The Star Machine (Jeanine Basinger, 2007)

(553 pages)

Divided into two parts - the first discusses the rise and workings of the Hollywood studio system's "star machine" - as at least the author calls it - the second part (which is 75% of the book) goes into extensive discussions of individual stars - I barely skimmed this second part.

But the first part was quite interesting.  PJ and I much enjoy movies of the 1930s and 1940s as well as some of the 1950s stuff.  She's much more knowledgeable than me - much better exposure to this content in her growing-up years - in Iowa we only saw an occasional late-night movie.  I think our tilt toward this era reduces our interest in more modern movies - we're neither used to, nor looking for, graphic content (whether violence or otherwise).  Anyway, we continue watching lots of shows from this era.

Hadn't appreciated the factory-level scope of the big studios - they handled everything - author states that MGM could put out a full-length movie every nine days (1950).  In addition to the big-name folks - fleets of people ready to be put into a scene on short notice.  In a world without TV, the demand for the product was there.

Hard work for the most-used actors - in addition to full days on the set, time required at night to memorize the next day's lines.  Discussions of the seven-year contract, lack of control by the actors, etc. - probably tough, but seems like "first world problem".

Finding a "type" for each star - then putting that star in a movie where he or she could play to type repeatedly - this is what the audience wanted (or had been trained to want).  I've mistakenly criticized some of those stars along the lines of "he can only play himself" - but that was exactly how the studio wanted me to feel.

Author spends a lot of time on Tyrone Power (and they put him on the book's cover) - considered so handsome that he was a little hard to typecast (plus he later (perhaps too much later) wanted more serious roles, which wouldn't then have played to his "type") - anyway we're interested in Tyrone because EMG was compared to him pretty relentlessly in the 1940s.

The New Sorrows of Young W. (Ulrich Plenzdorf, 1972)

(139 pages)

Author does a take-off on Goethe's famous work.  Set (and written) in GDR days, and the story line includes Communist Party-era frustrations and jokes.  Somewhat uses the epistolary method (a la Goethe's Werther), though with cassette tapes.

Protagonist at first seems an annoying rebel-without-a-cause type, but turns out to be delightfully self-aware and an attractive character.  The hopeless love interest is handled just fine - she plus husband did track the original story quite a bit - Charlotte is a nice character here (kindergarten teacher), the husband more wooden than in Goethe's version.

The plot didn't track the original story as much as I had expected, which was a plus.

[Minor item:  protagonist liked joking/punning/offering up aphorisms with his buddy Willi - including "a loaf always has two ends" - reminded of Pete Kirsch humor in 1970s Iowa (among his sayings - he would solemnly intone "everything has an end" if a serious subject was being discussed; then the punch line:  "but the sausage has two ends.")]

Recommended by Martine Lanners; I'd recommend it as well.

Ants Among Elephants - An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (Sujatha Gidla, 2017)

(306 pages)

This very recent book received lots of attention; it was billed as a valuable resource to learn something about "caste" in India.  I'm interested in the topic, haven't read much about it; "caste" wasn't evident during our two weeks in India, for what little that vanishingly small sample size is worth.

Not clear to me how much the caste system differs from societal sorting elsewhere (whether based on race or income or whatever).  Perhaps the system runs deeper given the longer history and because there is a religious aspect?  Don't know.

Anyway, this book ends up not helping very much on what I think of as traditional "case" issues, at least for me.  It is an interesting story of a family - Christian - where the lead figure (the author's uncle) becomes a Communist agitator.  All this is taking place in the turmoil of the 1940s and following.  Many difficulties for the family are attributed to caste and I don't doubt that it mattered for them - but I think it's difficult or impossible to separate caste issues from difficulties arising from the family's Christian and Communist characteristics in India at that era.

The lead family figure (author's uncle) seemed to have the usual crusader personality - self-centered.

Helps explain why Subhas Chandra Bose would have had appeal - typically presented as some version of "evil" in Western histories due to his dalliance with Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, but desperation (probably too strong a word but you get the idea) to escape British domination was real in the 1940s.  Author's uncle supported him.

So all in all the book has value to me:  it gave a different look at 1947 and the surrounding years in an area of the country I seldom read about - Andra Pradesh, with some of the action in Telangana (adjacent in south/central India); describes trying to work up through the educational system for those starting out without any advantages; poverty as very real and difficult; earlier generations in this area as "forest people;" zamindars under British rule; etc.

The Dog Stars (Peter Heller, 2012)

(319 pages)

Book club selection (via Zach; session held 11 July 2018).

Book club seems to find its way to dystopian-future books somewhat regularly.  I liked this version well enough.  Spare writing style that worked well.

We don't receive a lot of explanation, but earth's population has been decimated by plague; plus it's getting much warmer/dryer.  A few survivors seem to be doing fine health-wise.  But life has become nasty, brutish, short - civil order entirely broken down - folks doing what they need to do, or want to do.  A few survivors still have the disease.

Protagonist and his dog live with an older gent who goes about the business of survival with enthusiasm and, perhaps, coldness.  Older gent is well-armed.  Protagonist has a plane and does some flying around (with dog) - for enjoyment, and for perimeter control; lost his wife to the plague, has remained relatively normal, doesn't quite know how to approach the world in which he finds himself.  They encounter some additional folks and the story develops.

For some reason this book brought home, in a different (and effective) way, a familiar concept - that civilization is really fragile; that the order that has taken so long and required so much effort will break down so quickly under stress.  Simultaneously reading a Tom Holland book about Europe circa 1000 A.D. - Roman order had broken down, in many areas it was a free-for-all - made me think of this book.

Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts, 2003)

(933 pages)

OK it's long - but the author has a pretty good knack for story-telling and the tale does tug the reader along.

What I liked best - and perhaps this is because our recent visit to India is fresh - he gives what seems to me to be a pretty faithful description of how India (Mumbai in this case) would appear to a Western visitor.  (He's from Australia or New Zealand and supposedly spent 10 years in Mumbai on the lam following a prison escape while serving time for armed robbery.)

Mentions so many little things that resonate with what we saw: mango lassi; "challo!"; stainless steel cup and plate; driver with jasmine garland in his car; the head wiggle (if that's the right term); serve meal on banana leaf; he visits a village that seldom had non-Indian visitors; Mumbai street scenes; many more.

He also spends a bunch of time describing Mumbai slums - which I've never seen anything like - this felt a little idealized, the slum seemed to have better governance than most municipalities.

Two things I didn't love:  #1 - not that he did them badly, but he tried to do too many things - offering philosophical observations, taking the plot in all sorts of directions, so many characters.  Perhaps many readers like this, but I would have preferred tighter.

#2:  author comes across as narcissistic - pretty much everyone he encounters just loves him, several literally want to adopt him; plus he is consistently awesome at dealing with pretty much any situation (and there are a lot of situations over this many pages).

But I kept turning pages and was entertained throughout.

I think the author genuinely loved his time in India, which is kind of neat.

The Noise of Time (Julian Barnes, 2016)

(201 pages)

Author is imagining what Shostakovich felt during decades of compromising with the Soviet power structure.  Shostakovich goes from promising early career, to a failed opera that garners criticism ("formalism!") seemingly from Stalin himself, to interrogation that seemingly could lead only to the camps, to varying levels of rehabilitation, to I guess what one could call becoming a useful idiot; he even joins the Party (surrendering his final hold-out).

Intersection of art and socialist politics (former must serve the latter).

The book received lots of favorable buzz but didn't do much for me.  This book gave a more interesting overview of Shostakovich's situation.  And Solzhenitsyn did a better job of conveying how the system created fear, in books such as this, or this, or this.  Also Grossman. 

Though I suppose this book differs a bit by its focus on the effect of the socialist system on a composer (artist).

Short read, but not particularly recommended.

In the Shadow of the Sword - The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (Tom Holland, 2012)

(473 pages)

Author's writing style is unusual - often it feels like rambling, but in the end it feels conversational.  And informative.

This book - focused on what we can call late antiquity - has a couple main threads.  The common theme is the rise of Islam just as Rome (eastern half ) and Persia dramatically declined.

One of the threads:  how did these previously "backward" Arab folk become perhaps the most successful imperialists of all time?  And so incredibly quickly?  Why did the existing power structures collapse so rapidly?  As also discussed in this very useful work - some key reasons included (1) Rome (meaning Constantinople) and Persia were duking it out for a protracted period just prior to the time of the Prophet, to the detriment (and exhaustion) of both; (2) Rome (still meaning Constantinople) was burning resources trying to salvage something in Italy and elsewhere in the West; and (3) severe plague struck both Constantinople and Persia.  Suddenly - centuries of global power were beaten down.

And those factors do not belittle what the Arabs accomplished - the success is astonishing.  Author suggests that the idea that warriors dying in battle will achieve paradise was pretty much new with Islam - is that so?  I'm not aware of it on a wide scale previously, though certainly the idea appears later with the Crusaders.  (Not the key to Islam military success in those days anyway.)

Another thread - author explores the history of the Koran and its related religious texts - and goes into quite a bit of detail (some admittedly conjectural) that suggests, pretty strongly, that there is less direct connection between these documents and what may have been the Prophet's words than one might think.  For example - it appears that quite a lot of this material was written a couple centuries after the Prophet - with decided social/political considerations no doubt informing the writers.

He compares to the Old Testament - for a long time ascribed to Moses - but rigorous OT analysis reveals multiple authors, much of OT written much later, much of it speaking to specific contemporary political-social circumstances.  Sources that might permit similar analysis of Koran etc. generally have not been made available (or may not exist).  Intense self-criticism applied to the Bible; pretty much no culture of self-criticism as applied to Koran.

Oldest materials apparently don't emphasize the Prophet and raise questions about relative significance of Mecca/Medina; geographic sources seem to lie elsewhere (many farther north); it seems there was more borrowing of religious ideas than might be acknowledged if one wants to hold the position that everything was dictated to the Prophet by an angel (Gabriel as it turns out).  Discusses how Arabs were retained as mercenaries for both Roman and Persian, picking up lots of ideas (and serving in the north of the peninsula).  Jerusalem as an unlikely place of significance for Islam.

It's interesting to think about how religions get started - charismatic founder not writing things down; then the process of defining the religion plays out over a long period of time.  Christians fractious about theological details - Jesus certainly defined very little - but then with a Constantine - he can start ordering folks around - all of a sudden you have a Nicene Creed (325) - not that this ended the debates, but a structure was emerging after centuries.  Islam, Jews not really the same with this; author describes groups of scholars that develop materials (also centuries later!) and eventually gain control of the story (i.e. ultimately define the religion) - this is interesting if challenging to pin down.  Role of caliph in those days - combining temporal and spiritual leadership - confuses me.

Islam born in an atmosphere immediately permeated with local struggle/war and immediately expanding outward in an environment of conquest/war; and then needing to deal with handling subject peoples.  Christianity born with society's losers and core doctrines didn't get established from a war/conquest viewpoint; the warrior/imperial aspect really didn't launch until Constantine (312) (unfortunately it then seeped into the doctrinal).

And that is not to belittle the contents of the Koran or the Bible - these are pretty wonderful works no matter the provenance - it does suggest that it might be prudent to be a little less dogmatic on their contents!

Sometimes these "late antiquity" centuries feel rather lost . . . but there is lots of action . . . high points such as Constantine 312, Fall of Rome (in the west) 476, Hejira 622 . . . leading right to Tours 732 and Charlemagne 800 - and on it goes.

Being Mortal - Medicine and What Matters in the End (Atul Gawande, 2014)

(304 pages)

Book club selection (via PJ; session held 17 June 2018).

Author finds a highly useful way to talk about a group of related, oft-discussed topics that seldom (at least in my limited experience) receive this kind of clarifying approach.

Much of the book is based on what I'll call "case studies" of folks (often but not always elderly) facing extremely poor prognoses.  Including the author's father (also a physician).  This served to humanize the discussion without descending into just a series of anecdotes. 

Author goes through some of the background about the high expense and poor results on what has become conventional treatment for these folks - while putting them through debilitating side effects etc.  How many doctors are not well trained to explore alternatives; and financial incentives are misaligned - just keep doing procedures and prescribing medications.  Describes a way of thinking of doctors in three categories - paternalistic, informative, interpretive - this latter group is best prepared to engage in useful conversations with the patient and the patient's family members, rather than merely keeping up the interventions.

Author also goes through some of the history on hospitals; the rise of nursing homes; the rise of assisted care centers; hospice.

The most useful part of the book is the ideas about how (and when) to engage in critical discussions with the patient - questions such as "What are your goals? Where is your "line in the sand" when it comes to deciding how you want to live in your last weeks and months?" We need to be thinking and talking about this for the sake of our family members, and for our own sake.  With a more fulsome discussion - alternatives like hospice often start to make more sense.

This led to a quite interesting discussion during the actual "club" meeting - while most of our members are relatively young, everyone has faced up to this with relatives, many quite poignantly.

Recommended.

Death in Venice (1912) and Other Stories (Thomas Mann)

(313 pages)

Thomas Mann is one of my favorites, but this group of short stories didn't do much for me.

The centerpiece of this collection is Death in Venice - a story about which I've seen so many favorable references - I'm sure it's elegantly constructed and written, but the story line did nothing for me.  Aschenbach follows Tadzio around.

I preferred Tonio Kroger and Tristan.  Even Man and Dog:  An Idyll - Mann certainly could describe relationship between dog and master.

Read quite a bit of this on the planes to/fro India.

The Rise of Luxembourg - 1815-2015 - A Historical Portrait (Emile Haag, 2016)

(314 pages)

Christmas gift from Martine & Jose et al.  Seems like a timely read given that a path to Luxembourg citizenship has emerged for us.

Congress of Vienna - much discussed in this book - creates the Grand Duchy as a separate state in 1815 - but "independence" is difficult.

It was interesting to read this book pretty much in tandem with this history of Prussia.  Both discuss the events of the late 1860s - Bismarck defeats Austria in 1866 and is moving toward uniting Germany, more or less, under Prussian leadership - the Prussian book describes an 1867 "Luxembourg crisis" orchestrated by Bismarck (behind the scenes he encourages Napoleon III to annex Luxembourg but then leaks that very news, to predictable outrage); at the end of the process Bismark succeeds in uniting Germany but all the European powers agree (in 1867) that Luxembourg thenceforward would be an independent neutral state; war between Germany and France is avoided (or at least delayed for a few years).

That episode was part of Luxembourg consistently needing to navigate the boundary zone between France and Germany; the area seems to have been more directly influenced (if not controlled via economic zones and the like) by Germany, but felt a greater affinity with France (hard to measure, and perhaps this is because France seemed less threatening?)

Being in that boundary zone of course led to deep consequences in the two world wars.

Author reviews the roles of leading industrialists and statesmen; it also turns out that the leadership from the royals has mattered quite a bit - Grand Duchess Charlotte apparently quite important.  Also goes over developments in the fine arts, sports, etc.

As Europe centralized - via EEC and then EU - Luxembourg has benefited from being a small, less-threatening nation - important offices have been headquartered here from the beginning of this project.  No doubt it also took lots of skill to achieve this; multi-lingual population was helpful. 

Author gives some history on Letzebuergesch - used in daily life, legally recognized in 1984 - interesting how (as elsewhere in Europe) some of the unwritten, or at least less-written local languages were revived and treated more formally than in their heyday.

Lovely book; pictures, maps, etc. are very helpful.

American War (Omar El Akkad, 2017)

(413 pages)

Book club selection (via POC; session held 16 May 2018).

Post-apocalyptic; author is exploring how the United States might split up in the future; interestingly, or oddly, the split pretty much tracks the 19th century Civil War territory.  With fossil fuel usage as the main divisive factor.  (Earth has warmed considerably; coasts tend to be swamped; national capital has moved inland to Columbus, OH.)

An African empire (Bouzazi) keeps the southern "resistance" afloat.

Protagonist is Sarat Chestnut, but she's not much of a hero.  Pretty much brainwashed and weaponized by elders.  Spends time in a Gitmo-style camp, with waterboarding - in this story, yields zip in terms of usable intelligence. 

Northern violence/punitive-ness provokes continued Southern resistance.  Including germ warfare - two rounds of it - severe. 

Echoes of World War I - where Allies lose control of the narrative - the "losers" in this war (i.e. the South) are allowed to message - though story line ends before we see how this might have played out.

Iron Kingdom - The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947 (Christopher Clark, 2006)

(688 pages)

Rather lengthy, but always interesting.  Helpful in thinking about "Germany" (which always gets confusing).

Prussia starting as just one of many smaller states (if one of the larger ones) in what remains of the Holy Roman Empire.  Austria later emerges as single largest force within HRE.  Russia at varying strength over the years but often looming as a dominant force (with Poland in or out of existence as a buffer state).  France to the west; Napoleonic era creates continuous turmoil.

Prussia emerges as a not-quite-major player in 17th century while benefiting from a series of long-serving and quite competent rulers (Frederick William (the Great Elector (reigns 1640-88)); Frederick I; Frederick William I; Frederick II (the Great - reigns 1740-86).  Picks up territory via various devices.  Helps that Prussia is an Elector in the Holy Roman Empire selections.

Author points out how Prussia has been portrayed - primarily in the aftermath of World War I - as a monolithic enterprise - single-mindedly given to efficiency, militarism, ruthlessness; dominated by the eastern Junker aristocracy (deeply conservative); etc.  This author explains that things were much more complicated than this view (which had propaganda uses).

For one thing - there were significant divisions within Prussia, and between Prussia and the balance of Germany.  Prussia included Polish (Catholic) provinces plus western provinces that weren't all that well assimilated.  Bismark's 1860s defeat of Austria - followed by victory over France in 1870 - led to Prussian leadership across a mostly-combined Germany - but it was a very short time period up to 1914 - lots of variation persisted among the German areas.

I also see references that Humboldt's education system was designed to create state-serving drones - this description sounds much different.  Enlightenment concepts took root, all seems quite promising; but fundamental tension between king's control over the military, and the way elections and civil matters were handled - never resolved.

Germany's position as a crossroads didn't help - constant threats from east and west - the two-front concerns of World War I and II had existed for centuries based on real problems.  Keeping a large standing army was helpful for maintaining independence and influence, but downsides.

Recommended.  Gift from PJr/Nedda.

A Forgotten Empire, Vijayanagar - A Contribution to the History of India (Robert Sewell, 1900)

(291 pages)

Gift from Chris and Dharma.

Author was a British civil servant with interest in Indian history; his book pulls together information about a powerful empire in southern India named Vijayanagar which rose and fell from 1316 - 1614 (dates approximate); author also includes information from two Portuguese contemporaries who visited.

I learn that the main ruins are in a town (UNESCO site) named "Hampi" - it looks quite amazing on Google Earth.

Interesting on many levels.  For example - so much of the action is happening right around 1500 - close in time to Columbus, Martin Luther, Charles V - so much dramatic stuff happening simultaneously.

Much conflict between Islamic forces and Hindu forces - Islamic groups pushing down from the north; author speculates that Vijayanagar came together as southern India groups recognized the need to combine forces to fend off the threat from the north.

Also interesting - the Portuguese making their presence felt - while quite significant, I didn't get the impression that they were balance-tippers the way whites tended to operate in say Mexico and Peru.  Probably because the indigenous armies were so huge, or at least reported as such.

As with so many successful empires (or family businesses, for that matter) - dynamic, charismatic, successful leaders in the early going; then things start to slip.

The chroniclers (Islamic and Western both) report huge armies (complete with cavalry and elephants), temples, city walls, festivals - and admit a reader might be skeptical of the reported numbers - I wonder exactly how large these were.  Really large, I'd guess.  Certainly would require incredible organization, tax-collecting capability, wealth - even if numbers are somewhat exaggerated - to muster anywhere near the kind of forces described.  Whatever the facts, it must have been pretty impressive.

So much driven by religious differences - or perhaps just land/power grab by persons of a different religion?  Hard to tell where that line falls.

The quoted Muslim sources, and the English author - both tend to discuss Hindu practice in terms of heathens, idols, etc.  While describing religious practices (temples, fasting, dietary principles, feast-day celebrations, etc.) that in many cases would seem right at home in a Christian setting.

Very focused on kings and battles, also life at court.  A little more daily-life stuff would have been good.  But:  I liked it.

The Blank Slate - The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Steven Pinker, 2002)

(453 pages)

Book club selection (via Lon; session held 1 April 2018).

Pinker currently in the news in relation to a new book on the Enlightenment (which I've not read).  As one might expect, reactions seem to track political leanings.

I found this earlier book quite useful, quite interesting.  Author describes three beliefs that have taken root - the Blank Slate; the Noble Savage; the Ghost in the Machine.  Goes through the background of each, and how each has been adapted for various ends. I do catch myself relying, explicitly or implicitly, on all or elements of these three beliefs - perhaps the highest value of this kind of book is that it occasionally helps the reader to "catch" oneself when this happening.

Much of it is the "nature vs. nurture" discussion - for various reasons a large number of academics and politicians downplay the "nature" part - genes, heredity, whatever - he theorizes as to why so many cling so fiercely to viewpoints that defy common sense and what I think we can say is human experience.  All is not subjectivity!

I continue to believe that the notion of "original sin" seems basically correct.  Civilization is fragile.  Humans have overcome bad tendencies but those tendencies remain inside everyone, in varying mixtures.  (By "bad" I probably should say "techniques we evolved to deal with then-circumstances.")  It's a short step to regression.  The good news:  on the whole, progress has been impressively positive.

Something that strikes me:  it's very hard to definitively "know" anything (specifics of nature/nurture being one of many examples). We need to be super careful about how much we know or ever can know.  Much "science" is just surveys and group testing, ugh.  Replication failures abound.

We live in a strange era - where influence of genes, gender, etc. is aggressively denied - yet everyone knows it's there.  Denying or hiding data will backfire (may help explain 2016 election, for example) - yet "no-platforming" is spreading.  Oddly, the "party of science" halts discussion of race, gender, climate, etc.

Sometimes I think the oddly excessive feelings on these topics, the no-platforming, the public shaming of heretics, is new.  But then I think of Galileo; reading a Prussian history where 19th century students are behaving similarly; all the religious fighting over the centuries; live-and-let-live seems inexplicably difficult!

Something that is new: surfeit of what one commentator calls "Intellectuals Yet Idiots" - highly educated but nonproductive types - throughout history, societies weren't wealthy enough to maintain all that many IYIs - exceptions would be royal siblings, folks in monasteries - and it was hard for them to reach an audience in any event.  Now IYIs are everywhere; two main effects that will sustain the madness:

1. Colleges, and now governments and corporations - filled with Diversity Coordinators, and Rape Counselors, and Whatevers - their jobs depend upon emphasizing group differences and injustices.  (Of course there are plenty of historical and current injustices, but there also is an increasing cure-is-worse-than-the-disease problem.)

2. Folks needing to write a "new" thesis for PhD or whatever - a broken system, too many of them, often trying to stand out, no one ever has or will read these papers - but they are embedded in the academy.

Be gentle and of good cheer and keep conversing!

The Transylvanian Trilogy - Vol. II - They Were Found Wanting; Vol. III - They Were Divided (Miklos Banffy, 1934)

(830 pages)

I had read Volume I of this trilogy back in 2016; liked the final two volumes even a bit better.  My summary for Volume I actually work quite well for purposes of Volumes II and III; however, the action (certainly the political stakes) pick up as World War I nears.  

The story lines of course take place in the geographies where the incidents that kicked off the war occurred, so there's the run-up for that.  More discussion of Franz Ferdinand as heir apparent; he is presented as a conniver, quite unflattering.

The scenes taking place in Transylvania and Hungary are consistently interesting; the author also certainly must had a great feel for the era's politics.

The book is a great companion to the second of Patrick Leigh Fermor's books - he was visiting much the same geography, only in the 1930s.

Balint; his mother Roza; Adrienne; Pal Uzdy; Laszlo; many more.

Recommended