning.
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Thursday, December 31, 2020
Rattling in my brain-pan
- The Thomas Jefferson Bible is a historic curiosity-slash-oddity. Over at the New Yorker Vinson Cunningham places the book and its creator in historical context. When contrasted with the Bible of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr., Cunningham finds the Jefferson Bible — to put it mildly — wanting. This is a deeply nuanced and frankly disturbing portrait of a particular personality and the eras that were shaped, for better and for worse, by it.
- I had forgotten what a dismal year 1990 was for movies. This was a year when I could, and did, attend at LEAST one movie a week. If I look at the box office for '90 only four American titles jump out as being exceptional: Goodfellas, Joe Vs. The Volcano, Jacob’s Ladder and Total Recall. Kinda sums it up, really. Peter Sobczynski’s (misguided) attempt to give a fair re-viewing of Brian DePalma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities is what put me in this reflective state. And while I appreciate Sobczynski’s intellectual efforts . . . really, that movie is an appalling train-wreck no matter what lens you see it through.
- American Utopia on Broadway: Original Cast Recording is the album that received the most play from me this year. I did not attend Byrne’s Toronto concerts. Nor did I see the Broadway show. And I haven't yet queued up Spike Lee’s movie of the show. But I'll get to it — eventually. Right now I’m enjoying what the music itself conjures for me, and I don’t want the visuals to get in the way. At LARB Sarah Black McCulloch sorts out what makes for an exceptional concert movie — This Should Be a Movie: “American Utopia,” the Concert Film, and Extending a Terrific Moment.
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Vintage Whisky, 2020
2020 — I think we all scrambled to find our footing just a bit, no? In March I attempted to reconnoiter the waters ahead, here and here. In December it all came back to the guitar.
Other matters:
Mennonites
- Ten Thousand Villages and Mennonite moms of a certain age.
- Whither "THE Culture"? A question that took some unexpected turns.
- Puzzling over Mennonite Nazis, in three parts.
Movies
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
- The Death of Stalin, a reconsideration reconsidered.
- Strange Advance, Worlds Away
- John Prine, three albums
- When last I visited the record store...
- RIP, Google Music
- Care vs. Vigilance and turning on the radio in 1979
- Wonderful news: the guitar is still alive!
- Lou Reed, reconsidered
- Portis, Grossman and the languishing of Great Works.
- Two sides of Winnipeg's The Hudson Bay Building: first floor, and the Bay am Cjalla.
Chilly Gonzales, A very chilly christmas
Some welcome and personally recommended new musical renderings along Christmas themes.
I tend to skip the few tracks with spoken-word performances — dear performers, it’s not you it’s me. But the strictly Chilly tracks are exactly right for me, right here right now.