Elixir Brian Fagan

Elixir   Brian Fagan

I have read many of Fagan’s books.  His specialty is tracing ancient climates and the relationship of climate and culture.  They are excellent books – I recommend THE GREAT WARMING and THE LITTLE ICE AGE.  In this book he is moved by the potential for disaster that faces a warming planet where we have been engaged in massive overconsumption of water.  He is hoping that we find outselves become aware of the importance and conservation of this essential liquid.

He works first with gravity, the ability to challenge gravity to pump the underground resources, while other ancients used gravity for distribution of water and use of water. 

Ritual and water management is his second theme.  It is about cleansing, renewal, and our awe and reverence for water.  It is also about the use of water, the day to day consumption and waste.  Baptism with holy waters; Egyptians and Mayans looked to the waters of the primordial for Earth’s beginnings; and Bronze Age farmers thought their ancestors were below the waters of the ocean.

The final theme is about the use of technology to overuse and consume all forms of water and its use to reclaim the water we damage.

Fagan believes we can learn about what we need to do in the future by looking back at the history of water use.  For example – the Mayans died off from drought, but the Inca’s prospered in a much drier and more challenging climate. 

There are still ancient societies that use water in a sustainable way, but can they resist the greed of the industrial world?  History teaches that the societies that last the longest are those who treat water with the greatest respect.   

Water wheels, weirs, drainage ditches, wells, pumps: The list of devices and strategies for use of water is long and examined in this book, but the issue is not devices, but rather the limited amount of water that is available and recognition of the impact of events like deforestation, global warming, and over consumption that is essential for the future.  The crisis for water in the future is obvious, the examples of the past where the cultures were successful and not just for a short time had a reverence for water and a respect of nature. 

Later societies took advantage of their military strength to control the flow of water and its distribution and then the city-states, and nations found religions that could justify their actions. 


“Elixir spans five thousand years, from the beginnings of civilization to the parched American Sun Belt of today. It is a story of human endeavor: our present-day interaction with this most essential resource has deep roots in the remote past, and every human culture has been shaped by its relationship to water. For the earliest hunter-gatherers, knowing where to find water was a matter of life and death; the "songlines" of Australia's Aborigines define the whole landscape as a map of sacred water sources. In many agricultural societies, from Africa to the rice fields of Bali, a communal "water philosophy" surrounds the precious resource with social traditions that preserve fair access for people upstream and down. The sweeping narrative moves from the Greeks and Romans, whose mighty acqueducts still water modern cities, to China, where emperors marshaled armies of laborers in a centuries-long struggle, still ongoing today, to tame the country's powerful rivers. Medieval Europe and then the Industrial Revolution brought ingenious new solutions to water management---but, for the first time, turned water into a commodity to be bought, sold, and exploited rather than a natural force to be worshiped and husbanded. By the twentieth century, technology allowed the American desert to sparkle with swimming pools and lush golf courses---with little regard for sustainability. With his customary elegance and peerless scholarship, Brian Fagan illustrates that the past teaches us that technologies for solving one or another water problem are not enough. From a practical standpoint, we still live at the mercy of the natural world. To solve the water crises of the future we may need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors.”  Audible.com

Nathan Hale, M. William Phelps

Nathan Hale, M. William Phelps

You can find Nathan Hales sculptures in many places, the most appropriate in front of the CIA building.  And it is appropriate that it stands there since he is acclaimed as America’s first spy.  He is also credited with saying – I am sorry I have but one life to give for my country.  Of course that is not right, but what he did say before being hung is: “I am so satisfied with the cause in which I have engaged that my only regret is that I have not more lives than one to offer in its service.” - Proof that we can all use a good editor.

Hale was described as a handsome man, an intellectual with natural leadership qualities.  He came from a family that was patriotic to the rebel cause even before the revolution.  Nathan attended Yale and engaged in the classical groups that discussed philosophy, religion, literature, and politics and his friends from that group were important to him as he accepted teaching positions and eventually gained a captaincy in the rebel army.

He served under Washington at Boston and New York and though he saw limited action, his men demonstrated that he was organized and a good motivator.  This was appreciated and seen by Washington and the other generals, but what set Nathan apart was this conviction that whatever needed to be done he would do.

So when a spy was requested he stepped forward, even though a spy was considered the lowest of low by the men in arms.  This was “cheating” and spies were considered to be amoral characters – a description that certainly missed its mark with the religious Nathan Hale.

However, Hale was not James Bond.  The adventure to New York City succeeded in getting him in to the city, behind enemy lines, but the subtle subterfuge of spies was outside the skills of this too honest man.  In a bar he met Robert Rogers (of Rogers’s rangers in the French and Indian War).   Rogers was a rogue and this is why he was successful in all the wars he engaged in.

Suspicious of Hale the short version would be:  Rogers sat down at a table with Hale who could not suspect that anyone of duplicity since he could not be.  So Rogers indicated that he was sympathetic to the Rebel cause and Nathan poured out his story thinking he had an ally.

If he had not come close to making a statement that would become an American cliché he would probably not be remembered today.  Being the first spy, the first spy caught, and the first spy hung – all on his first mission probably would not garner real honors.  To make it worse, the information that he though Washington absolutely had to have was no longer needed by the time he entered the saloon, a fact he could not know.

This does not demean his commitment, his accomplishments or his intellect and respect, but it does put an historic player into perspective.  However, the author tells the story without drawing this conclusion.

Fifty-nine in ’84, Edward Achorn

Fifty-nine in ’84, Edward Achorn

This is as much a story of the early decades of major league baseball as a story of OLD HOSS RADBOURN the man who won 59 games in one season.  Dan Brouthers, Pud Gavlin, Cap Anson and other names that baseball people hear from that era are real people in this book.  Cap Anson, who I personally despise for being the person most responsible for keeping black ballplayers out of baseball, comes out as the bully that he really was.  I did not grow to like him any better, but I also am fascinated by this era.

It was a time when the teams only carried two pitchers even though they played 112 games.  There were only 12 on the roster and those who did not start sold tickets!  These men were tough and usually not that likeable, but that did not matter since they were out to entertain and no one would consider having a ballplayer for a guest or son-in-law. 

Radbourn pitched in pain because if you did not play, you did not get paid.  Look at his record, an average of 28 – 17 per year over his 11 years.  In those days pitchers did not last 15 – 20 years.  They were used up quickly with many only last 2 – 3 years.

11 Years

309 wins

195 losses

.613 Pct

2.67 era

 http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=radboch01

Old Hoss Radbourn - The Man Who Won 59 Games http://infinitecardset.blogspot.com/search/label/Old%20Hoss%20Radbourn

“I remember watching the All-Star Game in 2002 with my old buddy Charlie Vascellaro and the game goes into extra innings... really good game, extra innings, 7-7 tie, the best players in the game at the time, how much more better does this get? Well, not much more, apparently. The teams ran out of pitchers. Everyone was already in the game, and no one wanted to let the present pitchers continue. So what did they do? The officials called the friggin' game! Why didn't and outfielder step forward and say "I'll pitch!" or an infielder, taken with the honor of being picked by the fans of this great game say "it's just so great to be here tonight, give me the ball coach, I love this game!". But none of that happened. They called the game at a tie, just like some European soccer game. The best players in the game, all on one field at the same time, and it ends in a tie. It was such a disgrace, it gives me agida (look it up) just writing about it tonight. In fact, that's all I'll say about that.

To cleanse my palette after that remembrance, let's take a look at "Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn. "Old Hoss" as he was known, had a respectable career going for him, winning 25, 33 and then 48 games for the Providence Grays but midway through the 1884 season the irritable Radbourn and the equally surly Charlie Sweeney, the Grays other pitcher, took their rivalry to another level when they fought violently after a game in which Sweeney showed up drunk. Sweeney was suspended, effectively crippling the ballclub. You see, back then, players had to play the whole game, when a pitcher was tired or getting hit bad, instead of heading for the showers, he switched places with an outfielder or infielder, who doubled as a pitcher. Loosing their other starting pitcher mid-season was a death sentence to the Grays who needed to win the pennant in order to stay financially solvent. With his team faced with disbanding, Old Hoss volunteered to start every game left in the season in exchange for a raise and a release from the reserve clause that bound him to his team and be given free agency at the season's end. An agreement was struck and he went on to pitch more than 678 inning and won a staggering 59 games! What a season and for God's sake, what an arm that guy must have had. When guys today pitch 5-6 innings every 4 days at the most, this guy must have been like having 3 tender modern-day pitchers on the Gray's staff.

Radbourn gained his free agency after the season, and elected to stay with Providence. Old Hoss had a good career afterwards, really showing no ill effects from his monstrous season of 1884. In a side not, if you look at the team portrait of the 1886 Boston Beaneaters, there's Old Hoss, back row, far right, giving the cameraman what is probably the earliest documented middle finger salute. After his career ended, the vain Radbourn lost an eye and was disfigured in a hunting accident and spent the rest of his life hidden away in the back room of the saloon he owned in Bloomington, Illinois, dying in 1897. He was elected to the Hall of Fame, class of 1939.”

Sex in Your Garden. Angela Overy

Sex in Your Garden. Angela Overy

What a delightful book.  Talk about the birds and the bees – they are just a part of this look at pollination and reproduction in the plant world and all the partners they entice from Hummingbirds and bees to bats and wind.

Illustrated and laid out like a children’s book for adults, this book begins with botanical basics and soon takes you in to the complex forms, scents, colors, and patterns that have evolved in each flower as they compete for their patch of the world.

The author’s name almost commits her to writing a book on this topic and if so, I am pleased.  She does it with humor and a condensed text that is as filled with information as the stamens are with pollen.

You will love your garden more and you will understand the natural world better if you read this book.

Explorers of the Nile, Tim Jeal

Explorers of the Nile, Tim Jeal

I remember the tales of the great African explorers from my youth.  I knew that Stanley had said “Livingston, I presume.”  Of course we do not know if he did, but that is what he claimed and it has become a part of our vernacular (even though it made Stanley a laughing stock in England).  Stanley and Livingston were the epitome of the explorer, but to be honest I knew very little of the “dark continent” that they explored looking for the Nile.  I did not know how populated it was with not only the indigenous people, but also the Arabs that carried on the slave trade for the markets of the Portuguese and the Turks and many other places where human life had a value that was measured in a price tage.

Livingstone was appalled by this and thought he could get England to outlaw it – he failed.  He was much loved by many Africans and almost worshipped by Stanley who pretended to be American but in fact was an orphan from Wales.  Both were good men, much better than the Germans, Belgians, and many of their countrymen.  Livingstone was almost considered a saint, but perhaps the family he left in England, that he seldom saw, and gave so little might question that.

There is Burton and Speke, two very different partners who were forced together by circumstance and separated by Burton’s jealousy.  Speke did much more than Burton, who was, in fact, carried for the majority of his expedition on a stretcher because of his disease.  Then Burton resents the fact that Speke was the one who actually discovered the source.  For all his life Burton tried to discredit Speke who died shortly after returning to England and was, therefore ,  unable to speak up against the growing skepticism that his books and discovery suffered.  Burton became one more unjustly knighted person – one Livingston disliked because of his mistreatment of Africans.

The hardships of disease, the need to sometimes spend months in unofficial house arrest within native villages before getting permission to move on, and the violence engendered by the cruelty and violence of the slave trade made this trips much more than exploratory hikes.

The list of names includes Baker and Grant and not too many more.  It really is a small band that brought back the knowledge of the Nile and inadvertently led to the colonization of the continent. 

The book is hard to put down.  I recommend it highly.  It concludes with the affairs of modern Africa that were the direct results of this exploration of the 1800’s.   The books illustrations really helped, but I found that I needed to have a map of Africa and the Nile to refer to as I read.

This paragraph is a good summary:

“Of the principal European actors in the Nile search, only David Livingstone died in Africa.  But Samuel and Florence Baker came as close to death as is possible without actually dying, thanks to pressing on across swampy, mosquito-infested country having exhausted their quinine.  On one occasion Stanley entered the tunnel of light now popularly associated with near-death experiences.  Richard Burton suffered so severely from malaria that he was unable to walk for the best part of a year; Speke endured an agonizing illness with symptoms like acute hydrophobia, as well as bouts of fever, temporary blindness and a permanent loss of hearing in one ear.  For nine months, Grant was immobilized by tropical leg ulcers, and Farquhar and Shaw, Stanley’s two companions on the Livingstone search, died from complications of malaria.  The Pocock brothers and Frederick Barker, on Stanley’s second journey, died respectively from smallpox, drowning and malaria.”  And it goes on.

The Moral Lives of Animals Dale Peterson

The Moral Lives of Animals Dale Peterson

This is an excellent and thought provoking book.  Do animals have morals?  Dale investigates primates and elephants most of all, but goes in to many others.  Of course humans want to deny them emotions, even the ability to feel pain, but that is to justify the way we treat them.  It is a fascinating look at animals and their lives – there are many stories I have never heard.

It is interesting to see that he uses two literary references in addition to all the research - the bible and Moby Dick.  I have never seen the background story in Moby Dick that Dale brings out, but it is very effective.  So is his use of the bible which is such an authority to so many.

But the disturbing thing might be at the end when we look at the morality of human treatment of animals.  He does not say it, but you might ask whether humans possess morals like the rest of the animals do.

”Wild elephants walking along a trail stop and spontaneously try to protect and assist a weak and dying fellow elephant. Laboratory rats, finding other rats caged nearby in distressing circumstances, proceed to rescue them. A chimpanzee in a zoo loses his own life trying to save an unrelated infant who has fallen into a watery moat. The examples above and many others, argues Dale Peterson, show that our fellow creatures have powerful impulses toward cooperation, generosity, and fairness. Yet it is commonly held that we Homo sapiens are the only animals with a moral sense - that we are somehow above and apart from our fellow creatures. This rigorous and stimulating book challenges that notion, and it shows the profound connections - the moral continuum - that link humans to many other species. Peterson shows how much animal behavior follows principles embodied in humanity's ancient moral codes, from the Ten Commandments to the New Testament. Understanding the moral lives of animals offers new insight into our own. Dale Peterson's biography Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and Boston Globe Best Book of 2006. His other publications include Visions of Caliban (with Jane Goodall) and Demonic Males (with Richard Wrangham). Peterson lectures in English at Tufts University.” – Audible.com synopsis

Bird Cloud, Annie Proulx

Bird Cloud, Annie Proulx

Thanks to Carol Nulsen for this book. 

Bird Cloud is the name of her home in Wyoming and this is the story of its design, creation, and location.  The books first chapter was nearly a turn off.  Annie portrays herself so negatively as a loner and bitch that I almost quit.  I did not like her.  “Well do I know my own character negatives – bossy, impatient, reclusively shy, short-tempered, single-minded.” But through the book that image softens, here curiosity about nature, geology, archaeology give her better dimensions.  Her patience with the exceedingly complex and long two year process of completing the house exceeds my ability to adapt.

In chapter two she does a family history research project that might be nice for her family, but it did nothing for me.  As she found these various connections all I could think was – who cares.  “I have moved countless times in my adult life, too.  Part of this peripatetic behavior is because Americans are mobile people, but I also come from a Franco American background, rootless people who have no national identity, who really belong nowhere in the United State.”

But, alas from there on I was hooked.  The architects continue to live in the clouds forgetting things like storage rooms (just like they did at Audubon Center) and leaving out details that the contractor has to fill in.  He would have driven me crazy.  “I told myself the house had to be built.  I began to think of it then as a kind of wooden poem.”

The construction team, a family, becomes her family through the effort and they deal with issues like her property being at the end of a long road that is impassable in the winter (a fact that the seller neglected to tell her), the 80 – 100 mph winds that soar through the valley, the flooding of the stream, the difficulty in keeping her neighbors cattle out, and the alkaline water to name a few.  “With Bird Cloud, I saw the house rise from what I thought were good ideas.  The intentions were good at least.  I still do not know where things went wrong or even if things did go wrong.  After years of wrestling with awkward domiciles I thought I knew what I needed in a house.  I’m afraid I still don’t know, which is another way of saying that for me there is no perfect house.”

But there is a resiliency in meeting each challenge plus escapism in learning about the geology, ecology, archaeology of the land.  The last chapter is all about the birds and was really fun.

And did she succeed in creating her dream home?  “…but I had to face the fact that no matter how much I loved the place it was not, and never could be, the final home of which I had dreamed.”

Lion of Liberty. By Harlow Unger.

 I found this biography enlightening because all I knew of Patrick Henry was his give me liberty or give me death pronouncement.  The full story of Henry is fascinating and illuminating.  In fact we might consider that he was the person who originated both the revolution and the civil war.

He was an amazing orator and this is proven throughout the text without regarding his most famous pre-revolution speech.  He was perhaps the most prominent lawyer in VA despite the fact that he was self-taught.  It was his ability to orate, his use of theatrics that won the day in his trials and in the House of Burgesses.

He actually never fought in the war, but he is still considered one of the primary patriots – second only to Washington in the minds of the south.  But when the war was over and the government was formed he was also its biggest critic and even predicted a civil war based on states’ rights versus federal government. 

He spoke against slavery, but kept slaves throughout his life.  He believed in rebellion – like Che Quevara although his admirers would hate the comparison. 

Check out this NPR review:  http://www.eecom.org/

The Long Shining Water, Danielle Sosin

The Long Shining Water,  Danielle Sosin

Lake Superior is the glue that brings together three women and their stories of despair, searching, and life.  The first story is set in1622, the year that Etienne Brule becomes the first white man to enter Lake Superior.   The woman, an Ojibwe, has dreams that haunt her life and cause her to have fears that she cannot comprehend.  Is it the white skinned stranger that is in her vision that is the source of both change and evil?  Is she seeing the change that will alter the lives of her children and tribe?  She travels the lake through the seasons to find an interpretation in Bawatang and finds there an image even stronger than her dreams.

In 1902 a husband and wife have rediscovered their love for one another on the shore of the Lake.  He a fisherman, she an artist: they mesh their lives together until the Lake becomes the third leg of the triangle and Berit must sort out the impact of the cold waters that embrace her husband – Gunnar.

Finally the three alternating stories move to 2000.  Her is Nora, a bar owner in Superior who has lost a man to the lake, has had her daughter move away and put distance between them, as well as her granddaughter.  Nora is without more than a job, she has no anchor place.  She drifts like the waves and finds herself traveling the Full Circle Route around the Lake almost by accident, but again the Lake is a character and the journey gives her the analogy of a circle that never ends – like the events that tie together lives. 

It is well written with wonderful images and a sense of the poetic. 

Some good images are in the quotes below:

"Gunnar angles them toward the horizon, and John feels the growing distance from land like a low vibration throughout his body. It's as clear looking down at the boulders underwater as it is looking up through the air, causing him to feel slightly disoriented about the relative size of things, his place in the world, and which element he is part of."

"There's a freighter out there like a long dark shoebox. Strange how graceful they look from far away, when up close they are all steel and grind."

"The hollow knocking is coming from the water. Nora sets the pen down and rubs her eyes. She puts her mug on the notebook to keep it from blowing and walks to the edge of the little yard. Out beyond the slanting rock ledge there are chunks of floating ice as big as bathroom mirrors clacking around in a sea of ice chips."

"The sound is soothing and it's pretty the way the ice is glinting. It looks like a giant grey daiquiri. Further out, a gull floats in the swells, and she wonders that it doesn't freeze to death. Beyond it there's only open water and a long-lined horizon."

"Nora stands beside the locks at Sault Ste Marie, where the International Bridge spans the water, its ironwork yellow against high stretching clouds.  She has traveled clear to the end of the lake.  And it does feel like an end of sorts, with the mammoth locks forming a gateway, the lake on one side and the river on the other, connecting Superior to Lakes Huron and Michigan.  But lakes don't really have ends, she thinks, popping an antacid into her mouth. They just keep going around in a circle."

Lake Superior is the glue that brings together three women and their stories of despair, searching, and life.  The first story is set in1622, the year that Etienne Brule becomes the first white man to enter Lake Superior.   The woman, an Ojibwe, has dreams that haunt her life and cause her to have fears that she cannot comprehend.  Is it the white skinned stranger that is in her vision that is the source of both change and evil?  Is she seeing the change that will alter the lives of her children and tribe?  She travels the lake through the seasons to find an interpretation in Bawatang and finds there an image even stronger than her dreams.

In 1902 a husband and wife have rediscovered their love for one another on the shore of the Lake.  He a fisherman, she an artist: they mesh their lives together until the Lake becomes the third leg of the triangle and Berit must sort out the impact of the cold waters that embrace her husband – Gunnar.

Finally the three alternating stories move to 2000.  Her is Nora, a bar owner in Superior who has lost a man to the lake, has had her daughter move away and put distance between them, as well as her granddaughter.  Nora is without more than a job, she has no anchor place.  She drifts like the waves and finds herself traveling the Full Circle Route around the Lake almost by accident, but again the Lake is a character and the journey gives her the analogy of a circle that never ends – like the events that tie together lives. 

It is well written with wonderful images and a sense of the poetic. 

Some good images are in the quotes below:

"Gunnar angles them toward the horizon, and John feels the growing distance from land like a low vibration throughout his body. It's as clear looking down at the boulders underwater as it is looking up through the air, causing him to feel slightly disoriented about the relative size of things, his place in the world, and which element he is part of."

"There's a freighter out there like a long dark shoebox. Strange how graceful they look from far away, when up close they are all steel and grind."

"The hollow knocking is coming from the water. Nora sets the pen down and rubs her eyes. She puts her mug on the notebook to keep it from blowing and walks to the edge of the little yard. Out beyond the slanting rock ledge there are chunks of floating ice as big as bathroom mirrors clacking around in a sea of ice chips."

"The sound is soothing and it's pretty the way the ice is glinting. It looks like a giant grey daiquiri. Further out, a gull floats in the swells, and she wonders that it doesn't freeze to death. Beyond it there's only open water and a long-lined horizon."

"Nora stands beside the locks at Sault Ste Marie, where the International Bridge spans the water, its ironwork yellow against high stretching clouds.  She has traveled clear to the end of the lake.  And it does feel like an end of sorts, with the mammoth locks forming a gateway, the lake on one side and the river on the other, connecting Superior to Lakes Huron and Michigan.  But lakes don't really have ends, she thinks, popping an antacid into her mouth. They just keep going around in a circle."

Fool's Gold

Fool’s Gold, Bill Merrit

The quote on the book’s jacket by mystery writer Phillip Margolin captures Fool’s Gold very well, “Bill Merritt has written a wacky, original, and unpredictable book with a cast of incompetent and crooked lawyers, insane treasure hunters, and other assorted screwballs that works as a legal thriller, a comedy, and a mystery.”  I would disagree on the thriller aspect, it is a legal journey, but you are never sensing real danger.

An attorney dies; his partner of 3 months is caught in a web of treasure hunting, pot, a strange legal system, and a story that spins out of control of the attorney.  The characters are the book.  It is a vehicle for craziness and the mystery and the threats are all low key and do not really move the book along.

I found myself moving steadily through the book and enjoyed my reading, but at the end I asked myself what I just read.  Consider it light reading and leave it at that.

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

This is a biography of both a dog and a legend.  It is truly the biography of Rin Tin Tin #1 – the original and Lee Duncan his friend, trainer, promoter and then it is the biography of the subsequent dogs and people who could not let the first Rin Tin Tin vanish into history.  It is a love affair with an ideal – a dog that brings every aspect of our love of pets and our projection on canines to the screen and imagination.   He is the dog that rises from his wolf pedigree to be something new in a decade when the dogs came out of the fields and in to our homes.

Lee Duncan was a child of a broken home, an orphanage and an inward personality that let him relate to animals more than people.  He was in WWI in France when he found one dog and her litter in a building that had served as a kennel for German shepherds in the town of Flirey, France.  He was the first person in to the town after the Germans had been driven out by bombing and he found a town empty of life except of this one litter. 

Lee gathered in the dog and her litter and eventually kept two for himself – Rin Tin Tin and Nannette – and after the war he managed to get them back to the states.  Something special about this dog led Lee to want to share Rin Tin Tin with the public.  He knew he had something that no other dog possessed and despite his shyness, he found a means to get the dog in to the silent pictures.

It is hard to grasp today, but Rin Tin Tin was the biggest star in Hollywood.  The silents were perfect and he and Lee gained both fame and money during his lifetime, but two things happened.  The movies became talkies and Hollywood said the one thing Rinty could not do was talk so he was dropped.  The second problem was the one all pet owners face – dogs do not live as long as humans.

There were more Rin Tin Tins – at least five generations made it to film, but none could have the expressiveness and responsiveness that number 1 had and by the time the TV series debuted in 1953 the newest generation of true Rin Tin Tins was a poor actor and had a stand-in for everything but the visits with Lee to promotional events.  During the last part of his active career Rinty also faced a competitor – Lassie.  But Lee always despaired that Lassie was a fictional being played by a dog named Pal – Rin Tin Tin was real, he had a family tree and a pedigree.  

Zanuck, Warner, Duncan and Rin Tin Tin

The book follows the fame of the dog, but it also follows the less than stellar lives of the people who became smitten with the Rinty mystique and could not move on or let the dog fade in to the past. And you might have to add Susan Orlean, who through this book has now brought the legend alive again.  I suspect she will not be the last to do this.  Maybe Rin Tin Tin will continue to live on forever – you can check him out on Youtube and reruns of his TV series can probably found on the web too, but sometime there will be a new live version. 

A 1000 Mile Walk on the Beach, Loreen Niewenhuis

A 1000 Mile Walk on the Beach, Loreen Niewenhuis

In 2009, Loreen walked around Lake Michigan.  We met through our Facebook Full Circle pages and exchanged some good support.  I am not sure of Loreen’s age, she had two college age sons at the time of her walk so I am expecting that she is in her 40’s (so young!) 

We did not read this when it first arrived because we did not want it to influence our book and we did not want any inadvertent plagiarism.  So now with our book in its 5^th draft version I felt I could indulge in someone else’s adventure and dream.  In addition, I could learn a lot about Lake Michigan.  All three objectives were well met.

Loreen did primarily a solo hike about 20% of the time she was joined by sons, friends, supporters, but for the most time she was alone on the shore – something that Kate and I would not have enjoyed as much as our shared time.   But this was her adventure and she writes, “So it was decided.  In the fall of 2008, I told my husband, Jim, ‘Next year, I’m going to walk all the way around Lake Michigan.’

“He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘Well, shouldn’t we discuss this?

“I simply said, ‘No.’

“It has been decided.  It was the adventure I must have.”

Later she adds this note – “No, I didn’t want to discuss it to death.  He’d want me to justify it, to have it pass his test of being ‘necessary’.”

She has good stories and insights along the way and her love of the lake is really evident as she bemoans the terrible things that have been done to the lake and the shores.  She is able to take in the natural beauty, but does not lose her sense of realism with the finger of the lake dipping into the highly industrial south of Gary, Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Chicago.  It was a big contrast with our hike and of course the contrast was what most interested me.

She did counter clockwise like we did and did not mention the disbelief that I faced with that directional decision.  It must be different on that lake.  He days were much longer than ours.   She did many 20+ mile days – we came close, but never did 20.  Here walking surface was primarily beach like ours was for much of the UP, but it did not have the gravel and cobblestone beds.  Her bedrock was limestone where ours was a more ancient lava and continental shelf.

She did her 1000 miles in 64 days!  Amazing.  She did not do the research, but still – that is incredible.  It is a pace we would not have enjoyed.  Even with the difference in terrain (she also did not seem to walk in the water as much as we did) and her bushwhacking was only on one occasion.  But unlike the 8 days we took off during the journey – days with absolutely no walking – she took off 103 days interspersed with her 10 hiking sections.  She did not do public programs or research along the way as we did.

She stayed in hotels, B&Bs and motels for the majority, but did use a hammock tent for a few nights.  Her meals were in restaurants and Kate would be jealous of all her Jacuzzi baths. 

She suffered many more blisters than we did – we were amazed at how few we had.  Like us she found the road shoulders boring and like Kate she tried garbage bags for waders (with better success).  One more difference was that she skipped Door County Peninsula while we did the Keweenaw and other big projections.

None of this diminishes her great accomplishment and her book is a very enjoyable tale.

Safe from the Sea

Peter Geye¹s novel is set along the Minnesota North Shore and has enjoyable
references for those familiar with the region. Why he changed the name of
Grand Marais to Gunflint but left Two Harbors and Duluth is a mystery to me,
but not important. The key to the story is a reunion of the main character
with his father, who is one of only three survivors from a shipwreck near
Isle Royale. The passages that describe the wreck and survival are the
strongest part of the book.
The shipwreck was obviously more than a news story, it was the alteration of
the family and the lives of each one caught in its aftermath. The Lake sits
calmly as a presence in the story, but it is a dangerous element, a reminder
of the possibility of change and guilt.
The father had to deal with his perceived responsibilities - the damage to the boat, the loss of life, and the fact that he felt he had failed in his responsibility to bring the boat in safely.  As the captain the shipwreck became personal and psychologically a burden he could not escape and the results of his decisions as he internally relived the wreck.  Unfortunately this obsession removed him from the family life that once had surrounded him. It
separated the father from a sense of peace, but, as Peter reveals, it was
not just the father who suffered. The family suddenly had a walking dead man and they were all orphans to the tragedy.
In a late reunion, the son and father are forced together by the father¹s
infirmities. Their resolve to patch up their years of differences tends to
go a little too smoothly as the father moves towards his death, but still
you can feel for the characters and hope that they will depart each other in
a more pleasant way.
The other storyline follows the son and his wife, but I found that it
actually detracted from the novels main tension and purpose. This is an easy
read for a sit along the shore ­ something to save for summer perhaps ­ and
depending on which shore you sit, you might recognizes and enjoy even more
the text.

South of Superior, Ellen Airgood

This wonderful book is set in the U. P. – the upper peninsula of Michigan, a wonderful wilderness landscape that Michigan often forgets is part of the state.  (And that is not all bad).  Youpers are unique and only a geographic designation makes them a part of the lower peninsula.

This book had to be written by someone who lives there.  Ellen Airgood runs the West Bay Diner in Grand Marais, MI (one of our favorite places from our hike) and has the special personality that has allowed her to listen to the elders and to catch the stories and the personalities that dot the isolated communities.

Living in a small town, I know these people and I understand the struggles that are so different from the large cities, like Chicago  where the principal character – Madeline comes from.  I love the connection with Madeline Island, even if it was unintentional. 

This was a relaxing read with a fun cast of characters.  You can guess a little of the ending early on, but the fact that it is a happy ending should not deter you from reading this novel.

The lake does not play a big role in the story or the lives of the individuals, but it presence is important to everyone and to the setting of the story.

“Behind her, over the low rooftops of the stores, Lake Superior crashed to shore in huge white-capped waves.  There was something magic in that endless turn of water, something oceanic and wild and old, something that would outlast the petty arguments of customers and cashiers.”

“A seagull keened.  It was sneaking up on her, but this remote was starting to seem normal to her.  She remembered how it looked from on top of the hill that first morning: a tiny clearing ina vast wilderness of trees, Lake Superior spread out before it like the sea.”

She also captures the reality of small town life – “It ain’t everybody who can liver here, she said finally.  “You’ll live poor.  Like a farmer plowing old stony ground.  You’ll never have much of nothing.  Except troubles.  They’ll come and they’ll be hard to fix.”

“McAllaster was a kind of tribe.  This wasn’t cozy or nice.  Sensed that it was an equation that membership would  exact a price: the loss of privacy, anonymity, certain freedoms she’d taken for granted in Chicago, maybe the loss  of the right to selfishness.  Everybody in this tribe didn’t love each other.  They disagreed and gossiped and argued:  they laid traps for each other and rejoiced when the trap was sprung; they relished placing blame wherever it would stick and took pleasure in one another’s mistakes.  But when there was trouble, there was help.”

Settle in for a pleasant read and take a trip South of Superior.

http://ellenairgood.com/southofsuperior.shtml

                                  

1493

1493 Charles C. Mann

The title can be misleading – it really is not about 1493 – it is about the events post Columbus that began in 1493 and changed the world.  In fact the “Columbian Exchange” as the author discusses is the beginning of globalization on many scales affecting nations, economies, foods, and cultures.  It is the exchange of goods that change the balance between people and their land, often leading to the degradation of land.  It includes seemingly innocuous events like the introduction of earthworms into North America by the Jamestown colony.  An impact on our ecology that we still do not fully understand.  And the introduction of honey bees, which may have impacted indigenous bees, but more destructively created the means for pollinating invasive species that would not have been visited by North American bees.

And this goes on in the Americas and every other continent.  It spawns the horror of slavery in which African slaves were brought in to replace the original American Indian Slaves because the Africans were immune to the malaria and other tropical diseases that were killing the Indians and the settlers.  These same diseases were part of an introduction of disease and pathogens to the continent with strange consequences – like being the major factor in reducing the Indigenous populations, infecting and weakening the British Army that chose to land in the Southern – Malaria states – where they thought they would find more loyalists, and the impact on Yankees in the civil war who had not developed an immunity to the diseases before shipping south.

Sweet potatoes in China and Potatoes in Europe upset the order of both Asia and Europe. Tobacco became a truly international trigger to global trade and part of the impetus for expanding slavery.  In SA rubber was the international star of commerce with issues of disease confronting the prospectors and the challenge of understanding the molecular structure of the strange product.  We learn that Goodyear was a pauper, but at least is remembered while his contemporary and perhaps more capable chemist – Hancock is seldom remembered.  Rubber was a story of both science and industry and is well told in the text.

There are many stories and many countries involved and all of them are stories that support the fear of Occupy Wall Street.  Each country represented by their own corporations enslaved, slaughtered and abused the natives and the land.  Each was rapacious and only held back by the competitive efforts of other countries.  Like the Indians of America who were not asked about their desires and needs, but rather moved, slaughtered and enslaved (yes, they were the first slaves in NA).  The weave of history that this book follows from 1493 includes a variety of obscure tales that are important in history, but not remembered over the time and major issues of the centuries. 

The US south was represented by a man named Maury who tried to lead a US annexation of Amazon that would be a slave holding refuge against the anti-slave factions of the north.  Among the spurious reasons was the decision that the waters of the Mississippi mixed with the Amazon in the ocean, therefore making the Amazon a part of NA – of course no one thought that maybe it made the Mississippi part of S.A.

Maury is famous for a more positive contribution – the mapping of the ocean currents and his work is still the basis for our understanding of ocean flow, but he was a fully committed southern slavery advocate; “One of Maury's arguments in favor of a United States presence in the Amazon drew upon his work with wind and current charts. Although the oceanographer maintained that the current off São Roque "is neither dangerous nor ... constant," he averred that ships running under canvas from the mouth of the Amazon to Europe to Rio to Africa or around either of the Capes must stand north and pass not far from the West Indies. This fact ... makes that river basin nearer to us than to Brazil (if we call Rio, Brazil[)] and puts practically the mouth of that river almost as much within the Florida pass and under our control

as is the mouth of the Mississippi (Maury 1948, 217). http://sites.maxwell.syr.edu/clag/Yearbook1987/sternberg.pdf

In many ways, the entire globalization discussion and examples become a treatise on slavery – cause, continuation, and impact.  There are many stories of “maroons” that I have never heard.  In the end your disgust with slavery will be strengthened.

This book is a perfect companion to 1491, Collapse, and  Guns Germs and Steel.  Dense with information, stories and new perspectives. 

From the author of 1491 - the best-selling study of the pre-Columbian Americas - a deeply engaging new history that explores the most momentous biological event since the death of the dinosaurs. More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed totally different suites of plants and animals. Columbus's voyages brought them back together - and marked the beginning of an extraordinary exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas. As Charles Mann shows, this global ecological tumult - the "Columbian Exchange" - underlies much of subsequent human history. Presenting the latest generation of research by scientists, Mann shows how the creation of this worldwide network of exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Manila and Mexico City - where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted - the center of the world. In 1493, Charles Mann gives us an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle   David Wroblewski

Thanks to Joe Deden for this excellent recommendation.  This is a novel set near Ashland WI so I enjoyed familiarity with the setting, but even more the voiceless boy who finds the language of the dogs.  His acceptance in to a primitive pack and the confusion of people and their motives and actions sustain this long novel.

It is really well written and a refreshing concept for a novel.   I did not know it was an Oprah selection until I started going through the reviews and analysis like I do at the end of each book.  She chose well with this one.

When he suspects his uncle murdered his father, young mute Edgar Sawtelle and his loyal pack of dogs escape to the Wisconsin backwoods. But can Edgar outrun the creeping menace that haunts his family?Author David Wroblewski's brilliant debut novel has earned an impressive collection of starred reviews.

http://www.enotes.com/the-story-of-edgar-sawtelle/ provides this synopsis.

David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008) explores the silent world of the novel’s protagonist, Edgar Sawtelle. Edgar lives in Wisconsin during the middle of the twentieth century. Born mute, he is a teenager who seems to prefer the language of dogs more than the words of the adults around him. From his earliest memories, his favorite job on the farm was to name the new puppies that were born there. He chooses names randomly from a dictionary. As he grows older, his connection with the dogs becomes more profound. He helps to train them through sign language.

Wroblewski begins his novel with Edgar’s grandfather, telling readers about how the dog farm began. When Edgar’s father, Gar, dies suspiciously, Edgar blames his uncle Claude, his father’s younger brother, who has meant nothing but trouble for the family. When Claude makes romantic overtures to Edgar’s mother, Trudy, Edgar is outraged.

The story is filled with loving family memories until Claude arrives. Claude spends most of his time in the barn or at the local bar. The details of Claude’s life are sketchy at best and Edgar finds Claude to be two-faced. The man presents his best side to Edgar’s mother. She falls for him, allowing him to fill in the vacant spaces left behind from her husband’s death. Edgar sees the other side of Claude, a side that Edgar finds dangerous.

When tensions become too strong between Edgar and Claude, Edgar takes his favorite dogs and runs away from home. For the story itself, this tension raises the level of curiosity for the reader. It is at this point that the novel takes on the form of a mystery or a sort of detective story. Edgar fears the police are looking for him because of an accidental death that he played a part in. Readers worry that Edgar might be caught because Claude is suggesting to local officials that Edgar committed murder. In the end, it is Edgar versus Claude—a fight to the finish. Unfortunately, there are no winners.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was Wroblewski’s first novel. It took him ten years to complete it. Literary critics praise the author’s writing, especially in the first half of the story. Some critics, however, have found the second half to be too artificially manipulated.

http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/284-story-of-edgar-sawtelle-wroblewski Here is my favorite review.  The comparison with Hamlet is right on and Wroblewski will say that it is equally inspired by the Jungle Book.

For Shakespeare buffs, this is a retelling of Hamlet.

Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally.

But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm—and into Edgar's mother's affections.

Grief-stricken and bewildered, Edgar tries to prove Claude played a role in his father's death, but his plan backfires—spectacularly. Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yearling dogs who follow him. But his need to face his father's murderer and his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn Edgar ever homeward.

David Wroblewski is a master storyteller, and his breathtaking scenes—the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain—create a riveting family saga, a brilliant exploration of the limits of language, and a compulsively readable modern classic. (From the publisher.)

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/david-wroblewski-the-story-of-edgar-sawtelle-interviewe/d9ef18128de394e9d295d9ef18128de394e9d295-829807265129?q=the+story+of+edgar+sawtelle+synopsis&FORM=VIRE3   Video interview with novelist.