Category: culture

MATRIMONY

In the book “A Marriage at Sea”, one wonders how a husband or wife would respond in a crisis. Who would take command and who would follow? Is it a matter of nature or nurture?

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

A Marriage at Sea (A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck)

Author: Sophie Elmhirst

Narration by: Marisa Calin

Sophie Elmhirst (Author, British journalist who wrote the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey who survived 118 days on a life raft in 1973.)

Surprisingly, Elmhirst writes about marriage in telling the story of a shipwreck that left Maurice and Maralyn Bailey on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean for 118 days. The Baileys had been married for 9 and a half years when their yacht was struck by what is presumed to be a dying whale.

The Baileys.

The Baileys were a middle-class British couple who fell in love with an idea to buy a small yacht and sale the sea to visit the Galapagos islands and beyond, a fantasy both adopt. Maurice’s strict childhood had prepared him to master the technical skills of a seafarer, but Maralyn seems to have the determination to make their dream real. They sold all their possessions, including their home, and contracted with a boatbuilder in Southampton who began the long process of building a yacht for their voyage at sea.

Maralyn Bailey using a sextant on their sailboat.

They set sale in June 1972 in a 31-foot yacht named Auralyn. They crossed the Atlantic and reached Panama in February 1973 and headed for the Galapagos islands in the Pacific, expecting it to take ten days. At dawn on March 4, 1973, their vessel was struck by a whale in the Pacific Ocean. They were 300 miles from the Galapagos islands when their vessel sank. Water filled the hold, and they abandoned ship on a raft with a small dinghy they used to store supplies they gathered from their sinking boat.

Maralyn and Maurice on a rubber raft before their sea adventure.

On the one hand, the knowledge of Maurice’s navigation skill aided their eventual rescue, but it seems Maralyn’s will and determination saves their lives. Their slim provisions would only last for a few days before dehydration and starvation. To last for their 118 days adrift, they improvised. They caught and ate raw turtles, fish, and seabirds while collecting rainwater for their sustenance. They had no fishing hooks and had to bend safety pins. They had to make fishing line for the hooks from thread, cord, twine, or maybe the yacht’s emergency kit. Whatever they caught had to be killed, cleaned, and eaten raw.

Seven ships passed the Baileys who were lost at sea.

Seven ships passed the Baileys but did not see their raft and dinghy. Even though they were in the “Sea Lane”, it is easy to understand why they were missed. They had flares that did not ignite which made their being seen unlikely, particularly with the immense size of sea transport vessels. Their hope for rescue rose and fell with each vessel sighting. Their boat, the size of the ships, and the distance from sea-going vessels must have been too far for anyone on board to see them.

Vessel that found the Baileys.

It is a South Korean fishing boat that spots them. They had drifted over 1800 miles from the Galapagos Islands when they were rescued. Fortunately, the Bailey’s voyage is within the fishing routes of the Pacific. South Korean fishing boats would travel hundreds of miles from shore to catch tuna, billfish, mahi-mahi and other marketable fish. The South Korean boat was a deep-sea commercial fishing vessel. Its smaller size undoubtedly helped them see the Baileys.

The Bailey’s after their recovery from 117 days on the sea.

The Baileys were severely emaciated. Both had lost over 40 pounds. They could barely walk because of malnutrition and saltwater sores from skin irritation. It is hard to conceive of how exhausted they must have been. The Baileys were taken to Honolulu, Hawaii for medical care and recovery. Without doubt, the South Koreans saved the Baileys lives but it was a 1500-mile trip to Honolulu for the fishing vessel which would take 5 to 8 more days.

Sexual equality.

Elmhirst’s story suggests survival is largely because of Maralyn’s tough-mindedness and attention to her husband’s strengths and weaknesses.

In a marriage, one wonders how any husband and wife might respond in a crisis. Who would take command and who would follow in a crisis? Is it a matter of nature or nurture? In the case of the Bailey’s crisis, it appears Maralyn took command. The cost of that command is unknown, but parenthetically one notes Maralyn died at 61 while Maurice lived into his 80s.

PSYCHOANALYTIC THERAPY

There is a risk of pathologizing social skills if one comes away from Clayton’s book thinking that fawning is only a negative characteristic of society.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Fawning (Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves–and How to Find Our Way Back)

Author: Ingrid Clayton

Narration by: Ingrid Clayton

Ingrid Clayton (Author, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist)

“Fawning” as described by psychologist Ingrid Clayton can cause an unconscious trauma when a person appeases, pleases, or over-accommodates others to feel safe. Clayton explains it is a survival strategy for one who deals with another person who is physically or emotionally abusive. Clayton recalls her life as a child with a stepfather who is grooming her for an intimate relationship when she is 13 years old. Clayton manages to avoid that relationship but explains the long-term psychological impact in her life is similar to PTSD.

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.)

Post-traumatic-stress disorder is a mental health condition caused by experiences, witnesses, or traumatic events that make one feel fear, stress, or danger. Clayton notes that her life when leaving home at 17 had those symptoms. She pursues a college education, graduates, continues her education to receive a PhD and finds employment as a therapist.

Pedophilia.

At the age of 13, her male stepfather created a grooming environment that created a long-term psychological impact on her life. She matured to feel fear, stress, and danger in developing relationships with others. She wrote “Fawning” as an educated PhD clinical psychologist to explain how a child growing to an adult can “…lose themselves…” with a form of PTSD. She believes she has found a pathway back to relationship’ normality after years of broken relationships. The irony of her realization is that all human beings are “fawners”.

Therapy.

Some will be inclined to put Clayton’s book down as an exaggeration of relationship reality but as she tells of her personal experience and therapy of others, both men and women, her beliefs become disturbingly credible. As one examines their own life (if they have lived as long as this book reviewer) know every human being is raised in their own familial circumstances. Children raised with 1, 2, or no parent families, develop behavior toward themselves and others that can lead to abuse of others which diminish their and other’s humanity. What Clayton shows is how her stepfather grooms her and how she responds based on her own grooming ability. She rejects his advances, a grooming behavior that a parent-child relationship allows with the risk of physical sexual abuse.

There is truth in Clayton’s explanation of “Fawning” as a universal relationship modifier, but it is not always linked to either grooming or abuse. People-pleasing behavior is a universal characteristic of society.

There can be good reasons as well as bad reasons for fawning. Looking at grooming as the only lens one views fawning diminishes its social value. That is certainly not Clayton’s intent but one may come away from her book seeing pedophilia as the primary consequence of fawning. The reality is that rigid family dynamics, cultural hierarchy, and high-pressure workplaces are common examples of fawning. Social cohesion and disruption are a general consequence of human nature influenced by fawning.

Clayton outlines a pathway back from PTSD. Prevention of trauma is of course the best solution. However, if one is a child, prevention becomes more problematic.

Clayton argues it is important to recognize fawning is not a people-pleasing choice but a survival strategy. Rather than feeling fear from what appears to be happening, clearly remind yourself of who you are and what you believe to be right. Recognize other’s motives. Respond appropriately by speaking up if your personal boundaries are being violated. Reflect on who you are and interrupt any motives of others that conflict with what you believe about yourself. The weakness of this pathway seems problematic for younger children. The pathway back for a child seems likely to be after the fact.

There is a risk of pathologizing social skills if one comes away from Clayton’s book thinking that fawning is only a negative characteristic of society. Pedophilia is a terrible societal malady, but society cannot function or improve without fawning.

Mother Emanuel

Dylan Roof is not South Carolina, and neither are the preachers who believe in the divinity and eternity of God. All people of the world are subject to the sins of living life.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Mother Emanuel (Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church)

Author: Kevin Sack

Narration by: William DeMeritt

Kevin Sack (Author, American journalist, senior reporter for The New York Times who shared a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2001.)

South Carolina is the underlying subject of Mother Emanuel. It focuses on a State that shows the very best and worst of what it can mean to be born in America. South Carolina is the home of Americans who fought on the side of the confederacy in the Civil War. The confederates of the south did not believe in human equality but in the superiority of the white race and the rightness of slavery.

Mother Emanuel is an African Methodist Episcopal Church located at 110 Calhoun Street in Charleston, South Carolina.

Mother Emanuel was built in 1891 and has capacity to seat 2,500 congregates. The church is considered a symbol of Black autonomy and resistance to some South Carolinians. On June 17, 2015, the senior pastor of the church and 8 African American parishioners were shot by a white 21-year-old American name Dylann Storm Roof. Roof, when he came to the church service, is invited into a Bible study group. He sits in the study group for nearly an hour before drawing a 45-caliber Glock handgun to murder 9 people, including the pastor of the church. The author and journalist Kevin Sack explains Dylann Roof was not a dumb white American but a person of above average intelligence who believed Black Americans were an imminent danger to white Americans’ way of life. Roof intended to motivate a Black American uprising that could be crushed by an American white majority.

Dylan Roof (At the time of his trial.)

A listener/reader is unlikely to believe Sack is writing this book to suggest all white Americans, let alone South Carolinians, are like Dylann Roof. Sack is not suggesting all humans have equal capabilities but that all people are influenced by the environment in which they live, their genetic inheritance, and their psychological development. What the author shows is that one’s intelligence can as easily lead to horrific acts of violence, dishonesty, theft, and social hate as belief in the truth of human equality.

Reverend Eric Manning navigated multiple difficulties when he became the pastor of the church after the massacre.

As a church, Mother Emanuel has existed for well over 100 years. It has had many pastors who are subject to the same strengths and weaknesses of all human beings. Sack infers some pastors in Mother Emanuel’s long life have been seduced by the money, power, and prestige of their office while preaching belief in God. Sack infers every human being, including pastors, can be led astray in life. A few, like Dylan Roof, become corrupted by life for reasons that are incomprehensible to one who believes in something greater than themselves, whether that something is the moral, communal, or cosmic reality of human life, or a fervent belief in God and redemption.

Dylan Roof’s verdict for execution is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court but is rejected. He remains on federal death row.

Dylan Roof is not South Carolina, and neither are the preachers who believe in the divinity and eternity of God. All people of the world are subject to the sins of living life. Roof is shown by Sack to be an unremorseful murderer of human beings for little other reason than the color of their skin. A lesson of life that the murders explain is that forgiveness is not for the sake of Roof’s peace of mind but a mindful reconciliation for those who lost their loved ones.

As of the writing of this book, Dylan roof remains in prison, without personal remorse and a remaining verdict that warrants execution.

ECONOMIC CRISES

Sorkin’s “1929” makes one think about 20th and 21st century American Presidents who may have set a table for a second economic crisis. As the Turkish proverb says “…fish stinks first at the head.”

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

1929 (Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History–and How It Shattered a Nation)

Author: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Narration by: Andrew Ross Sorkin

Andrew Sorkin (American author, journalist, and columnist for The New York Times.)

“1929” is a history of the build-up to the stock market crash and the advent of the depression with opinions about how today’s economy compares and what should be done to keep it from happening again. Though Sorkin is not an economist, he has written an interesting history of the build-up to the 1929 depression.

Faltering economies.

There is a sense of danger being felt by some today when reading/listening to Sorkin’s history of the 1920s. Few seem to have a clear understanding of world market forces and whether we are heading for an economic catastrophe or a mere hiccup in the growth of the economy. Neither bankers, regulators, nor politicians in the 1920s (or for that matter now) seem to have a clue about the economy’s trouble and what can be done to ameliorate risks. Like 1929, today’s insiders, power brokers, and rich have more options to protect themselves than most of the world’s population.

Increasing homelessness in America.

In America, it seems those in power have no concern about the rising gap between rich and poor or the immense increase in homelessness. Without a plan by those in power, there seems little concern about reducing inequality, the common denominator for the wealth gap and homelessness. Sorkin’s book outlines the reality of 1929 that gives reader/listeners a feel of history that may repeat itself.

Sorkin’s history seems credible as he notes human nature does not change.

Today’s leaders are like yesterday’s leaders. Not because they are venal but, like most if not all human beings, leaders in power are concerned about themselves and what there is in life that serves their personal needs and wants. Of course, the difference is that leaders that are power brokers affect others that do not have the same influence or options to protect themselves. We all have blinders that keep us from seeing the world as it is because human nature is to ask what is in it for me, i.e., whatever “it” is. The 1920s had a merger bubble in manufacturing and communication that is fed by the industrial revolution. Today, we have a merger bubble with mega-corporations like Tesla, Apple, Amazon and others that are mega-corporations capitalizing on a new revolution coming with A.I., the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution. Some critics argue mega-corporations, like what happened with the oil industry could be broken up to increase competition which is the hallmark of improved production, cost reduction, and lower consumer prices.

Charles E. Mitchell (American banker, led the First Nation City Bank which became Citibank.)

What makes this history interesting is Sorkin’s identification of the most responsible power brokers who bore responsibility for the stock market crash. Charles Mitchell of Nation City Bank is identified as the central driver of the stock market bubble. Mitchell denied the reality of the financial systems fragility. His ambition and unfounded optimism magnified the systemic risk of the financial crises. He openly defied the Federal Reserve’s warning to curb margin lending that risked other people’s money and their financial stability. He continued to promote purchase of stocks on credit that were fueling the stock market bubble. Mitchell appears to have misled the public in order to increase his power and protect his personal wealth by creating the illusion of market stability and his bank’s profitability. Though Mitchell is not the sole villain, he became the most powerful banker in the nation while breaking the financial backs of many Americans. In general, it is the self-interest of those who listened to him that have responsibility for their financial collapse, but it is always hard to know who is lying to you. Part of the blame is the hesitation of the Federal Reserve Board to act because the people in charge could not agree but that was more a matter of omission than commission which Mitchell was charged with but not convicted. Of course, the political leaders of that time also failed but hindsight is a lot easier than foresight.

Artificial Intelligence is today’s equivalent of the Industrial Revolution of the twentieth century.

Similar to the corporate mergers and investment from growing industrialization of the 1920s, today’s mania is mega corporation’ investment in Artificial Intelligence. Sorkin notes the ease of trading stocks, expectations of crypto investments, and A.I. hype may well move the market beyond its value. He argues for stronger guardrails on speculative investments, more limits on margin lending, and transparency on high-risk investments. He cautions easier credit as seen this Christmas season with buying based on delayed payment incentives and increasing credit card availability, card balance increases, and more liberal repayment terms. In general, Sorkin wants to see more, and better government oversight and regulation of credit offers. He believes too many lenders are overly optimistic about the future with the gap between rich and poor widening and trending to get worse. That inequality threatens the success of capitalism as a driver for shared prosperity, and economic growth.

Herbert Hoover (President 1929-1933, though characterized as the primary villain for the depression, Sorkin identifies his role as one of omission rather than commission.)

The Presidents shown below carry some responsibility for where the American economy is today but that would be another book.

Clinton, the first Bush, the second Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump.

Sorkin’s “1929” makes one think about 20th and 21st century American Presidents who may have set a table for a second economic crisis. As the Turkish proverb says “…fish stinks first at the head.”

BOYS TO MEN

The most judgmental part of Szalay’s story is that a boy raised in wealth can be spoiled by drug addiction while a poor “go along to get along” boy may end up just as dissolute from sexual addiction.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

FLESH (A Novel)

Author: David Szalay

Narration by: Daniel Weyman

David Szalay (Canadian Author, winner of the Booker Prize in 2025 for “Flesh”.)

Every child is raised in different circumstances. The variables are legion ranging from genetics to economic environment to parenting and the experiences of life. David Szalay tells of a young boy growing to manhood. Every male will have some experience that relates to his primary character’s life. That explains the popularity and literary acclaim that “Flesh” achieves.

Szalay captures different pathways for “every boy’s” journey through the physical and mental anxieties of life.

The specific circumstances of the life for boys (and undoubtedly girls) show how complicated growth to adulthood can become. The father of one boy is a very wealthy businessman who has married a woman many years younger than him. They have a son named Thomas who has been raised in wealth and privilege. The second boy is, István, a poor Hungarian who lives a “go along to get along” life. This poor Hungarian grows to be a handsome man who is attractive to women because of his life experience and attitude about life and relationships.

Effects of inherited wealth.

István and a wealthy husband meet as a result of an attack by street thugs who beat the wealthy husband and nearly kill him. István happens to be passing by when the thugs are scared away by his sudden appearance. István calls 911 or its equivalent to get an ambulance. The wealthy husband is taken to a hospital and is grateful to István which he feels has saved his life. He offers István a job in his security firm as a protector of wealthy clients. István shows himself to be a very competent bodyguard. The wealthy husband decides to have him become his personal family guard and driver.

The wealthy husband’s much younger wife falls in love with the bodyguard and they become lovers.

The wealthy husband dies, and István marries the wife of her former wealthy husband. The son of the wealthy husband is destined for college when István marries the deceased husband’s wife. This college bound son will inherit all of the family wealth when he reaches the age of 25 based on a Trust that allows his mother and her new husband to use the Trust to make investments for the future until the son reaches 25. István becomes a land investor and developer with the wealth of the trust.

Human differences.

The table is set for comparison of two sons who are different with one raised in great wealth and another in the lower middleclass. A crisis occurs when an 80-million-dollar investment by István is needed from the trust that requires disclosure to the son who is to inherit the trust. This son raises enough public objection to the investment that it is not made, and the investment deal falls apart. To this reviewer, the dynamics of the genetic influence of two boys from different economic classes is the most insightful value of the novel.

The influence of genetics, wealth, and poverty.

One can judge from the life of István what influence genetics, wealth, and poverty may have had on the life of a boy growing to become a man. The author seems to have an opinion about boys raised by a family of wealth versus those raised by a family with a “go along to get along” belief in life. At the books end, one wonders if being born in wealth is as likely to make an adult male better or worse. István seems sympathetically written into life by the author. He is true to his character throughout the story, but his sexual life is a mess. Though he appears to be a resourceful, hardworking, and decent human being, he is led through life by his libido.

The most judgmental part of Szalay’s story is that a boy raised in wealth can be spoiled by drug addiction while a poor “go along to get along” boy may end up just as dissolute from sexual addiction.

SUICIDE

“We Are the Nerds” is a story about “Nerdom” and the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz to his loving family and the world of coding.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

WE ARE THE NERDS (The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory)

Author: Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

Narration by: Chloe Cannon

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (Author, reporter, podcaster based in New York.)

Relistening to “We are the Nerds” may be reviewed from a perspective of the future of newspapers but that diminishes the tragedy of Aaron Schwarz’s suicide.

The original founders of what became known as Reddit were Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, graduates from the University of Virginia. A third partner, Aaron Swartz, is invited into the company because of his tech experience in creating a company called Infogami which merged with Reddit. With the addition of Infogami, the original founders of Reddit created a parent organization called “Not a Bug, Inc”. Schwartz insists on being called a co-founder because of his contribution to Reddit as a programmer. That insistence rankled Huffman and Ohanian which grew into a resentment that fills the pages of the author’s story.

Steve Huffman on the left with Alexis Ohanian and his wife, Serena Williams, and their daughter on the right.

The author seems to minimize Schwartz’s contribution to Reddit despite the framework he created that made Reddit scale more quickly because of its open access and community-driven cultural impact. Swartz’s contributed code appears to have been an important step in the useability of Reddit by the public. However, in fairness to the original founders, the author infers that contribution pales in respect to the extensive coding and work done by Huffman. The point is that this conflict becomes an irritant that leads to the departure of Swartz from Reddit in 2007, after it was acquired by Condé Nast in 2006. That acquisition made all three original coders millionaires.

Swartz’s life and premature death is a tragic encomium to the story of Reddit’s success as a public forum.

By some measure, Swartz is a brilliant human being, but his intelligence is accompanied by what might be characterized as a self-destructive personality. His ability as a computer nerd is evident in his High School days in Highland Park, Illinois. He goes on to Stanford, but its educational regimen leads him to leave after his first year. He preferred independent learning. Schwartz’s remarkable ability led him to become a research fellow at Harvard University in 2010. He became a self-taught intellectual with an activist belief in academic freedom that eventually led him to rebel against authority. He was arrested in 2011 for allegedly breaking into MIT’s computer network without authorization. He was charged for computer fraud and faced 34 years in prison and a million-dollar fine. At the age of 26, Swartz hung himself and died on January 11th, 2013.

An American mass media company founded in 1909.

Huffman and Ohanian believed Swartz’s contributions to Reddit were less than theirs in creating the company they sold to Condé Nast that made them millionaires. Swartz’s idealism and independence conflicted with the original founders of Reddit who seemed more interested in building a public platform that could make them rich. Though Ohanian believed they sold too soon, all three agreed to Condé Nast’s final offer that made them millionaires.

In retrospect, Ohanian may have been right about the future value of Reddit. Condé Nast spun Reddit out to an independent subsidiary under Advance Publications where it became a 42-billion-dollar success by 2025. Today, Huffman’s net worth is estimated at $1.2 billion as a result of his Reddit shares. Though Ohanian may not have held on to his shares, his net worth is estimated at $150-$170 million. Not bad for two University of Virginia graduates. However, as Plato observed, “The greatest wealth is to live content with little”. Swartz’s life seems to have had little to do with desire for wealth.

“We Are the Nerds” is a story about “Nerdom” and the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz to his loving family and the world of coding.

CHILD ABUSE

The complexity of Freida McFadden’s character relationships diminishes its appeal, but the point of the story is that child abuse takes many forms which often repeat themselves in future generations.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

THE INTRUDER 

Author: Freida McFadden

Narration by: Joe Hempel, Patricia Santomasso, Tina Wolstencroft

Freida McFadden (Author, practicing physician, specializing in brain injury.)

Freida McFadden’s book is a mess. The story is burdened by too many relationship complications. On the other hand, it reveals the hardship children face when raised by parents who lose control of their minds. The base story is about a 12- or 13-year-old girl named Ella. She is being raised by her mother who is a hoarder struggling to cope with life. As a single mother with a young girl, her hoarding complicates her daughter’s life. The house in which they live is a pigsty because of the hoarding. The odor of spoiled fruits and food permeates the clothing that Ella wears to school. Her mother often locks her daughter in a closet when she leaves the house. The closet is dark, cramped, and smelly from the mother’s hoarding mania. She punishes her child with the lit end of a cigarette when her daughter complains about anything.

Child abuse statistics.

Ella dreams of escaping to a better life while coping with school and hiding the trauma she endures with her mother’s mental instability. Ella fantasizes the idea of finding her father who she does not know. She makes friends with a young boy of her age who has anger issues because his father drinks too much and is abusive toward his son and wife. As Ella and the boy become closer, a serious assault incident at school results in the boy being permanently expelled. Ella has lost the support of her best friend and is faced with the instability of her mother’s behavior. Ella wishes for a better life and searches for evidence of her father as a way of escaping and improving her life. That search appears to be a dead end.

Ella’s mother hooks up with a man who becomes a boyfriend with a violent temper.

A fight between the two leads to Ella’s mother being stabbed. Blood from her wounds splatters her daughter from head to foot. Ella sets the house on fire and runs to the woods near her neighborhood where she cowers in a shed. The shed is next to a house rented by a teacher who has been fired by the school that had hired her. There is a storm brewing as Ella cowers in the shed next to the former teacher’s house. The former teacher named Casey, sees a light in the shed and cautiously approaches it to find Ella, a bloody mess lying on the shed floor. Ella is the intruder of McFadden’s story.

The value of this story lies in the reality of children being raised in families that abuse their children through neglect, psychological, or physical abuse.

McFadden’s story is of a neglectful and deranged mother who is incapable of caring for herself, let alone a child. Every child that survives their childhood is impacted by parents whether sane or mentally unbalanced. Most children are raised by single or married parents. Others are taken away by State sponsored childcare facilities or escape abusive parents to live on the street.

How a child responds to their parents or the way they deal with life is like the predictive quality of quantum physics.

How a child responds to how they are raised is unpredictable. That is the substantive meaning of “The Intruder”, a story that keeps one in suspense but does not appear likely to end well. It is a story that many children live in America and presumably in other countries of the world. The complexity of McFadden’s character relationships diminishes its appeal, but the point of the story is that child abuse takes many forms which often repeat themselves in future generations.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

The ending of Emily Henry’s story is a surprise to most who are absorbed and entertained by her tale. Life is complicated because it is filled with luck, achievement, purpose, and loss whether one is rich or poor.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Great Big Beautiful Life

Author: Emily Henry

Narrated By: Julia Whelan

Emily Henry (Author, American writer of NYT’s bestselling romance novels.)

Emily Henry is an entertaining writer who seems to live her own “Great Big Beautiful Life”. Her book is about writers like herself being interviewed by a wealthy American who is searching for a biographer to memorialize an extraordinarily famous family’s life. Henry’s twist is that she has competition with a fellow writer who is a more experienced and successful writer.

The two writers in Henry’s story are in the prime of their lives.

One has been married before, and the other appears to have been intimately acquainted with another writer. Neither potential biographer knows they are being interviewed for the same job. The surprise is that their famous subject hires both writers to compete for the job with a presumption that one will be chosen. The story is partly to tell of a famous and extraordinarily rich families’ complicated lives. “Great Big Beautiful Life” is an imaginative story about family relationship, love, and life’s complexity.

The cleverness of Henry’s story is that one becomes interested in the person being biographed while being drawn into what becomes an intimate relationship of the writers.

Listener/readers become interested in both story lines. The incredibly rich heiress’s family history is a contrast to the middleclass lives of the writers. What Henry shows in “Great Big Beautiful Life” is every human being, whether rich or middleclass face the joys and tragedies of life. The author is not addressing poverty or the poor, but one presumes the difference is qualitative because love, loss, and sorrow is part of every human life.

The passion of the two authors is artfully expressed and reminds one of every human’s experience of love and loss.

Joy and tragedy play a part in every sentient human being’s life. Familial, emotional, social, and ethical relationships are vivified in Henry’s story. Alice is the main character who is the woman writer telling her story of the competition and relationship between her and Hayden in seeking the right to tell the story of Margaret Grace’s “Tabloid Princess” life. Margaret sets the table for the story with a competition for the right to tell her family’s life story. Alice and Hayden begin as competitors, evolve into lovers. and become intertwined with Margaret’s storied life.

Alice and Hayden are ambitious professionals, but both have emotional vulnerabilities that are intensified by the competition for Margaret’s biography. Scandal, family secrets and how they are dealt with in Margaret’s life are part of the story. Alice’s insecurity contrasts with Hayden’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reputation as a biographer.

The approaches of the two hopeful writers of Margaret’s biography are contrasted by the author.

Alice has a human-centered approach to the biography whereas Haden drives for detached objectivity. Alice is concerned with Margaret’s exposure while Hayden seems more driven by belief in accuracy, structure, and verifiability.

The ending of Emily Henry’s story is a surprise to most who are absorbed and entertained by her tale. Life is complicated because it is filled with luck, achievement, purpose, and loss whether one is rich or poor. “Great Big Beautiful Life” is entertainment at its best.

GENDER INEQUALITY

“Betraying Big Brother” is not wrong about gender inequality but the author’s anger and personal choices cloud the author’s message. Gender inequality is real everywhere in the world. Education is a beginning, but practice is the end.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Betraying Big Brother (The Feminist Awakening in China)

Author: Leta Hong Fincher

Narrated By: Emily Woo Zeller

Leta Hong Fincher (Author, American journalist, feminist and writer, first American to receive a Ph.D from Tsinghua University’s Department of Sociology in Bejing., graduated from Harvard with a BA and a master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Stanford.)

The education and experience of Leta Hong Fincher is somewhat betrayed by her anger in “Betraying Big Brother”. Misogyny is an international reality that defies the truth of human equality. This reviewer’s prejudice, like the author’s biases are suspect because of their respective life experiences. This book reviewer was raised by a single parent mother who worked to keep two sons with a roof over their head and food on the table. How women survive inequality is made of the same stuff as that which plagues minorities around the world. The difference is that women are not a minority.

Fincher’s anger is justified by her life experiences.

She writes of being a 15-year-old girl who is physically and emotionally abused by two boys who are friends of an older male friend that takes her to a get together of young acquaintances. That event burns a memory into Fincher’s mind that sets her on a journey thru life. One reading/listening to “Betraying Big Brother” recognizes the truth of what the author writes is reinforced by her life experiences. Of course, that is true of all human beings, but anger diminishes the impact of what Fincher says and writes.

Leadership?

Whether living in a democracy or autocracy, sexual inequality is present. Gender discrimination is universal. America and China talk the talk but fail to walk the walk. Fincher writes of Mao’s saying that “women hold up half the sky” implying he believed in gender equality. Mao spoke of marriage reform and labor participation but patriarchal norms were adhered to with women workers not being paid the same as men nor offered similar positions of power.

Xi speaks of gender equality, but no women are on the 24-member Politburo.

Xi also speaks of gender equality, but no women are on the 24-member Politburo while pay and promotions lag behind men. Fincher writes of Big Brother censorship, surveillance, and detention of women in China. (One presumes that is also true of everyone in China.) Like Trump, Xi promotes women’s roles in domestic stability, and their childbearing responsibilities. America has yet to elect a woman as President. Equal pay for equal work is improving in America, but a gap still exists with lower starting salaries, performance evaluation biases, and fewer high-profile assignments or promotions.

“Betraying Big Brother” is not wrong about gender inequality but the author’s anger and personal choices cloud the author’s message. Gender inequality is real everywhere in the world. Education is a beginning, but practice is the end.

HOUSING

Didion reminds one of Yeats Poem to warn society of civilization’s collapse. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” after WWI and the Spanish Flu. Seems similar to today’s political war and the Covid pandemic.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Slouching Toward Bethlehem 

Author: Joan Didion

Narrated By: Diane Keaton

Joan Didion (Author, American writer and journalist, published in The Saturday Evening Post, National Review, Life, Esquire, and The New Yorker. She also wrote screenplays for “The Panic in Needle Park”, “A Star is Born”, and “Upclose and Personal” as well as receiving a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer. 1934-2021.)

Diane Keaton (Actor, Academy Award winner, BAFTA recipient, two-time Golden Globe, and Tony Award winner. 1946-2025.)

Diane Keaton died yesterday.

Several years ago, I purchased “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” without reading it until Keaton had done an audiobook’ narration of it. “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” illustrates Didion’s skill as an essayist and writer while Keaton’s many acclaimed movies show how accomplished both women have been in their lives.

“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” is interesting because it offers an interpretation of why homelessness is so much more obvious in America than other countries.

Having lived in different areas of the United States, the appearance of homelessness in the big cities of America is disgraceful. Visiting the Baltics, Norway, Finland, China, and Japan in the last few years illustrates how badly America is handling homelessness. With the exception of Norway, per capita incomes in the United States are more than twice the incomes of the aforementioned countries. Norway’s per capita income is $87,925 while America’s is $82,769. China’s per capita income is $13,122 but walking through major Chinese cities, there are no people sleeping on the streets. The Baltics per capita incomes range from $22,000 to a little more than $30,000. There is poverty in all these countries, but their leaders and societies have found a way to keep their citizens housed. This is not to argue their poor are not faced with hardship but to show how poorly American society is treating its homeless.

There seems a generational divide in Didion’s “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”.

The beat generation of the 1960s for which Timothy Leary coined the phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out” alluded to in Didion’s essays may offer a partial explanation. Many of us experimented with drugs in the 60s but there has to be more than that to explain what has happened to big cities in America. Part of the answer is the change in income for the middle-class. In the 1960s middle-class incomes were strong and broadly shared. In the 21st century, middle class incomes have stagnated. CEO’s income in the ’60s made 20 times middle class earners but in the 21st century the ratio rose to 300-1. The rich got richer and the middleclass got poorer. Power shifted from a voting middle class to a richer upper-class that accelerated income gaps that changed election results with an income class bias.

America has contradictory economic policies that have created great abundance among Americans while exacerbating income inequality.

Housing costs accelerated to new highs in the 21st century. The 1960s price-to-income ratios were 2:1 while today they are 5:1 or higher. The effort during the Obama administration to weaken standards for home buyer qualification exacerbated the greed of mortgage companies which led to a near economic collapse of the finance industry. Instead of bailing out homebuyers that could not pay their mortgages, the Obama administration bailed out mortgage companies and their owners while endorsing eviction of buyers who could not afford their mortgage payments.

“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” writes of famous successful people like John Wayne, Howard Hughes, Joan Baez, and herself as symbols of the 1960s. She is effectively glorifying them and herself while showing how they mythologized success to a generation of young people who were turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Image became more important than substance. Working to be great at acting, becoming wealthy by investing wisely, singing about peace, justice and non-violence to make money, and writing about societal dysfunction were money makers. Capitalizing on dysfunction of society did nothing to ameliorate it. John Wayne is only a symbol of justice in the movies and Howard Hughes inherited his wealth that allowed him to invest, sometimes unwisely and with poor personal management skills. He began investing in Las Vegas because management could be left to others. To be fair, Didion and Baez try to return something to society for their success but their efforts pale in comparison to America’s decline. Artists report facts of life but rarely offer solutions.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, dramatist, writer and literary critic.

W. B. Yeats Poem summarizes and exemplifies what Didion alludes to in her book.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.  

Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  

The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Didion reminds one of Yeats Poem to warn society of civilization’s collapse. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” after WWI and the Spanish Flu. Seems similar to today’s political war and the Covid pandemic.