Green Hell : Reading List

My top reads for the month:

The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) Very playful, for Lewis. A humorous guide to corrupting souls -- from a demon's point of view. Amusing stuff, and damned insightful. Lewis certainly understood human nature.

The Tolkien Relation (William Ready) -- In the main, I loathe books that presume to "explain" great authors and the literary phenomena they unleash. This title is the exception to the rule. Neither panegyric nor polemic (a rarity in the field of literary criticism), Ready's assessment of Tolkien and his influence is both honest and insightful. Although verbose, overly abstract, and positively labyrinthine at times (it occasionally seems that he's fighting a desperate battle to keep his fingers apace with his thoughts), Ready's own prose is simply beautiful when he's in "the zone":

"Saruman was the scholar-scientist gone wrong, beguiled into evil for his desire to control Man; first it was to be for Man's own good, then as creatures of his will, for he knew better than they: that is the final stage of blasphemy." (p. 76);

"…Hobbit lower classes are forelock-tugging yokels as divorced from their own dreams and agony as the Irish creatures of Somerville and Ross, the grinning, bowing, house-servant slaves of the Old South, the quaint little 'tween-maids of the Victorian ménage, the cottagers who hedged and thatched and plowed for the gentry while their children went into domestic service in the Big House --all, all are in a Hell that their masters designed for them, and yet most of them believe that that is good for them, or that is all they are good for." (p. 67)

Pagan Christianity (Frank Viola and George Barna) -- An interesting one. Compares Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant practices and attitudes to those recorded in the Book of Acts and the Epistles. A little something to disturb everyone, regardless of denomination. I recommend this one highly.

Before and After Socrates (C.M. Cornford) -- A lucid, eminently readable series of lectures on the Grand Old Man of Western philosophy.

Johnny-O and I were chatting about Socrates at the bar a few nights ago, and we agreed that he was the greatest philosopher the West ever produced. (It was the only thing upon which we agreed all evening, incidentally. Put two Micks together in the same room, and you'll have three different opinions.) That's quite an admission, coming as it does from two recovering Randroids. I don't suppose it's overly surprising, though: if two souls as different as Xenophon and Plato could agree so closely on the content of his teachings (although Plato -- perhaps inadvertently -- cast him as a snide, bullying, asshole in Protagoras) two yeggs like us can certainly agree on the importance of his legacy.

Call of the Wild (Jack London) -- Like Arthur Desmond, London was contradiction sculpted in flesh. Although he espoused socialism, Call of the Wild reeks equally of Darwinism and dog hair. Yes, Jack, we understand that mighty brutes triumph while the weak perish -- that's why Henry Kissinger and George Soros (robust specimens both…) are among the most powerful men in the world. This is to say that humanity has a most un-Darwinian tendency to leave its affairs in the hands of the least qualified: physically ugly and unfit psychopaths who mistake compulsive dishonesty and cunning for genuine intelligence. Sorry, "Buck." In the real world, your nemesis wins.

And yet it's an infuriatingly enjoyable novel. Like most adults, I sneer at animal fiction , and with good reason: it's an insipid, emotionalist genre; and often flies in the face of biology, psychology, and common sense. Although London vandalizes all three during the course of his most famous work, his skill as writer more than compensates for his transgressions -- and actually leaves the reader liking his Nietzschean "superdog." I now understand why the book has stood the test of time.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Mark Twain) -- Although Huckleberry Finn is widely considered his best novel in the aesthetic sense; this one leaves it in the dust intellectually. Unlike Huck Finn (unlettered and un-ambitious, but possessed of a native intelligence that contrasts beautifully and comically with his youthful ignorance), Hank Morgan, the protagonist of …Connecticut Yankee…, is an adult tradesman; educated and intelligent enough to understand his own shortcomings as well as those of his adversaries. Twain's satire (and it's a beautifully satiric novel) is thusly more natural than that in Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer, in which he came perilously close to outright parody.

A more mature work than either, …Connecticut Yankee… is Twain at his anti-authoritarian, anti-intellectual best. Although he indulges in determinism and pragmatism at times (a few passages even dance on the edge of nihilism -- unconsciously, one suspects), Twain reveals himself as more of a thinker than most intellectuals before or since. Moreover, the vicious draw-cuts he inflicts on the putative "romance" of the Middle Ages lay the "Gilded Age" in which he lived open to the bone, as well.

Best of all, his observations are just as germane to the age in which we live.

Civil War Stories (Ambrose Bierce) -- Bierce at his black, gruesome, ironic finest. A must-read.

Into a Black Sun (Takeshi Kaiko) -- Kaiko is one of the luminaries of postwar Japanese literature, and this novel -- perhaps predictably -- has an ebon radiance of its own. A fictionalized account of Kaiko's experiences as war correspondent in Vietnam, this Kodansha offering lives up to said company's repuation for superb translations. Editor Ceclia Sagawa's mastery of Japanese and English serves this work as well as did J.C.F. Wu's when he tackled the Tao Teh Ching.

Fabulous Fallacies (Tad Tuleja) -- It's hardly fabulous, and many of Tuleja's alleged "fallacies" are suspect. The book also suffers the modern, infinitely wearying obsession with Nazis (in Tuleja's alternate universe, the canonic version of the holocaust is the sole dogma of which no element must ever be questioned or challenged -- this timidity is both incongruous and noteworthy in a fire-breathing debunker) and contains a few fallacies of its own. Example: although Tuleja is apparently a New Yorker, and thusly can't be expected to understand "red tides," he declares all shellfish safe to eat at any time of year -- provided that they've been properly refrigerated.

Wrong, Tad. Try spending a little time in Florida.
Having said all that, I'll now add that it's a good book for the most part. Much of the research is rock-solid, and most of Tuleja's conclusions are sound. Worth reading -- but let's call it Decent Debunking or Reasonable Revisionism.

Beethoven and the French Revolution (Bishop Fan S. Noli) -- Noli asserts that Beethoven was a flaming Jacobin, and does a good job of proving it. I'll never listen to the Eroica in the same way again…

In the Wake of the Plague (Norman F. Cantor) -- For a professor of medieval history, Cantor fucks up by the numbers every now and then. Infuriatingly enough, he seems to expect a free pass. Rank hath its privileges, I suppose.

Example: Cantor barfs up a few obligatory (and thusly forgivable -- any popular work on the Middle Ages simply must mention knights in jingling hauberks, gleaming plate etc., or risk selling like bacon in Medina) references to medieval weapons, armor, and siege machinery. Beyond their utter irrelevance, his "observations" indicate that he has little or no firsthand experience with any of the aforementioned goodies.

He's also right confident in "outing" the entire Angevin/Plantagenet Dynasty, despite the lack of reliable evidence that any but Richard I (who, although known as "Lion-Hearted," was a 'fraidy-cat when it came to pussy) and Edward II (who almost certainly swung both ways -- and not with his sword) were light in the -- uhm -- "chausses." (I'd have said "sabatons," but articulated plate armor had yet to be invented…).

But enough with the snarkiness and hair-splitting. Upon directing the centrifugal fan of reason towards the desiccated bullshit of subjectivity, one finds that Cantor has made a remarkable -- almost revolutionary -- study of the social, political and religious consequences of the Black Death.

Tan Your Hide (Phyllis Hobson) -- Title self-explanatory. Aside from Blue Mountain Buckskin, I've never read a better, simpler guide to preserving critter-skins.

Righting the Mother Tongue (David Wolman) -- "Pop-linguistics," but very enjoyable. A brief, well-written, well-reasoned treatment of the vagaries of English orthography from the Norman Conquest to the age of texting and cyberspeak. I'll add, however, that it's a blessing to him that Wolman isn't Irish: Gaelic spelling would drive him batshit.

Tong Sing (Charles Windridge) -- Not the original, but charming, all the same. A collection of recipes, folklore, herbal formulae, capsulized philosophy and cultural miscellania from yet another White guy with a chronic case of "Yellow Fever."

Sounds like someone we know, now doesn't it?

The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine (David Frawley and Vasant Lad) -- Interesting -- and not what I'm used to. Although the underlying theory shares certain assumptions with traditional Chinese medicine and pre-Enlightenment European herbalism, the conclusions and practices differ from both. Moreover, it's nothing at all like Hillbilly or Amerind folk-medicine; both of which combine empiricism and superstition.

The Hatfields & The McCoys (Otis K. Rice) -- The straight scoop on the most notorious feud in Appalachian history. Rice delivers what has long since mutated into a hideously deformed folk-myth from the blinding fog of "Hollyweird" glamour, and subjects it to the light of day. His scholarship is especially noteworthy in that he admits the contradictory nature of his source material. Although he draws conclusions (the feud eventually ran its course, both parties were reconciles; and the death toll, in the popular imagination, beggared reality), he eschews passing judgment.

A most excellent, most informative little book -- and best read in conjunction with George MacDonald Fraser's The Steel Bonnets and David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed.

The Melungeons: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America (N. Brent Kennedy)

After skimming this one, I felt that Kennedy would do best to shut his gob and get with the program.

Needless to say, I immediately reexamined my own reaction. It was only a feeling, after all.

As anyone who still reads this blog knows; I'm a son of Europe's "Celtic Fringe." More accurately (and for all that I despise the term as employed in these parts), I'm "Anglo-Celtic." This is a four-dollar way of implying that like that of many Southerners; my DNA is ultimately less a double helix than a Gordian knot of Gael, Gaul/Briton, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Pict, Norse, Roman, and God alone knows what else.

Although convenient, casual racism is every Southern male's assumed birthright; our mixed heritage (our "hybrid vigor," as it were; Ferguson disparaged it and subsequently paid the piper -- his life comprising the medium of exchange) precludes the committed, vicious, ideology of racial superiority one finds in Mein Kampf, the Talmud, or the ravings of MEChA, the Nation of Islam and the Ku Klux Klan.

Having said that, I'll allow that Kennedy's apparent (if ironic, given his surname) grudge against the Scots-Irish is largely valid. Although James Webb rightly characterized ours as an inclusive culture, our "inclusiveness" often lacks consistency: Blacks named "Riley," Cherokee and Creek chiefs named "MacIntosh," and Mexican/Texan pistoleros bearing my own surname.

The Melungeons, though? They took our names -- and nothing else. We wouldn't give them any more.

In all probability, the Gentle Reader is equally unacquainted with the Melungeons, East Tennessee, and the intricate web of racial/ethnic relations in pre-WWII America. As, however, we live in an age of officially sanctioned villains and victims and pay lip-service to the inherent value of every ostensibly brutalized culture du jour; our failure to remove the beam from our own collective eye whilst vacuuming dust motes from our neighbors' ill becomes us -- every one: us for treating them like shit, and YOU for being unaware of their existence.

Enough for tonight.