The Disappearnce of Sherlock Holmes

With each new adventure Larry Millet makes Holmes more and more an American story.  Perhaps Larry has truly channeled Arthur Conan Doyle and Doyle's belief in spiritualism is coming true through this series of American Adventures.

While the first books were fun, the depth of the story and the character increase with each volume and in this adventure that spins off the Dancing Men mystery we see Larry giving the canon of Sherlockian writing its due and then he moves forward to put Holmes and Watson in to situations that would never have occurred to Doyle.

This is fun, because Holmes is a universal figure, an icon of mystery.  Of course, like all series the suspense is less because we  know the hero will survive.  That is why the death of Holmes in Rickenback Falls was such a shock!  But even that death could not last, nor could Holmes remain dead just because Arthur Conan Doyle died.

You can understand why Doyle wanted to eliminate this nemesis.  Holmes took over Conan Doyle's life.  Doyle may have been an interesting person - enough for novels like the Sherlockian and other Doyle focused books, but in the end it is Sherlock who continues to live.  He is the spirit that Arthur sought in his spiritualism adventures, but that was not satisfying to an author who wanted the spotlight on the real person.

In this book we cross paths with real people, just like the early Millet novels that had James J Hill in central roles.  Here we find the Astor's playing a minor role and New York and Chicago are prominent for their own character.

Holmes is set up, he is mocked, he is led through the adventures by a mind that is vindictive just as it is cunning and even knowing Sherlock has to survive we are still caught in his fast paced adventure.  Like all current day Sherlock writers, Larry takes much longer than the genius Doyle in telling his story, but the master has to have his due and it is acceptable when the pace is good like this one is.

A revelation that this book presents as the basis for its story is the fact that Irene Adler was not the only woman from the Canon of Doyle/Holmes works that Sherlock was smitten with.  Despite a century of belief in such a situation, we now find that Elsie Cubbits from the Dancing Men mystery became a frequent companion and correspondent with Holmes and as a result Holmes' enemies use her as the wedge to propel Watson and Holmes to come to NY where Holmes himself is kidnapped and ultimately Chicago.

Millet brings in the characters that he has introduced in his own boy of Sherlockian writings and they converge along with the villains - who come from both Doyle and Millet. "Wooldridge, a former police officer was described at the time as "the incorruptible Sherlock Holmes of America," and he was on a mission to save Chicago from itself." - http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/chicago-detective/  I am pleased to learn about this real life detective who is as fascinating in reality as Holmes in fiction.  The second policeman ally is Wilson Hargreave of the New York Police Bureau - who was in the original dancing man mystery.

On a Farther Shore William Souder

This biography celebrates the 50 year anniversary of the publishing of Silent Spring, perhaps the most influential environmental book ever written and the most important. It tells the story of the book, but also the story of her earlier and extremely popular first books on the oceans that dominate the first half and rightly so.  As the story of Rachel, the person, unfolds, it is through her writing that we grasp her mind and values.  The Sea Around Us and the other oceanographic writing connected her to the shore, to scientists, to research papers, and the meticulous sense of detail and accuracy that established her and made the controversy over Silent Spring harder for her attackers.  

She began as a scientist, but it is obvious that writing was her calling, and nature her passion.  Yes the author tells of her one true love and a little (not nearly enough) about her grandson who lived with her, but he also goes away from Rachel for prolonged periods to tell us what is going on in the world that is connected with her writing.  At times the thread and trail gets long enough that you wonder where Rachel will reconnect, but for the most part these sections give us key connections to other people and events that tell of the time and the issue.

The work on Silent Spring began in the 1950's during a time when both DDT, with its array of related pesticides was changing the chemistry of the soil, removing species, and threatening life, and our fascination and experimentation with Nuclear and Hydrogen bombs led us to a place where we had the power to destroy all life - people included.  It created a new mood, and new perspective on the planet and the future and as a variety of "accidents" and "incidents" piled up the people were ready to listen to and react to the warnings in Silent Spring.  All that is, except the chemical companies.  

One confusion that the book emphasizes as we see Rachel Carson maturing and developing her voice in America is the fact that she never said that pesticides should not be used, only that we should have a well defined purpose and a controlled application when it was determined that health issues warranted it.  But that was not good enough for the companies and the studies began to show that we were eating, drinking, and breathing pesticide residues even if the pesticides were not used within hundreds of miles.  It was becoming pervasive.

In 1962, the publication of the book brought recognition to the author as well as attacks that were financed by the chemical industries.  Within the contents I learned that one manufacturer voluntarily stopped producing the pesticides because of the dangers they presented - and this was before the book came out.   

Rachel received these two contrasting sets of responses while fighting cancer, something that she desperately tried to keep private.  He efforts awakened the Kennedy presidency and eventually led to the EPA.  

Part personal, but more concentrated on the books and their contents and impact, this is an excellent environmental history and biographic presentation. 

Winter - Rick Bass

Winter by Rick Bass  was written in 1991, but the images he shares as he and his girlfriend settle in to the remote Yaak valley are even more poignant in this climate stressed time.  I enjoyed the feelings and experiences and have the added advantage of living in a state forest with a town of 300 as my local equivalent to his experiences.  It is fun to see him as a real inexperienced settler in the deep woods, cutting firewood, snowshoeing, learning.  I went through that in 1971 when we moved to the Audubon Center and tried to figure out all the challenges of a really cold and snowy winter (with two kids too).   

Almost everyone can relate to the impact of short days and long nights - we now have initials to describe the phenomenon, but it is so visceral that it cannot be summarized as a syndrome.  "The days are gradually, by minutes, getting longer, and soon I'll be out of it, going full bore again, put on my city ways and do the work of three men - but these short, dark days are bigger than I am, larger than the chemical stirrings going on in the back of the brain, and I've learned that if I fight it, I'll only be more tired the next day."

Kate and I love winter and the coming of snow.  This year we have too little and it frustrates.  Snow is the essence of a wonderful winter.  In this journal of living in the remote forest I enjoy the simple beauty that he describes when he writes, "I watch individual flakes; I peer up through the snow and see the blank infinity from which it comes; I listen to special silence it creates."

In Minnesota we have not had Caribou in my life time, but I still miss them.  In Canada we found an antler and satisfaction in knowing that a few still roam in the woods.  The potential loss of Moose to MN because of climate and the surrounding factors is a bone-chiling threat and makes me relish the ode to the caribou that comes in one of Rick's soliloquys: "Caribou used to roam the old forests of the northern United States, no just in Montana, but in Minnesota and all the way to Maine. ...I crave wilderness. I want to hoard nature the way that they might hoard sports cars. What I'm saying is that I don't want only gray wolves and grizzlies up here..., but caribou too. 

"There are names on the old maps of this area that break my heart, names like Caribou Creek and Caribou Mountain. The mapmakers didn't give us those names by accident.
"But I missed out on it. There aren't any caribou up on Caribou Mountain now. Just ghosts."

We can say the same in Minnesota where Caribou Falls on the Minnesota shore never gets seen by its namesake. Only a remnant - a small remnant remains on the mainland - Pukaskwa National Park in Ontario and a crow of caribou confined to the Slate Islands. I want them back in the woods to surprise me in my forays in the boreal forests - living ghosts, not just memories.

Rick Bass describes the mental ups and downs of winter extremely well - "See, I don't yet realize that March will be the hardest month.  Early February's the coldest, and often the snowiest, but March, strange, silent March, will be the hardest.

"The danger in yielding to thoughts of spring - green grass, hikes, bare feet, lakes, fly fishing, rivers, and sun, hot sun - is that once these thoughts enter your mind, you can't get them out.

"Love winter.  Don't betray it.  Be loyal.

"When the spring gets here, love it, too - and then the summer.

"But be loyal to winter, all the way through - all the way, and with sincerity - or you'll find yourself high and dry, longing for a spring that's a long way off, and winter will have abandoned you, and in her place you'll have cabin fever, the worst.

"The colder it gets, the more you've got to love it."

The portraits of his fellow hermits are okay, but lack the details I would like to have - however, if he could have filled in the details - they would not be hermits!

It is good to go back and find books that carry a message and of course Rick Bass has gone on to a prominent place as an author. 

Stories in Stone by David Williams

I struggled with the first chapter and was not sure that I would continue.  It just did not grab me, but in this case perseverance paid off.  As I went in a little deeper I was caught up in the author's madness - the use of buildings to discover the source of stone to tell the geologic story while getting back to the building he could tell some of the human history.

It was a very satisfying exercise and one I enjoyed because of my love of history and geology.  I do like architecture, but not to the extent of the writer, but I am curious about what some of the buildings really look like.  The few black and white photographs were not adequate to illustrate the points and satisfy curiosity, but the stories and words were more than adequate.  Here are a couple passages I like.

The first one I need to qualify - I am writing this while the temperature at my home just south of Duluth is -22.   "Three hundred and thirty million years ago, during the Mississippian Period, you could have sailed a boat across most of the middle part of North America. You would have floated over future Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona, and Indiana, though you would not have moved fast because you were in the windless zone of the globe we now call the Doldrums. In addition, you would have needed plenty of sunblock, as your boat would periodically cross the equator, which, because North America tilted almost 90 degrees to the northeast, ran from about mondern-day San Diego through Duluth, Minnesota."

The second one appeals to me on many levels - "Despite the numerous benefit of pens over chalk, whiteboards are far from ideal.  Chalk dust can be an irritant to some people, but generally the large particles settle out of your nose before they have a chance to get into your lungs;  whiteboard cleaners, though, produce toxic fumes.  The cleaners come with some warning labels.  Another drawback to whiteboards is the residue of writing that doesn't wash off, no matter how much cleaner you use.  And when someone uses a sharpie pen by accident, you cannot erase it from the whiteboard.  Furthermore, half the time you try to use dry-erase pens they don't work because they have run out of ink.  Then what do you do?  Toss them in the garbage so they can end up as landfill.   No one ever has to doubt wheter a piece of chalk is usable, and when it becomes to small to write with, you can just carry it outside and buy it.  It will soon degrade and disappear without a trace.

"As I wandered the hallways at Stevens, I couldn't help but wonder if today's students are missing out.  Where once they could have continued the centuries-old tradition of employing fossil sea critters to write or draw, on a metamorphosed slab of fine-grained marine sediment, now they write on petroleum-based, plastic whiteboards with an odoriferous, chemical-filled pen.  In a society where our failed connection to nature surely has contributed to our failed understanding of human impact on the land, the loss of slate and chalk is one more example of how we are taking nature away from children and replacing it with something artificial."

David Suzuki: The Autobiography

This book, written in 2006 is David Suzuki's autobiography, the 43rd book written by the prolific scientist, author, philosopher and television personality.  In Canada he has a position that is similar to that of David Attenborough the British face of nature television.  Unfortunately, the US does not have a similar voice and program.  It is our loss.  It is also unfortunate that we know so little about Suzuki.  

In my graduate course - History of the Environment, I often have to challenge my students - teachers and naturalists to see beyond the US for leaders and important representatives of our Earth conscious society members.  It is important because it is part of our recognition of the planet as a whole and not just the geo/economic/political domination of the United States.

Suzuki spent a portion of his childhood in the concentration camp for Japenese citizens that were created during WWII both in the US and Canada.  These terrible racist congregations did more than isolate the Japanese, they were part of an effort that denied them the rights of citizenship and took away their own, well earned, homes and possession.  But Suzuki does not dwell on the injustice - instead he shows how he grew from that experience through the help of his dad and First Nation elders to see the beauty of nature and the world became his focus.  

He was proud of his Canadian citizenship and the childhood trauma did not change that.  But he did develop a stronger relationship to the Country through his connection with First Nation people and that would stay with him in TV and print.  

His days as a scientists were fulfilling and he loved it, but soon found that his ability to translate science for the general public was his most effective way of achieving his goals of promoting science and then of caring for the earth.  He was an activist broadcaster and often made personal commitments to the issues and people he interviewed that went far beyond what he could present on his programs.

His growing celebrity and development of the David Suzuki Foundation allowed him to have impacts in Brazil, Australia, and Papau New Guinea as well as in Canada.  The story of these issues, his work with them and the personal growth as a father, husband, and elder are important and pleasurable reading. 

Inventing Wine by Paul Lukacs

I do love a good wine and wish I could taste more great wines, but the challenge for people like me is to find good wines at low prices and today, more than at any time that can happen.  Why?  Well - glad you asked because Paul Lukacs takes a thousand year history and allows us to learn about the evolution of wine and the challenges that face this amazing drink that has been described as the liquid of the gods through numerous religions and cultures.

"In one cult or club, however, wine was even more central, being emblematic not only of why one came together in a certain place at a certain time, but also of why one existed in time and space at all. This was the cult of the wine god himself, significantly enough, it was the one association that spanned the two cultures. In Greece, it was called the cult of Dionysus, in Rome, the cult of Bacchus. But in both, people joined in order to be able to drink the god - not simply for intoxication, though that certainly happened, but for communion. Here the communion was less with one's fellows than with earth - specifically with nature and nature's fertile power, a power literally felt in the heat of the wine one drank, a power far greater than anything fabricated by human beings. Not surprisingly the political authorities often feared Bacchus and tried to ban his cult. Not surprisingly too, they failed."

Wine grew in importance because the alcohol (a word derived from the Arabic language) helped to purify the commonly putrid water and kill  the germs that human abuse was putting in the liquid that they depended upon.  That initial wine was terrible - but healthy and they drank it even when it was more vinegar than beverage.  The best way to drink wine in the ancient days was as soon as it was ready - before oxygen ignited the energy of bacteria and destroyed it.

Because of this other beverages eventually challenged the supremacy of wines.  "Coffee was introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century by Venetian merchants who purchased beans (and learned how to roast them) from Ottoman traders."

"...tea first came to Europe when Portugal established a trading company in Macao. Then both the Dutch and East India Companies imported it in volume and popularized its consumption."

"And by the mid-1600's, the Spanish, who had introduced chocolate to Europe's courts in the previous c enturye were using African slave labor to grow cacao plants on their Central American plantations."

"Europe's first coffeehouse opened in Venice in 1645." "London's first in Cornhill, opened in 1652. Twenty years later, one of its owners, a man named Pasqua Rosee, crossed the English Channel and started one in Paris."

Moving in to the 1800's we began to see the wine we would recognize today - a wine with some special qualities of both terroir and variety.  Thanks to Pasteur and other scientists yeast and bacteria were observed and identified and the mystery of fermentation became knowledge that could be used and manipulated.  No longer would wonderful additives like pine pitch be used to keep the wine from going bad (as if putting in pine pitch, lead or ash would not make it bad by themselves).

"Yet the seeds of change had been planted much earlier - initially in the swales and slopes of viticultural Burgundy, then on the steep hillsides along the Rhine and Mosel Rivers in Germany, and finally in gravelly vineyards near the city of Bordeaux. These were the three areas in which a special of fine wine's identity first became linked with the particularities of place, and in which people began to understand the complex interplay of soil, climate and culture, which constitute what contemporary enthusiasts call a wine's terroir."

The author does a wonderful job of presenting the time, the knowledge and the culture that impact the grapes and the wine.  It is truly a world summary with Africa, Australia, Asia, New Zealand, South America joining Europe and the US in the evolving storyline.

“…starting in the 1840’s, Baron Bettino Ricasoli, a prominent landowner in the region, began working to modernize and improve Chianti – or more precisely to improve the red wine from his estate, the Castello de Brolio.  He did this in part because, much like the Marchesa di Barolo [the first Italian to adopt the new wine processes that began in France] his discerning palate recognized the superiority of fine French wines, but also in part because his ancestral property was mortgaged severly. He hoped to inaugurate a new, profitable Tuscan tradition with a new wine.

“Riscaoli was an austere visionary known as the ‘Iron Baron’ who soon found an even more important calling as a political reformer.  He played a leading role in the unification of Italy, serving as the country’s second prime minister, but even when managing affairs of state in Rome, he always supervised agricultural and winemaking experiments at Brolio.  He tested different grape varieties, blending them in different percentages, and by 1872 had arrived at a formula for success.  It involved utilizing Pasteur’s principles in the winery and growing only select varieties in the vineyard, the state of a tradition that eventually would be sanctified in law. ‘Chianti wine draws most of its bouquet (which is what I aim for) from Sangiovese,’ he wrote, going on to advocate the addition of a small amount of red Canaiolo for wines meant to be aged.  Before his experiments, no one would have thought to cellar any Tuscan wine, for no one would have thought of it as being in the same league as fine Bordeaux – of for that matter, as Barolo.  But connoisseurs who tasted this new Chianti could tell that it was superior and Brolio was fully disencumbered of debt by the time the baron died in 1880.”

“After Riscasoli’s death, his tenants returned to their old methods, and both Brolio and Chianti fell back in to disrepute.  The wine once again was cheap, simple, and often acrid.  According to legend, it was tat this point that the baron’s ghost, accompanied by a white horse, began wandering forlornly across the Tuscan hills.”

The ghost can now rest peacefully, Brolio is back and my favorite chianti[Mike].  

By the time we get to the modern era Lukacs has presented us with the science of oenology and allows us to see why we should never drink another bad wine.  Not only is life too short, but the options are too great. 

Here on Earth by Tim Flannery

Every year there is a book that you just have to tell everyone to read.  For me that book starts the year - only the third book read and already one that I will be loaning, giving and recommending.

Tim Flannery wrote one of the best books (Weather Makers) on Global Warming and now he goes beyond that to look at the status of our planet - with Global Warming being one of the realities.  Like so many books on the environment it has a sense of hopelessness because of the size of the problems, but Flannery is not the average writer or scientist.  An Australian, writer, scientist means that he takes a broad world view to find the potential solutions and descriptions and is not limited as our own writers tend to be to the US.

This global look is appropriate since it is the planet we are talking about and the problems range from invasive Species to mineral extraction to over population to extinction of species to the climate and yet he works to give hope.  He reaches back to Darwin and other classic scientists but finds some of the hope in the Gaia movement of Lovelock and the broader Gaia centric writing of Wallace (co-founder of the theory of evolution) and contasts them with the Medea hypothesis that says that a species unchecked will ultimately destroy their home, habitat, and world.  And of course there is only one species like that - Humans. However it is not humans, but the larger animals that are keystones to the natural systems: "Earth's ecological include the big herbivores, those weighing a ton or more.  As we'll soon see, in marginal ecosystems such as deserts or tundra, these ecological bankers speed the flow of resources through the ecosystem, allowing a substantial "biological economy to be built on a slender resource base."

Flannery is an excellent writer and there is no labor to working through the components of earth history and the evolution of people.  He takes us to the Hobbits of Flores with the same ease as the sinking of pollution to the sea floor only to rise again in the food we want to eat.  "In US, mercury levels are four times higher in fish-eaters (defined as those who have eaten three or more servings of fish in the past 30 days) than others, and high levels of methyl mercury can cause myriad symptoms in humans..."

It is both science and philosophy and the fact that he challenges us to think based on a broad spectrum of knowledge is refreshing and effective.  In the end, he asks us to be intelligent, to use our intelligence to see the future and go beyond the immediate gain.  If we can, the future looks wonderful for the species still alive.  If not the picture is not good for us or them.

My favorite 2012 books

My favorite books of 2012 - it was a great book year and I felt bad leaving some off the list.  But I decided that it would make more sense to put this in categories rather than just a numerical list.

I hope this gives you some reading inspiration.

History

1.       Rising Tide – John Barry

2.       1493  Charles Mann

3.       Explorers of the Nile – Tim Jeal

4.       The Annotated Emerson

5.       Lost in Shangri La – Zuckorf

6.       Fatal Journey – Peter Mancall

7.       The Devil’s Backbone – Daniels

8.       Destiny of the Republic – Millard

9.       Old Times on the Upper Mississippi River – Merrick

10.   L. A. Noir  - John Buntin

Biography

1.       Rin Tin Tin – Susan Orlean

2.       Rather Outspoken – Dan Rather

3.       The American Emperor [Burr]

4.       Patrick Henry – Thomas Kidd

5.       Stan Musial – George Vecsey

6.       James Madison - Brookhiser

7.       Nathan Hale – William Phelps

8.       Superman – Larry Tye

9.       Coolidges: An American Enigma - Sobel

10.   Lighting Out for the Country [Twain] - Morris

Western

1.       Gunmen’s Rhapsody – Robert Parker

2.       Resolution – Robert Parker

3.       Doc – Mary Russell

4.       The Sisters Brothers – Patrick DeWitt

5.       Hard Country Michael McGarrity

6.       Black Jack – Max Brand

7.       Blue Eyed Devil – Robert Parker

8.       Ride the River – Louis L’Amour

9.       Bad Dirt – Proulx

10.   Tappan’s Burro – L’Amour

Fiction

1.       The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce

2.       Settler’s Creek – Carl Nixon

3.       The Art of Fielding - Harack

4.       Where White Horses Gallop - McNeal

5.       Elizabeth Street Laurie Fabbiano

6.       The Heart of Horses – Molly Gloss

7.       House of the Hanged – Mark Mills

8.       Holes – Louis Sachar

9.       Mrs. Tom Thumb – Melanie Benjamin

10.   The Lock Artist - Hamilton

Nature and science

1.       The Great Disruption – Paul Gilding

2.       How the Hippies Saved Physics – David Kaiser

3.       Moral Lives of Animals – Dale Peterson

4.       The Big Thirst – Charles Fishman

5.       The Social Conquest of Earth - Wilson

6.       Elixir – Brian Fagan

7.       The Legacy of the Mastodon – Alton Brown

8.       Westward I Go Free [Thoreau] - Smith

9.       American Canopy - Rutkow

10.   Marshes – William Burt

Mystery

1.       The Dog Who knew Too Much – Spencer Quinn

2.       Lake of the Woods – Tim O’Brien

3.       Boundary Waters – Kent Krueger

4.       The Complaints -  Ian Rankin

5.       Death Along the Spirit Road - C. M. Wendelboe

6.       Force of Nature - C. J. Box

7.       Faithful Place – Tana French

8.       The Expats – Chris Pavone

9.       Mad River, John Sandford

10.   The Hot Kid – Elmore Leonard

Travel

1.       Bayou Farewell - Mike Tidwell

2.       Undress me in the Temple of Heaven – Jane Gilman

3.       One Wheel Many Spokes – Lars Clausen

4.       Walking the Amazon - Ed Stafford

5.       American Pie – Pascale Le Draolec

6.       Adventures on the Wine Route – Kermit Lynch

7.       Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson

8.       The Ledge – Davidson

9.       Water to Wine – Doc Hendley

10.   In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin

Poetry

1.       Reindeer Camps – Barton Sutton