The Crossing: Cormac McCarthy

Well this one really froze me up for a bit. There are Books I-IV and they can really feel as such. Again, McCarthy has lulled me into his slowly developing tale, but along the way I became attached to Billy Parham much in the same way I had with John Grady Cole. I love McCarthy's descriptions of the land and his attention to details regarding the joys of simple work, the majesty of horses and other animals, and to the difference between age-old wisdom and book smarts among men. The only parts in The Crossing that can really wear on a reader and slow one's progress through this novel are the often long and extremely detailed stories told by random acquaintances met on the road. To be sure, this is where Mr. McCarthy reveals a deep understanding of philosophy and local history and some critics may find these tales of oral-aural history from the random gypsies, vaqueros, and priests of McCarthy's old Mexico to be the true splendor of his prose, but they pop up out of nowhere and sometimes drag on. I am also willing to admit that they give great insight to his character's patience and wisdom beyond their years as John Grady, or in this chapter Billy Parham sit listening only to reply with thoughtfully formed questions, but again, I found myself getting stuck on them and longing to get on with the plot. The Crossing, much like All The Pretty Horses, is a sad story and it makes me expect nothing different from Cities of the Plain, which I have thus far sped through about 50 pages or so excited about the prospect of these two great characters coming together. It seems that Billy will certainly take to John Grady, seeing the resemblance between he and poor Boyd. Often one must find a character to grow attached to for a novel to grab a hold of he or she and McCarthy will give you those, but I am finding that the author's style of purposefully keeping his reader in the dark and slowly revealing truths as he sees fit and his simple, understated way of writing dialogue are growing on me just the same way. Keep reading and I'll keep trying to catch up.

Slaughterhouse Five: Kurt Vonnegut

Another high-school beaute. I wasn't one hundred percent sure that I hadn't read Slaughterhouse Five when I picked it up and started reading chapter one in the aisle of an undisclosed corporate monstrosity of a book store. Vonnegut's time-travel timeline kept me uncertain long enough to become thoroughly sucked in before realizing I definitely hadn't been assigned this one. Mr. Vonnegut's decision to choose such a sad character as his hero may be an extreme factor in its timeless effect and popularity. Billy Pilgrim's adventures in space, time, and sanity have undoubtedly influenced artists and authors and the literary technique of a skipping plot line has remained popular and prominent in works ranging from Quantum Leap to the movies of Quentin Tarantino. Of course, Vonnegut didn't invent the idea of time travel or the schizophrenic plot jumps, but his innovative description of what was once called shell-shock and is now referred to as post traumatic stress disorder was unprecedented and arguably more true than a non-fiction report on World War II or the Dresden firebombing (just ask Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried). Like many Americans I find myself always drawn to and interested in anything World War II. Part of this may revolve around the fact that my grandfather was shot down over the Mediterranean Sea and spent two years in a Nazi prison camp. The story surrounding his parachuting, being picked up by a German ship, being marched right through a Hitler rally, and surviving in POW camp while his friends were all shot trying to escape is too remarkable to not have a profound effect on me and make me stop to thank god that I exist every now and then. John Brown somehow survived and continued to raise his family and was an amazing grandfather and so it goes. As for Slaughterhouse Five, it is short and you should read it. If you don't believe me check the Wikipedia article, which in this case is well referenced and beautifully concise and informative. Grazie.

Oil!: Upton Sinclair

Oil! is the 1927 novel by Pulitzer-Prize winning author and socialist politician, Upton Sinclair. Sinclair doesn't hesitate to reveal his pink blood in this work of semi-fiction, which claims to be full of truths which have been shuffled like the cards of a poker game. I suppose at the time of it's publication the public was much more aware of his political aspirations and even his failed attempt to create a utopian society in New Jersey, but I had only thought he was a socialist journalist and sympathizer until doing further research mid-story. The plot is not like There Will be Blood at all. At All. Sure, there are some of the same characters and the beginning's match up a bit, but the main character of the book is the son, J. Arnold Ross Jr. (Bunny), and the tale revolves much more heavily around Bunny's socialist struggles including the creation of a four-page paper, the attending of meetings world wide, and the borrowing of dad's money to bail out political prisoners of the party. Oil! also features a loose fictional expose of the early years of the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal), mixed and "shuffled" with what Sinclair claims as facts (at least some of which can be verified through U.S Senate reports and Historical texts) about Sinclair Oil and Edward L. Doheny's roles in the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding administration. Teapot Dome, for readers of my generation who don't remember from U.S. History, was the biggest government scandal before Watergate and involved oil tycoons bribing government officials to acquire private leases of U.S. Naval Oil Fields in Wyoming and in Elk Hills and Buena Vista of Southern California. In the novel, our hero's father and some of his powerful associates purchase the entire presidency and pay off cabinet officials through a company in Canada. One direct correlation to known fact in the novel is the $100,000 bribe made by "Dad" and Vernon Roscoe, which is the exact dollar amount paid by Harry Sinclair to Albert B. Fall, then Secretary of the Interior, who was eventually indicted on charges of conspiracy and accepting bribes and eventually served prison time.  All in all, this book was much longer and slower than The Jungle and in my opinion is much less of a must read. I did enjoy Oil!, as historical fiction, but honestly found myself becoming more and more attached to J. Arnold Ross Sr. despite his shady dealings. Sure, he was paying off government officials and making moves on some unsuspecting country bumpkins, but he was an extremely loving and understanding father. He built his own American dream by playing the game the way the people in power played and he always respected Bunny's ideals and even strove to be as fair and understanding of the worker's plight as he could until he was overpowered by the big boy's of the Oil Manufacturer's Legion. Bunny was a good kid and really wanted to do good in the world and figure things out for himself, but his lack of guts and street smarts just wore me out long before the slow and bitter descent to a sad ending spawned from Mr. Upton Sinclair and his party's failure to create change in our capitalist society and government. Boo Hoo. 

The Jungle: Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle, was not what I expected going in. Upon reading some articles and doing a little research I discovered that my pre-reading expectations were not uncommon. They were in fact the result of the American reaction to the novel from all the way back to it's original publication. The Jungle is most commonly known-especially among those who have not read it- as an expose of the horrors of the Chicago meat-packing industry around the turn of the century and what types of despicable and disgusting things were being fed to the general public. Sinclair had hoped to strike a chord with the public and show the plight of the poor immigrants who were locked into horrible jobs and tricked at every turn into remaining poor, eating poor, and being worked into the ground as fast as possible so that other, newer, younger immigrants could come in and follow in the same path. He wanted to give detailed descriptions of how these scenarios forced families to send all of the women and young children to work to scrape just enough to get by between the entire family. He wanted to uncover the local government's corruption and the union's useless struggle to fight for the common workers. Well...the book does all of this and it really drags the reader into the gutter. These being hard times for the average American, currently, I found this book to be one of the ones that reminded me of how much worse it could be and was for many of my Irish ancestors. In the test of time, however, the plight of the immigrants is not the main enduring theme. Instead, the theme that made The Jungle an almost instant best-seller and has remained the novel's calling card for over a century now is the mistreatment of meat and meat products by the Chicago stock-yard conglomerates. The use of chemicals and food coloring to trick consumers into eating beef and pork infected with tuberculosis. The pay-offs and head turnings of so called health inspectors. The overlooking of workers falling to their death in the rendering tanks and being turned into "Durham's Pure Beef Lard." The truth about "head cheese." Oh, just typing this makes me sick. Why have these themes triumphed over Sinclair's portrayal of the follies of our capitalist society? Well, other than the fact that capitalism forged our rise to power and socialism is the work of the DEVIL, I mean Obama, I mean the DEVIL!!! (That message brought to you by Fox News)... the book helped bring about new legislation, which ultimately led to the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Sinclair was still rightfully unpleased by even this development due to the fact that the inspections and cost lay on the hands of the government and therefore the American taxpayers and not the packers themselves. Large scale food industry mishaps also remain relevant today due to documentaries like "Super Size Me," and "Fast Food Nation," which show a lack of true development and progress in the by-product laced beef of the American diet. Still, the many students of my generation who didn't read this one are missing out on the harsh tale of the odds stacked against relatives and ancestors of ours who came to this great nation as recent as a hundred years ago. Our grandparents and their parents may have and most likely were subjected to some of the same circumstances as Jurgis Rudkis and his family. Along the way I pulled for Jurgis and felt all of his torment. The lies, the struggles, the deaths, the impossibilities. When he broke away on his own I thought he might finally make it. False hope welled up inside as he took to hobo-ing it. Alas, the roller coaster only continued to show him highs and lows and in the end Sinclair rode the brakes down a never ending hill until I damn near fell asleep reading a socialist speech spoken to a small crowd in a Chicago hotel. Still, The Jungle is a must read today just as it was back in '06 and I am very glad to have added it to this project. I was most surprised by the socialist manifesto at the end, which left me feeling a little baffled and the story open-ended, but it isn't the first time I've finished a novel and thought: "Oh, so I guess novels don't always have to have an ending. Sometimes they are just a cross section of random history and fiction that kind of reel out of the author until he or she decides to stop on a whim and call it a day."

Hello, Midge? You there?

Hell you been?
Here, just busy.
You still readin'?
Yessir.
You going to post somethin' soon?
Yessir, just finishing two books right now.
Good. What's the hold up?
Just got a recession busting job and I been busy, thass all. Not going to let the whole thing slip just yet.
Good. You let me know.
Yessir.

The Midge has been floating in the fray and reading as much as possible, but a new gig that runs in the evenings coupled with a few trips out of town has made finishing Jazz and The Crossing quite a feat. I had to stop in and let my millions of fans know that I will be posting both novel reviews as soon as possible and I am not going to let the Midget die so soon. Happy V Day and Happy Black history month....be on the lookout for new posts, thanks.

1984: George Orwell

Finally. Now I know what all the talk is about. Big Brother is so much more than let on by the cheap uses by politicians and news media swine. The power of this novel is truly undeniable. It is the most translated novel period according to John Rodden's The Politics of Literary Reputation, with translations in sixty-five languages. The uses of other terms from the book beyond Big Brother including: doublethink, thoughtcrime, and ultimately Orwellian, the term based on the totalitarianism written about by Orwell in both this novel and Animal Farm (which I did read in high-school) and is in the Oxford Dictionary, say it all on this topic. Period. Therefore, I will stick to the story and my personal review and feelings of it. From the jump, Orwell brilliantly takes the reader into the "future" and makes them feel the oppression of The Party. I found it extremely hard to endure the second half of this book because I dearly and enthusiastically wanted Winston to somehow overcome the impossible odds. The diary represents a certain freedom and even the space in Mr. Smith's apartment where the tele screen can't see him is special. His paranoia and desire to thwart the powers that be are so easy to immediately identify with and Orwell masterfully puts the reader inside Winston's troubled head. These atrocities which are so precisely executed by The Inner Party and so easily swallowed by the members of The Outer Party enrage the mind of the 20th and 21st century reader. Certainly, the American reader with his strong ideals and beliefs in the power of freedom and each individuals god given right to be free. By the time that things are starting to look up and Julia enters the picture one finds himself elated at the prospects of what will come in books two and three. When the two characters finally flee the eyes and ears of Big Brother and meet at Julia's hiding place in the forrest to make love it is a thing of beauty. Even Winston's declaration that the more she'd done it and the higher number of partners the more it turned him on due to the power of numbers against The Party and that the act was solely to go against The Party- the hatred of which bred all of his lust- could not ruin the heat in Orwell's love scene. Fiery and passionless lust the very description of which is an act of doublethink. Oh, but how far your feeble joys will fall, dear reader. Mr. Orwell will soon show you that Winston was right all along and knew his own fate. Even that of Mr. Syme. The only surprise would turn out to be that Parsons would find himself among the ranks of the thoughtcriminals as well. And to my dismay Mr. Orwell will illuminate that before we even met Winston his fate was already laid before his feet. That the very diary he'd purchased a few weeks before the first page  had already incriminated him if his own face had not betrayed him to the telescreen long before. Or perhaps some small whimper in the night through dream. Oh, but the rabbit hole goes much farther than that...This book is certainly a must read and it's place in history is solidified it's line on every literary list saved. The books of January are now closed and on to February the midget must trudge. Thanks.

You can read 1984 online for free.... George Orwell's 1984

John Krakauer: Into the Wild

January was the month of McCarthy and Krakauer for the Midget. Two works hailed as classics and claimed by many scholars and buffs to be "must reads" were also completed and enjoyed. They being Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, an unforgettable piece, and the next articles focus, 1984. Every book read in this first month of the project was one that was on my mind for a long time and felt extremely good to slowly start, become entangled in, and ultimately discover what all the fuss was about. I was not let down in any manner. This second Krakauer report was actually well known to me long before I'd ever heard of Into Thin Air. I vaguely remembered being struck by the news of the Everest disaster in 1996 when it was all over the media for a quick minute, but that's about it. Into the Wild, however, is one that I remember seeing in the homes of a lot of people of different ages over the years since it was first published. Friend's and their older brothers or parents, aunts and uncles, many people, seemed to hold the book in the highest esteem and sternly bade me to read it every time I inquired. Once. I even picked it up maybe 10 years ago and read the first chapter. I was convinced I would go purchase and read it based on how enraptured I was by the opening description of Chris McCandless' end. Didn't happen. When the movie was under production I was again reminded of this story from my uncle who had read the book when it first came out and felt a close connection to McCandless. As a former crazy Tahoe youth and daredevil downhill skier and mountain adventurer my uncle Patrick easily took the book to heart and probably relived many close calls from his early twenties. He became even more involved with the prospects of the movie when he found out that Sean Penn had contacted out dear family friend and best friend of Patrick's, Jerry Hannan, to write a song for the soundtrack. Jerry, who often plays Irish folk tunes and his own brand of gritty California folk and Americana at our family parties ended up working in the studio with Eddie Vedder to record his song "Society," which was featured in the movie and considered for an Academy award. (note: Jerry told me that Vedder was an extremely nice guy and actually was the one who fought hard and eventually put his foot down when the production company tried to fuck Jerry out of his copyrights and thus residual pay for "Society.") So, having the soundtrack and having seen the movie long ago I finally set out to read this book and fill in all of the blanks in the story. It was tough to read at some points. I will once again admit that I cried at least once while reading this second Krakauer book (what will happen if I decide to go get his newest book on Pat Tillman?) These tragedies are true and extremely well reported and descriptively told and therefore beyond difficult to swallow. Did I feel any personal connection? Well, I admittedly once tried to hit the road at 17 during my freshmen year in college after reading On The Road. I caught a Greyhound to Chico and I can remember more than anything the feeling of flying and freedom that welled up inside after I had purchased the ticket and was happily eating a bagel and flipping through vinyl in downtown Santa Cruz. I figured I would head up to Chico and work in a restaurant for a few weeks of months then take my cash and hit the road down to Arizona to stay with my brothers. I had this ridiculous idea that I could just bounce from college town to college town and stay with kids I knew from home or else find new friends and eventually make it out to the east coast for a while. Didn't happen. I didn't even make it a day. I didn't have the talent or skills of Chris McCandless and I certainly hadn't been out alone on the road before or to the east coast at all nor did I have a real plan. I broke into and slept in the house of some friends who were out partying and drunkenly saw me sleeping on their couch when they stumbled in a 3am and then I rose in the morning before anyone was awake to return to the bus station and ride down to Oakland where I called my mom and was picked up and taken home with my tail up my ass. Does this and other small and silly adventures make me feel a real connection with Chris? Only in a very small way. A wistful kind of connection to the human spirit and the spirit of a young man maybe, but I would never compare any crazy stunts I pulled to what McCandless was capable of and actually did. Sure, I like many young men felt at times that I was indestructible and risked my health and life for adrenaline and cheap thrills, but he was a brilliant young mind who ventured way farther out on the ledge and the seemingly small mistakes that were enough to end his life are extremely saddening. Sometimes the world just cant handle a young person like Chris. They are so full of life and touch so many people and experience so much that nature, or god just decides they've done enough. It's sad and it always seems to be the most special breed of person, but Chris McCandless remains immortal in the spirit of youth, adventure, and American excitement. Rest in Peace.