Bob's Books

Why this book: I’ve always been interested in The Unseen Order of Things and have found the idea of reincarnation an interesting possibility.  I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the topic since reading the (now discredited) Search for Bridie Murphy, and visiting the Association for Research and Enlightenment in my home town of Virginia Beach, Va.  It’s hard to explain what Edgar Cayce was able to know, see, and do without at least considering the ‘truth’ of his claim of reincarnation and the evolution of the soul.

My Impressions:  The book tells the story of a young child who has uncanny knowledge of and interest in airplanes.  He also has nightly recurrent nightmares, in which he screams something to the effect, “Plane on fire! Plane on fire! Little man can’t get out!” during which he thrashes around and screams in his crib.    With this nightmare ocurring almost nightly, during the day, this young child makes statements about what airplane he used to fly, the aircraft carrier that he flew off of , the Pacific battle he fought in – history of which  his parents were unaware and to which this 3 year old boy had  never been exposed.  The father was a Christian with very strong traditional beliefs and embarked on a campaign of research to basically discredit this ‘fantasy’ by finding flaws and historical inaccuracies in his son’s story.  The book is largely about his extensive research, about the strain it put on the marriage of the parents, as well as about the mounting evidence that this young boy knew things that were very difficult to explain without believing in reincarnation.   The father learned the identity of the young naval aviator who the boy claimed to be when he was shot down, found friends and family whose names the boy mentioned.  The extensive research allowed them to introduce their 5 year old son to the people who were close to and still had vivid memories of the naval aviator who had died in 1945.  The boy knew things about this earlier man that people said only the man himself knew.  The stories are amazing, but the book is almost as much about the father’s struggle with his faith, and how the parents coped with this very inconvenient and awkward prediliction of their son.  My wife Mary Anne and I were a bit put off in reading so much about the parents, but in the end, the story was almost as much about them and what this story did to them as it was about a young boy who apparently had vivid and verifiable memories of a previous life.  There was a dateline story on this case several years ago that can still be viewed on-line.   Yes, after I got over learning more about the parents than I wanted to know, I very much liked the book.

The Greatest Pearl in the world

Why this book: A selection for our book club – we decided to explore some of Steinbeck’s less well known novels.

My Impressions: ..for the evil song was in his ears…”  This is one of Steinbeck’s very short novellas in which he reveals his admiration for the strength of the poor, and his antipathy toward the upper classes and their natural propensity to exploit the poor, and keep them poor.   It is also a story about greed, and love.  The story is simple, and profound. 

In a small village somewhere on the Caribbean coast (one assumes Mexico), Kino, a young pearl diver and his wife Juana and their newborn son Coyotito, are living a simple life, working each day to meet their basic needs. They live in a thatch hut, have just enough to eat, and have almost no personal possessions, except for the small boat upon which they depend for their living.   The village is near and depends upon a nearby town, which appears to have the social structure that one finds in most towns.  In the village the pearl divers and fisherman all live on the edge of subsistence, and take care of and support each other.

One day when diving for pearls, Kino finds an oyster with a very large and nearly perfect pearl “…as large as a seagull’s egg. It was the greatest pearl in the world.”  This pearl will be worth a small fortune, and Kino and Juana see it as the key to opportunities that the middle class take for granted – a nice wedding for themselves, schooling for their new son, and the opportunity for their son to grow up in society, and not have to struggle to find food from day to day.

As soon as Kino and Juana find the pearl, they realize that the possibility of relative wealth separates them from others in their village, and they are no longer sure who they can trust.  Their simple life becomes complicated. Everyone wants a piece of the wealth the pearl promised.   Envy infects their relationships within the village, and they are targeted by the wealthier people in town to be exploited, even the priest.  They see Kino and Juana as vulnerable and are only too willing to take advantage of them.   Thieves try to steal the pearl. Kino and Juana are attacked at night, are injured and almost killed. As Kino recognizes their vulnerability, and that he cannot protect his family or the pearl, he takes his family and they flee on foot, across the mountains toward another town or city where he feels they may have a chance.  But they are pursued, by the forces of greed and treachery.  Juana had recognized early on that the pearl was only bringing grief and threats to her family, “This thing is evil. The pearl is like a sin!  It will destroy us!”  She argued that they should get rid of it.  But Kino had been captured by his dreams of a better life for himself and his family, and he refused to give up on this dream.   

Reading this story, one knows that it will not end well.  Steinbeck seems to be saying that justice clearly takes a back seat to power and greed, and the poor will always lose when confronted by the greed of the rich.   But it is also a story about the relationship between Kino and Juana – inspiring, intense, primal and powerful.  The reader understands and admires each of them, for different reasons.  Also, throughout the book Juana and Kino tune into their environment with a sixth sense, and Steinbeck uses the metaphor of music to describe it.  This is particularly striking throughout this parable:  “In Kino’s head there was a song now, clear and soft…the Song of the Family.” “Juana sang softly an ancient song that had only 3 notes, yet endless variety of interval.”   “…a new song had come, the Song of Evil, the music of the enemy, of any foe of the family …and underneath, the Song of the Family cried plaintively.” “…he could hear the evil music of the enemy..” “the pounding music of the enemy beat in his ears..” “…the Song of the Family had become as fierce and sharp and feline as the snarl of a female puma…<and> was alive now and driving him…”

It was ironic to read this book right after reading ‘The Alchemist’ – it almost has an anti-Alchemist message.  Whereas The Alchemist’s message is ‘believe in your dream, and the whole world will conspire to make it a reality’ – The Pearl’s message seems to be ‘dare to dream that you can break out of your social class, and the whole world will conspire to crush you.’  It is important to read and understand both of these perspectives – we can learn from them both.

Why this book:  It was suggested by a member of my reading group.  I had read it before and had found it ceative, inspiring and meaningful, and looked forward to reading it again.

My Impressions:  It is a seemingly simple little fable, that becomes a spiritual, and multi-cultural  rags-to-riches ‘Horatio Alger story,’ but the riches represent both financial as well as spiritual wealth.  While the theme is a common one – follow your heart, don’t give up on your dreams, ‘The Alchemist’ is beautiful in its simplicity and multi-layered complexity, and can be appreciated on many different levels. Wikipedia notes that it is one of the most widely translated book by a living author and has been on best–seller lists in 74 countries.

In brief, it is about a young shepherd in Spain, one assumes in the 19^th or early 20^th century, who has had a recurring dream, and then meets an enigmatic man who claims (and somehow appears) to be a wandering and wise ‘king.’  This man inspires the young shepherd to sell his sheep and follow his dream to travel to Egypt to find his ‘treasure.’  There are many references in the book to fate, destiny, and reading of omens, all of which point to an ‘unseen order of things’ and the author’s belief in the basic goodness of the Universe.  He refers throughout the book to such things as ‘the Soul of the Universe’ and the ‘the Language of the World’   The shepherd learns that he can access the wisdom of this unseen order by listening carefully and quietly to ‘the Language of the World’ to access its wisdom.   One of the key messages of the book is this need to listen and pay attention to the greater world around us in order to tap into its wisdom.   Another message is a faith that ‘When you desire something with all your heart, the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it.’

The shepherd boy follows his dream, and though numerous setbacks test his determination, he persists and eventually realizes that these apparent setbacks indeed forced him to become stronger and more resilient, and put him on pathways that were key to helping him fulfill his dream.  He is constantly tempted to take an easier path, to give up and return to a simpler and more comfortable path, but he persists, and with a strong will and a good heart, and some luck and cleverness,  eventually he fulfills his dreams.

There is a lot in this simple story to discuss and to argue about, which we did in our reading group.  The young shepherd has a couple of love interests – the role they play is peripheral, but important.  Some in our reading group did not appreciate the spiritual under-currents; others found the spiritual aspects most appealing.  The story brings in metaphors from the Christian, Muslim, Mormon, and Jewish traditions. Given that I am approaching a transition in my life, I found inspiration in this little story which has helped me to continue to refine, believe in, and pursue my own dream.

Why this book:  I recall reading the book when I was about 15 or 16 years old and it made quite an impression on me. I wanted to return to it and see what I think of it 40+ years later.

My Impressions:  This is the story of pre-revolutionary America, built around the life and career of Major Robert Rogers, a historical figure who is famous as the leader of Roger’s Rangers in the French and Indian War.  Rogers’  Rules of Ranging  are still published and distributed among US infantry men.  Rogers’ Rangers are the pro-genitors and spiritual forefathers of today’s Army Rangers.  I recently learned that William O. Darby, the father of today’s US Army Rangers tells in his autobiography how Gen George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the US Army during WWII created and named the US Army Rangers for these same Rogers’ Rangers.   The Northwest Passage,  published in 1938, was immensely popular in America at the time and was followed in 1940 by a movie of the same name , starring Spencer Tracy as Major Robert Rogers, and Robert Young as Langdon Towne, the protagonist who tells the story.   It is not too big a leap to assume that the book  and the movie may be largely responsible for inspiring the formation of the US Army Rangers.

The story is epic – about 630 pages covering about 15 years from the French and Indian Wars to the beginning of the Revolutionary War.  It is the story of the rise and fall of Robert Rogers as seen through the eyes of a young Langdon Towne, and since it covers approximately a decade and a half, the story is told in several phases.   Only the first part of the novel deals with Rogers’ Rangers and their exploits in the French and Indian War – the book continues well beyond that, concerning itself with other themes in the ‘life and times’ of Robert Rogers, and his fixation on winning glory by finding the ‘Northwest Passage’ to the Pacific Ocean.  The novel  includes stories that reflect on the relations between the provincials (colonials) in the British Army and regular British Army soldiers during the French and Indian War, the origins, tactics and exploits of Roger’s Rangers in that War, tensions between colonists and British officials in pre-revolutionary War America,  the full spectrum of life in London prior to and during the American Revolution,  and descriptions of various tribes of American Indians and their relationships to  Europeans in the North and Northeast, prior to the great expansion westward.

The story teller, Langdon Towne is a resourceful , resilient, and reserved young artist, who idolizes Robert Rogers, until near the end of the story, when Rogers’ behavior finally alienates the young idealist, and they become estranged.   I found the protagonist intelligent and appealing, but a bit too analytical and detached for my taste  – not a lot of testosterone, emotion, or passion.   Langdon Towne’s cautious and dispassionate idealism is in direct contrast to Robert Rogers, the central figure of the book.  Rogers is a flawed, but fascinating larger-than-life character, who reminds me in many ways of Ernest Schackleton.  Shackleton and Rogers were both men of enormous energy, charisma, passion, and ambition.  They were both great and confident leaders, nearly indomitable in physical adversity, but something of  ne’er do wells in civilized society.  Like Schackleton, Rogers was always on the make for a financial sponsor to support his grandious ambitions, and was a great salesman of himself and his plans.  But he was always in debt,  was unconstrained by much of the morality of civilized society, or only conformed to it when it served his immediate needs, and was uninterested in observing the conventions of married or family life.  Rogers also had a serious alcohol problem; Schackleton did not.

The Northwest Passage is a great novel covering a broad swath of the tapestry of life in pre-Revolutionary war America; it is very readable and an enjoyable story.  I checked Wikipedia to learn that the book accurately conveys the essential outlines of Rogers’ life.  A special edition (which I did not have) actually includes the transcripts of Rogers’ court-martial by the British.

Why this book:  This book was a selection for a reading group I’m in. Everyone in the reading group had read the book in elementary or junior high school, and we were looking for a good short book that would generate some good discussion.  This is the one we agreed to read.

My Impresssions:  I understand how this book has become a staple of adventure reading  for young people – it is quite short, the prose and narrative are straightforward, there is no sex, there is a clear hero who thinks in a pretty straightforward manner (it’s a dog – so what would you expect?)  The violence is between animals, and on the surface its themes are simple – power, persistence, connection with nature, and survival.  But that is just on the surface.   This is much more than a simple adventure story for kids – it is a morality tale that says much about human beings and how they interact with each other and the world we live in. The story of Buck, the dog, is a metaphor for how we humans would interact without the thin veneer of civilization.

 Buck is a smart, healthy, and in fact ‘Alpha male’ dog living the good life on a ranch in California when he is ‘dognapped’ and sold to be shipped to the Klondike to pull sleds during the Alaskan gold rush.  London describes Buck and his perceptions in the third person without giving Buck overly human perceptions or sensibilities.  Buck is smart and clever to be sure, with a strong instinct to survive and to dominate, but he finds himself quickly in ‘over his head’ when he is taken away from the comfortable life of a ranch dog. But his instinct to survive is strong and he figures out the rules pretty quickly.  Within the team of dogs pulling the sled, the pecking order and the “moral” framework is pretty simple and clear: Pull your weight. Know your place.   Anyone who has been in a highly charged male environment recognizes the personalities of the dogs in the team from their own experience with humans.  London actually gets specific in stating how morality in this survival-of-the-fittest world becomes merely a matter of power and survival.

 “ This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment….It marked further the decay, or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.  It was all well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect private property and personal feelings, but in the Northland, under the law of club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and in so far as he observed them he would fail to prosper.”   

 London’s message that human behavior is a different version of animal behavior is clear.  He also brings an interesting variety of humans into the story – though the only woman is a pretty but frivolous and self-centered nag who contributes to the demise of her equally stupid consorts.   Within this back-drop of quasi-civilized human interaction, Buck is constantly hearing and increasingly listens to his own primal and genetic instincts, and this instinctive attention to his primitive self is key to his survival and success.  Those dogs which don’t have strong primal instincts, or in whom these instincts have been bred or conditioned out, perish. 

I believe London shared Nietzsche’s belief that civilization and culture dilute the best in man’s primal  nature – the will to power.   Nietzsche (and I believe London) believed that good manners, conforming to social conventions and the temptations to live comfortably in the civilized world, breed weakness and mediocrity.    Both Nietzsche and London believed that our primitive instincts are our true source of power and creativity, and are what drive man and civilization forward.  If we fail to respect, cultivate and honor our primal instincts we eventually self destruct, or become victim to the whims and even primitive brutality of those who do hold on to their primal selves.   I believe that Buck’s relationship to John Thornton toward the end of the book represented London’s ideal compromise between civilized living and honoring one’s primal instincts.  

The key weakness I found in the book was the absence of the sex drive as an explicit factor in the ‘call of the wild’ that London portrays.  The one poor representative of a human female in the story has no canine counterpart– we read of no female dogs (I hesitate to say ‘bitches’) that Buck may have encountered.    Only in the end, when we read a single line referring to Buck’s progeny is there any indication that Buck had any draw to the female of the species. This may in part explain why this book has been so readily recommended to young readers in our own sexually suppressed culture.  I believe that the drive to reproduce, to seek powerful mate(s), and to fight to conceive and protect one’s progeny and thereby ensure the survival of the species, is a fundamental part of our primal ‘will to power’ and instinct to survive.  If Jack London shared this belief, there is no evidence of it in The Call of the Wild.

Why this Book: I was intrigued by the movie and my reading group selected this book for our discussion.  The discussion was lively and entertaining.

My Impressions: I found the book easier to follow than the movie.  It is about rebellion against society’s constant pressure to conform to a comfortable and predictable formula for a civilized life.   Palahniuk takes the reader from the excesses of mindlessly conforming to the norms of civilized behavior to the excesses of freedom, unconstrained by any respect for those who may not be ready for the lifestyle and values he espouses.    Man in the middle is torn between the security and comforts of living in an orderly civilized society, and the joys and fulfillment of unconstrained self expression.

The narrator of the book – the Ed Norton character in the movie – is a corporate drone with little imagination and passion, who had unquestioningly accepted society’s formula for the ‘good life,’  from the well furnished condo, to the Audi in the parking lot, to the well structured patterns and rhythms of his uninspired life.   This ‘civilized man’ meets and is challenged by Tyler Durden, the free, and fearless ubermensch, who has completely rejected the fear, guilt and the numbing conformity of social convention, and embraced freedom, fun, creativity, and the impulses of his ‘inner-animal-child.’

We initially find Tyler Durden refreshing and inspiring, but become increasingly uncomfortable as he takes his freedom and will-to-power too far, rejecting even some of the most fundamental values of human decency.  He becomes maniacly obsessed with himself and his own power, creating and fueling ‘Project Mayhem’ for his disciples to carry out his apocolayptic vision.    “Burn the Louvre and wipe your ass with the Mona Lisa” is his provocative and figurative challenge which clearly becomes pathological (whatever that may mean in this book) when he starts to mean it literally.  “We are not all wonderful unique snowflakes; we are all the same decaying organic matter, destined for the same compost pile” he claims as he  rejects civilization and embraces nihilism.

It’s not hard to see the allusions to Nazi Germany – a charismatic figure who taps into the powerlessness and alienation of the dispossessed and empowers them to do evil.    But unlike some in our reading group, I saw redemption and a positive message in the book.  There is a strong message of freedom and creative self-expression, and even transcendence to a place of greater wisdom and integration, along with not-so-subtle warnings of the dangers of straying too far from the values that enable us to live together. Not too surprisingly, the women in our group were not as impressed with Fight Club as the men.

This is a very cleverly written book and is a great one for a reading group.  There are many references to Buddhism, disturbing images of excess and rebellion, and very humorous satirical perspectives on conventional living.   This was my third time reading this book, and I got more out of it with each reading.  The theme is reminiscent of Herman Hesse’s book Steppenwolf (1927) which also explored how an over-civilized man (a professor in this case) struggled with his aggressive, wilder side – represented by the image of the wolf from the steppes of Russia.

Why this book:  This book was given to me by a friend who has just left on a ‘semester at sea’ where he’ll be teaching some college (undergraduate) classes on a ship with students traveling around the world.   When I told him that I would be leading a discussion to help SEALs  better bridge culture gaps and understand people living in developing countries, he sent me this book.  He told me it is on the required reading list for people going on the cruise, which will hit lots of exotic , and out of the way ports.

My Impressions:  It is short, about 90 pages, almost an essay,  on the author’s views on life in Antigua in the Caribbean where she grew up.  But it is not an idyllic portrait she paints.  She describes and attacks the condescension that Westerners have toward the island and the islanders, and the history of exploitation of the island’s people and resources by Westerners.  Her tone is bitter, sad, and resigned.  She also describes – doesn’t explain – but describes the corruption and inefficiencies of the government and the sense of almost inevitability around decay and unfulfilled expectations.   Yes, she says, these are Antiguans who elect these corrupt officials, Antiguans who virtually sell the country to wealthy foreigners, and Antiguans who profit from the corruption and ignore the needs of the majority of people on the island. But she holds the West partly but clearly responsible for this state of affairs and in collusion with these corrupt leaders.   She describes the almost surreal beauty of the island and how this is almost a curse – like a rich sauce on a very tough, and almost inedible piece of meat.   It seduces visitors away from the human issues and the real problems of the island.   She contrasts the perspective of the western tourist on a 7-10 day vacation with that of the locals, who live there all year long. It is insightful and sobering to read her description of how they view  tourists.   Most of us have been that tourist at one time or another. 

 The book is somewhat of a bitter pill, but it is beautifully written, almost poetic in its style, and worth reading .   I was glad it wasn’t much longer though – the anger and bitterness were a bit off-putting, but they were genuine and well justified, it seems.   She peels back the layer of charm, beauty, and Caribbean ‘innocence’ that I have seen in my many trips to the region when I was in the Navy.  More importantly, the points she makes about Antigua could apply to many, perhaps most, countries in the developing world, to include some of the places where our military is fighting.  It is eye-opening  to get inside the head of a very articulate and worldly-wise local.

Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure

Why This Book:  Tori McClure is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of NOLS and I’ve met her. She is an impressive woman and I’d heard and read good things about the book.

My Impressions:   This is essentially an autobiography built around Tori McClure’s  two attempts to row across the Atlantic  – alone.  She grew up a scrapper and a tom-boy, often fighting to protect her younger brother who is mentally handicapped.  She found an outlet for her anger and drive through athletics and achievement – she was very competitive and driven.  She had a distinguished academic and culminating in a law degree, and a strong athletic background in crew and basketball, before she decided to row across the Atlantic – a feat no other woman had accomplished and which several others had lost their lives in failed attempts.  Most of the book concerns her first attempt, at which she failed, and she is very lucky to have survived.  After several months at sea, she was picked up by a freighter after activating her distress signal in a hurricane.  Both she and her boat American Pearl were physically very beat up and crippled, after several end over end flips in the storm.   The failure of this attempt led to the most important spiritual lessons of her story.  She concludes her story with a brief, almost anti-climactic description of her successful crossing of the Atlantic the following year.  One sees in the book how her intense effort, her failure and then ultimate achievement softened the edges of this angry, driven, and intenst woman.  We see her become more humble, compassionate and wise.   She writes, “In the end, I know I rowed across the Atlantic to find my heart, but  in the beginning,  I wasn’t aware that it was missing.”  She subtitles the book “How I Found My  Heart in the Middle of the Ocean.”  Interesting videos and interviews with Tori McClure are available on Youtube.

 Jim  Bridger Mountain Man, by Stanley Vestal

Why This Book:   Jim Bridger was a mountain man who lived in the mid 19^th century and an important legacy in much of the west. My NOLS expeditions are in the Bridger National forest. I wanted to know more about this man.

My Impressions:   I had already read a biography of Kit Carson (Blood and Thunder, by Hampton Sides) and found this ‘mountain man’ life style and the description of the people and their lives in this region and time in American history fascinating.  This biography of Jim Bridger, written in the early part of the 20^th century, gave me some new perspectives on those people living during a unique time in American History.  The author wrote parts of the book in the vernacular of the mountain man, and the book is full of words/expressions like  ‘that thar,’ ‘yonder,’ ‘newfangled,’ ‘nary a,’  ‘cain’t,’ ‘ain’t,’ and ‘I reckon,’ which could be distracting, but gave a sense for how they spoke.  Bridger did not travel as widely as Carson and lived most of his life in the Wyoming, Montana, Utah area, and is believed to have been one of the first white men to see the Great Salt Lake, Yellowstone area, and to have found the South Pass for the Oregon Trail.   While Bridger had a larger-than-life reputation during his own lifetime, he was not as famous as Kit Carson, who, like Bill Cody was made famous by dime-novelists creating myths about them which were widely read in the East.   Bridger, like Carson, lived with and among the western Indians, married into different tribes, and was an interpreter, guide and scout for fur trappers, hunters, and eventually the US Army.  His comments about the cocky and arrogant Army officers coming West to fight the Indians, and learning the hard way the dangers of underestimating less civilized people fighting in their own environment, resonate with lessons US soldiers are learning the hard way in Afghanistan.    Bridger was often frustrated and angry at having his well considered advice and experience ignored by well educated, civilized travelers who were convinced that they could impose their will on a territory that they little understood.

 Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck

Why This Book:  I’ve read it a couple of times before, but not in over 20 years.  I’ve read a couple of other books by Steinbeck in the last couple of years, and I was looking for a short (and light) book to carry with me on my NOLS expedition that I knew I would enjoy.  I knew this one waw worth revisiting.

 My Impressions:   This is an easy, and very enjoyable book to read.  It can almost be read as a series of short stories , many of the chapters almost standing alone as an anecdote about one of he many colorrful characters who Steinbeck describes living in Monterey California just after WW2.   Each of the characters in the book is somewhat eccentric and idiosyncratic, as one might perhaps find in any small town on the coast.   He tells us about Dora the matron of the local brothel,  (“a great big woman with flaming orange hair and a taste for Nile Green evening dresses”), Mack (“…the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and contentment.”)  Lee Chong who ran a grocery which sold everything except “what could be had across the lot at Dora’s”  (“…his wealth was entirely in unpaid bills. But he lived well and he had the respect of his neighbors”), and Doc  (“a fountain of philosophy and science and art…..<who> would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom.  His mind had no horizon- and his sympathy had no warp.”)

The adventures and mis-adventures of these characters are described with affection and humor – Steinbeck clearly shows his softer side in this book.    The lady at the used book store in Lander, Wyoming where I bought this copy, told me that Cannery Row is the only one of Steinbeck’s books which she felt isn’t so ‘dark’ as to be depressing.  I’m not sure I agree – I believe there is a strong undercurrent of hope and optimism in his books, but I get what she says.   Steinbeck clearly had fun writing this book, bringing to life these characters modeled on people he knew.  The fun he had writing this is contagious to the reader.  Doc’s ‘beer milkshake’ is a great story, and his explanation as to why he chooses not to tell truth when people ask him why he does what he does is fodder for a great discussions in an ethics class, and could draw on Utilitarianism, Existentialism, and Aristotle (though Doc certainly doesn’t).   One smiles throughout the book and finishes it with a smile, as Mack and the boys finally pull off a successful party for Doc.

Siddhartha, by  Hermann Hesse

Why This Book:  I read it in 1972, when living in Indonesia, I read this aloud to a blind Shaman, and never read it since.  Since then I’ve read other things by and about Hesse.   I figured it was worth looking at again.  I was right.

My Impressions:  My how this book has changed in 38 years!  I recall it being a novelized life of the Buddha, but one can also argue that Hesse uses the book to reject ‘Buddhism’ while endorsing Buddhist philosophies.  I am reminded of the Zen Koan, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” One sees in this book how and why Hesse is included in discussions of 20^th century existential authors.  His protagonist, young Siddhartha seeks to find and fulfill his own destiny, and rejects movements.  He  seeks wisdom by experiencing and experimenting with a number of different lifestyles.   He never fully commits – always remaining somewhat detached as an individual, from the world in which he is living.  He begins life as a privileged son of affluence, then becomes an ascetic, then he finds the Buddha Gotama, but chooses not to follow him. He then seeks the life of pleasure and riches and takes a lover and drinks and gambles, and experiences the hedonistic pleasures available to the affluent.  He has a son and experiences the love and frustration of parenthood.  In the end, he realizes that he indeed had to live his own life, on his own terms, by his own values, to really understand Life.   He didn’t find the wisdom and happiness he sought until he finally comes so live with an uneducated ferry man, who teaches him to listen to the river.   Like Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, this is short, easy to read, and contains a life-time of wisdom.  It is worth reading and re-reading.

Cities of the Plain, by Cormac McCarthy

Why This Book:  I’m in a ‘Men’s Reading Group‘ and one of the members has a good friend who insisted that he (and we) read Corma McCarthy’s ‘The Border Trilogy’   The first two books were All the Pretty Horses’ and The Crossing.  This was the third and final book in the Trilogy.

My Impressions:   Cities of the Plain features the main characters of the previous two books in the trilogy– John Grady Cole, (who is played by Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton’s movie adaptation of the movie) from All the Pretty Horses,  and Billy Parham who was the protagonist in The Crossing.  They are now working as ranch hands in Southern Texas, and it is clear that this is a vanishing way of life – the US government is planning on buying much of the land and the farms for a weapons testing facility.   The fundamentals of ‘The Cowboy Ethic’ are in clear evidence here.  McCarthy’s characters are simple and straightforward men of action, principled and strong of character, loyal to what they believe in, their way of life, and each other.  This is very appealing to those of us who have perhaps over-adapted to the complexities of urban living.   The book describes two worlds – one, the ranch life that Cole and Parham are living, and what they do every day taking care of and protecting the cattle, and the other,  the sleazy world of bars, whorehouses, and prostitution in Juarez, Mexico.   The incongruity between these two worlds is evident.  For a reason which is never explained (and I think this is on purpose) John Grady Cole sees a young and very attractive prostitute when visiting a brothel in Juarez with his buddies, never meets her, but falls completely in love with her.    When he returns to find, meet, and court her, she is gone, so he searches the corners of Juarez before he finds her a virtual slave in an upscale whorehouse well outside of Juarez.  He decides that he is going to save this girl from this life, marry her, and bring her to Texas.   Together, he and the girl plot their escape.  Upon making this commitment, he changes – he changes his demeanor on the ranch and he begins to prepare a home for his new bride.   John Grady Cole is clearly the strongest character in the book, and obviously McCarthy is making a point about how irrational and powerful falling in love can be.   The book ends with Cole’s plot to rescue his future bride from the pimps and others who run the whorehouse, and then suddenly jumps 50 years into a strange scene in the future, which I think contains many clues as to McCarthy’s philosophy and values.

War, by Sebastian Junger

Why This Book:  I’d read a couple of very good reviews of the book.   Mary Anne (my wife) read it and told me I REALLY needed to read this book.  She reads a lot and doesn’t  ‘gush’ over many books.  When she does, I make a point of reading the book she recommends.  I haven’t been disappointed yet.  She gushed over this one.

My Impressions: This ranks as one of the best books I’ve read on Americans  at war.  Other excellent books I’ve recently read are The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel and Generation  Kill by Evan Wright– both very good on the perspective of men in combat in today’s wars, but Junger’s  War is the more thoughtful and analytical.  Junger not only lives with his soldiers, goes on patrol with them, and experiences the danger and life-style of the soldiers he’s with (as did Finkel and Wright in preparing  for and writing their excellent books),  but he also steps back and provides a thoughtful analysis of what he is observing and experiencing.   I compare his insights to those of J. Glenn Gray in his book  The Warriors – Reflections on Men in Battle – which (from my perspective)  is probably the best and most interesting look at men at war – but Gray’s  The Warriors is about WW2 – Junger’s War is a look at a single platoon in the most heavily engaged and the most dangerous part of Afghanistan in 2008.  He looks at today’s Americans in today’s war with personal,  psychological, and philosophical reflections on what he is seeing and experiencing.     He looks at the excitement and revulsion of combat, the intensely personal loyalty among these men, the boredom and the terror, and how young men behave without women and the sexual energy that expresses itself in combat.  He breaks the book into three sections “Fear,” “Killing,” and “Love.”    A friend of mine is a Marine Force Recon platoon commander currently deployed to the Middle East, and he writes me that this book is being avidly read by his Marines.  I’d recommend it to anyone who seeks to understand the uniqueness of the combat experience, as experienced by soldiers in today’s military.  (Junger’s experience is with an Army platoon, but I’m not sure that makes a lot of difference.)