The Sentimentalists

Most people can’t go home because of the gulf that exists between their childhood memories and reality. Many residents of Eastern Ontario can’t go home because it lies under the St. Lawrence Seaway.

War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
                    --Bruce Springsteen

In the wake of WW# 1&2 many children met their fathers for the first time at age 5: a man nervous, short-tempered, and irresolute: who had trouble getting or keeping a permanent job or completing anything he ever started.

The story ranges over the state of Maine, Upstate New York, and the Thousand Islands area of Ontario. Also Alberta, British Columbia and Fargo, North Dakota. The story ranges far and wide in between and eventually to Vietnam.

To quote Henry’s wife: “The war can’t explain you forever, you know. I think you should be gone by the time we get home.”

I had read nearly a quarter of the book before I realized the narrator was a woman, not a man.

Eventually in a book about Vets we end up in Vietnam as the point of view changes. This by way of allowing at least one Vet to talk about his War Experience. And this being Vietnam marijuana is involved. And as with most soldiers there were incidents a soldier would rather forget that continue to haunt him but about which he is reluctant to talk. Finally a man referred to as father turns out to be Napoleon Haskell.

Kikwaakew

Natives in Canada have a disproportionate amount of war service veterans among their numbers. This story picks up the life of a WW#1 amputee we first met in Three Day Road two decades later as he works his trap line and even manages snow shoes with a prosthetic limb. The title would seem to be the Cree word for wolverine. In a few short pages Joseph Boyden hits upon many of the issues facing aboriginal peoples in Canada. The dwindling resources that once supported a traditional lifestyle, inadequate health care, and the depredations of well-meaning priests in the lives of his people.

Labor Day

This is the short book upon which the thoroughly panned movie is based. There are three essential characters. A reclusive divorced young mother Adele, her teenage son Henry on the cusp of pubescence, and an escaped convict Frank they bring home for the weekend. Narrated by the boy, whatever little action there may be is constantly interrupted by his stream of consciousness ramblings. Justice is what can be proven in a court of law, no one ever claimed it was fair or just. If you’ve read The Bridges of Madison County you know how a few days a pair spend together can be life-changing. This is another such story, it takes a long time getting there but this one has a happy ending.

The Homecoming by Carsten Stroud

Carsten Stroud is a discovery for which I can thank a Toronto Star review when his first book came out. A Canadian by birth he was a law enforcement officer before writing became his full time profession. His first book, as I recall was Lizardskin. He continues to write police procedurals and his style has only improved with time. Highly recommended and highly readable. Not a genre I regularly frequent but I'll read anything that's well done.

His choice of place names and surnames: Niceville and Crossfire? This book has a dark tinge of the occult, paranormal about it. Old resident evil haunts hair-raising corners of the tale. There is demon possession. Like a lot of modern prose this book is wordy, filled with descriptions and atmospherics that do nothing to move the story along. The storyline is riddled with plots and cross-plots that make hefty demands of the reader challenging one to remember where it all began.

Further research shows that this is book 2 of a trilogy set in Niceville. The actual crime at the base of this tale was described in detail no doubt and committed in book 1. As I complete this volume I’m about to discover how much resolution is given is book 2 or if the reader is forced to buy book 3 to get the answers. Methinks a taut editing could have put the whole in one volume.

The Loop

There is no question but that the return of its top predator has been beneficial to America's Western Wildlands. No disputing the fact that local ranchers who extirpated wolves in the first place oppose their return. And since wolves can range for hundreds of miles local is a big territory and wolves are no respecter of park boundaries. They don't read maps and the ranchers whose stock they predate probably aren't excited about National Parks in the first place considering them a sop to useless city slickers seeking a bucolic vacation spot. To locals on both sides of the American border parks are lands where they can't hunt, trees are wasted for their scenic potential, mining and oil exploration are banned, and the tourists clutter their roads and local watering holes.

Its mythology makes of the wolf the stuff of nightmares. The fact that science has recorded no record of a healthy wolf attacking a human in no way diminishes the fear and loathing this animal invokes. The wildlife branch tasked with running interference for this ferocious predator have a thankless job seeking protection for a creature that is all too often its own worst enemy. That the animal is only doing what comes naturally doesn't wash well with local ranchers and their minders can't tell their charges to stay within park boundaries. Deer and moose on the contrary seem to know exactly where to go to remain safe during hunting season.

This book is the story of one such wolf/rancher encounter. It serves to make the controversy personal. That the writer lives in London probably doesn't make him sympathetic to real life ranchers. This is the second writer I've read this year who refers to a pickup truck as a car, that's like calling a fighter jet a passenger plane.

The novel begins by documenting the wolf attack and then backtracks to introduce the various players. The author has a tendency to get sidetracked spending chapters at a time in detailed the introduction of new characters before finally clarifying what they have to do with the plot.

The Loop can variously be interpreted as meaning an animal's territory, the circle of life in which the death of one creature sustains the life of another, or a cruel device designed for killing multiple wolves.

In the end it boils down to a balance between wolves doing what wolves will do and ranchers invading wolf habitat. Settlers killed off the wolves so they could run herds of cattle in their former territory. When government policy and environmental sense decreed the wolves should return to their former ranges it put them in conflict with ranchers. In a nation that exterminated and attempted to extirpate 100,000,000 indigenous peoples so they could settle the US the lives of a few hundred wild predators don't amount to much. Could we somehow make them sexy like the bald eagle?

Let us not forget that a bounty on Indian scalps matched that on wolves or that the buffalo were systematically slaughtered so that they couldn't support the Indians. Who of a certain age hasn't sheltered in a sled under a buffalo robe or kept warm in a wolf skin jacket?

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

In movie terms this is a high concept novel. Andrew is dead or everything in his world has died but death, a female, stalks the floors of a Roanoke Hospital somehow missing the lad. He skulks the floors sleeping in an unfinished wing, works in the cafeteria, visits patients in the pediatrics wing, shops in the gift shop, and haunts the ER where his love-ones died. The five stages of the title are those identified as the dying process in Kubler-Ross's On Death and Dying: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Andrew is gay. He may have been driving when the collision that killed his sister and parents occurred. He frequents critical care units where patients die. He encounters other gays on staff and fellow patients. In particular Rusty who has been the victim of systemic bullying. Andrew or Ben has graduated high school and worked as a volunteer fireman/paramedic. The story is about how he resolves his issues and in particular how running from them rather then confronting them fails to help.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

A book that should be required reading by all Federal and State Representatives and Senators and taught in all schools. It is to Aboriginal Affairs what Howard Zinn's similarly titled book is to working class Americans. Written using documents readily available it documents the Doctrine of Discovery which was seen as justifying the seizure of lands in the Americas by European colonial powers. It turns America's sacred mission to fulfill its manifest destiny of occupying the continent from Sea to Sea on its head. America was founded and expanded using a policy of extermination and assimilation of the resident aboriginal population that mirrors the Israelite's occupation of Palestine.

This is not easy reading. It sees the patriotic myths that underlie American jingoism as a cult of genocide and theft. Histories are typically written by the victors, this one was written on behalf of the victims.

The Awakening: The Vampire Diaries One

Have read one other book in the series. My motivation being a check to see if I feel it worthwhile to get interested in the CW TV Series based on the original books. Unfortunately it appears to be just another in the YA high school romance genre with Vampires thrown in. The similarities to Twilight are endless. It appears to be another opportunity to employ pretty boys and fawning girls to sell cosmetics ads and teenage fashions to a demographic loaded with disposable income.

The love triangle that forms the basis for this story is as old as history. A woman, who will not make up her mind as to which of two suitors she wants to favour turning brother against brother, friend against friend, even nation against nation. Helen of Troy; Lana Lang in Smallville; Tristan and Isolde; Joey Potter, Pacey and Dawson. None of these stories have happy endings. Of course when men do it we call it adultery, bigamy, or in male dominated societies allow multiple wives or harems. Where passion and jealousy are involved rational thought is abandoned.

Book two follows immediately even numbering the chapters sequentially.

The Guns at Last Light

Matters discussed here are all part of the historical record. Those who have not studied the history of WW#2 may find them spoilers. This is not the first history of WW#2 but it does have the advantage of using records recently declassified.

First comment from a Canadian, of course, is to highlight the fact that this History of WW#2 is written from an American point of view. The Yanks maintained their isolationist stance until December 7, 1941 when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour at which point it took another two years for them to ramp up their efforts and make any significant contribution to the war effort. Therefore the Liberation Trilogy of which this is book 3 begins in 1943, four years into the war. What the rest of us were doing until that point hardly seems to matter.

Three things stand out over and over again:

Military Intelligence. Planning depends on it and the best laid plans can fall apart when the unexpected happens and in war it usually does.

Fraticide. Before GPS finding a precise location from the air, by sea, and even on land was a tenuous process. Bombs were dropped on allied positions. Airborne troops were dropped over open ocean or miles from their intended drop zones. Fire missions hit wrong targets. Troops got lost or advanced into friendly fire and were landed by boat on the wrong beachhead.

Transport. An army marches on its belly. Landing troops is one thing. Keeping them fed and in ammunition quite another; motorized equipment cannot run without fuel. Air fields and ports become critical for materiel transport. Battles were won or lost by Quartermasters. Soldiers can't fight once they run out of bullets.

Of concern to the supreme commander, Eisenhower, was the need to mollify the egos of the generals who held command of the armies of the various combatants: Britain, France, Canada, and the US. Each wanted their opportunity to win glory and felt slighted when deprived.

The author continues to give historical background to the locations where engagements occur and to introduce new personalities as they appear. Attention is paid to both the Allied forces and the German leadership.

With the liberation of Paris High Command and Logistics move there. High Command balloons to 24,000 staff. With that many they could well have transported Gerry Cans of fuel across Europe by bucket brigade. To keep equipment fueled it took 1.5 gallons of aviation fuel to fly 1 gallon of truck or tank fuel. Supplies involved 800,000 separate items ordered from half way round the world for troops ever on the move that took up to 4 months to arrive. Imagine keeping several million men fed and in toilet paper. Americans are noted for prodigal wastage, they lost their guns, their ammo, their grenade launchers at ridiculous rates. Tires were shredded on tossed ration cans. Not only did they bomb Europe, they trashed it as well.

After Monty's Market Garden design fails he continues to be an exasperating egotistical little peacock planning pushes into Germany while neglecting to clear the approaches to Atwerp. While troops are forced to stand fast for lack of supplies ships lay anchored offshore for lack of berths to unload and supplies lay waiting in America for lack of transport. Meanwhile Monty fumes that sufficient resources are not being allocated to his schemes. Attacking Germany is sexier than clearing ports so his troops can have supplies.

Given Hitler's decrees that German soil be defended to the last man to the last bullet cities such as Aachen were pulverized building by building right down to their basement foundations.

In Band of Brothers a general is quoted as saying: “Flies spread disease, keep yours closed.” Venereal Disease is one of the dirty little secrets of war. The lack of proper clothing, malnutrition, and the spread of disease among men in close quarters lacking clean water and proper sanitation created more casualties than the actual fighting. Maladies of neglect such as trench foot invalided hundreds of thousands. None of this touches the psychological affects of endless warfare.

My pacifist leanings will become apparent. When the state sanctions the killing of their own citizens they call it capital punishment. When the state sanctions the mass-murder of the citizens of another country they call it war. Whatever jingoistic terms are used to pretty it up soldiers kill other human beings. Once that taboo is broken putting limits on the means used to do it seems specious. Until the American Civil War soldiers lined up on the battlefield and shot at one another. When labelling another the enemy makes killing him legitimate how do you define atrocity? Can there be gentleman's agreements as to the limits of barbarism.

Canadian Documentary Film Makers named McKenna were vilified by Veterans for portraying the Canadian War Effort in less than glowing lights. This author describes Bomber Harris and his bombing of German Civilian Targets in similar fashion. Some people seem to get a charge out of killing their fellow creatures. Military training instills that killer instinct for the murder of their fellow human beings. What the military has yet to deal with is deprogramming for a return to civilian life. How do you turn that off?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The decisions generals make gets their own men killed as well as the enemy. When generals make bad decisions their own men die needlessly and/or without accomplishing any useful objective. The exercise of that kind of power requires a certain amount of ego, some are better at keeping their egos in check than others.

In the end the Allies won the war because the Germans ran out of cannon fodder first. Wars are lost not won and in a war of attrition the loser is he who runs out of men and materiel first. This history makes it plain that this war was not lost because the Allies possessed such superior military skills. One of its strengths is the fact that it makes no effort to hide the blunders made by both sides.

One such blunder is known to history as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied intelligence believed that only a madman would initiate an all-out offensive in December 1944 but they discounted the fact that the orders were given by Hitler, not his generals. When their leaders make mistakes, soldiers die.

As portrayed Monty was an egomaniac who refused to follow orders and kept insisting that he be put in charge of all troops in the European Theatre. Problem being that this was Ike's job and the Generals in his fellow Allied Countries found Monty impossible to work with and assumed an either he or I stance. Once more Monty dithered and failed to act in time prevent German Troops from retreating when the “Bulge” failed them. His public statements antagonized British Allies. The writer is an American. It would be interesting to see how a British Historian would interpret the same set of facts. It is also obvious that the subject of this “History” is dead. To quote Churchill: “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” Lovers quarrels are part of Love.

The final sections of this book dealing with the discovery of the Concentration Camps is not reading for the faint of heart. Reading these books will have you reaching for your dictionary more than once. New words were coined to describe this war and new meanings given to old ones. The author uses some rather arcane language at times.

Mr Midshihpman Hornblower

If you’ve seen the mini-series starring Ioan Gruffuds this is the first in the series of Hornblower books upon which it was based. In the age of wooden sailing ships and iron men the officers of ships of the line commanded sailors recruited by press gangs from local jails and bars in port. Callow 17-year-old midshipman were officers in training giving orders to men twice their age.

The setting is a British man of war at the turn of the 18th Century. To be learned was the art of commanding men, the mechanics of cannon firing, the art of navigaion, the handling of sail, and manoeuvring a ship under sail. Advancement was as much a matter of luck as it was intelligence, keeping a level head and learning quickly under pressure. Cannon balls and grape shot are no respecters of rank or privilege. The art of leading men involves keeping a level head and knowing your own limitations so that you delegate authority to those who know their business. The captain of a ship must be seen to know all in order to keep the confidence of his men.

Written at the turn of the 19th Century the author appears to know his seamanship creating a series of historical novels set at sea that follows the career of a navy brat from midshipman in this first of the series through the ranks in succeeding novels all the way to Admiral. At a time when military officers purchased their rank rather than earning it competence was not guaranteed. This young officer learned his trade working his way up through the ranks. Beginning as a navy puke who became seasick in harbour getting rowed out to his first boat he gains his sea legs and the confidence of his men.

If you enjoy adventure at sea and the thought of hanging onto ratlines a hundred feet above a heaving deck doesn’t make you turn green then you’ll enjoy this series.

Borstal Boy

So I've watched the movie multiple times. Reading the book is somewhat spoiled for me and the differences made in the adaptation are immediately apparent. The picture on the cover clearly shows that Shawn Hatosy is far better looking. Whatever ratings the movie is given the book is not G rated.

Remember the it describes prison life. The language is of the lowest form of Cockney/Irish/English dialect laced with enough profanity to make a dockyard stevedore blush. These aren't choir boys. Fully half the book deals with his stay in the English Prison System before he is ever sent to Borstal.

The reading is rather tedious being excessively wordy. Eight people tell one another good night rather than putting it as I just did. We are given the words of the author's extensive repertoire of Irish ditties in Gaelic as well as English. The movie cast obviously weren't singers.

On the other hand to say that the movie version of this book is a loose interpretation is to understate the case. Behan's book may have been partially fictionalized but the script writers altered the facts presented here so radically the author would not have recognized himself were he alive today.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

The Raven Cycle takes fortune telling for granted. A principal character is a ghost. A group of private school boys are searching for an ancient king who lives in a magical realm situated on a line of power. If you accept these little details it's not a bad tale. It does require a fair dose of imagination and a great deal of suspension of disbelief. Oh, and we learned in book one that one of the boys will die before the year is out and Blue has been hearing as long as she can remember that if she kisses her true love he will die.

There's Richard Gansley III who lives in the converted factory he owns.

Noah Czerny, the ghost who lives in a room there.

Another Roommate, Ronan Lynch who has a younger brother Matthew and an older, Declan. Ronan has a pet Raven and in book 2 we learned he can dream things into existence—his father in fact dreamed his mother into existence.

Adam Parrish, the victim of child abuse who lives in rooms above a parsonage. A townie he lacks the other's financial resources.

“The students kept coming in. Adam kept watching. He was good at this part, the observing of others. It was himself that he couldn't seem to study or understand. How he despised them, how he wanted to be them.” (p. 63)

And Blue Sargent who lives with her Mother Maura, her Aunt and several other relatives and friends who make their living as psychics.

Book three tends to drag, it just hasn't grabbed my interest quite the same as books one and two. The private school boys have a sense of entitlement. It is taken for granted that what they want they'll get. When Gansley joins Adam before the judge the two are practically on a first name basis. The results are so foregone they aren't even mentioned.

Stuck Together

Third in a Cowboy Romance Series entitled Trouble in Texas. Set in the imaginary frontier town of Broken Wheel near Palo Duro on the Texas Panhandle in the mid-1800's. The story centres around a group of Northern Civil War Veterans whose bond was forged in the worst of circumstances in The South's most notorious prison. Luke Stone returns home in book one to find his father murdered and a stranger living on his spread. His buddies are Darius Riker the town's unofficial doctor, Jonas Cahill town preacher, and Vincent Yates town lawyer. This being a romance series in book one Luke marries a gal he rescues from a river flood. In book two Dare, the doctor marries Glynna adopting her teenage son and daughter after she takes over the town restaurant. Life is complicated when Jonas' sister arrives unannounced and as this book gets underway Vince's family arrives in town: ageing father, senile mother, illegitimate daughter—Vince's half sister and a fox hound. Vince's romance with his buddy Jonas' sister Tina is well telegraphed so that leaves Jonas to hook up with Melissa the new arrival. If this sounds like a spoiler the storyline is that obvious. Getting there the principals will lurch from disaster to disaster.

Mid-way through the book matters transpire exactly as predicted.

The Promise

I started this book which is number five in a series because of the number of plot lines left unresolved in book four. As the book begins it introduces an entirely new character and so far is silent on the subjects that interested me. As before, the population of Thunder Point keeps growing. And as it turns out the simple solutions are always the easiest.

Children graduate high school and leave home for college. In Canada it's grade 12, in America they're Seniors and go to fancy Proms and attend Fall Commencement and/or Homecoming. I graduated high school before the results of my provincially graded exams had even arrived. Deputy Yummy Pants becomes Lieutenant. Life continues and the drama of their lives lurches on from crisis to crisis.

The plot lines continue to be predictable and the characters petting, tonsil hockey, fore-play, and bedroom gymnastics remain a prominent part of the telling. There are three more E-books in the series and another in the works. Were I not reading them for free I would not have gotten past book one and as it is will not be going any further.

Go Set a Watchman

(Isaiah 21:6) For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he seeth:

This verse quoted from the prophet Isaiah would seem to be the source of the title. Chapter 7 in the book.

The adult Jean Louise returns home from New York to the community Scout grew up in, seeing it with adult eyes. There are frequent flash backs to her childhood experiences inspired by what those eyes now see.

The traumas she experienced listening to school yard gossip and picking up miss-information she lacked a mother to correct continue to haunt her.

(1 Corinthians 13:11) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a (wo)man, I have put away childish things.

The genie is out of the bottle but part of Scout would love to put it back.

This is a woman who smokes and defies convention by walking around in public in pants.

Those who are disturbed by this book have probably never read To Kill a Mockingbird, knowing it only from the romanticized movie version, a common error in this post-literate society.

Just a Minute More

If the vignettes in the previous two books in the series were read on air in one minute then Ms. Boulton started talking much faster as the set in this volume are at least half again as long. She still continues to make history interesting but this set of stories seems to feature events more than individuals and the people she talks about often don't live happy lives.

The Chance

Follows directly from The Hero incorporating people we've already met. Still set in Thunder Point, the community just keep growing. I've never been a fan of Romance Novels but this series just seems to keep growing on me. Book four in the series ends with many plot lines unresolved making it imperative I read Book five.

Fired Up

Follows directly from book one in the Trouble in Texas Series that began with Swept Away. Once more Cowboy Romances superior in nature to anything written by L'Amour or Zane Grey but with no pretensions of being great literature. As is written of many B-movies, okay time-wasters, or a pleasant way to curl up in an easy chair when you don't want a challenging read. This is not to say that they don't confront difficult issues.

White settlers laid claim to the Mother Earth native peoples felt no one could own and hunted the Buffalo on which they depended to near extinction. The Texas Longhorn Cattle, descendents of escaped Spanish herds developed immunity to diseases that plagued most other cattle whereas native peoples' numbers were decimated by European Diseases.

Texas at the time this story is set was a land before the law and legal statutes held sway. Hence we have a lawyer who had no degrees, a doctor who hadn't studied medicine and a restaurant owner who couldn't cook. What we do have is a confraternity of men whose attitude is us against the world.

Though I realize it may be a challenge to make day to day drudgery sound interesting this book seems to go to the other extreme of piling disaster on disaster. To put it more plainly I preferred book one in the series to this one.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Second in JK Rowling's booklets this one a text book for a course taught by Hagrid at Hogwarts owned by Harry Potter. There are 1000's of weird and wonderful critters on this earth and in its ocean depths. To look at your own skin under a microscope is a scary prospect. Legends of even more mythical creatures whose existence is in doubt persist in popular culture. Dragons and unicorns exist in song and on English Heraldry. There are also supposed sightings of sea monsters, creatures that live in deep lakes such as the Loch Ness Monster or Ogopogo, and wild men of the mountains variously called Yeti or Abominable Snowman. JK Rowling builds upon these mythical creatures and adds ones of her own.

The Hero

Book 3 of this series that numbers 9 at present begins with a minor character. What's important is the fact there may be minor characters but in Carr's world there are no unimportant ones. As new people arrive in this town of 1500 the ones we already know are not neglected; they just meet new people. This continues to be a good read with some bedroom gymnastics thrown in for those who need the titillation.