I don’t remember when, exactly, I learned to read. It was after I uttered my first four-letter word and before I learned to scrawl obscenities on walls, but I can’t be any more specific. My parents told me that I was reading storybooks on my own when I was three or four years old, and on my first day of kindergarten, my teacher rang them in a sweat and informed them that I was literate. I can say only that I acquired the skill while very young.
As I was frail until the age of twelve, I became a stereotypical "bookworm" before I finished elementary school. Luckily, my otherwise frugal (read: "cheapskate") parents approved of and encouraged said eccentricity. Whatever other luxuries I may have lacked, any book I wanted was mine for the asking -- and I asked frequently. I thusly cultivated eclectic tastes in literature at a very early age. My orders from the Scholastic Book Club probably left my parents staring wistfully into their empty wallets -- and the mailman with herniated discs in his spine -- but they acquainted me with a broad variety of subjects at an age at which most children were interested only in sports, cartoons and popularity contests.
At the time, my tastes ran towards ghost stories, horror stories, folk- and fairytales, myths and legends (especially Norse, Celtic, British and German), plants and animals, rocks and minerals, codes and ciphers, Indians, military history, dinosaurs (any boy who doesn’t like dinosaurs probably plays with mommy’s makeup, if ya catch my drift…), weapons and armor, and "how-to" books. I also read comics, for the record (my favorite titles were: Detective Comics, The Amazing Spiderman, Man Thing, The Flash, Justice League of America, The Avengers, Captain America, Dr. Strange, The Witching Hour, Ghosts, The House of Mystery, The House of Secrets, Sgt. Rock, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Weird War Tales, G.I. Combat, Fightin’ Marines, Swamp Thing, Daredevil, Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Turok -- Son of Stone, The Phantom, and the usual kiddie bullshit – countless Golden, Gold Key, Disney and Harvey titles I can’t even remember), but I don’t consider them literature, per se.
And no, I couldn’t stand the fucking X-Men (I’m still waiting for Marvel to wax hip, sensitive, and politically correct and change the title to The X-Persons). To my young mind (and to my middle-aged – if perennially juvenile -- mind), they were whiners with massive egos, shocking senses of entitlement, and crippling inferiority complexes. In short, they reminded me of my first girlfriend: they were sanctimonious shit-weasels. This, come to think of it, probably explains why my distaste for the puir bit crathurs descended into outright loathing and contempt during my senior year of high school. When I read comics, I sought inspiration -- not reinforcement for my own hang-ups.
During my teens and early twenties, I averaged a book a day. Granted, most were fantasy, science fiction, horror, philosophy (Nietzsche, Rand, Aristotle, and numerous anarcho-libertarian ranters) and military history (especially ancient and medieval), but at least I was reading regularly and there’s much to be said for the practice. I was also majoring in Lit & Comp at the time, and was thereby exposed to plenty of classical and medieval literature, as well.
From my mid-twenties onward, my tastes broadened and improved markedly. I still enjoyed Asimov, Heinlein, Piper, Kuttner, Weinbaum, Herbert, Zelazny and Vance; still vacationed in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Lewis’s Narnia, and Moorcock’s Melnibone on occasion; and still appreciated Poe, Lovecraft and Bradbury as much as when I’d first discovered them. I was learning, though, that even the nastiest of "splatterpunks" – however talented – could barely suggest the raw, elemental horror in an inarticulate, misspelled witness statement or police report. By the same token (the flipside, admittedly) I was learning that even the best of fantasists could never do justice to the sheer wonder, depth and – for lack of a better word – magic of life.
As the ‘90s unfolded, even sci-fi ended up holding the edge of the literary drop cloth. Dick Tracy gadgets cropped up at the local Radio Shack for five bucks each. The term "planned obsolescence" entered the English lexicon. Three feisty, squalling brats (English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish) kicked Clarke’s "Russlish" and Herbert’s "Galach" out of the incubator and left them to die beside Esperanto and other synthetic languages, while the futurists, including Buckminster Fuller and Gerard Piel were exposed as idiots and wishful thinkers. Science fiction became technological and sociopolitical second-guessing -- thereby losing its allure.
At the same time, I read up on survivalism, high-tech weaponry and low-tech living.
I’d long since ingested most of the recognized "classics" to meet high school and college course requirements, but only at the age of twenty-six did I have enough life experience to appreciate them. Until that year, I was also completely ignorant of non-Western modes of thought. I’d heard plenty about them, mind you: mainly from fanatical devotees or equally fanatical detractors thereof. I hadn’t, however, read them myself. That changed when I took up martial arts.
I wasn’t particularly interested in self-defense, physical culture, or increasing my self-confidence at the time. I meant only to learn a few really nasty moves, hunt down my ex-girlfriend, and then send whatever knob she was polishing to the nearest ER (or the local morgue, in a black bag marked: "members missing.") Jujutsu was just coming into its own at the time, and I’d heard many good (bad?) things about it. Therefore, it immediately piqued my curiosity. Before I committed myself to any given art, though, I thought it best to research as many as possible and measure each system against my own abilities, temperament, etc.
By shoveling shit in hell for sixty hours a week, unloading trucks and humping freight in a local sweatshop (at one point, I was the sole English-speaking Caucasoid on the crew), I’d finally gotten myself out of debt and built up an actual bank account. To establish an overview of sorts, I withdrew a couple hundred bucks, then purchased and read Spangler and Chow’s Kung Fu: History, Philosophy and Technique, John F. Gilbey’s Secret Fighting Arts of the World and The Way of a Warrior, Draeger and Smith’s Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts, Forrest Morgan’s Living the Martial Way, and a couple of Bruce Tegner and Bruce Lee books. (Quit snickering, you smartasses. I was new to the field.)
Ultimately, I chose jujutsu and sought instruction at the only reputable (i.e., traditional) dojo in the area. There was, however, a catch: the sensei required that all prospective jujutsu students take at least six months of karate. I won’t debate the relative merits of either art here – or anywhere else. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and the effectiveness of either depends largely upon the skill of the practitioner. The six-month trial period, though, afforded the sensei time to determine which students were jujutsu material and which weren’t. In short, the system was designed to filter out guttersnipes like Yours Truly.
During those six probationary months, my attitude and focus changed dramatically, largely due to my choice in reading material. By the end of my first month of training, I was hooked. I simply had to know more about the martial arts and more about the odd, alien philosophies upon which they were based. I started off with Camden Benares’ A Handful of Zen and Zen Without Zen Masters, and Ellen Kei Hua’s Kung Fu Meditations and Chinese Proverbial Wisdom and Meditations of the Masters. My sensei lent me copies of Funakoshi’s Karate Do: My Way of Life and Nicol’s Moving Zen, which further stimulated my interest. Within a few years, I’d devoured everything from Suzuki Shosan to Lao Tzu, and had gone from spouting smartass, hippie/Discordian "Zen bites" to pondering the deeper mysteries of the Dhammapada and Tao Te Ching.
Before long, I’d immersed myself in everything from comparative religion to world history, psychology, alternative medicine, and even more esoteric subjects.
In 2003, I began living in "interesting times" – and have yet to outlive them. For reasons I won’t rehash, I’ve long since fallen short of my old, book-a-day quota.
I still read whenever I can, though, and would like to recommend a few books to the Gentle Reader. Here, then, is a list of books I read during 2008 and 2009. Many of the following titles are recognized classics, and require no further recommendation. Where relevant or applicable, I’ve commented on the more important and/or interesting works. Enjoy.
The Sixteen Satires
(Juvenal) – I’ve covered …Satires elsewhere, so I’ll keep this short. Juvenal was foulmouthed, cynical, and embittered, his mind a veritable cesspool of wealth-envy and entitlement. But he was a keen observer of the human condition, and the effete, decadent Rome he satirizes is eerily similar to modern America. There is truly nothing new under the sun. Could Juvenal’s satirical commentary on his own time serve as a cautionary tale for our own?Probably not. "We’re an empire now -- we create our own reality…"
The Art of War
(Sun Tzu) -- I read this one every year, and get a little more out of it each time. This timeless, poetic collection of military aphorisms is deservedly a classic. In addition to its value as a work on strategy, it’s a damned good guide to dealing with human beings in general. As with any work of genius, multiple readings are necessary even to get an inkling of what Sun Tzu was writing about. Learning to apply his principles is even more challenging. My favorite version so far (and I admit that I’m biased, as I like the publishing company) is the Shambhala Dragon Edition, translated and edited by Thomas Cleary. Cleary’s translation contains commentary by later strategists such as Cao Cao and Wang Xi. I don’t think it’s possible to grasp even the mid-level application of Sun Tzu’s principles without a basic familiarity with the Tao Te Ching – another work that requires a lifetime of study. Many editions are available, but I prefer the Shambhala edition, translated by John C.F. Wu. Wu was/is fluent in both English and Chinese, and his version includes the Chinese text alongside the English translation.Mind Fist
(Dr. Haha Lung) – I’ve said some nasty things about Lung in the past, and I meant them. Three of his earlier titles: Mind Control, Mind Penetration, and Mind Manipulation are little more than training manuals for dim-witted, would-be psychopaths – Clausewitz for fuckwitz. For whatever reason, though, the good doctor has apparently had a change of heart. (Or maybe not – It’s entirely possible that he wrote the first three books in order to create a market for the fourth…) Despite the hokey cover (which might not be Lung’s fault – just think "target audience" and remember that he’s largely at the mercy of his publisher), Mind Fist is an excellent "bully-busting" handbook. I’d recommend it to any kid suffering the unwanted attentions of this loathsome species – and to his parents, as well. I wish it had been written while I was still in school, as it would have saved me quite a bit of trouble. (Accounting for my whereabouts the night so-and-so’s tires were slashed became a real bother after a while…)The Gift of Fear
(Gavin de Becker) I’ve discussed this one elsewhere, but it’s worth reading. When "reverse engineered," it’s a revenge manual par excellence.Path Notes of an American Ninja Master
(Glenn Morris) Hokey title -- heavy shit. I read Martial Arts Madness and Shadow Strategies years ago, but it took me quite a while to track this one down. When I finally did, I wasn’t disappointed. I never met Dr. Morris in person, but I exchanged a few emails with him during the late ‘90s. He was candid, brilliant, iconoclastic, and downright scary in many respects. Although his approach is sometimes irritatingly similar to Aleister Crowley’s, he is/was (I heard a rumor that he’d passed away) the best English-language writer on the "woo-woo" side of the martial arts I’ve ever encountered. Approach with caution – although there’s a shitload of good stuff here.
Tom Brown’s School Days (Thomas Hughes) I disagree with Hughes in many, many respects. His notion of the proper role of the State, for example, raises my Scots-Irish hackles and sets my tobacco-stained teeth on edge. Be that as it may, there’s much to be said for Tom Brown’s School Days, and I recommend it highly.
I’d never heard of it (let alone considered reading it) until I encountered George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series, while I was in college. Fraser (one of my favorite authors) had taken Hughes’s nastiest character and made him the protagonist in a hilarious Victorian series, relating Harry Flashman’s post-Rugby misadventures. As Fraser’s Flashman clearly loathed Brown (and I actually liked ol’ Flashy, despicable as he was) I opted to dig a little deeper. I purchased Hughes’s book when I was nineteen -- and let it sit on the shelf, gathering dust, until I was thirty-nine. Youth is truly wasted on the young…
Hughes’s novel – a quintessentially Victorian novel – chronicles the education of Tom Brown, a middle-class English boy, at a thinly disguised version of Thomas Arnold’s Rugby. If nothing else, it proves that boys are boys – and that there’s truly nothing new under the sun. But there’s quite a bit else, as luck would have it. Unlike his proximate contemporary, Dickens (another favorite of mine), Hughes admits the English Public Schools’ shortcomings without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Ultimately, he portrays them as institutions which – when properly run – produce "brave, helpful, truth-telling gentlemen, and Christians."
My political and ideological disagreements with Hughes notwithstanding, I’d die happy if Post-American America could produce even one such boy – whether privately, publicly, or home-schooled.
And don’t even bother with BBC’s nauseating movie adaptation. It leaves only a vaguely urine-smelling stain upon Hughes’s literary legacy. The actor who plays Arnold gets it right (he’s the movie’s saving grace), but everything else is dead wrong.
The Secret Agent
(Joseph Conrad) One of Conrad’s bleakest, most claustrophobic novels (although Under Western Eyes certainly comes close), The Secret Agent is a merciless, chilling study of losers, lunatics, opportunists, and malcontents. Based on the attempted bombing of the Greenwich Observatory over a decade before Conrad began it in 1907, TSA is a gritty, grimy, sleazy study of gritty, grimy, sleazy characters – the kind who "create [their] own reality." For all that it was written in 1907, Marinnus van der Lubbe and other "false flag" terrorists lurk within its pages -- as does Karl Rove (minus the overpriced suit). Well worth reading.Tao Te Ching
(Lao Tzu) This is another of those books I’ve read at least once a year, for the last fifteen years. I’m not a Taoist, but I appreciate the subtlety and complexity of the philosophy. It’s been said that every Chinese wears a Confucian cap, a Buddhist robe and Taoist shoes (to which I’d add: a Communist rifle, a Fascist armband and a neocon briefcase), so reading it should provide the curious soul a bit of insight into the collective psyche of the world’s next superpower.It’s not "light" reading, and its aphorisms’ apparent simplicity is deceptive. It’s a classic for a very good reason, though: it contains a great deal of truth. I’ll also mention that in order to understand Sun Tzu’s Art of War, a nodding acquaintance with Taoism is a necessity.
Man Alive
(G.K. Chesterton) Ayn Rand once described Atlas Shrugged as a murder mystery – albeit a mystery concerning the murder of man’s mind and spirit rather than his body. Chesterton tackles a similar theme, but with more humor, irony and benevolence. Think of it as a humorous, warm-hearted version of Saw – minus the gore, inconsistency, self-righteousness, authoritarianism and stupidity.The Ball and the Cross
(G.K. Chesterton) I purchased the Dover edition, which contains a fantastic foreword by Martin Gardner. Said foreword is worth the price of the book – a pittance at $7.95. The text itself is worth twenty times more. TBATC was purportedly inspired by Chesterton’s debates with (deservedly) forgotten R.P.G. Blatchford. (I doubt even Gardner -- who refers to ciphers and numerology in his foreword-- caught the "woo-woo" significance of Blatchford’s initials: Blatchford, like the Soviets, whose B-40/RPG-7 became a weapon of choice among humorless malcontents the world over, was both a determinist and a socialist.) Chesterton, a "distributist" disliked capitalism and socialism, "conservatism" and "progressivism" equally. Like Charles Dickens, his convictions apparently stemmed from misplaced -- but justifiable -- anti-elitism and genuine humanitarianism. Whereas I’m not completely sold on his "distributist" ideas (how does one ensure that productive property finds its way into as many hands as possible -- without resorting to state-sanctioned theft?) or any other "third way" philosophy, the system Chesterton envisioned was far less brutal than the nasty mix of socialism and fascism infecting most of the world nowadays.Beyond his odd economic theories, Chesterton was an unapologetic and devout Roman Catholic. Needless to say, his faith colored every word-picture he composed, whether blatantly or subtly. The Ball and the Cross was certainly no exception to his general rule. In an interesting variation on the pre-1745 Highland/Lowland, Catholic/Protestant historical theme, Chesterton – an Englishman—creates two worthy adversaries in Evan MacIan and John Turnbull. The former is a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed Highlander: the latter a short, stocky, red-haired, grey-eyed Lowlander. (And yes, I suspect Chesterton had read Scott’s poem, "Marmion."…)
MacIan is a devout, simple, mystic Catholic/Jacobite, longing for the return of the "auld Stuarts." Turnbull, however, is not a stern, surly, pragmatic Covenanter; but rather a stern, surly, pragmatic atheist, longing to leap forward into a (putatively) rational utopia.
To make a long story short, Turnbull denigrates the Virgin Mary. MacIan responds with physical force and a challenge to a duel of honor, which Turnbull willingly accepts. The ensuing (and hilarious) quest to elude the authorities and consummate their engagement makes for one hell of an entertaining novel, and Turnbull’s and MacIan’s arguments – while endlessly amusing -- also provide much food for thought.
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
(G.K. Chesterton) Yeah, I like Chesterton. And I love this novel. Written at the beginning of Chesterton’s career, The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a multi-layered allegory and philosophical statement rolled into one. Published in 1904, …Napoleon…is as, the synopsis states, "a futurist fantasy… set in 1984." Opening with a good humored (but stinging) broadside at futurists and ersatz prophets in general, Chesterton goes on to set the stage: an anemic UK in which the public’s world-weariness and cynicism actually render its despotic government unnecessary.Onto this stage (and destined to change it forever) stride the book’s two protagonists: Auberon Quin (a near-lunatic, somehow chosen to be king) and Adam Wayne, the Provost of Notting Hill. The roles they choose (ironically, given Chesterton’s rejection of determinism – both men simply remain true to their fundamental natures) ultimately lead to a war that sees Notting Hill pitted against the rest of London.
Beyond expressing his distaste for empires (Chesterton rightly noted that they were destructive, mechanistic, and antithetical to genuine diversity and individuality), he examines the seemingly antagonistic (but actually complementary) poles of human consciousness. Admittedly, he treads perilously close to Hegel, but unlike Hegel (a strategist disguised as a philosopher, even as Marx and Engels were ideologues disguised as economic historians), Chesterton was a true philosopher, and entirely too Western in his thinking to concede any accord between Christ and Belial, as it were. Far from suggesting that principles are infinitely mutable, or that any kind of "synthesis" occurs when matter contacts anti-matter, Chesterton focuses his attention on the fallible, limited human mind, and the things it often erroneously perceives as opposites. The final dialogue between Wayne and Quin therefore echoes the Book of Ecclesiastes ("To everything, there is a season…"), and I suspect that it may have influenced Neal Peart of Rush, as well.
"The equal and eternal human being will alter that antagonism, for the human being sees no antagonism between laughter and respect…When dark and dreary days come, you and I are necessary, the pure fanatic [Wayne], the pure satirist [Quin]…But in healthy people, there is no war between us. We are but the two lobes of the brain of a ploughman."
The Flying Inn
(G.K. Chesterton) Yep. Chesterton again. Manic-depressive bastard that I am, I love his work and Joseph Conrad’s equally. Chesterton’s thinking is very similar to mine when I’m hypomanic, while Conrad’s is similar to mine when I endure depressive and "mixed" episodes. This book is a thoroughly enjoyable, manic romp across Chesterton’s rich, ever-optimistic mental landscape.A more mature work than The Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Flying Inn is an examination (and indictment) of authoritarianism and progressivism, and an expression of distrust for power in and of itself. Written on the eve of World War I (when the European empires’ chickens first came home to roost), …TFI proved even more prophetic than the former. Set in a UK besieged by theosophists, vegetarians, rabid xenophiles and other turn-of-the-century fruitcakes, TFI accurately presaged the modern, NuLab-dominated, post-British Britain we modern Americans have ironically (and hypocritically) come to pity.
An allegory, romance, and expression of populist defiance all at once, TFI chronicles the adventures of one Humphrey Pump (an English pub owner) and his friend, Captain Patrick Dalroy -- a truculent, red-bearded Irish giant in the service of a decaying, increasingly ridiculous and dwarfish Britain. Opposing them is a cast of silly (but sinister) villains, villains rendered all the more sinister by their inability to perceive their own silliness.
The novel begins with one of the protagonists, Captain Patrick Dalroy (an Irishman serving in the British navy) resigning his commission at the conclusion of a ridiculous, one-sided treaty with the Turks, courtesy of his nemesis, Lord Ivywood.
Dalroy then returns to England and renews his acquaintance with his friend, Humphrey Pump. When the Ivywood-dominated government, under the influence of a Turkish mystic and pseudo-scholar (my bone of contention, incidentally: no son of the grey or red wolf –however strident -- ever influenced the UK as profoundly as even the most transparently fraudulent cow-worshipper of the Subcontinent) prohibits the sale of alcohol, Pump and Dalroy load an immense hoop of cheese and a keg of rum into a donkey cart and hit the road, dispensing good cheer (and populist defiance) the length and breadth of the country.
I won’t ruin the story, but I’ll add that Ivywood is perhaps the most sinister of Chesterton’s villains – all the more so because he’s ridiculous without being funny. Embodying the almost mechanistic irrationality of the ideological fanatic, Ivywood is Hoffer’s "true believer" – but at the opposite end of the social "food chain."
The Packet III
(Mark R. Tully) Man does not live by novels alone. The wife and I picked this one up during a research trip to King’s Mountain. This slender, 8 x11" booklet has quite a bit of good info tucked into its forty-six pages. It is, as advertised, a "collection of patterns, articles, and essays pertaining to the American Revolution." And it makes for interesting reading. Among the booklet’s highlights: patterns for haversacks, watch capes and forage caps, and a recipe for switchel – the eighteenth century equivalent of Gatorade.Home Building and Woodworking in Colonial America
(C. Keith Wilbur) Another treasure we acquired at King’s Mountain. Laid out in a charming, faux-handwritten typeface and profusely illustrated with beautiful line drawings, this little marvel covers the construction of Colonial houses from felling trees and dressing timber to plastering and interior finish carpentry. If you’ve ever wondered how it was done in the old days (or wanted to give it a try yourself), this book’s your ticket to yesteryear.The Little Book of Log Cabins
(William S. Wicks) Originally published in 1904, this Dover reprint is a perfect companion volume to D.C. Beard’s classic Shelters, Shacks and Shanties. Whereas it’s not, strictly speaking, a "how-to" book, the first 47 pages cover basic construction techniques – all of which are within the reach of anyone who starts with Beard’s book and works his way up. 44 full-page sketches of various cabins, ranging from the quaint and fanciful to the downright breathtaking, make up the remainder of the book. Well worth the $6.95 cover price.Sketch Book ’76
(Robert L. Klinger, illustrated by Richard A. Wilder) Yet another neat little volume I purchased at King’s Mountain. When I spotted the author’s and illustrator’s last names, though, I chuckled nastily and then wondered which bank of the Delaware their ancestors had occupied on a certain Christmas Eve… Just kidding.This is another collection of patterns, sketches and tips for constructing an assortment of Revolutionary War-era gear and clothing. If you’ve ever wanted to make your own rifle shirt, moccasins, cartridge box, powder horn, etc., this book will set you on the right track.
A Whack on the Side of the Head
(Roger Van Oech) I’ve already reviewed this title elsewhere. If you’re reasonably intelligent, you probably perform most of the book’s recommended mental gymnastics instinctively or intuitively. If, on the other hand, you ain’t especially bright or creative, you might get something out of it.IQ Power-Up
(Ron Bracey) I read this one shortly after finishing Van Oech’s book, and was tempted to round-file it at first. It’s a tad New-Agey, and rife with wearyingly common self-confidence and self-esteem bullshit.Moreover, I’m very suspicious of modern psychology’s "intelligence increase" fringe, as its literature more closely resembles a dreary collection of "Human Potential Movement" shibboleths brushed with a patina of pseudo-scientific terminology than the language of hard science. I’ll agree that in some individuals, IQ can be increased via better nutrition and mental stimulation during early childhood – but that’s it, until evidence convinces me otherwise. I’ll also concede that an adult can learn to use his/her mind more efficiently (recent research into the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia strongly suggests it, so I won’t argue). The human mind, however, is very complex -- too complex (and susceptible to far too many influences) to subject to reductionist, determinist pigeonholing and pat formulae. Until I see more hard evidence, I won’t concede that mere mind-games actually increase a typical adult’s IQ.
Despite its title (and questionable premises), though, this book has its merits. Practiced regularly, many of its exercises and games can lead to increased mental efficiency – if not increased capacity.
The Tyrants
(Clive Foss) A reasonably priced coffee-table book – and fun for the whole family. Think of it as Richard Scarry’s Big Book of Homicidal Megalomaniacs.A Taste of Scotland
A Taste of Ireland
A Taste of Wales
(All by Theodora FitzGibbon) Among the many odd (and sometimes ticking) parcels that arrived at Marc MacYoung’s place the day Mags and I tied the knot was one from the UK. As it happened, my friend, Alicia (who is Welsh – so Welsh, as a matter of fact; she actually lives in Wales!) had somehow found these out-of-print treasures and sent them as wedding gifts.It’s no surprise to any GH reader that I’m very proud of my Celtic heritage. It’s likewise no secret that I’m a devotee of the culinary arts (a four-dollar way of saying, "I like to cook") and a bookworm, to boot. As Margarita and I have spent much of our thirty-three months together (a record for me; I turn most women into man-hating, combat-booted lesbians or ball-busting, passive-aggressive harpies within four months) researching old cookbooks, reproducing the recipes therein (and recovering from various gastric disturbances and food-borne illnesses) we received Alicia’s gifts very warmly.
Now Celtic cuisine is like Upland Southern (its lineal descendant) or Shantung/Hopei cooking in some respects: It’s unlikely to convert the "heathen," as it were, but if one is raised on it, one will crave and indulge in it (especially when no one else is looking…) for the rest of one’s life.
(See my forthcoming collaborative effort: The Five-Element Theory as Applied to Southern Cooking: Beans, Greens, Cornmeal, Pork and Game; Translated into the Braid Scots, Ullans, Anglo-Irish, Gaelic, the Queen’s English, the Lisping English Spoken by Drag Queens -- and Even that Goddamn, Irritating, Yankee Goose-Honking Heard in Queens, New York -- with Commentary, Glosses, Unfounded Speculation, Outright Obfuscation and Equally Pretentious Horseshit from Benihana no Chimpira’s Heian-Era Scroll, Itsu mo Posumu, by Herr Doktor von Bean, Herr Doktor von Watkins and Herr Doktor von Walls for further clarification.)
As I’ve said, the cuisine of Europe’s Celtic fringe isn’t likely to appeal to modern tastes, but it’s good, hearty, "stick-to-the-ribs" fare and very similar to American country cooking. These three cookbooks introduce the reader to the best of it, from the well-known Irish colcannon and Welsh trout with bacon to less familiar fare, such as puddings made with milk and seaweed (the Japanese hardly enjoy a monopoly on eating the latter…).
The Vampire in Lore and Legend
(Montague Summers) The title is self-explanatory. Summers might have been a demented weirdo with an unhealthy attraction to the morbid, but he hit the nail on the head when he wrote this one. It’s the best guide to male/female relationships ever written.Yeah, that remark will probably have me sleeping on the couch for the next ten years, but seriously, folks: TVIL&L is one of the best books ever written on vampires.
If you’re the kind who plays live-action role-playing games (or attends DragonCon wearing mommy’s makeup and Lord Byron’s castoffs), you’ll probably want to avoid this one. If, on the other hand, you’re truly interested in folklore and mythology, you’ll love it.
Beginning at the dawn of Western civilization, Summers traces the bloodsuckers’ development from Classical Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and into the early twentieth century.
Summers was a prodigiously educated man, and his occult studies (while marred in parts by his strident – if unorthodox -- brand of Roman Catholicism) are actually quite scholarly. Unfortunately, he expects the same of his readers -- the book’s main weakness. Whether through laziness or pomposity (by 1928, a classical education was hardly the norm, even in Britain), Summers peppers the book with lengthy, un-translated passages in Greek, Latin, Middle and Modern French, and Middle High German.
The Latin, French and German weren’t serious problems for me, but I don’t read Classical Greek and neither, I imagine, do many modern readers. Therefore, I suspect Summers of putting on airs for a very simple reason: there are no long, un-translated passages is Hungarian (a Uralic tongue with which I have a nodding acquaintance) or any of the Slavic languages, even though he treats with vampire legends from Hungary, the Balkans and Russia. This suggests that Summers didn’t speak any of the aforementioned, and did himself a courtesy he denies the reader: that of providing an English translation. The fact that he translated Kraemer and Sprenger’s Malleus Maleficarum and Guazzo’s Compendium Maleficarum in their entirety reinforces my suspicion of laziness and/or pretentiousness on his part.
This failing aside, it’s a very good book – one of the best on the subject.
Stripping the vampire of its post-Stoker glamour (which has since been compounded by Hollywood), Summers portrays the vampire as he appears in myth and legend – an object of true horror. His theological arguments in favor of the actual existence of vampires are also interesting – if a tad eccentric. If you’re interested in the real vampire (the dreaded vlkodlak that kept Balkan peasants sleepless, clutching talismans and muttering prayers), this is your book.
The Dangerous Book for Boys
(Conn and Hal Igguldsen) This is a children’s book, as the title suggests. I picked it up around Christmas of ‘07 and read it during midwinter of ’08. Frankly, I can’t say enough about it. I can’t possibly do it justice here (it deserves an entire post), but I’ll try.I wish this book had been written when I was a boy. It’s a how-to book, a history book, a general knowledge book, and much more. It’s a book that, in my opinion, every boy should own. It covers everything from important battles and historical figures to basic Latin phrases, poems every boy should know, making paper airplanes and simple self-bows, first aid, and curing rabbit pelts. In short, it’s a treasure trove of fun and information, tailor-made for that most maligned and persecuted of creatures: the pre-adult, human male.
I was forty when I bought it, and I still loved it. I think that says it all.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
(Washington Irving) Yeah, I know -- You’ve all seen the Disney version of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." There’s more to Irving than silly cartoons, though. In his day, Irving was one of America’s most celebrated authors – and with good reason. At his best, his prose simply sings. Where other writers beat description to death (e.g., Tolkien’s irritatingly detailed accounts of Middle Earth’s scenery), Iriving uses it to accent his pieces tastefully, and to create genuine atmosphere. His descriptions of Dutch farmhouses and settlements in colonial New York, for example, make the reader feel as if he’s actually there. Beyond his flair for atmosphere, Irving was a clever and accomplished humorist, as attested by one of his best pieces, "The Chronicles of the Reign of William the Testy."To be continued
Quite a list. And an almost entirely unfamiliar one. There's things here I'd read if I had more time...and a few that your descriptions inspire me to try to make time for.
Curious, by the way, if you ever read 'Trinity.' I remember thinking at one point that it was something you HAD to read, but I can't remember if we ever talked about it, or if I followed through on my intent to give you a copy.
Posted by: Sean | December 09, 2009 at 12:59 PM