Books:
August
The Botany of Desire (Pollan)
Tintenherz (Funke)
The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (Kaplan)
The Mother's Recompense (Wharton)
The Language Police (Ravitch)
September
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
The Closing of the Western Mind (Freeman)
A Little History of the World (Gombrich)
The Poet Dying: Heinrich Heine's Last Years in Paris (Pawel)
The Botany of Desire was excellent, so good I wanted to read it out loud, so good I could have turned back to page one as soon as I finished it. (By the way: when I asked for this title in a bookstore, the assistant leered at me. Part of me wanted to laugh & say, "Read the back, you dummy!" But I managed to keep a solemn demeanor.)
Tintenherz was not so good. It pains me to say that, because Funke has her heart in the right place: she evokes the magic of reading very well, and the first chapter was so promising. I won't go into the details, but Tintenherz made clear why in all the great children's books adults are for the most part evil, or, if they're good, they're befuddled, oblivious, helpless. It's a capital mistake to put a strong, capable, good adult at the center of a children's book; it means that the child protagonist never comes into her own.
But I'm glad I've read it, because my students mention it, and because now I can say I've read a 550-page book in German.
The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach was superb. In writing about the novels, Kaplan speaks of Brasillach's characteristic "turn of the century charm and childlike joie de vivre," with WWI as a sudden, incomprehensible parenthesis; his pet notion of "brother enemies," so useful when he wanted to be forgiven by the Resistance figures whom he had hounded and betrayed to the Germans (going so far as to publish addresses of hiding places). One of his novels even features a love triangle involving a Frenchman, a German, and a woman named Catherine. Doesn't this all sound a lot like Jules et Jim? Now I know that movie is based on a different book, but maybe Henri-Pierre Roché was recycling something by Brasillach? I found a website that spoke of Truffaut's "predilection" for literature of the extreme right, and elsewhere I read that the editor Roché worked with had signed the clemency petition. (But that doesn't mean much, since so many men of letters did.)
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
I bought Gombrich's Little History of the World for my sixth graders. I've been looking for such a book for a while, and I was pleased to find one recommended by Philip Pullman. (And such a satisfying design! Such thick and creamy pages & beautiful woodcut illustrations!) I decided to read a bit to them every class, since xeroxing it would be impractical. The first chapter is a bit abstract, and I was afraid that they would find its extended metaphor for history and memory — dropping a burning scrap of paper down a well, and seeing what it lights up — abstruse or tedious. I was so worried that I'm afraid my voice trembled, and I rushed as I finished the chapter. But when I shut the book Viren exclaimed, "Oh my God, that's such a good book!" Patrick: "It's like he's talking to you!" That's exactly the effect Gombrich aims for, and it charmed me when I read it. But when I read it out loud I suddenly became self-conscious; would they find it hokey and condescending? I'm glad they didn't. Viren even appreciated the style: "He's such a good writer! It's really well-worded."
Another recommendation: Malcolm Gladwell's review of a book by Jerome Karabel on admission to Harvard (& Co.). It made me hate the Ivy League more than ever. This in particular stayed with me:
And the most important category? That mysterious index of “personal” qualities. According to Harvard’s own analysis, the personal rating was a better predictor of admission than the academic rating… When the Office of Civil Rights at the federal education department investigated Harvard in the nineteen-eighties, they found handwritten notes scribbled in the margins of various candidates’ files… One application—and at this point you can almost hear it going to the bottom of the pile—was notated, “Short with big ears.”
"Short with big ears" — I bet he had a big, goofy smile too, and was nervous but eager to have a serious conversation. And all the interviewer could think was "short with big ears."
The article is riveting.
And the most important category? That mysterious index of “personal” qualities. According to Harvard’s own analysis, the personal rating was a better predictor of admission than the academic rating… When the Office of Civil Rights at the federal education department investigated Harvard in the nineteen-eighties, they found handwritten notes scribbled in the margins of various candidates’ files… One application—and at this point you can almost hear it going to the bottom of the pile—was notated, “Short with big ears.”
"Short with big ears" — I bet he had a big, goofy smile too, and was nervous but eager to have a serious conversation. And all the interviewer could think was "short with big ears."
The article is riveting.
Recently, I've scoured the internet looking for pictures of panda cubs. Other people might enjoy the fruits of my research:
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/MeetPandas/pandacubgallery/
(Be sure to click on "next photo," and don't miss 10 and 11!)
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/PandaFacts/cubgrowth.cfm
Many of these pictures are collected in an album at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/index.html
And:
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/news/panda_news.html
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/exhibits/panda/panda.htm
(The sixth-to-last picture on that page is a bit unnerving; I believe the scientist is just getting stem cells from the panda's umbilical cord. Notice how the mommy pandas sometimes hold newborns in their mouths, so that only their legs and tails poke out!)
The newborns are not cute — they look like fetuses or rodents — but between the ages of five weeks and five months pandas are too adorable for words (but slightly melancholy-looking too — like little pierrots).
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/MeetPandas/pandacubgallery/
(Be sure to click on "next photo," and don't miss 10 and 11!)
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/PandaFacts/cubgrowth.cfm
Many of these pictures are collected in an album at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/index.html
And:
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/news/panda_news.html
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/exhibits/panda/panda.htm
(The sixth-to-last picture on that page is a bit unnerving; I believe the scientist is just getting stem cells from the panda's umbilical cord. Notice how the mommy pandas sometimes hold newborns in their mouths, so that only their legs and tails poke out!)
The newborns are not cute — they look like fetuses or rodents — but between the ages of five weeks and five months pandas are too adorable for words (but slightly melancholy-looking too — like little pierrots).
A few years ago my father began quoting a poem by D'Annunzio, "Laudi del cielo del mare della terra e degli eroi." It refers to the following legend: some time in the first or second century, people on a ship off the coast of southern Italy heard a voice crying from the land, "Il dio Pan è morto!" Presumably they panicked. I love how the sea is comforting & familiar & the land mysterious & full of portents, & I'm fascinated by anything that has to do with the end of paganism. (Non to mention the following paradox: Christ is sometimes represented as a Pan-like shepherd, & the iconography of the devil clearly has something to do with Pan, or at least with satyrs.) Anyway, my father went so far as to send me a xerox of the poem. It's a vitalist, neo-pagan paean to Pan & the earth's bounty, & reaches its climax in the declaration, "Il Gran Pan non è morto!" I liked it, but couldn't understand my father's fixation (not that one needs an excuse to quote a poem, of course). Well, just a few months ago he told me about his Greek and Latin teacher in high school, who was more or less openly antifascist. At some point during the war he sent his family to live in Florence, which is where they were from, because he feared for their safety; he showed my father his hiding place. One day he enlisted my father to help him carry a load of reeds. (Why reeds?! My father couldn't remember, but it's perfect for the story — almost too perfect.) On the way they stopped at a café whose radio was tuned to the BBC. That's how they heard that the Americans had landed. And the Greek and Latin teacher jumped to his feet and shouted, "Il Gran Pan non è morto!" I like to picture how mystified the people in the bar must have been. And it's nice to think that the Americans landed not so far from where the ominous cry was heard so many centuries ago.
During an air raid my father and some of his friends, like the stupid teenagers they were, went and wandered around in the deserted streets. They came across some German soldiers and fell into conversation with them. "I'm a communist," one of his friends boldly declared, much to my father's consternation. But the German soldiers were not fazed. They talked about their plans for the future: after they'd won the war, they assured the Italians, they would start a revolution. Then the air raid ended, and such confidences seemed once more unthinkable.
Later, to avoid the air raids, my father went to live with his grandmother in the country. One Sunday he was at the local parish house for an afternoon social, and some troops broke in: they'd heard that the priest was hiding someone, and wanted to see if he was a Jew. They made all the young people line up, and one soldier poked his machine gun in my father's stomach; my father seized the muzzle & gently pushed it aside, smiling; the German soldier smiled too; perhaps he was ashamed. The priest's secret guest was not Jewish, so the Germans left without incident. But some time later Fascist militiamen tracked down the same unfortunate man in another nearby parish house, and murdered him: he was a partisan.
Four German soldiers were quartered in my grandmother's house. One was a high officer who had lost his face in the war. He lived in a darkened room and spoke little; his only pleasure was to play chess with my father, and this he did tirelessly, day in, day out. (I suppose my father didn't have much to do either.)
"Il più scaltro," and the most prescient, was a doctor. There was much talk of Hitler's secret weapon: whether it existed, what it was. "I know what Hitler's secret weapon is," the doctor told my father, grinning, and put his gun on the table. "This is it. He's going to shoot himself."
Then there was an officer who was in charge of some Russian soldiers who had agreed to join the German army in exchange for their lives. This man bullied his Russians, and endeared himself to no one else. Finally, there was Heinz Brandt, who became friendly with his hosts and even wrote his address and phone number in my father's German-Italian dictionary. When German troops rounded people up to dig ditches & such this man would hide with the Italians. After the war he came back to visit them, and told them how the bully had met his end. During their retreat, the Germans had to cross the Po in dinghies, because all the bridges had been destroyed. The bully and his Russians commandeered a rowboat, and in the middle of the river the Russians shot him and pushed the body overboard.
Addenda: My uncle says the prisoners were Turkmen, not Russian. And he says that when the Germans and the Turkmen packed up there was a panic because they had counted all their guns, which were kept locked in the credenza, and one was missing. The place was turned upside down, to no avail. In all the commotion one of the Turkmen winked at my uncle and said just above a whisper, "Kapitan kaput," and drew his hand across his neck.
Once a villager took my uncle aside and said, "The next time the bully is in the back garden, stay away from him. We could have killed him the other day, but it was a long shot and you were nearby, and we didn't want to risk hurting you." "He was a friend of the family," my uncle said, "I had no idea he was a partisan."
My uncle told another story when we passed through a small mountain town. "That house belonged to the Such-and-Such family, which grew rich during the occupation. The daughter of the family brazenly sunned herself on the rooftop balcony through the worst of the war, and the partisans would train their viewfinders on her. 'Should I shoot?' they joked." (They never did.)
During an air raid my father and some of his friends, like the stupid teenagers they were, went and wandered around in the deserted streets. They came across some German soldiers and fell into conversation with them. "I'm a communist," one of his friends boldly declared, much to my father's consternation. But the German soldiers were not fazed. They talked about their plans for the future: after they'd won the war, they assured the Italians, they would start a revolution. Then the air raid ended, and such confidences seemed once more unthinkable.
Later, to avoid the air raids, my father went to live with his grandmother in the country. One Sunday he was at the local parish house for an afternoon social, and some troops broke in: they'd heard that the priest was hiding someone, and wanted to see if he was a Jew. They made all the young people line up, and one soldier poked his machine gun in my father's stomach; my father seized the muzzle & gently pushed it aside, smiling; the German soldier smiled too; perhaps he was ashamed. The priest's secret guest was not Jewish, so the Germans left without incident. But some time later Fascist militiamen tracked down the same unfortunate man in another nearby parish house, and murdered him: he was a partisan.
Four German soldiers were quartered in my grandmother's house. One was a high officer who had lost his face in the war. He lived in a darkened room and spoke little; his only pleasure was to play chess with my father, and this he did tirelessly, day in, day out. (I suppose my father didn't have much to do either.)
"Il più scaltro," and the most prescient, was a doctor. There was much talk of Hitler's secret weapon: whether it existed, what it was. "I know what Hitler's secret weapon is," the doctor told my father, grinning, and put his gun on the table. "This is it. He's going to shoot himself."
Then there was an officer who was in charge of some Russian soldiers who had agreed to join the German army in exchange for their lives. This man bullied his Russians, and endeared himself to no one else. Finally, there was Heinz Brandt, who became friendly with his hosts and even wrote his address and phone number in my father's German-Italian dictionary. When German troops rounded people up to dig ditches & such this man would hide with the Italians. After the war he came back to visit them, and told them how the bully had met his end. During their retreat, the Germans had to cross the Po in dinghies, because all the bridges had been destroyed. The bully and his Russians commandeered a rowboat, and in the middle of the river the Russians shot him and pushed the body overboard.
Addenda: My uncle says the prisoners were Turkmen, not Russian. And he says that when the Germans and the Turkmen packed up there was a panic because they had counted all their guns, which were kept locked in the credenza, and one was missing. The place was turned upside down, to no avail. In all the commotion one of the Turkmen winked at my uncle and said just above a whisper, "Kapitan kaput," and drew his hand across his neck.
Once a villager took my uncle aside and said, "The next time the bully is in the back garden, stay away from him. We could have killed him the other day, but it was a long shot and you were nearby, and we didn't want to risk hurting you." "He was a friend of the family," my uncle said, "I had no idea he was a partisan."
My uncle told another story when we passed through a small mountain town. "That house belonged to the Such-and-Such family, which grew rich during the occupation. The daughter of the family brazenly sunned herself on the rooftop balcony through the worst of the war, and the partisans would train their viewfinders on her. 'Should I shoot?' they joked." (They never did.)
Last year my fifth-graders all applied to Prep for Prep, and none of them got in. I was quite distraught, & could scarcely believe that the interviewers had found candidates better than my best fifth-graders. They were no less upset — Viren confessed, grinning, that he and Patrick had burst into tears when they read the rejection letter. But we talked about it & I at least felt better afterwards. They reminisced about the awkward moments in their interviews. Richard: "She asked me whether I pursued any interest outside of school, and I said Greek mythology. 'Oh, tell me all about it,' she said. I thought, 'I've just read a four hundred page book on Greek mythology, how can I tell you all about it?!'" Unfortunately everything I said to comfort them only seemed to make matters worse. "I don't want to go to a bad school!" Viren whimpered. "But you know," I said, "you don't have to apply to those schools through Prep for Prep — you can apply on your own." Richard: "I did! I applied to Horace Mann, and I got in! Only they didn't offer me a scholarship." After that, I shut up.
Last year I gave my sixth graders a four-page handout on conjunctions. I wanted them to see that two sentences illustrated the very point they defined, and as I spelled it out the students realized I had written the handout myself. They were impressed, and Ben said, without a hint of irony, "We have an author in our midst!" It was hard to keep a straight face. (I think they interpreted my smile as a sign of shy, embarassed pride.)
I was overjoyed to see my students again, but I was quite unprepared for how happy they were to see me. One of my eighth-graders (erstwhile seventh-graders) saw me in the reception area and asked, "Are you teaching us?" "I think so." (I never know til the last minute.) "Oh my God!" she squealed, and ran to tell her classmates. Whenever I saw my sixth-graders (last year's fifth-graders) we waved and smiled at each other, and when at the end of the day I finally walked into the classroom to teach them Patrick said, "The return of Ms —!" (Was that a Star Wars reference?! I think it was.)
Last year I gave my sixth graders a four-page handout on conjunctions. I wanted them to see that two sentences illustrated the very point they defined, and as I spelled it out the students realized I had written the handout myself. They were impressed, and Ben said, without a hint of irony, "We have an author in our midst!" It was hard to keep a straight face. (I think they interpreted my smile as a sign of shy, embarassed pride.)
I was overjoyed to see my students again, but I was quite unprepared for how happy they were to see me. One of my eighth-graders (erstwhile seventh-graders) saw me in the reception area and asked, "Are you teaching us?" "I think so." (I never know til the last minute.) "Oh my God!" she squealed, and ran to tell her classmates. Whenever I saw my sixth-graders (last year's fifth-graders) we waved and smiled at each other, and when at the end of the day I finally walked into the classroom to teach them Patrick said, "The return of Ms —!" (Was that a Star Wars reference?! I think it was.)
After reading Hobsbawm's fine essay in The Invention of Tradition I was excited to read his four volumes on 1789-1994. So far I've read the first volume, and was very disappointed. It's the kind of history book that gives you the broad sweep, but don't expect names, dates, or God forbid, events. I couldn't help wondering: who is his ideal reader? Certainly not the expert: it's too vague. And the book is useless as an introduction, because it alludes to events, even very important events, without explaining them. The beginner would stumble around in that miasma of stage directions and throat-clearing. I felt he never got to the point, that what he considered background should have been in the foreground. His approach worked in Industry and Empire, a straightforward work of social and economic history, but it's disastrous if you're looking for political history, or a history of ideas.
Hugh Brogan's Penguin History of the USA, on the other hand, is an excellent introduction, chock-full of details and debates, and never tedious. And he doesn't consider it beneath his dignity to give character sketches, or memorable anecdotes, all of which serve as mental signposts, or a skeleton on which to hang the rest.
Hugh Brogan's Penguin History of the USA, on the other hand, is an excellent introduction, chock-full of details and debates, and never tedious. And he doesn't consider it beneath his dignity to give character sketches, or memorable anecdotes, all of which serve as mental signposts, or a skeleton on which to hang the rest.
I love how Dvorak can be both playful & intense to an extreme. In the last movement of the sonata in F, there are two fan-like runs in the piano 36 seconds to the end. It's quiet, so it happens in a penumbra, but surrounded by the aura of pedal. It opens like a quick breath, like the lifting whirl of the hem of a skirt, & then it's over. A few seconds later the figure is repeated in the violin. I usually like Dvorak's violins, so vigorous & pressing & present, all muscles & tendons, but in comparison with the brief loveliness, the vanishing sublimity of the piano — well it can't compare.
Some good letters from the New York Times:
Nice Work, if I Can Get It (2 Letters)
To the Editor:
Re "The Wages of Failure on Wall Street" (editorial, July 13):
I believe that I can muster the requisite skills to run a company into the ground. Since the compensation seems to be so very good, I think that just may be my next career move.
Fran Martone
Chicago, July 13, 2005
To the Editor:
A July 13 editorial rightly condemns Morgan Stanley for paying a departing co-president, Stephen S. Crawford, $32 million in compensation for three months of subpar work.
But an even greater outrage is how Morgan Stanley and like-minded companies finance lobbying campaigns to oppose increases in the federal minimum wage, arguing, with straight faces, that increasing a worker's pay to, say, $12,000 from $11,000 for a year of full-time work would somehow hamper their competitiveness.
If Morgan Stanley were to forgo paying Mr. Crawford his bonus for failure, the savings from that one small gesture alone could be used to give such modest wage increases to 32,000 workers.
Joel Berg
Executive Director, New York City
Coalition Against Hunger
New York, July 13, 2005
Around the same time a judge decided that Disney's board did not betray the trust of the shareholders when it paid Ovitz $132 million for 14 months of mediocre work. Apparently the decision is not meant to comfort board members or CEOs across the country, because the judge also said that past excesses might be forgiven, but that things are different in the 21st century. I don't see that: certain things are wrong no matter how, or when, you look at them, and a salary that exorbitant is surely one such thing. It's funny, isn't it, that the judge accepted the lame defense, "We grew up in a strange decade, we hung out with the wrong crowd; it's not our fault if we didn't know better."
Nice Work, if I Can Get It (2 Letters)
To the Editor:
Re "The Wages of Failure on Wall Street" (editorial, July 13):
I believe that I can muster the requisite skills to run a company into the ground. Since the compensation seems to be so very good, I think that just may be my next career move.
Fran Martone
Chicago, July 13, 2005
To the Editor:
A July 13 editorial rightly condemns Morgan Stanley for paying a departing co-president, Stephen S. Crawford, $32 million in compensation for three months of subpar work.
But an even greater outrage is how Morgan Stanley and like-minded companies finance lobbying campaigns to oppose increases in the federal minimum wage, arguing, with straight faces, that increasing a worker's pay to, say, $12,000 from $11,000 for a year of full-time work would somehow hamper their competitiveness.
If Morgan Stanley were to forgo paying Mr. Crawford his bonus for failure, the savings from that one small gesture alone could be used to give such modest wage increases to 32,000 workers.
Joel Berg
Executive Director, New York City
Coalition Against Hunger
New York, July 13, 2005
Around the same time a judge decided that Disney's board did not betray the trust of the shareholders when it paid Ovitz $132 million for 14 months of mediocre work. Apparently the decision is not meant to comfort board members or CEOs across the country, because the judge also said that past excesses might be forgiven, but that things are different in the 21st century. I don't see that: certain things are wrong no matter how, or when, you look at them, and a salary that exorbitant is surely one such thing. It's funny, isn't it, that the judge accepted the lame defense, "We grew up in a strange decade, we hung out with the wrong crowd; it's not our fault if we didn't know better."
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