Bob's Books

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.)