wahistorian's reviews
490 reviews

John McPhee has an utterly unique topic here: Norton Dodge, a University of Maryland economics professor who spent nearly 30 years bringing out 9000 pieces of "unofficial" or "noncomformist" art by men and women living in the then-USSR. These artists were not officially sanctioned by the Kremlin and, as such, continued to paint in the 1950s through the 1980s in constant fear of incarceration in prisons or mental hospitals. This book could have benefited from better editing (I repeatedly found myself confused about which character represented the subject of a sentence), but that was a small distraction in the heroic tale of this intrepid collector and the indomitable artists he helped. And McPhee successfully got at Dodge's motivation for collecting, an elusive psychology to pinpoint. While this avocation fit into his overall packrat mentality, Dodge also sought to ensure the artists could continue to produce, even as he rescued an encyclopedic selection of their works, good, bad, and indifferent.

This book was a challenge for me. McPhee divided his exploration of Alaska into three sections--the first, stage-setting section on the northern tree line; the second, uses the search for an ideal site for a new state capital to explore urban Alaska; and the final section, on "the bush," really focuses on the motives and lifestyles of in-migrants to the state. I breezed through the first two parts; the relocation of the state capital (which never happened) in particular was literally a bird's eye view of Alaskan cities and their inhabitants. The third part, however, desperately needed editing: descriptions of grizzly dangers, gold-sluicing methods, and conflicts among resource-hungry and cabin-fevered Yukon inhabitants became monotonous and overly repetitive. McPhee clearly became enamored of the rugged individualists who chose to leave the Lower Forty-eight behind to build lives based on subsistence and skills-building. While his book does not gloss over their less admirable qualities--a tendency toward paranoia, chaos, alchoholism, and particularly misogyny--he comes down firmly for their willingness to pit themselves against nature. Surveying the environmental effects of one gold-mining team's efforts, he writes, "This pretty little stream is being disassembled in the name of gold.... Am I disgusted? Manifestly not.... This mine is a cork on the sea. Meanwhile (and, possibly more seriously), the relationship between this father and son is as attractive as anything I have seen in Alaska--both of them self-reliant beyond the usual reach of the term, the characteristic formed by this country." (410) This celebration of masculine triumph over nature is nothing new, and is disappointing from a writer who can be such a subtle thinker.

I do not understand why more people don't read this (and why it's not on more curricula, certainly instead of The Pearl and maybe in addition to The Grapes of Wrath ). If I remember correctly this is one of Steinbeck's last novels, and it explores his discontent with "The American Dream" as it was constituted in the 1950s (2.5 children, stay-at-home wife, more home than you can reasonably afford, and constant "keeping up with the Joneses"). Fearful he may lose his modest hold on this dream, Ethan Hawley suddenly "takes a holiday from his own scrupulous [moral:] standards," as the book jacket describes it, not to mention a leave from his senses. Steinbeck subtly builds unbearable suspense as he slowly let the reader in on Hawley's plan. Can it work, or will he pull back? Should we even want him to succeed?

Not your typical public policy book, Closing the Food Gap draws on Mark Winne's 30 years of experience working on real-world solutions to food insecurity to suggest what works and what doesn't. Winne argues that policymakers and nonprofits have failed to tackle the root cause of hunger--poverty and low wages--preferring to prop up large-scale agriculture with band-aid solutions to unequal food distribution. But none of Winne's prescriptions are pat or simple, and he recognizes the need for farmers to earn a living wage while bringing the cost and availability of food into reach for low-wealth Americans. Very readable exploration of a tough, tough challenge.

Go Down Together may be more than anyone needs to know about the criminal careers of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, but like any good researcher, Jeff Guinn just couldn't resist using every interesting insight he had gleaned. Guinn ferretted out new sources that correct the notion of Clyde and Bonnie as bank-robbing masterminds, using them to demonstrate that the two spent much more time aimlessly driving around the South and Southwest, knocking off small groceries and robbing gumball machines (although they were pretty successful at replenishing their arsenals at National Guard Armories). Determined to stay together to the bitter end, the two were boxed in by intractable poverty and lack of opportunity, the Depression, and a misplaced desire for glamor and fame. In the end their constant race to elude capture was anything but romantic, yet their story remains strangely compelling.

An intense novel for people interested in art. Prize-winner war photographer Faulques retires from his profession to a tower in Spain, where he decides painting a battle mural will be the culmination of his life's work. He believes that painting can be real in ways photography has failed him: in conveying the brutality yet inevitability of human aggression. His plan is disrupted when one of his subjects, a Serbian soldier, shows up unexpectedly to settle a score. The interchange between the two--and Faulques's poignant memories of his lover Olvida--explores the capabilities of art, human responsibility in war, and (a less interesting topic) the role of the media in encouraging aggression. A simple premise with so many fascinating ramifications!

I believe this is my first Sherlock Holmes, so I admit it was difficult to keep the screen images of Holmes out of my mind while I read; as I read Holmes' analysis, it was Jeremy Brett's voice I heard, for example. But there were many surprises for me about this book, when measured against my expectations. The biggest one was that it is not a thriller, despite the number of times Doyle used the word in the text (and despite the lunging dog on the front cover). The author himself called it a "creeper," and it certainly was that: though Sir Charles Baskerville mysteriously dies, apparently of fright, at the beginning of the book, the reader is carried along not by any definite foreboding, but more by the experience of creeping along with Dr. Watson as he protects the next heir to the Baskerville estate. For me, then, the book became a complicated examination of the ties that bind--Watson to Holmes, servant to master, kin to kin--and how one interloper can threaten them. Every red herring introduced (escaped convict, mysterious bearded stranger, disgruntled houseman, scarlet woman), though ultimately not responsible for the crime at the book's center, still challenges the established social order. In the end, it is really only Watson and Holmes' friendship that emerges unscathed.

A reminder of how truly banal actors can be. Everyone Leigh worked with was 'uniquely talented' and 'very dear,' and Hitchcock was a playful master with nothing but respect for his actors. Even co-author Christopher Nickens steers clear of revealing anything insightful about Perkins' own complicated sexuality or Hitchcock's high-handed treatment of his female leads. The most interesting tidbit here was an anecdote about the director manipulating Leigh to sex it up in order to get co-star John Gavin to loosen up in the Phoenix motel scene. All in all, pretty forgettable.