Hondo

Hondo by Louis L’Amour is a Historical, Western Romance set in the 1800’s in the desert region of the Colorado Rockies. Like so many of L’Amour’s books it was made into a movie in 1953 starring John Wayne filmed in Utah. I was moved to download and read this Bantam Book after finding about twenty of his novels on display at the Travel Bureau in Mancos just east of the author’s ranch in Hesperus. If I’d known I’d forgotten that these novels generally contain a love interest.

L’Amour vividly evokes the desert landscape through which I’ve been driving for the past few weeks. He is also familiar with horses, their anatomy, their health issues, and their quirks. He understands desert survival skills, tracking, hunting, fishing, and living off the land. He has also researched Ute, Apache, and Anasazi oral traditions, lifestyles, and warfare. His attention to detail rings true and gives a sense of authenticity to his writing. Calling it great literature may be a stretch but it makes an easy read and evokes a sense of pioneer life and at nearly 100 books one has much to enjoy.

As Hondo has been employed by the military fun is made of West Point graduates sent out to command platoons in Indian Country. Little has changed over the centuries as Sebastian Junger makes similar comments about West Point Lieutenants in Afghanistan. If you’ve seen the movie you know that there much is made of the bond that develops between the 6-year-old son of the abandoned ranch wife and the gruff despatch rider who happens upon their isolated valley; in the book this relationship is only implied and much more attention is paid to life at the fort and on patrol for the cavalrymen who attempt to put down an Indian uprising.

The Morcyth Saga

The Morcyth Saga by Brian S. Pratt is essentially a single book in seven instalments the first of which was offered free on Barnes and Noble's Nook System, the concept of getting one hooked so the remaining books in the series be bought having worked in my case though I went to another source for the remaining 6. The books are essentially one long Dungeons and Dragons role-playing session that runs for several years in the life of it's central character James, a youthful mage. Whereas the first two books begin well by the third it starts to stretch belief that one person could possibly get himself involved in that many scrapes and escape each essentially unscathed. The characterizations and interpersonal relationships are well-taken and the books certainly don't lack for action-adventure.

Though I realize not everyone is as fanatical about grammar as I one would expect that someone who reached his twenties in the nineties uses a word processor to write. Why then would even a simple word-processor not have caught the spelling errors, the incomplete sentences, and dangling participles and run-on sentences. It seems obvious that editors no longer do much editing.

Full Circle

Full Circle by Michael Thomas Ford is the story of two childhood friends who grow up experimenting with gay sex before they can even give their exploration of each other’s bodies a name. While one has a predeliction to play the field the other, who narrates the tale, tends toward more monogamous relationships and feels betrayed when others stray. In telling the story of these lives Ford lays out the history of the gay movement, the Vietnam War, and the scourge that AIDS becomes in the gay community.

With its insights into the dynamics of family life, boyhood relationships, the high school and college experience, growing maturity and self-awareness, military life, this book rises above the level of most gay literature to become in part a sociological and psychological examination of modern society. Beginning with a phone call in the middle of the night in the present day, the narrator takes us back to the story of his grandparents and parents, his birth, and his life to the point where the phone rings. As impressed as I was with the first two-thirds of the book I began to get incredulous at the idea that one person could have been involved in the lives of so many important historic personages and as struck as I was with the aptness of the first half of the book the author seems to have run out of steam at some point along the line and the eventual closing chapters seem truncated and incomplete.

North and South

North and South, Love and War, Heaven and Hell

These are the names of a three-book trilogy by John Jakes which form the basis for a three-part mini-series for TV shot in the early 1980ies. The storyline begins 140 years previous when fate creates a union between the families of a northern industrialist and a southern plantation owner. In comparing the two treatments one is struck by the fact that a movie shows what happened through action and dialogue while a novel explains the action through dialogue and commentary. Whereas the novels can tell us about the great conflicts that occurred the movies were dependent to a large degree on a huge cadre of Civil War re-enactors and the good graces of National Historic Sites Committees. Throughout there is a co-mingling of actual historic figures and the fictional characters of the novels.

Each family is held together by a strong and steadfast matriarch who holds her family together while supporting her husband and reluctantly taking over the running of the family business with the premature death of their husbands. Both patriarchs are successful businessmen who though set in their conservative ways mean the best for the men and women who work under them. When we see the comparison between the working and living conditions of the slaves on a southern cotton plantation and the men who work in a northern ironworks we are at pains to decide if there is any difference.

The families are united by the chance meeting of a son of each on their way to Westpoint as much to broaden their horizons and learn new ways of doing things as to become soldiers. The two become fast and life-long friends despite their cultural, philosophical and sociological differences. While at the Point these two make the fateful acquaintance of an upper classman in the person of Elkanah Bent, the bastard son of a Senator who while giving him every economic and physical advantage has left him a resentful, spite-filled malcontent who will continue to shadow both men’s futures.

Orry Main played by Patrick Swaze is the southerner who betrays his background as a slave owner the second he opens his mouth. His oldest sister Ashton is a petulant scheming Southern Belle devoid of any moral fibre who shows her true nature in our first meeting when as a young child she crushes a bird’s egg and smears it on her sister’s pinnafore rather than return it to its nest. That younger sister Brett from that first encounter displays a kindly thoughful nature that looks always first for the best in people. In later chapters we meet a younger cousin Charles, the black sheep of the family. As he is leaving for the Point Orry has a fateful meeting with Madelaine Fabray which leads to love at first sight although Fabray’s Father engineers her marriage to Justin LaMotte owner of the neighbouring plantation whose methods epitomize all that was worst in the slave-owning tradition. Rounding out this group is Salem Jones, the Main’s overseeer whose iron discipline is distinguished by the fact that he relishes cruelty and displays it by whipping the brother of the slave he is sleeping with when he shows resentment.

George Hazard is the scion of the Hazard Ironworks in LeHigh Station Pennsylvania. His older brother Stanley is first in line to take over the family business but has a weak personality and is overly influenced by a scheming wife who will do anything to get ahead. Their older sister Virgilia is a fanatical abolitionist obsessed with doing anything possible to advance the cause. Their younger brother Billy later continues the family tradition by joining Westpoint in concert with Charlie Main.

The lives of these two families play out against the background of increasing tensions between the slave-owning Southern States and the industrial North. The flash point becomes the argument over whether new states will have the option of being slave-states and is ignited by the election of President Lincoln who opposes this measure. Secession and war ensues. In the end it is the South’s dependence on an agrarian economy and Its huing to the mantra of States Rights that leads to Its ultimate defeat. The South lacks the industrial base to produce arms and cannon and the refusal of individual states to surrender control of their militias to the central Confederate Government makes it difficult for Its Generals to provision or manoeuvrer Its armies. Indeed, since all Its railways are laid in a north and south pattern and each state uses its own gauge of tracks it is soon seen as easier to move goods by horse and waggon. As the last major war in history in which troops lined up on the field of battle and fired on one another this became a war of attrition in which millions died. With its ports blockaded by the North the South was totally dependent on Its own dwindling resources. Dramatically illustrated is the fact that this Civil War was a battle between brothers and friends. Many like the Southern General Robert E Lee were drawn into this fight by their loyalties to their heritage rather than their conviction for the rightness of the cause. Lee’s ride to the schoolhouse at Appomattox is a poignant display of honour and pride.

Before he could cement a reunion of North and South in the aftermath of this blood bath which would have been in the tradition of a Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu, Lincoln was assassinated and more vindictive minds directed the reconstruction. In the South the economy ground to a halt as slaves granted their freedom left their former owners in droves but soon discovered they lacked the means to support themselves or the ability to find gainful employment. With the defeated Southern Army retreating home law and order ceased to exist in the South replaced by Northern Carpet Baggers and bands of resentful men like Salem Jones and like-minded landless malcontents who formed the Klu Klux Klan. The resentments caused by this painful reconstruction continue to plague the South to this very day.

The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien’s memoir of his experience in Viet Nam begins with his dalliance with the idea of becoming a draft-dodger to Canada. So prevalent was this reaction to the draft that in the Initiation Week package I was given upon university registration in 1967 was a Guide to American Draft Dodgers To Canada. He utlimately served in Viet Nam and this series of loosely connected short stories details the experience of he and his fellow squad members.

The things they carried were not limited to the items on their persons and in their packs but extended to the psychological baggage they brought with them to Nam, the physical and mental scars they suffered in battle, and the trauma they brought back with them state-side. Call it post-traumatic stress disorder, battle-fatigue, Gulf-War Syndrome, shell shock.... the aftermath of war for the participants lingers long after the vets return. It is now posited that dealing with the needs of those vets wounded in body, mind, and spirit is likely to cost 3 times what it cost to wage the battle in the first place.

I read this book at least a month ago but it was still fresh in my mind when I read Junger’s War. The sense in which both books demonstrate how the experience of combat makes re-integration into normal society difficult if not almost impossible links these two books in my mind. Can we afford the price we pay for so injuring so many of our youth?

Breaking Dawn

This is book 4 of the series by Sephanie Meyers which began with the book Twilight in which Bella leaves a desert city in Arizona to come to rainy Forks in Washington State to live with her father the town sheriff. Although she has a childhood friend in the person of Jacob, son of her father’s hunting and fishing buddy from the La Push Reserve her world is shaken up by her introduction to the enigmatic Edward, who turns out to be a modern-day ‘vegetarian’ vampire--his family drink animal blood. Already popular with the teenage girl set the series went viral upon its adaptation for the screen with the chalky-faced Robert Pattison making fun of the sculpted-abbed Taylor Lautner’s lack of upper body attire.

Having driven through Forks and seen the old pickup truck parked outside the Chamber of Commerce I can attest to the fact that it exists as well as the reserve out at the coast. The town’s other claim to fame is as the jumping off spot for hikers bound for Mount Olympia and the rest of Olympic National Park. Only rabid Twilight fans and those who love rain need bother come. The place boasts 144 inches of yearly rainfall.

With book 4 Bella finally gets her vampire and her wish to be transformed as well despite the wishes of her werewolf buddy Jake. At nearly 800 pages this book is an undertaking for Twilight Fans only and has been split into a two-part movie.

WAR

Reading Sebastian Junger’s War not only transports one to Afghanistan but introduces one to vocabulary and thought processes alien to those outside the military. C-Wire, Bee Huts, and the concept of blousing. Blousing came up in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers in relation to airborne soldiers in training and the state of their pant legs. At the time I passed it over but this time I was moved to research the topic. Here’s a video demonstrating how it’s done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY1Sb6KgVEY&NR=1

and yet another describing the process in relation to shirts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeycYShS2MI

Blousing it seems refers to the process of folding clothing fabric so that it conforms to the wearer’s body, hence the name given to a tailored women’s shirt. If you watch the first video and note that the speeded up process takes nearly 7 minutes and the second takes two people to put on a shirt and pull up one’s pants one can only hope there is a practical application to justify all this effort. If the only purpose served is the brass’s idea of smart appearance then I can fully understand why troops in the field quickly abandon such wasted effort. As Arnold Epstein in Biloxi Blues would say, there’s my way and the military way.

Junger brings a scientific psychological analysis to the pursuit of War. After demonstrating the nature of troop comraderie in the face of brutal attacks he goes on to give historical and research-based context to courage, bravery and heroism in battle. He describes how brotherly love forms the basis for most acts of courage and bravery; how that sense of community is best fostered and the ideal numbers needed to form a cohesive group. He also demonstrates that battle fatigue and fear are not triggered by battle but by the underlying psychological make-up of the soldier himself and the life difficulties he is experiencing on the home front.

Modern warfare is fought as much in the arena of public opinion in situ as on the field of battle. If you can win the propaganda battle with the local population you’re likely to meet fewer of them at the end of a gun and outside insurgents are likely to be less welcome. Finally he highlights the cruel truth that the adrenalin rush of battle ill fits those who experience it for return to civilian life and the grinding bureaucracy it entails. Those who are most ill-suited to civilian life make the best soldiers. If you haven’t had the experience there’s no way of properly explaining it or the sensations that come back to those who have and make the attempt. Junger, who vicariously had the experience for us, makes the attempt.

Twilight

Of course I’ve seen the movie so in some sense the book itself is spoiled, I want to read book 2 in the series before it comes out on DVD. What’s interesting is to read the descriptions of the characters and see who the producers came up with to play them in the motion picture version. As I’ve said before, I’ve actually been to Forks and Port Angeles so I have a sense of place for the locale.

The book evokes perfectly the teenage girl’s sense of awakening sexuality and pre-occupation with boys. With all those raging hormones and emotional upsets concentrating on anything else must be difficult. Bella’s lack of physical co-ordination inherited from her father, the police chief, is a source of embarrassment and humiliation.

What makes a male arrestingly handsome? Anthropologists have determined that the combination of features so perceived is rather average in nature but there has to be more than physical beauty to rivet attention. Call it charisma, the inner soul, or a person’s aura but somehow some people just seem to have ‘it’. The vampire aspect of the novel is as much a metaphor for teenage angst and danger here as it was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Bella’s relationship with her Father who happens to be chief of police of a small town is a unique one. In many senses she Mothered her own divorced Mother being in many ways the more mature of the two. When she comes to Forks she assumes a similar relationship with her Father taking over the management of his household, cooking his meals and doing his shopping. The two do not have a close physical relationship as father and daughter and do not vocalize their feelings for one another. In fact they spend much of their days never seeing one another. But she arrives to find Charlie has a truck already available for her use and when there’s an ice storm she drives to school discovering that before he left for work her father put chains on her tires.

Great literature this may not be but it is very effective in evoking the experience and feelings of a female teen in a small town.