Wicked by Gregory Maguire

519 pages; Harper; 1995

Counter to what I expected, this is far more than a novelty book. It has well-drawn characters with strong identities, whose thoughts and feelings ring true. As a fantasy novel, it's a surprisingly detailed world of its own. But the author takes it well beyond fantasy. He has some important points to make.

He's telling us that many things in life are not clear-cut. Maguire's Oz is a world where everyone is flawed in some way, and what appears to be wicked may be otherwise.

Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is not wicked, and she insists that she's not a witch either. She's well-intentioned, but handicapped by her green skin and sharp features, she inadvertently creates her own self-fulfilling prophecies. Glinda (the good witch) enters the story as a shallow rich girl, preoccupied with her appearance and social standing. But in the end, she's a benign sorceress with power beyond either of the so-called wicked witches.

The Wizard articulates these themes in one of the most memorable scenes. Quoting from the Oziad, the hero tale of ancient Oz: "It looks the same... but it is not. It looks as they expect, but it is not."

Maguire makes all these points with clever ties back to the original L. Frank Baum novel -- quite an accomplishment.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

“…the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but also dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives.

Ali Baba by Maxfield Parrish

"These are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of security into which we build ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating too. For they carry the keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared discovery of the self."

from The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

BOOKS READ: 2008

It's a night of bitter cold and snow in western Pennsylvania. It's also New Year's Eve, a fitting time to post my list of books read in 2008.

First, the two most memorable books of the year:

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith

Fawn M. Brodie, 499 pages, Vintage Books, 1995

A biography of the Mormon leader. The account of his early life is particularly damaging. Just one example: as a young man, Smith was an avid treasure hunter, making use of a "peep stone." Peeping through his magic stone (it had a hole bored in it), the Prophet could detect treasures buried underground. One fine day, he found golden tablets. As for his womanizing .... how did the Mormon church survive this charlatanry?

Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey

David McCumber, 367 pages, Perennial, 2002

This appears to be a very realistic account of what it's like to be a professional pool player. Interestingly, most of the work is done in shabby venues in run-down parts of town, not at all like the glitzy casino matches I like to watch on TV. My favorite part is a chance encounter with Swedish pool champion Ewa Mataya Laurance. I hope she hasn't lost her TV deal with ESPN.

Now, for my complete list:

[Genre: F = fiction, N = non-fiction]

January

Rankin, Ian - Fleshmarket Alley (F )

Dunsany, Alfred Lord - The Charwoman’s Shadow (F)

February
Dolin, Eric Jay - Leviathan (N): this history of whaling made me feel sorry for the whales.

Rankin, Ian - Knots and Crosses (F)

March

King, Stephen - Blaze (F): why do I keep reading this stuff?

Goddard, Robert - In Pale Battalions (F)

April

Bill O’Reilly - Who’s Looking Out for You? (N)

Traditional - Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight (F): the Simon Armitage translation. For a useful background piece on Gawaine, visit the University of Rochester's Camelot Project.

Furst, Alan - Dark Star (F): well-written account of a man drawn into espionage in World War II. I seem to recall reading this at at Nemacolin during a trip with Nancy and Megan.

May

McDermid, Val - The Grave Tattoo (F): disappointing.

July
Brodie, Fawn M. - No Man Knows My History (N): see above.

Michell, John - Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions (N)

August

Barker, Clive - The Damnation Game (F): here again, I can't remember what it was about.

O'Dell, Tawni - Sister Mine (F): Worth reading for the Western Pennsylvania setting, but it lacks something compared to her first novel, Back Roads. It's about a woman (closely resembling the author) and her sister. It's also about a coal mine. Thus, the title. The author lives in State College, PA. Maybe I'll run into her this weekend; we'll be there for my birthday.

McCumber, David - Playing Off the Rail - A Pool Hustler's Journey (N): see above.

September
(read all three on a cruise to Bermuda)

Rankin, Ian - Hide and Seek (F)

Golden, Christopher - Straight On 'til Morning (F): The first half was one of the best reading experiences of the year, even though a key plot element owes a huge debt to the film The Lost Boys. It takes a marked turn for the worse in the second half, crossing the line into fantasy and near-silliness.

Cain, James M. - Double Indemnity (F): excellent. I'll have to read The Postman Always Rings Twice soon.

November

LeCarre, John - The Mission Song (F)

Malory, Sir Thomas - Le Morte D'Arthur vol. 2 (F): I bought this in a mall in Houston in the mid-1980s after seeing the film Excalibur. It took a few years, but now I've finished both volumes. One of those rare books that motivated me to get out a pencil and mark my favorite passages.

Groff, Lauren - The Monsters of Templeton (F)

Messud, Claire - The Emperor's Children (F): perhaps the best fiction I read this year.

All in all, a pretty good reading year. Here's to health and peace of mind in the new year. Prospero ano nuevo.

Neon Knights

Years ago, I heard a song on the radio that I couldn’t get out of my brain. I didn’t know the name of the band or the name of the song. All I could remember was two lines:
Ride out, protectors of the realm
Captains at the helm...

My search for that song became a decades-long quest, strewn with false trails and dead ends. I asked several friends if they knew the source of these lines. I also bought two Rush albums in a vain effort to locate that song. It was all in vain.

Now, purely by chance, my odyssey of more than 20 years is ended.

I heard Ronnie James Dio sing those words at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette Pavilion Saturday night. The song is Neon Knights by Black Sabbath, from the Heaven & Hell album. It was their encore tune Saturday night! See below for the complete verse, with the lines above in context:

Cry out to legions of the brave
Time again to save us from the jackals of the street
Ride out, protectors of the realm
Captains at the helm, sail across the sea of lights
Circles and rings, dragons and kings
Weaving a charm and a spell
Blessed by the night, holy and bright
Called by the toll of the bell
Bloodied angels fast descending
Moving on a never-bending light

Encounter with KK

The Metal Masters tour rolled through Pittsburgh last Saturday night. That’s what brought my brother and I to the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott before the show. For a full account, laid out better than I could hope to achieve, follow this link:

http://haggisbuffet.blogspot.com/2008/08/encounter-with-kk.html

The Storm Lord by Tanith Lee

Daw Science Fiction

Paper; May 18, 1976

• ISBN-10: 0886772737
• ISBN-13: 978-0886772734

A number of people in this book earn the designation "Storm Lord,"raising the knotty issue of exactly who Lee is referring to in the title.

Ashne'e, the lowland priestess (or Amber Witch) must

submit to the passions of the aging Storm Lord. This union is blessed with issue: Raldnor, the central character in the book. He's a fairly conventional man of action not unlike Conan The Barbarian. It's unusual for Lee to base a book around such a run-of-the-mill character, but the story itself is fine, with plenty of Lee's imaginative touches and her usual polished writing.

The passage that stayed with me occurs while Raldnor is still a wandering adventurer (or freebooter). He has an encounter with a prostitute, who excitedly exclaims: "You're indefatigable, a Storm Lord--" A hooker who flatters her client by calling him a Storm Lord? Raldnor proves her right by actually becoming the Storm Lord in due course.

Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell

405 pp. 
Signet Books, January 2001

When I lived in Florida, I used to daydream about moving to a small town up north. I envisioned a quiet place with no traffic, a town people lived in their entire lives, so unlike south Florida. I pictured this imaginary place in the autumn, with an iron-gray sky and leaves on the ground, and the sort of Halloween I knew as a child.

Last year I found myself living out that fantasy – well, nearly -- when my career brought us to southwestern Pennsylvania. Now I never want to leave.

There’s so much about this area that I love. The natural beauty of the hills and farms would appeal to anyone. So would the view looking east, with the graceful curve of Route 30 down towards Latrobe and the heavily-wooded Allegheny Mountains in the distance. But I’m also fascinated by the old buildings in the blighted downtowns of Latrobe and Greensburg, and the mining patch communities you come across unexpectedly. The evidence of coal mining is all around, for those who know what to look for.

That’s what led me to Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell. It’s set in the rural western Pennsylvania area around Black Lick, which is a real town in Indiana County less than an hour from my home. I thought that reading it would be a good way to soak up some of the atmosphere of the region. But I got much more than I bargained for.

In Back Roads, 20-year-old Harley Altmyer’s mother is serving a life sentence in prison for shooting their father. That leaves Harley responsible for taking care of himself and his three sisters. There’s poverty and tension in the household. Harley himself lacks a mother, and he needs a girlfriend. That's why O'Dell gives him his first sexual encounter with a woman that meets both needs. She's an older woman and the mother of three. Just to underscore that point, she wears a nightgown that says “World’s Greatest Mom” in the big sex scene.

I thought the book would tell the story of their affair. Later, as I got further into it, I thought the plot would be built around revealing the truth about the shooting. O’Dell does all that. But she also takes it much further. This is a book about the deep and lasting effects of domestic violence and parental failure. As Harley puts it: “The problem with trying to forget about shit is that you can’t forget it. Time does not heal all wounds.”

Back Roads can be read and enjoyed just for its plot. But O’Dell also layers in deeper meaning and symbolism with some very skillful writing. Harley and his sisters suffer through a childhood filled with fear and physical abuse. Harley wears his father’s coat and hat, symbols of the legacy of violence that he inherited from his father and carries with him still. His teenage sister’s compulsive need for comfort and safety leads her to casual sex with the wrong men. Harley has to abandon his dog. He fears that the dog will spend the rest of his life thinking he’s a bad dog, unable to understand why the one person who was supposed to love him unconditionally turned his back on him.

Black Lick is a town named for salt licks that attract deer. But the salt is contaminated by coal deposits. The salt seeping up from underground may be killing them, like the secrets that Harley and his sisters have buried. In the end he has to confront his own self-deception.

I couldn’t understand why the book jacket blurbs described this book as humorous and hilarious. It’s about as bleak and tragic a story as I’ve read since Janet Fitch’s White Oleander, and the bleak, run-down mining community is a perfect setting. Back Roads actually affected me so strongly that I had to stop reading it at night. It got me so keyed up that I couldn’t sleep. Readers – especially men – shouldn’t be put off by the fact that this was an Oprah Book Club selection. It’s much more than a book aimed at pleasing women.

O’Dell’s second novel, Coal Run, was published in paperback earlier this year.

Links:

Review in The New York Times
Television interview
Author's website

The Trooper

My daughter brought her boyfriend home to visit for a couple of days. Mike is quiet and very respectful. He calls me Mr. K------. He just graduated from law school.

When Mike left, he gave me a gift: an Iron Maiden t-shirt! It’s the one with The Trooper image.



This could be the plot of a particularly twisted sitcom: girlfriend’s dad is a middle-aged metal fan. Boyfriend is a conservative young guy. Boyfriend's new job as a prosecutor with the Florida State Attorney's office entitles him to carry a badge and gun when he visits crime scenes. We see the handsome young man wandering befuddled through the CD Extreme music store, searching... searching everywhere for an Iron Maiden t-shirt. When presented with the gift t-shirt, Dad is delighted. He promises to wear it to Ozzfest, with the right sleeve rolled up to display his tattoo.

All of this is true.

Deserted Cities of the Heart

This week’s Cream concert and the song Deserted Cities of the Heart has reopened old wounds.

Well, here’s how it was. As freshmen in college, my roommate and I were both in the same predicament: freshman girls didn’t seem to be interested in us. They were after the older guys. We’d sit around our dorm room, listening to the live version of Deserted Cities of the Heart and telling lies about how we had all sorts of girls interested in us in high school.

Being an English major, one night I explained the linkage between our situation and this lyric:

"On this street, where time has died
The golden treat you never tried
In times of old, in days gone by,
If I could catch your dancing eye

It was on the way
On the road to dreams
Now my heart’s drowned in no love streams."

We, ourselves, were the golden treat that all those college girls never tried.

Tattoo

“Me and my brother were talking to each other
About what makes a man a man…”
-- From “Tattoo” by The Who
This is the story of something I never thought I’d do.

There was a time when getting a tattoo held a strange fascination for me. Two Vietnam veterans in my bagpipe band had old, faded designs on their forearms: hearts impaled on daggers, leering skulls, screaming eagles and the like. I wondered about the stories behind them, and what it felt like to carry something on your body forever.

The idea lost its weird appeal when tattoos became trendy. Now it seems that half the population under the age of 30 has a tribal armband or, for the ladies, a floral design on the lower back. I had no need to make such a display to the world as an attention-getting device. So I discarded my tattoo fantasy.

But the idea returned with a vengeance in the fall of 2004. My mother was dying a slow death from Alzheimers Syndrome. She lost most of her memory long before her body died. Eventually she was unable to remember my name. On many occasions, I wasn’t sure she knew who I was. I watched the progression of her disease, and the complete disappearance of the personality I knew as my mother. It seemed that a part of my life was fading away as well.

Now the desire to get a tattoo seized me. I wanted to do something to honor her -- something that would be permanent, unlike her life which was slipping away.

My design decision was easy. For reasons I won’t go into here, my mother used to ask me when I was a young boy: “Will you put red roses on my grave?” Eager to please, like a good son I promised her that I would. Now, with her death approaching, I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to meet that commitment. So I decided to put a red rose on my body instead.

Spanky, the tattoo artist, came highly recommended by one of my wife’s patients. Spanky did several custom sketches for me. It took him several weeks to deliver the sketches, so I had plenty of time to be sure I really wanted to do this.

Now I have my tattoo. I showed it to my mother before she died. It’s a red rose with a thorny stalk and my nickname “Sonny.” Spanky drilled it onto my right shoulder one afternoon, with the music of his favorite heavy metal bands pounding away in the background.

I’ve never told anybody about my tattoo, except for a few close family members (and now you, my readers). It’s high up on my arm, where nobody will see it unless I’m shirtless or in a tank top. And with Ozzfest approaching, I think I’m ready to buy that tank top.

The song Tattoo originally appeared on The Who Sell Out, but I prefer the live version on the CD edition of The Who Live at Leeds. The lyrics include:
"Our old man didn't like our appearance
He said that only women wear long hair...."

Beaten Blue with Bowstrings

In this passage from Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Robin Hood invites the tall stranger to join his "band of merry men," to which the stranger replies:

"...if there be any man here that can shoot a better shaft than I, then will I bethink me of joining with you."

"Now by my faith," said Robin, "thou art a right saucy varlet, sirrah; yet I will stoop to thee as I never stooped to man before. Good Stutely, cut thou a fair white piece of bark four fingers in breadth, and set it fourscore yards distant on yonder oak. Now, stranger, hit that fairly with a gray goose shaft and call thyself an archer."

"Ay, marry, that will I," answered he (the tall stranger). "Give me a good stout bow and fair broad arrow, and if I hit it not strip me and beat me blue with bowstrings."

The tall stranger is John Little, later known as Little John. In Pyle's versions of these stories, characters are fond of swearing mighty oaths, such as the one above. Another of my favorites occurs when The Tinker, Wat O' the Crabstaff, threatens Robin Hood, and swears "If I do not score his knave's pate, cut my staff into faggots and call me woman."

The King Must Die By Mary Renault

The King Must Die
By Mary Renault
338 pp. Vintage Books

I’ve just finished this novel, and it’s superb. Beautifully written with a gripping plot, The King Must Die is a realistic treatment of the first part of the Theseus myth, complete with Minotaur, labyrinth, the witch Medea -- and of course Ariadne.

Renault depicts Ariadne as both princess and priestess of an old earth mother religion in Crete. Theseus, a follower of the newer Sky Gods, grew up believing he was a son of Poseidon. Renault makes the conflict between the two religions a key theme, and uses it to move the plot in a direction that's consistent with the myth.

I recall seeing this book in my father's library when I was very young. He had all the Renault novels, including a title that fascinated me: Fire From Heaven.

At about age ten, I paged through Fire From Heaven. There I found scenes related to sex, marriage and jealousy which I never forgot. Though not explicit (these books were written in the 1950s), they disturbed me, leaving the impression that I was getting into deep water with these adult topics.

What made me decide to read this book after all these years? I recently came across an interview with fantasy/sci fi author Tanith Lee. She cited The King Must Die as her favorite book from childhood. Clearly it was a major influence on her style.

The power of Renault's descriptive writing is something to behold. Here's how she describes Theseus' reaction on first seeing the city of Athens:

"Suddenly, at the turn of the road between the low green hills, I saw standing huge before me a great flat rock, like a platform raised by Titans to assail the gods from. Upon its top, glowering bright in the western sunlight, stood a royal palace, the columns russet red, the pink-washed walls picked out with white and blue squares. So high it stood against the sky, the guards on the ramparts looked as small as goldsmith's work, and their spears as fine as wire. I caught my breath. I had guessed at nothing like this..."

A sequel, The Bull From the Sea, describes Theseus' later life.

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Black Arrow
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Whiling away my time in the library of The American School in London, I found this book purely by chance. I was in the seventh grade at the time.

The Black Arrow is set in England in the days of Henry VI. It opens with the knight Sir Daniel leaving a trail of rack and ruin across the countryside surrounding his Moat House. The villainous archer Appleyard (veteran of Agincourt), man-at-arms Bennett Hatch and Sir Oliver Oates assist Sir Daniel. The outlaw Jon Amend-All vows revenge against all four of them, taunting them in this note nailed to the door of the church:

Dick Shelton took the page in his hand and read it aloud. It contained some lines of very rugged doggerel, hardly even rhyming, written in a gross character, and most uncouthly spelt. With the spelling somewhat bettered, this is how they ran:

I had four blak arrows under my belt,
Four for the greefs that I have felt,
Four for the number of ill menne
That have oppressed me now and then


One is gone; one is wele sped;
Old Appleyaird is dead.
One is for Master Bennet Hatch,
That burned Grimstone, walls and thatch.


One is for Sir Oliver Oates,
Who cut Sir Harry Shelton's throat.
Sir Daniel, ye shall have the fourth;
We shall think it fair sport.


Ye shall each have your own part,
A blak arrow in each blak heart.
Get ye to your knees for to pray,
Ye are dead theeves by yea and nay.

From Jon Amend-All of the Green Wood and his jolly fellowship

"Now, well-a-day for charity and the Christian graces!" cried Sir Oliver, lamentably. "Sirs, this is an ill world, and daily groweth worse."

The book was filmed in 1911 and 1948. It was also an Australian TV special in 1973.

Lost Legends of New Jersey by Frederick Reiken

The Lost Legends of New Jersey
By Frederick Reiken
312 pp. Harvest 2001

Almost too good to be true, this novel wins my personal award for book of the year. Simply yet skillfully written, it's about adulterous adults, confused teenagers, families breaking up and living with mistakes and loss in suburban New Jersey.

On those strengths alone, the book enthralled me. But two added features put it over the top.

First, it's set in the very spot in New Jersey where I grew up. Most of the action takes place in Livingston. Also mentioned are Millburn, where I went to high school; South Mountain Arena, where I learned to ice skate; the Turtle Back Zoo, scene of grade school field trips; and the teenage hangouts Don's Restaurant and Friendly's.

That's a nice coincidence for me personally. But what's even better is the author's admirable skill in making his points in multiple ways. He often uses the plot and characters to deliver his message. But then he'll deliver the same message in a different way, often with metaphors. The more closely I read, the more of this I discovered. It gave me the sense that the book was working on several levels at once, and it unfolds in a way that seamless and natural.

Here are two of my favorite examples.

Anthony, the central teenage character, is drawn to Juliette, the tough Italian girl next door. Anthony wants to save Juliette from a broken family, her own bad decisions and a meathead jock boyfriend with a mean streak. Reiken handles this first in a literal sense, with Anthony giving Juliette advice. Then the writer approaches the same issue symbolically. One night, Anthony helps Juliette to recognize the constellation Leo, also her astrological sign. At first, she can't see it. Then she recognizes it, and it's bigger than she expected. She also notices more stars than she's ever seen before. Reiken's telling us to learn to see ourselves clearly, to rise above pain and turmoil and see the beauty of life. This is my kind of symbolism -- obvious and accessible, the kind I can understand without too much effort.

In another episode, Anthony loses his virginity. But Reiken reverses the usual boy/girl roles. An older girl seduces Anthony. He's smitten, but she discards him after a one-night stand. She'd rather spend after-school time becoming a junior paramedic so that she can improve her chances of getting into medical school (heartless!). Later, after Anthony knows the affair is over, she gives him a ride in her car, which has a removable blue light and siren for paramedic use.

She said, "I'm glad I robbed your cradle. Aren't you?"

”I wish I knew."

She kept watching him for a moment. Then she said, "Well, we'd better get this siren in."

She hit the switch for the power window. She reached outside, pulled it in, and the whole car filled up with its blue light. She said, "Look into my crystal ball. If you look hard, you'll see your future." Anthony looked and for a moment the light was blinding. Then it died. She had pulled the plug.

=======================================================
More information: Harcourt Books website

The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian
by Robert E. Howard
463 pp. Ballantine Books 2003

The first 13 of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories have just been re-published in this trade paperback.

Don't judge these by the standards of the Schwarzenegger films. (I happen to like those films, but for other reasons.) Written in the 1930s, these are literally the original sword and sorcery stories, with the brutal Conan constantly encountering monsters, enslaved princesses and evil sorcerers. Anyone who likes fantasy should read at least a couple, even if only to see how the genre began. My personal favorite is "The Tower of the Elephant."

Now for the caveats.

These stories were aimed at a largely male pulp magazine audience. This was the 1930s equivalent of today's action film. Therefore, the testosterone quotient is pretty high. Women are usually depicted as weeping damsels in distress, which won't please some female readers.

The plots shamelessly cater to adolescent male fantasies and insecurities. Conan, the man of action, is always able to master whatever unexpected situation he's thrown into, usually by kicking butt all over Cimmeria, or Aquilonia, or whatever mythical country he finds himself in. Beautiful women melt at the mere sight of him. The plots are contrived so that these women are forced by circumstances to share his company. By the time the story's over, they refuse to leave him.

When you get right down to it, the sullen, inarticulate Conan is essentially a rather one-dimensional character. But I didn't care about that when I read these stories as a teenager.

After Howard committed suicide, other authors somehow took over the franchise and kept writing new Conan stories. Avoid these inferior works. I think they are now out of print, but they turn up regularly in used bookstores.

To the Castle Dangerous

From "The Tale of Sir Gareth" in Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur

Sir Gareth and an unpleasant nameless "lady" are forced to seek shelter in Sir Persaunte's castle. Gareth retires to bed and finds his virtue sorely tested -- a recurring theme in these tales:

That evening he (Sir Persaunte) summoned his beautiful daughter, who was aged eighteen: "My daughter, if you would please me, go to Sir Gareth, lie in his bed, take him in your arms and kiss him, and make him welcome as only a woman can."

At her father's bidding, the daughter went to Sir Gareth's bed, quietly undressed, and got in beside him. Sir Gareth swore, and asked: "Pray, who are you?"

"Sir, I am Sir Persaunte's daughter, and I come at his command, not of my own free will."

"Are you a maid or a wife?"

"Sir, I am a maid."

"Then God forbid that you should remain. It would be as shameful for me as for your father; so I beg you, return to him."

The daughter duly returned to her father, and told him all that had happened. "He must indeed be of noble blood," her father responded.

In the morning Sir Persaunte asked the lady where she was taking Sir Gareth.

"To the Castle Dangerous," she replied.

From Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, A New Rendition by Keith BainesMentor/New American Library ©Copyright 1962