The Shipping News, by Annie Proulx

Posted on July 30, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group – several had already read it and wanted to read it again.  It is one of a handful of novels that won the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in the same year. the Pulitzer Prize.

Summary in 3 Sentences: It begins with a 36 year old man living in NY whose life is a mess – he is unfulfilled and unsuccessful at work, his wife with whom he is completely infatuated, disrespects him and is carousing with other men, and he has no prospects.  When his wife is killed in a car accident, he is devastated but his aunt insists he packs up his 2 children and accompany her to Newfoundland where their ancestors were from. In Newfoundland he slowly begins to make a life for himself, as he finds his footing and integrates with the eccentrics in the small town where they live.

My Impressions: Interesting, different, and the story a bit quirky.   The writing is idiosyncratic – interesting, not hard to follow, just creative and different. 

The “story” is about Quoyle – something of a ne’er do well – not a bad or evil guy, but someone who clearly has “issues,” his life is a mess, he lacks self confidence and one might say he is emotionally unstable.    And then he moves to Newfoundland Canada to try to start over.  His life after he arrives in Newfoundland is the heart of the story.

We meet Quoyle in NYC where he is in his mid 20s, and we learn that his father berated and belittled him as a child and his parents fulfilled a suicide pact.  No wonder he was screwed up! In his “nowhere man” life, he meets and falls madly in love with Petal,  apparently the first woman who has ever paid any attention to him. Petal turns out to be a very self-centered, narcissistic,  manipulative, unstable sex addict, and Quoyle is smitten by her attention and eroticism.  He asks her to marry him, which she does – clearly as a free meal ticket for herself with no intention of truly becoming “married.”   We get glimpses of their lives over the next few years – she has two daughters (we assume by Quoyle, but we don’t know,) , while she still aggressively plays the field with many lovers, bringing some home, which Quoyle knows and accepts – he doesn’t have the self confidence to confront or challenge her. 

She apparently pushes all the child rearing and housekeeping chores onto Quoyle, which he passively accepts as the cost of keeping her in his life.  We don’t get much of a glimpse into this very dysfunctional family until Petal is killed in a car accident while taking off with one of her lovers, after selling their children to a black market (probably sex-trafficking) adoption agency for $6K. That was the back drop for the rest of the story.

This is where the story of The Shipping News truly begins.  Quoyle is broken hearted and emotionally distraught when he learned of Petal’s death, (while I and other readers are thinking “good riddance!”) and now he doesn’t know what to do. In steps his Aunt, who suggests that he accompany her to Newfoundland and start over where their family had lived for generations before emigrating to America.  They travel to Newfoundland and it is the Aunt’s intent to move into and renovate the old Quoyle home that had been abandoned out on the coast for nearly 40 years.  Quoyle finds work in a dysfunctional local newspaper (the local rag) which highlights scandal, car wrecks, sexual assaults and other salacious news –  whatever will grab the attention of the local boreed, blue-collar audience.

Over the rest of the story, Quoyle slowly integrates himself into this backwater community, makes friends and finds a way to fit in, which he never had before. His Aunt pursues her own life, finding work upholstering yachts and ships, while the two daughters get into school.  In this process, Quoyle learns about the small community, some of its darker secrets and also some darker secrets of his own families past. He meets and befriends a  young woman who is a widow with a disabled child and the two seeming outcasts trying to raise children alone find common ground helping and supporting each other. Their friendship begins to blossom as Quoyle slowly finds some success in his efforts to integrate and create a life for himself.  Eventually he and his Aunt have to  confront some of the darker secrets of the Quoyle family history, which the older people in the community know, but he and his Aunt didn’t.  

What appealed to me in this book is that there are no heroes – regular people, living an isolated, rather unexciting life in a small remote town in Newfoundland.  We see how people can become rather eccentric – even unstable –  living in a small bubble like that.  Those living there accept as normal what might drive me crazy – but they learn to live together and take care of each other in their own way. And we see how alcohol becomes a primary source of entertainment and a social lubricant – often to the detriment of the community.

This was an interesting and good book – different –  but not a great book from my perspective.  It provides interesting insights into life today in a remote coastal village in Newfoundland, and perspectives on people who have ended up there, or chosen to live there.  

My wife and I watched the movie which we thought was an excellent adaptation of the book – staring Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, Judy Dench as the Aunt, and Julianne Moore as the woman freind and eventual love interest. I’d say the book and the movie complement each other – I recommend both together.   

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Woman, Captain, Rebel – The Extraordinary True Story of a Daring Icelandic Sea Captain, by Margaret Willson

Posted on July 24, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: I was planning to travel to Iceland for a hike and wanted to learn about the people and its history. This book was strongly  recommended by two women on the hike.

Summary in 4 Sentences:  The book is a biography of  Thurídur Einarsdóttir (1777-1863) who was born and lived in a remote rural fishing village on the southeast coast of Iceland.  She was intrepid and ambitious from a very young age, and wanted to join the boys and men in the fishing that was the lifeblood of her community, and so became a capable deckhand as a young teenager.  She evolved to become one of the most successful fishing captains in her region, but the book goes into her private life, how the men of power resented her and undermined her success.  The author takes us through her entire life until the end, and the reader is inspired by her resilience and character, and we learn not only about her life, but so much also about the culture of rural Iceland in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

My impressions:  This book was a very pleasant surprise – thoroughly enjoyed reading it and was fascinated by the world the author describes that provided the context for Thuridur’s life and successes. She was born in a remote fishing village in Iceland in  1777,  started going to sea with her father when she was 11 and was fully qualified to captain a fishing boat by the time she was 17. These fishing boats were open, powered by men pulling six, eight, or ten oars with no protection from rain or sea spray.  It was tough work.   She lived an amazing life, a successful fisherman for over 50 years, including in the winter, a career that was matched by few men and no women at that time. 

As a young girl, she recognized that fishing was the lifeblood of the small community where she lived and she wanted to be part of it – volunteering as a young teenage girl to work with her father on his fishing boat.   Clearly, she was a boldly independent woman from a young age – and chose against convention to wear trousers and men’s clothing, because it was more practical in the work she was doing.  As she grew older, her wearing of trousers indeed became a part of her identity and one of many things which set her apart.  But for her independence of spirit, she was not only admired, but also feared and resented by some men in her community, and she depended on a few powerful people to protect her from the wealthy community leaders who resented the respect and influence she had earned, and who deliberately sought to undermine her reputation and ability to work.

She was married three times but none of the marriages worked out.  Her husbands wanted  a more traditional subservient wife, a role that did not fit her character,  and because she refused to be the compliant, passive wife that her husbands demanded, her marriages did not last.   So for most of her life, she had to earn her own living.  She insisted on freedom and autonomy, and always defaulted to a path which, though not lucrative in financial or physical rewards, gave her the most freedom and the fewest restrictions.

 Though she had had great success as a fishing captain, she was never wealthy, and had to carefully manage her expenses, but spent much of what little she had taking care of others who had no guardian or sponsor – including her own mother when her married sister refused to take care of her, and her disabled niece when that same sister refused to take care of her own daughter.  There were many key inflection points in her life when she made decisions based on her compulsion to do right and protect the weak and vulnerable, even when it cost her.  Her independence, and refusal to be cowed into subservience annoyed the rich and powerful men in her community, and they succeeded in spreading rumors and lies about her that turned her community against her.  Eventually she chose to leave rather than live in that emotionally hostile environment.  

When she left her village of Stokkseyri, she was able to find work in Thorlakshofn a nearby town, and the only town on the south coast of Iceland with a natural harbor. Though a small town, it was (and is) much larger and more cosmopolitan than Stokkseyri.  There she fished and also worked for a young man she’d helped in Stokkseyrie many years before who’d moved to Thorlakshofn and managed a store.  She became well known and well respected in that town, and as she aged, though well into her 60s and beyond, she remained strong and fit, and earned extra money guiding visitors to into the back country or on overland routes to other towns along the coast. After several years living in Thorlakshofn,  she longed to return to the Stokkseyrie where the small-town controversies and envy that had forced her departure had subsided and many of her enemies had died or moved on.  When she returned to Stokkseyrie in her later years, she was welcomed and recognized as a significant figure in their community. 

By this time she had given up fishing and spent the last years of her life mentoring other independent young people, including those who marched to their own drummers, as she had. One such young man who she mentored was  outside the Stokkseyrie mainstream, who was what we today might consider a book geek, not a macho fisherman.   Thuridur took a liking to him and the feeling was mutual.  The young man spent much time with her and wrote down the stories she told him, which many years later he published as a book which contributed significantly to this book.  Eventually in her old age, she lived with relatives in Eyrarbakki, the next town over from Stokkseyrie, where she died at the age of 86 – a very ripe old age for that time and for having lived in those very tough conditions.

On my trip to Iceland I with several friends was able to visit Stokkseyrie, which it is an exaggeration to call a village – just a few homes, a convenience store and a community center.  Several decades ago, the community built a replica of the fishing huts that fishermen including Thuridur, lived in during the winter season, and they built it in triubute to Thuridor, on the site where she had her own hut toward the end of her life.  Below are pictures we took of that hut.

I loved learning about Thuridur, her life, and about the challenges and idiosyncrasies of life in a rural fishing village in the Iceland of two plus centuries ago.  I and my friends who read the book greatly admired her strength of character, her resourcefulness and resilience in the face of adversity.  Her self confidence, integrity and Stoic strength of character allowed her to survive and thrive under very challenging conditions.  She is the embodiment of the Icelandic term I learned (which they consider a national motto) “Petta Reddast” which means:   It will work out, things will be Ok. 

Also I was amazed at the detail that the author was able to find and share with us. How did she get so much detail?  Here’s a piece of an interview with the author that I found on line: 

…what we found— that just farmers wrote about their neighbors. When I first started doing this research, there was one book written by— started by a 16 year old boy who had no education, who started interviewing Þuríður when she was older—phenomenal! And he spent 50 years putting this together, and he did a series of newspaper articles in the late 1800s, which were put together in an edited book in 1945, about Þuríður, actually. It’s amazing. And I thought that’s all there was practically. Not so. Because she was such an amazing person, everybody wrote about her. There’s just tons, both in the archives as we going through these archives, page by page, we come across more and more and more and more about her, and in books in the library, old books, where people— they have these books like Saga of Stokkseyri or some town, that people talk about their own towns and record what people say or these occurrences. And so people recorded, they remembered and wrote down verbatim conversations. And they wrote about adulterous affairs. They wrote about children who were born that weren’t really supposed to be born to that person. They wrote about fights. They wrote about betrayals. They wrote about love. It’s phenomenal the detail with which they wrote. So you know, we were lucky.*

*https://scandinavian.washington.edu/crossing-north-23-woman-captain-rebel

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How Iceland Changed the World – The Big History of a Small Island, by Egill Bjarnsason

Posted on June 22, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book:  I’m preparing to hike for a week in Iceland with NOLS,  and this book comes strongly recommended by a friend who has done that hike. I listened to the book which served me well. 

Summary in 4 Sentences: The author begins  back in the days of the Norse Vikings, the original human inhabitants of Iceland back around the 10th century CE, and includes how those original Norse inhabitants spread out to Greenland and the North American continent during their first centuries on the island.  The history continues through the middle ages and beyond the era of Viking dominance of Northern Europe into becoming a Christianized colony of Denmark. Iceland remained relatively isolated until the 20th century when it became a strategic location in the allies’ fight against the Nazis.  After WWII the book covers Iceland’s emergence onto the world stage, its relationship to the US and eventually becoming a leader in the feminist movement of equal rights for women. 

My Impressions: A fun and fascinating way to learn history.  The author clearly is enjoying telling the story of Iceland and it was enjoyable to hear him tell it. I listened to it, which has the advantage of the author’s easily comprehensible Icelandic accent but we also hear him pronounce Icelandic words and names authentically – very guttural and which convinced me not to try to learn much Icelandic in the two weeks I’ll be there.

I like most Americans grew up learning European history mostly about Germany, France, Spain and Italy.  This book makes clear that there was a separate Scandinavian history surrounding the Baltic Sea and which included Iceland – which was founded by Norse in the Viking era, and was ruled for centuries by Denmark. 

Iceland’s “known” history began when Eric the Red’s father was exiled with his family from Norway to the remote island of Iceland for having committed manslaughter, and he took his young son Erik with him.  Apparently there were already some Norse settlers there and Iceland must have served as a kind of Alcatraz.  Later, as an adult in Iceland, Erik got involved with a feud in Iceland which resulted in a number of people killed by Erik and his comrades, so Erik with some of these comrades was exiled for 3 years to the remote island of Greenland. There Erik and his small brood began the process of establishing a colony, and he is therefore regarded as the father of Greenland.   He later returned to Iceland and convinced others to join him in Greenland.  He is credited also with naming it “Greenland” as a sort of marketing ploy to get people to move there – though most of the land was covered in ice, except for around some of the fjords in the south.   

Erik’s son Leif Erikson is believed to have been born in Iceland, ultimately became a great explorer and is credited with having discovered and founded colonies in North America. Erik’s daughter apparently was also an intrepid explorer. The Norsemen from Iceland and Greenland are believed to have stumbled upon northern Canada after being blown off course on their way to Greenland, and then explored the coastline of Northern Canada. They ultimately founded   several small settlements to include the famous Vinland believed to have been on the north cape of Newfoundland.  For some  years there was traffic between those settlements and Greenland and Iceland but those settlements eventually disappeared and it isn’t clear why.  Likewise after about 500 years the Greenland settlements disappeared – uncertainty but some conjecture as to why.  All of this is outlined in Bjarnsason’s book with details from the various Norse sagas from that era, which are the primary source of his information.

There wasn’t a lot going on in the middle ages, though Iceland’s conversion to Christianity was a key cultural event, as that included them under the umbrella of the Catholic Church. Iceland was a pawn in some of the various dramas and competition for power between the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark – eventually becoming a colony of the Danish kings.  As Bjarnsasone moves into the 20th century, Iceland becomes more important strategically in the international community.  Though it remained neutral with Denmark during WW1, when the Germans invaded and annexed Denmark in WW2, the British “invaded” Iceland and held it for the allies, and when the US entered the war, the Americans established a large presence  in Keflavik near Reykjavik,  to help control the North Atlantic sea and air space, where the Nazi Navy was very active.  Also during that window, in June 1944 Iceland became a republic independent of Denmark following a national referendum.

After WW2, the US continued to retain a large military presence in Iceland as they sought to  prevent the Soviet Union from controlling the so-called G-I-UK gap (Greenland – Iceland – UK) in the North Atlantic. The relatively large military American presence, with military and DoD personnel, their money and American cultural traditions had an influence on the relatively provincial Icelanders, which resulted in some controversy, some resentment and cultural tensions between the strong American presence, and those intent on retaining a uniquely Icelandic culture. 

In the later 20th century two key events brought Iceland to the attention of the world: The chess match between Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky in 1972 for the world Chess championship was publicized all over the world; and the summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that took place in Iceland was key to ending the cold war.  Also surprising  to me was  the role that Iceland played as a so-called neutral arbiter in establishing the nation of Israel after WW2,  and that Iceland became in the 1980s and 1990s (and remains) a leader in the world feminist movement by electing women to key leadership positions in government. 

In sum, this short book covers a lot of history in an entertaining and engaging way.  A thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable way to learn about this fascinating Island and nation.  

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The Japanese Lover, by Isabel Allende

Posted on June 20, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book:  Selected by my literature book club.

Summary in 3 sentences:  There are two  key protagonists in this novel, beginning with a young woman Irina who is working in a retirement home in the early 21st century in the San Francisco bay area,  an older woman Alma,  living in the independent living section of that retirement home.  Irina eventually becomes a trusted assistant to Alma, who is independently wealthy, eccentric and aloof, but who slowly begins to trust Irina to manage many of her affairs.   Irina assists Alma with sorting out her papers, paying bills  and gathering her documents, and Irina, together with Alma’s  grandson Seth begins to uncover evidence of Alma’s  mysterious past, to include a secret love affair she’d had been having for decades with a Japanese man whom she’d befriended when they were children. 

My Impressions: This is perhaps the fifth or sixth Isabel Allende book that I’ve read, and all have been engaging, interesting and a joy to read.  The time frame in The Japanese Lover jumps back and forth from the early 21st century (modern times) to the 1930s and 1940’s as we get to know a number of the characters in their youth and then later in their lives.  Over the course of telling the personal stories of her characters,  Allende gives us insights into the pre and post WWII San Francisco Jewish community, the San Francisco Japanese community, the Nisei and how they were treated in California after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and what life was like in the internment camps during the war. 

We briefly get to know the title character – the “Japanese lover” Ichimei Fukuda early in the book as the son of a Japanese Gardener working for Alma’s wealthy uncle  We get to know Alma – whose Jewish family had sent her to live with her well-to-do uncle in San Francisco in the 1930s when it became apparent that the Nazis would probably invade Poland.  As Alma’s uncle Isaac’s gardener worked his estate, his young son Ichimei assisted him, and in that process became a playmate and friend of the young Alma – just a young girl living at the estate. In this digression we learn of Alma’s past, her life with her wealthy Uncle Isaac and his family and how she became friends with Ichimei.  Then comes WWII and the Fukuda family is whisked off with most other Nisei to Japanese internment camps and we learn of their life in those very trying circumstances.  

Meanwhile Alma grows up, goes East to college and develops her own career and become a young adult. We learn sporadic events of her life – and she and Ichimei go separate ways. When the story returns to early 2000s, Irina is working for Alma and she and Seth are piecing together the puzzle of her life from bits and pieces of what they discover  – Alma is very private and won’t reveal much.  But we the readers know that she still loves Ichimei even during her  good marriage, with children and after she had established herself as an important personage in the San Francisco Jewish Community.  

We also get to know Irina’s past – a sexually abused orphan from Moldova who is adapting to life as an adult in San Francisco while hiding and sublimating her shame from her abused past.  Seth – her co-conspirator in learning about Alma’s past, is in love with her but she will not let him get close to her – and is unwilling to reveal the source of her reluctance.

At the end of the book, Alma’s health is failing, Seth and Irina are trying to find a way to connect, and Ichimei and Alma remain connected, but in secret.  Alma has a serious automobile accident and Irina and Seth work together to take care of her, and Ichimei mysteriously appears.  

I loved the story, the characters and the way Allende tells it. There is a magic here in Alma’s life and her relationships to the people she loves and grows up with, and likewise in the resilient and powerful character Irina.  And Ichimei is an iconic Japanese buddhist – who reminded me in so many ways to the Japanese gardener and protagonist in the book I’d just read, The Garden of Evening Mists. 

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The Tiger – A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant

Posted on June 8, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: Highly recommended by Ryan Holliday.  Selected by my “literature” reading group and was a near select by my SEAL reading group.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This is the author’s account of his research into how the Russian government and the local communities in the Russian Far East (SE Siberia, bordering China, Manchuria, and near North Korea)  responded to a huge male Siberiian tiger killing and consuming two local hunters.  The book describes the rather primitive and poor communities and cultures that live on basically a subsistance economy in this remote, and poorly served part of Russia, and includes  the role of the police and wildlife protection services.  We also learn a lot about the history, habits, and the role of this species of tigers in this part of the world  – they are perhaps the largest, most  powerful and intelligent of the mammalian carnivorous predators

My Impressions: I enjoyed this book – because I was keen to learn about the culture of far eastern Russian villages, people living a subsistence life in a remote part of Russia – and the author’s study of the Siberian tiger (also referred to and known as Amur tigers) and its relationship to human communities over the years. He provides this as context for understanding this rare occurrence of a tiger attacking and consuming not just one, but two humans in the same region.  Well written and thoroughly researched by the author who spent a considerable amount of time in the region with  those affected by, and investigating the incidents. 

A number of those in our reading group didn’t care for the story – too much anthropology, history and culture – not enough page-turning action.  Women played a very minor role in the book – the wife of one of the victims and the mother of the other are referred to and mentioned, but the majority of the author’s research and interviews were with the men who were associated with the victims, and those involved in investigating what happened and why, and then hunting the man-killer down.

The book is also a tribute to these carnivores, at the top of the food chain – except for humans – and how the encroaching civilization has impacted them, with the worst impact coming from poachers who are very well paid for skins, and other parts of the tigers. The Russian government has wildlife protection and forestry services trying to manage, catch and arrest the poachers, but they are grossly underfunded and under manned for the extensive territory that they are responsible for. A good percentage of their resources come from Western wildlife preservation groups.

We also learn in this book a bit about the history of this region –  white Russians from the west moved into this territory during the 20th century that had been for millennia the home of local natives.  Native communities still live in the region, and they have retained much of the traditional wisdom from their forefathers who had lived there and co-existed with the tiger for generations.  These native hunters had previously had a symbiotic live-and=let-live relationship with the tigers who hunted in the same forests they did – and in fact, the indigenous communities  revered the tigers as gods.  But with the influx of westerners with new high powered weapons and technology, the balance in the relationship of the natives to the animals and the forest in the region shifted. The protagonists in this book, Yuri Trush was the head of the tiger preservation team in the region – and Vaillant clearly admired him as a man, and the work he was doing.

The final episode of the book is the tracking down and hunting of this specific tiger, who they realized was starving, injured and desperate.   That section and the aftermath was indeed a page-turner. He concludes the book with a look at the Siberian tiger’s prospects as an endangered species – only about 500 remaining in the wild, when it was believed that a century ago there were close to 25 thousand.  Western conservation groups are helping to fund and support the meager efforts of the Russian government to protect these tigers.

I was also surprised to learn that for the poor people in this region, peristroika has been a disaster. Under communism, there was at least an infrastructure that was responsible for providing jobs (however meaningless) and minimal income to the residents, and was responsible for taking care of the people in remote areas.  With peristroika and the advent of the free market, the government infrrastructure collapsed and with it the local economy.  As a result, there are very few opportunities for people to work, which forced many to hunt and poach just to feed their families. 

Very good book for a perspective on this remote area of Russia and to learn about the predator-prey relationship between the apex predators (man and tiger0 in that part of the world.

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Beyond the Trident, by Tom Murphy

Posted on May 21, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book:  I had briefly met Tom Murphy during my career in the Navy, and I recall that he had a reputation as an unusually intelligent and gifted SEAL Officer.  I was very interested in his perspective on the role of spirituality in his career.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This is Tom Murphy’s personal story about his spiritual journey and development, beginning with experiences in his childhood, his early years in the SEAL teams, to include being a victim of an ambush in Vietnam, and then on to his post-Vietnam Navy Career.  His focus in the book is sharing lessons he’s learned from his experiences in the Navy and life in general, about how we might better develop the spiritual leg of what he refers to as the three legged stool of a good healthy life: Mind, Body, Spirit.  He refers to but doesn’t dwell on his lessons about life from his SEAL career, but he shares a lot about what he’s learned exploring the different manifestations of a much broader perspective than what most of us perceive as reality, and the implications of those rather esoteric experiences, including his own, as to how one might consider one’s spiritual place in the universe.

My Impressions: If you’re looking for a book about SEALs doing SEAL commando stuff, you’ll probably be disappointed in this one. Tom only gives us a few SEAL stories from his very full career and life. Most particularly, his two tours in Vietnam, the killing he experienced and paricipated in had a profound impact on him, which he spent the next few decades coming to terms with. He does include a number of other stories from his Navy career where he wasn’t working with the SEALs – but only in so far as they help the reader understand his perspective on his own spiritual development and the primacy of spiritual development in a good life.  This book is about his spiritual journey and the SEAL anecdotes are provided as key part of his life’s journey, but are discussed only in so far as they contribute to understanding him and his spiritual journey.

He begins with a SEAL operation in Vietnam in which he and his platoon were ambushed and several of his men were injured. And he talks about the impact of that on him over time – how he suppressed the trauma for years, in order to focus on his job and doing it as well as he could. And he noted how repressing that trauma impacted him later in his life and career. Only later did he realize that the effects of his wartime missions in Vietnam, and other brutality he witnessed and experienced and perhaps even in part participated in, were still with him and negatively impacting his life.

There is a whole section in the book about dealing with Trauma and PTSD – his own experience as well as what he’d learned from others.  But he notes that dealing with PTSD is only part of what one should be paying attention to, if one is trying to live a full life. Early on he gives us his metaphor of the good life being a solid and well balanced three legged stool.  In this metaphor, each of the legs represents one fundamental component of a good and well balanced life, and if any one of these legs is shortened, weak, or ignored, one’s life, just like a three legged stool, is unbalanced and much less than it could be. He makes the point that dealing with trauma effectively, should not be done in isolation or separate from one’s spiritual growth.

The three legs of a well balanced life represent 1. The physical ; 2. the mental;  and 3. the spiritual.  He notes that the physical and the mental aspects are well recognized and get plenty of attention in Western culture. The spiritual aspect however, often gets short shrift or is ignored altogether, much to the detriment of individuals and society.  The three legged stool is therefore out of balance. It is this spiritual leg of the three legged stool that Murphy spends most of this book addressing, and he seeks to  open the readers’ minds to many aspects of spirituality about which most people are either unaware, or choose to ignore. He makes a point of not pushing any single option – but encouraging his readers to explore and find a spiritual path that works for each individual. He emphasizes that there are many good paths – but one should seek and find what works for oneself.

He talks about the Out of Body Experience – which in the audible version is refered to as an “OB”.  Tom has had many such experiences over his life, and notes how such phenomena indicate that our purely physical understanding of the world is incomplete. He notes that OB experiences which are and have been well documented all over the world over time, indicate that we are not “merely” tissue, bones and living cells – that the OB indicates that consciousness and awareness must have a separate or different dimension of existence if they can leave the body behind.  He gives not only his own but the well documented examples of others, especially in Near Death Experiences.*

He also shares his extensive research on channels or mediums who receive knowledge and wisdom from outside their own bodies and experience. 

I found the book interesting and enlightening, and it has inspried me to look into some of the channels he describes. I’d heard of Seth, but was unfamiliar with most of the others, and would like to explore them. Many years ago, I had read and been inspired by many books on/about Edgar Cayce, whose incredible capabilities Murphy gives attention to in a portion of his book, and he refers to Edgar Cayce several times. Cayce lived in Virginia Beach, and the Association for Research and Enlightement (which I have visited) is still there dedicated to the study of Cayce’s readings and to continuing his legacy.

What disappointed me a bit about the book are a couple of things he didn’t address, which I believe deserved some attention, given his theme. He may have chosen not to address these for his own reasons, or they simply didn’t occur to him, or he considered them unimportant or irrelevant.

1. He didn’t include in his discussion remote viewing, an incredible phenomenon which supports his thesis that our rational understanding of reality is incomplete, and that time and distance and consciousness are not what they seem to most of us in the Western tradition.

2. He didn’t discuss “the problem of evil” – does it exist as a separate force, or is it “merely” the absence of good, like cold is the absence of heat? We read or hear regularly of humans torturing and doing horrific things and causing great harm to other humans and other living creatures, for pleasure or to fulfill personal agendas. Understanding, and learning to live with, if not accept that reality I believe should be part of any book offering spiritual guidance.

3. And finally, I would have liked him to have elaborated more on how the spiritual perspective and practice he advocates can help us deal with great disappointment and sadness in life, when we lose or have to give up things that are very important to us, such as loss of a child, or close friend or loved one, a life altering disease or accident, or having one’s career derailed by nefarious actors.

After reading the book, I listened to Jocko Willink’s podcast interview with Tom (Jocko podcast 455) which added a lot to my appreciation of this book and Tom Murphy. He did note that he didn’t address psychedelic therapies for dealing with trauma, which have been shown to be very effective for some, and are being widely used by retired SEALS. He said he didn’t address this because he hasn’t had any personal experience with these drugs or therapies and didn’t feel qualified to address them.

* Note: Sebastian Junger – an avowed atheist – recently published a book entitled In My Time of Dying in which he describes a powerful OB experience he had when he nearly died. He describes his book as “part medical drama, part searing autobiography, and part rational inquiry into the ultimate unknowable mystery.”

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Once Upon a Town – The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, by Bob Greene

Posted on May 7, 2025 by schoultz

Why this Book: I had read an OpEd by Bob Greene that I liked, and in the postscript about the author, it mentioned this book which sounded interesting, The subject appealed to me, and it appeared to be short, so I put it in my Audible library and listened to it.

Summary in 3 Sentences: In the late 1990s/early 2000s (the book was published in 2003) Bob Greene decided to visit North Platte Nebraska, to look into what he’d heard about the North Platte Canteen during WW2, which served troop trains stopping there for 10-20 minutes carrying troops to their units to fight in Europe or the Pacific. Greene writes what he learned from his research in the town’s archives, but mostly through his interviews with those (mostly women) who volunteered at the North Platte Canteen supporting the troops and interviews with men who had experienced their hospitality when the troop trains stopped briefly in North Platte. He also shares his experience and impressions of what has become of North Platte in the second half of the 20th century after the war, as our country has changed and the phenomenon of the North Platte Canteen has faded into history, as the town changed with the times and the rest of America.

My Impressions: Loved this book! I listened to it and thoroughly enjoyed the voice and inflection of the reader Fritz Weaver – which added to the emotional impact of the book. The book is only 6 hours long in its audible rendering, but the audible version has the disadvantage of not having pictures – and I assume the print version includes a lot of photos to help bring the story to life.

Early in the war, a number of citizens of North Platte assembled at the train depot to meet and give gifts to soldiers from their community who were to be stopping briefly at the depot on their way to their initial duty stations. But when the train stopped, they’ gotten incorrect information, and the train they greeted wasn’t the train with their young men on it. But they decided to give the food, gifts, and appreciation to the fellows who did happen to be on that train, and wished them well and good luck. And the citizens of North Platte were amazed at how much these men appreciated their gifts and support.

A young woman who had been part of that North Platte group was so moved by how those men reacted and the reception the group had gotten from the soldiers on that train, that she volunteered to organize a regular greeting party for ALL the trains coming through. She proposed that the people of North Platte and the surrounding communities organize to greet the trains to offer a little affection and support to the troops, and provide them with amenities that were not available on the train, like home cooked food, cigarettes, candy, magazines, desserts and other simple pleasures from home – to show the boys that what they were doing was appreciated. The town and other nearby towns and communities responded enthusiastically to the request..

A committe was formed in North Platte, which created a “watch bill” and an organization was set up. The different towns, clubs and civic organizations signed up and were present to greet each train, express appreciation to the soldiers and sailors and provide food and othr the amenities to the trooops on every train that came through – for over four years of WW2! It was estimated that during that window, in the vicinity of 6 million American servicemen were greeted and given home prepared food and other amenities, and received love and appreciation from volunteers working at the North Platte Canteen.

In doing his research Greene was able to find dozens and dozens of first hand accounts of the North Platte Canteen experience. He spoke to the women who so long ago had greeted and served the soldiers on the trains, but he also spoke to many soldiers and sailors themselves, expressing many decades later how important that experience had been for them. In the process of giving their interviews, they also shared their lives, where and with whom they’d served during the war, and how they had lived their lives since. Those interviewed were mostly in their 70s and 80s, with a few in their 60s and 90s, and their stories provide a picture of how different America was in the middle of the 20th century than it is now.

He noted that while the women were fairly matter of fact in describing what they had done and their experiences at the Canteen, a large percentage of the men got emotional and teared up during their interviews. Their stories moved me as well, and indeed I choked up several times, as I listened to the book on my walks through my neighborhood in Prescott, Arizona.

The nostalgia for simple and patriotic community values of middle America in that era is palpable – we feel it in the memories shared in those interviews, as well as in the author’s reactions to those interviews. He (and we) are amazed at how much sacrifice and effort the communities around North Platte made to support the troops, in what seemed like the small gesture of providing them a few amenities and a sense of home, hospitality, love, and appreciation for what they were doing for their country. They got no public funding or federal support for their efforts – they used their own ration stamps and resources to provide the food and amenities they gave to the soldiers and sailors, in addition to receiving generous donations in food and cash from individuals and private companies alike. They had a love for and faith in America, the government and what it was asking of its citizens that seems quaint and almost naive today. And they loved and respected the boys who were being sent off to fight. The story of the North Platte Canteen reflects a version of patriotism and love of country that so many of us miss today.

The book concludes with Greene describing how North Platte reacted to the news that Japan had surrendered in August 1945. In his interviews, he heard about the sense of relief, and the joyful celebrations that followed the announcement of the end of the war, and about the dances and other events to commemorate the victory. And of course, the relief and joy among the troops who were still coming through. The Canteen coordinating committee realized however, that their work was not done, and they continued for 8 more months after VJ day, serving the troops on the trains bringing them home, until that number grew fewer and fewer. The last troops were served at the North Platte Canteen on the evening of 1 April 1946.

Sadly, in the 1970s, the Union Pacific tore down the depot building that had housed the North Platte Canteen when passenger trains no longer served North Platte.

If you’re looking for a feel-good book about the heart of America and what hopefully remains good about our country amidst today’s heightened polarization, anger and acrimony, this is it. I only regret that I didn’t get to read this with my parents, both of whom grew up in Nebraska during that time frame – my father may even have experienced the hospitality of the North Platte Canteen as he went to war in 1943. My mother grew up in that same era in Falls City, Nebraska, a small farm town much like North Platte, but on the eastern side of the state. She would have loved and been able to personally relate to so much in this book that describes the culture and ethos of that small farming community, so much like the one she grew up in. I wish I’d been able to share the joy this book brought me with her.

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Spider World #6 Shadowland, by Colin Wilson

Posted on April 30, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book:   The final book in Colin Wilson’s Spider World Series, following The Desert, The Tower, The Fortress, The Delta, and The Magician.  In some configurations of the Spider World series, the first three books are combined into one, entitled The Tower, followed by The Delta, The Magician , and this book is volume 4 – the final in the series.  

Summary in 5 Sentences. This is the final book in Colin Wilson’s Spider World Sci Fi series, and picks up where The Magician leaves off. Niall – the series protagonist – takes off alone to find and confront the Magician in Shadowland in hopes of saving his brother’s life and building an alliance between Spider World and Shadowland, which the Magician rules. Probably 2/3 of the book is Niall’s trip to find Shadowland during which he  confronts  non-corporeal beings, human-like beings who have evolved differently, and the remains of earlier human civilizations. During his  Odyssey,  he is joined by a renegade  spider from Spider World and together they navigate and deal with the challenges of finding Shadowland.  When they finally find and enter Shadowland, they find that life and reality are very different from what Niall -and we – are accustomed to.  Before  ultimately confronting the evil Magician, they spend several days exposed to supernatural and other high tech advances that the Magician had made real in Shadowland.   

My Impressions: A strange and different story, following the protagonist of the entire Spider World series, Niall into a land of different beings, different physical laws, and a different sense of reality.   It seems that Wilson intended to expose the reader to alternate realities, beings and entities which many believe actually do exist in our world beyond our cognitive awareness  – on what some have called the astral plane.   

The story itself is a Joseph Campbell-esque Hero’s journey – Niall leaves his comfortable world and puts himself at great risk for a cause greater than himself.  He leaves his comfortable world to seek and find the Magician – a super powerful and apparently evil being who lives in a land, far away from Spider World.    Niall  has been led to believe that only the Magician has the power to cure/save his brother, who is suffering from an unknown illness as a result of touching a blade that the Magician had forged for one of his soldiers. He also hopes to build a truce or alliance with the Magician between Shadowland and Spider World.

Two thirds of the book is Niall’s journey from Spider World to ind Shadowland, during which he encounters a variety of different beings and seemingly, different laws of nature.  The chameleons rescue him from an accident, nurture him and teach him some of their own powers.   He is often confused by what he is seeing and experiencing – and to deal with and respond to strange and new circumstance and creatures, he calls on his exceptional power to connect telepathically with the chameleons and other beings – some human-like, but in one case a bird, which allows Niall’s consciousness to step into that of the bird, and see  the world through its eyes. 

Also at one point during his journey, he connects with a renegade spider, Captain Makanda who’d been exiled from Spider World, and the two decide to travel and work together – that is an interesting dimension of this story. These two are former enemies, and very different beings but they develop a mutually supportive and trusting bond which gets them through many a close call.  During their journey in search of Shadowland and the Magician, they find remnants of earlier human civilizations and Niall is able to psychically connect with the beings who’d lived there. (another of Wilson’s nods to a different understanding of time and space)

Eventually they connects with a group of huge, human like creatures he calls Trolls who live outside of but near Shadowland and know something of it. They assist him and Captain Makanda  with advice and a crystal amulet with special powers, and which they told Niall would be a key in his interactions with the Magician.

Eventually Niall and Captain Makanda find and are able to enter Shadowland and are greeted warmly by the Magician’s representatives, and are shown around the incredible civilization that the Magician had created. But they sense that their arrival was not a surprise, and that the warm greeting they received was part of a different agenda.  The futuristic world that the Magician had created in Shadowland gives Wilson  a chance to  explore up and downsides to some of the technologies that he was seeing being developed for us living in this reality, when (he wrote the book in the early 21st century. )   A few of which: 

  • The Magician had experimented with creating better humans by manipulating DNA and some of the results were pretty bizarre and even horrific.
  • The Magician was a mad scientist –  amoral, secretive and obsessed with his own power.  His subjects were merely means for him to experiment with his theories that he hoped, would increase his and Shadowland’s power if/when his experiments succeeded. His humans were like lab rats for his experiments and plans. 
  • One of his experiments at managing procreation had backfired and women were not able conceive, and their population was thereby in danger – reminding one of Communist China’s efforts to reduce their population, as well as  declining populations today in the developed world. 
  • To keep the population engaged and entertained,  the Magician and his scientists created an entertainment arcade which allowed participants to enter a wide variety of virtual worlds and to psychically experience all thrills of whatever adventure they wanted, without physical risk. Kind of like simulated rock climbing or carrier landings. This was meant to offset the boredom and lack of opportunities for the real experience, similar to how video games and virtual reality for many in our world have become preferable to real experience – real courage not required. 
  • They had a population of factory workers who were kept happy with safety, routine, predictability, and other simple  physical pleasures, but who were separate from the elite classes.  
  • Marriage and committed relationships were forbidden, and seen as a threat to the most efficient functioning of society.
  • People were cowed by the power of the Magician as authority figure – not unlike in many authoritarian states. The Magician ruled with great physical and psychic power and ultimately,  thru intimidation.

When Niall was transiting the lands between Spider World and Shadowland and he experienced reality shifts and bizarre creatures with unusual capabilities, there were times it almost seemed like a psychedelic experience.  The amulet that he wore, which  gave him immense focus and energy when he needed it, exhausted him afterward.  It made me think of cocaine and its attraction.

In the end, the Magician’s true intent becomes known – to dominate Niall and eventually Spider World.  Niall and Captain Makanda are put into prison and Niall must rely on his strengths of character and his psychic abilities to save himself, his brother, Captain Makanda and his mission to build a bridge between Spider World and Shadowland. 

NIALL is the hero of the entire Spider World series.  His character reflects the values of the author .  I believe Niall’s character is one of the more interesting aspects of the book.  He is humble, curious, and courageous.  He is also not physically imposing, especially compared to  those who oppose him – the Spiders and his enemies in Shadowland are physically very strong. Niall then must use the tools he has – his mind and psychic strength, his imagination, creativity, and telepathic abilities to counter their efforts to control him and prevail.  He slowly, and with all due humility, realizes his gift of strong mental and telepathic powers, and over the course of the series, develops them and his own associated strong intuitive senses – largely by learning to blank his mind, shut out fear, anxiety and emotion, and thereby become completely receptive to signals around him that are otherwise not perceptible. 

 Niall was courageous but also had fear, and knew that he was physically and psychically vulnerable.  The Magician made that clear to him,and he realized his vulnerability  when confronting the Magician, found himself on the defensive and was overwhelmed.  When he found himself in trouble or under threat, he would quiet his mind,  listen to the environment and his heart, and take action on what occurred to him. These qualities are attributes that I assume Colin Wilson saw in many if not most of the shamans he explored in his books The Occult and Mysteries.  My sense is that Wilson chose to  use his literary license to somewhat exaggerate the many occult versions of reality that had been described to him in his research. Indeed I believe that with some skepticism believed in these not-easily-perceived realities that  were beyond his own ability to perceive or access, due to his rationally based up-brining and understanding of the world. 

While the series is long and the path to the end is winding. and occasionally windy, it was fun to read about our hero’s adventures, trials and tribulations in this imaginative world with its  unseen entities and new physical rules, and a very human character’s interaction with it all, using powers not unlike what many shamans and spiritual teachers tell us we all have.  

I found a good one page summary of the entire Spider World series which is worth looking at for anyone interested.  It is at:  https://raintaxi.com/sspider-world/

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A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin

Posted on April 30, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book: Recommened to me by several credible friends.  Also, having read >>>>Continie which also takes place in Northern Italy,  and now  that I have hiked 3 times in the Dolomites, where much of this novel takes place, I was intrigued.  

Summary in 3 Sentences:  The novel is written as a retropsective by the protagonist Alessandro Guiliani a man in his 70s looking back from the 1960s on his life in the early part of the 20th century as he describes it to a young Italian companion that is accompanying him on a long walk. The book begins with that 1960s setting, then moves on to Alessandro’s youth and growing up in early 20th century Italy, then his many experiences during and immediately after WW1 

My Impressions:   Not a book for someone in a hurry, but is impressive for a thoughtful person with patience and eclectic interests, and a willingness to engage in a long rich story. It is not for someone looking for a page turner and a lot of action.  But as a whole it can be very satisfying, although for as I read it, I was a  occasionally frustrated and impatient trying to understand the arc of the story. But I chose to stick with it, with Alessandro and his journey, and I’m glad I did.

It reads more like the Odyssey of an Italian Soldier in the Great War.  It begins with our protagonist Alessandro Giuliani as an old man of 74 (not THAT old!) in the early 1960s connecting with Nicolo Sambuca, a young uneducated working class man of about 18, after the two of them miss the bus to a town in the mountains outside of Rome.  Alessandro is clearly a wise, tough, worldly, educated man of  wide  and experience.  Since they are heading to the same general location, he convinces Nicolo to walk  together with him to their next destination,  though it would be a hike of more than 20 hours overnight through the mountains.  In the course of that hike, Alessandro tells of his life nearly 50 years ago to Nicolo, which helps us not only to understand how Alessandro became the wise tough old man that he is, but also tells us a lot about Italy in the early part of the 20th century.  His experiences during WW1 which make up the majority of the book, reveal much about the insanity and brutality, death and suffering resulting from of how the Italians fought the Austrians in WW1.  And indeed Alessandro had experienced a multitude of different aspects and dimensions of WW1 in Italy’s battles with Austria during WW1.

His experiences came in episodes, reminding me of Odysseus return to Greece after the Trojan War.  The “Odyssey” of  Alessandro’s story, proceeded as such:

  • Alessandro’s tells the story of his youth – as the son of a well-to-do attorney in Rome, hunting, mountain and rock climbing in the Dolomies, and studying philosophy, art and aesthetics at the University.  Then the war breaks out and against the wishes of his parents, he believes it his duty to enlist and play his part.
  • He goes through boot camp and finds himself on the north western front in Italy in WW1- style trench warfare with the Austrians – lobbing artillery shells at each other across a river valley.  Eventually the Austrians charge and take the Italian positon.
  • He survives that battle and finds himself selected to be part of a secret group the Italian government has commissioned to train and then covertly take a large craft around the heel of Italy to Sicily to find, capture and bring to justice deserters who had escaped to and were living in the mountains. They arrive in Sicily, secretly train in a remote location,  and then embark on operations which result in the capture of a number of deserters to bring back to Italy for summary  trial and execution.
  • During the return transit, there is some turmoil on the boat, the deserters are able to kill the senior Italian officer and escape over the side near the coast of Italy to swim ashore. Alessandro joins the deserters himself, swims ashore on hid oen, joins some shepherds, and with them,  returns to Rome and his family. There he is himself eventually captured as a deserter,  sent to the notorious Stella Maris prison where deserters are summarily tried and executed.
  • A friend of his father’s intervenes to commute his sentence, just before Alessandro was to face a firing squad with his fellow deserters from the Sicily campaign.  He is then sent to a work camp quarry where he engages in hard physical labor with other prisoners  working 16+ hours a day, mining marble appropriately enough, to be made into headstones for the graves of fallen solders.
  • He then finds himself sent to another infantry company, again to fight the Austrians, this time in the Dolomites in the northeast of Italy, where again, the Austrians and the Italians face each other over a big mountain valley. He is wounded in one of the battles, and while in the hospital, falls in love with his nurse and while he is recovering, the two have an idyllic romantic relationship until he is sent back to his unit. As his unit is marching off to serve on a different front in the Dolomites, Alessandro witnesses an air attack on the hospital where where his nurse lover was still working, and the hospital is completely destroyed – and he is certain his lover is killed as well.
  • The next phase of the Odyssey is in the extremely mountainous section of the Dolomites, where Alessandro, as an experienced former mountaineer and climber, is tasked with manning an observation outpost at the top of a cliff,  accessible only by technical rock climbing.   From this observation post, high above the valley,  he can see into the Austrian lines and report what he observes by a long land line to his unit’s leadership in the valley. He is to be there for a month but toward the end of his window, he fends off and is almost killed in an Austrian attack on his position and he is able to rejoin his unit.
  • Next on the Odyssey, he disobeys orders from his unit commander, and goes into the mountains to recover the body of his close friend who’d been wounded and left for dead on a perilous  reconnaissance mission.  He recovers his friend’s body but is then captured by the Austrians and becomes theier prisoner.  They turn him  over to their primitive Bulgarian allies who take him away from Italy to the north. Our still distraught Alessandro observes the brutality and idiocy of his captors, and even though he is far from friendly lines and escapees are summarily shot, he figures he has nothing left to lose,  so escapes again, deep in enemy territory without much hope for success.
  • Which leads to the next phase – he is recovered and recaptured by an Austrian unit, whose leader is an educated and sophisticated Austrian Prince, who recognizes Alessandro for the intelligent educated man he is, treats him with respect and assigns him work appropriate to his talents.  Alessandro travels with and become a friend and confidant of this Austrian prince until he is delivered to an Austrian PoW camp in Vienna toward the end of the war.  
  • Then begins the next phase of the Odyssey – a whole new adventure – Alessandro working as slave labor in the Austrian royal castle with other PoWs, serving the aristocrats and royalty of Austria.   While there  the armistice is signed, BUT negotiations for return of prisoners drag on, weeks become months, while he and the other prisoners continue to work as  slaves.   And so our hero escapes again, and is able to assume an identity of an Austrian allied soldier, finds his way back to Germany on a quest to find and kill the pilot who bombed the hospital where he’d been a patient and the woman he loved worked. 
  • His war concludes with him hiking over the Alps from Germany into Italy, avoiding Germans, Austrians, civilization, on a several day harrowing journey in which he almost dies of exposure and other dangers of the mountains, before he reaches Italy, to begin his new life.
  • Back in civilization Alessandro is uninterested in re-integrating and picking up where he left off.  His parents have died, his sister assumed he was dead and emigrated to America, and most of his friends have been killed in the war.  Alessandro is withdrawn, suffering what today we would call PTSD, chooses to work at manual labor and be left alone.  He pines for the nurse he’d met in the Dolomites and through dreams and other signs, becomes convinced that in fact she is still alive.
  • For several years, he survives in obscurity by performing gardening and other manual labor.   Through a series of coincidences driven by his own intuition, he finds and reunites with his lover from the Dolomites who has a son – his son..  Unbeknownst to him she was pregnant when he they last saw each other. At this point he is about 27 years old.

At this point, Alessandro’s  WW1 narrative concludes and we return to him telling his story to Nicolo as they walk through the mountains. In this section, Nicolo asks questions and makes comments and we get to know Alessandro again as the wise, tough, compassionate old man we had met at the beginning of the novel.  Here Helprin allows Alessandro to share his life philosophy and his spiritual beliefs in response to Nicolo’s questions and we get to know not only the fascinating man Alessandro, but also the fascinating man Mark Helprin.

It seemed that Helprin was writing an almost Forrest Gump-like approach to describing Italy in the early part of the 20th century, in that Alessandro plays a part in so many different settings in Italy’s participation in WW1.  We also see the Italian Army in its rather inept approach to fighting a relatively sophisticated European Army.  I had previously read The Sardinian Brigade (my review here) which gave one officer’s more detailed personal account of the incompetence of the Italian army leadership in that war. 

But I think another of Helprin’s key objectives was in creating the character of Alessandro – an ideal of manhood in the author’s eyes –  a Nietzschean Ubermensh dealing with the horrors and absurdities of war with courage, principle, detachment and wisdom.. The character of Alessandro himself was from my perspective, as important a theme of this book as was Italy, or WW1.

Alessandro was bold and independent, intelligent and well educated in the classics, with specialty in aesthetics and philosophy. He was passionate and principled, not afraid to commit himself and take a stand. Though he acted primarily on principle, he could be prudent when it made sense, and followed orders and “played the game.”  He was compassionate even/especially when it didn’t serve him well.  He took bold action, took suffering in stride and accepted the consequences of his actions. He didn’t consider himself in any way entitled to any special treatment because of his family, education, courage or intellect.  He was honest and unpretentious.  He didn’t enjoy killing and refrained from it when he could, often at the last moment when his conscience grabbed him.  He was unimpressed with and uninterested in rank, status, wealth and the fineries of the elite, but he could play their game when it served his goals –  independence and freedom for himself and others.  He could love and he did; he could suffer, and he did;  and what did not kill him, made him stronger (and he almost and should have died many times.)   He did not seek, but did not fear death. At the end he is a physically, mentally and spiritually strong old man who appreciates the beauty of nature, the world, of life. 

In his recounting, Alessandro repeatedly refers to himself as a soldier at heart, and reminds us constantly how the war and his experiences as a soldier shaped him as a man, and improved who he was.

We get to know Alessandro through his life as he relates it to Nicolo, and how he reflects on it at the end. This is when  we get to know him best, when as an old man, he tells his story to Nicolo and is responding to Nicolo’s questions.  We see his spiritual side more explicitly at the end, though he is explicitly not religious.  We see the acquired wisdom, strength, passion and detachment of a man who has lived well and fully, toward the end of his life.   He embodies the old saying “living well is the best revenge” against all the misfortunes and near-misses he’d experienced.   I think that was as much Helprin’s message as the story of Italy in the Great War.  And in listening to several interviews on youtube with Helprin, Alessandro reflects Helprin’s own values and ideals for himself.  

For those interested, a good summary which makes some interesting points that I don’t above  can be read at:https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/literature-and-writing/soldier-great-war-mark-helprin 

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Red Dog Farm, by Nathaniel Ian Miller

Posted on April 28, 2025 by schoultz

Why this book:  I’m planning to spend a couple of weeks in Iceland this summer and somehow this book came to my attention as a novel which takes place in rural Iceland fairly recently. I read it as part of my mental prep to get the most out of this trip, and help me appreciate the land and people I’ll be visiting. 

Summary in 3 sentences:  The story is told from the first person perspective of a young man about his life growing up on a remote, hard-scrabble farm in southern Iceland. He vividly describes the hard work and challenges of ranching cattle in that world, to include from the character of the land, the inclement weather, and the often uncooperative animals themselves, all while he wrestles with what he will do with his life as he enters adulthood.  His father is beaten down by the hardships, his mother is a professor at a local university and our young protagonist eventually goes through the classic challenges of falling in love and creating a relationship with a young woman, all while things on the farm and in his family are not going well. 

My impressions:   I loved the book – the story, the writing, and indeed the sense it gave me of farm life in rural Iceland.  I read the book primarily as an introduction to Icelandic culture, but what a bonus in that the story was so compelling and seemed genuinely authentic  to me. The book is told as a retrospective from the protagonist looking badk from his late 20’s on the events he describes. 

I listened to the book, and am glad I did. The reader clearly has native fluency in the Icelandic language, which added to the authenticity of the book, in his pronunciations of place names and other words of Icelandic origin. 

Characters in the book are interesting and believable.  I liked all of them.  Principle characters were our protagonist Ourie (sp?), his Papi, his Mama, his Ama (grand mother,)   Runa, their drunken neighbor’s daughter, Mihan, Oure’s  girlfriend,  and Riku their loyal and very intuitive farm dog,

Our ptotagonist is an introverted adolescent, an only child working with his father on the farm until  he goes off to the university in Reykjavic – something his parents expected and wanted him to do . His father because he wanted a better life for his son than the unrewarding drudgery of working the farm, his mother because she came from a university educated family and wanted her son to have that path open to him.    He’s not crazy about being a student, and when his father is injured and  struggling with the work on the farm, he willingly takes a leave from being a student and stays on the farm to help out.  

But it’s clear that he enjoys farm work, much  more than his father, and misses it when he’s in Reykjavic.  He doesn’t particularly like school and doesn’t enjoy the hustle and bustle of city life.  

Sub plots –

  • How the tension below the surface between Oure’s parents would resolve itself.
  • Whether Runa would be able to find a female partner 
  • Whether Oure and Mihan would ever get past their communications difficulties and become a couple.
  • Whether his father would ever get over his antipathy toward farming.
  • Whether Oure would go back to complete his degree program or stay and work the farm.

These sub plots are driven to a conclusion by an unanticipated event, that forces all concerned to make decisions that they were unwilling to make without being forced to. As the book concluded, I wanted more, and would enjoy a sequel.  

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