Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling

By my personal star rating system a four star book represents a book I might read again. Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous is ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ by that measurement.

I went to Project Gutenberg the other day looking for a copy of Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King. While browsing there I picked up a copy of Captains Courageous. It has been a long time since I read the story, and honestly, the Spencer Tracy movie version was jumbled up with my memory of the book.

Captains Courageous is the coming of age story of Harvey Cheyne, the spoiled son of a wealthy family. The short synopsis: When Harvey falls over board from a large cruise liner he is rescued by a small fishing bark, the We're Here. Harvey learns what it means to be a man while earning his keep during a fishing season on “The Banks.” Harvey is returned to his doting mother and self-made rich father who then teaches Harvey the value of an education. Harvey grows up to be a resilient, educated, soon to be, captain of business, a Captains Courageous.

That doesn't sound like a particularly exciting story line to me. Does it to you? So why might I read Captains Courageous again? Kipling is a good story teller. That point can not be undersold. The people in the story are full of life. The scenery (ocean waves, fog, wind in the sails) is majestic and powerful. The dialects are fun. And the histories of the men are appealing. And in our current time of “entitled children” it's good to see a spoiled boy become a respected man. Is that still possible? I have a seventeen year old son, I'll let you know.

George W. Parker

Dracula by Bram Stoker

By my personal star rating system a five star book represents a book I will read again. Stoker's Dracula is ☆☆☆☆☆ by that measurement.

This is the third time I have read Dracula. I still find Stoker's use of a journal style presentation annoying. I think the final showdown in the shadows of Castle Dracula is way too brief. And is anyone really as good a human being as Mina Harker? (At least she notes that they are lucky to have a wealthy friend or none of this battle could battle been accomplished.)

But the horror is still there. The glittering specs of light gathering into ravenous beauties. The fog moving across the yard to envelope the bedroom. Renfield fighting to save Mina's soul. The army of rats at the Master's command. The dead captain at the ship's wheel bring Dracula to England. The burning red eyes. What's not to like and enjoy?

George W. Parker

The Best Sentence in American Literature?

For me the best sentence in American Literature is:

“It was an hour before the first shark hit.” Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea

Hemingway has had his old man, Santiago, battle age, bad luck, and the mightiest marlin he has ever seen and he has defeated them all. He has proven to himself and to the world that he is still a man. And we think Santiago is triumphantly sailing home to claim his success when Hemingway punches us in the face with this sentence and lets us know that there is just this one other little thing to deal with. Simply, adroitly, Hemingway moves the action to a wider plane. He takes what had been an intimate one on one combat and throws it into a world war, an us against them action. And in a world war even the victors suffer. That is a lot to achieve with one sentence.

George W. Parker

Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, Bantam Books

This is a two star book.

Thomas Harris' Red Dragon is best known for introducing Hannibal Lecter. Maybe that is its proper place. The antagonist and protagonist are interesting, “troubled” characters. The book draws you along with anticipation of the next killing cycle until the redemptive influence of a woman's love ruptures the Red Dragon. For all the evident hard work Harris does, ultimately he skates on the ending – split personalities fighting with themselves. Made for TV movies don't even do that, well sometimes.

I do also want to point out a time/space continuum error. The FBI agent in Chicago packages Lecter's ad to the Red Dragon for shipment to Washington and suddenly we find out that in the distant future the agent will show the ad to his children during a tour of FBI Headquarters. That was an uncomfortable time shift. How did that make it into the book?


George Parker

The Shadow Factory by James Bamford, published by Doubleday

Following is a book review whose subject deserves attention.

The Shadow Factory by James Bamford, published by Doubleday

2.5 of 5 stars

If you didn't know the United States Government is listening to all you voice communications and reading all your emails and monitoring all the web sites you visit, then shame on you. Do you think the government didn't watch Arron Burr and other long before and after? Governments have always watched their own. Back in the day they use to go to the library and see what you were reading now it is easier to pull that information off the fiber optics the telecommunications industry charges you to use.

The Shadow Factory delineates the external and internal monitoring changes made post 9/11 by the various US alphabet agencies at the behest of the Bush administration. It has often been said by supporters of this type of broad reach surveillance that "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." This is a book review so I won't argue that point but here is a link that will http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/government-might-know-youre-reading.

In the early parts of The Shadow Factory Bamford succeeds in presenting a story line that stands on solid ground and feels like fact. As the book progresses though the factual feel begins to slip away and we're left with what seems to be “water cooler talk.” I wish he had been able to maintain that earlier story strength.

For me the real success Bamford has is in portraying the poor management and often mismanagement of these various spy projects/systems. The incestuous moneyed relationships between government agencies and their contractors that he presents are enough to make Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture blush.

I recommend that you read the early sections of The Shadow Factory.

George W. Parker

Something Happened

No, this is not about the Joseph Heller novel. Although I did read it once upon a time, I don't remember anything about it. Which, in and of itself, is my review of it.

This is about yesterday. Yesterday was a Thursday which I believe is the worst day of the week. But something good happened which proves the vagaries of life. I used aplomb in a sentence for the first time ever.

Now that may not seem like much of anything special to you. And maybe it just doesn't take much for me to have a good Thursday. But it was exciting for me.

Everyone has multiple vocabularies. We have our reading vocabularies, writing vocabularies, speaking vocabularies, and subsets like work vocabularies and children's vocabularies. Yesterday's use of aplomb was exciting as I took it from my reading vocabulary, added it to my writing vocabulary, and then added it my speaking vocabulary. Kind of a triple play.

Now that may not still seem like much of anything special to you. But you need to know that I am a poor speller, poorest of the poor. Yesterday as I'm writing I snatch aplomb (It's meaning) out of my reading vocabulary deck and try to slam it down into my writing list. I couldn't spell it. In place of the pl I kept trying a b. It wasn't in my speaking vocabulary so I wasn't pronouncing it out correctly. I probably spent a half hour searching out that correct spelling before putting aplomb on hold and moving on with the story.

Last night I was talking with my middle daughter, who can spell, and asked her how to spell the word. Well, as I wasn't pronouncing it correctly, she couldn't spell it correctly. But that conversation put me back in the hunt.

I skimmed through synonyms looking for it. Words like witty, pithy, reassured, and smooth. Finally I looked at savoir-faire which led me to poised and then, eureka, aplomb.

All told I spent at least an hour actively chasing that word. And when I wasn't chasing it I was thinking about chasing it.

So I learned two things yesterday: how to spell aplomb and that I liked http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ the best of all the online dictionaries.

George W. Parker

The Pipe

“Read The Pipe.”

I don't remember what I was doing the other day (not uncommon) but “Read The Pipe.” was my response to it.

The Pipe is Chapter XXX from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It took me a few days to get around to pulling out my copy of Moby Dick and re-reading that section. But the need to do so was never out of my mind that entire time.

I was surprised to find it located in the first quarter of the book as I think of the last quarter as holding all the best parts of the story. It is a short section of about 275 words. I'll quote part of it here to help pad out my word count.

“Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring- aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more-"

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.”

Ahab had sought and received solace from his pipe for probably his entire life. Now he discovered it had merely become a habit, not a movement of his own volition. Only conscience Ahab decides what Ahab does. He does not admit to or submit to any other orders.

I doubt that anything as powerful as that was going through my mind when the need to re-read The Pipe jumped into my head. If anything I was probably wishing I had something to smoke. But I did find it interesting that the need didn't go away until the deed was done.

George W. Parker