Category: FICTION

LIFE AS IT IS

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

This is Happiness

By: Niall Williams

Narrated by: Dermot Crowley

Niall Williams (Irish author and playwriter born in Dublin.)

There is poetry in Niall Williams’ story of a young boy’s life in Ireland in the 1950s. William’s hero is a young boy, nearing manhood, who grows close to a 60 something adult. At an earlier time of the 60-year-old’s life, he jilts a woman on their wedding day. The 60-year-old’ wishes for forgiveness from the jilted woman who marries a pharmacist who dies some years after their marriage.

Whether idyllic or real, “This is Happiness” reminds listeners of the difference between life as it is, life as remembered, and life as it ends.

The young hero thinks the older friend wants to rekindle the relationship but finds his older friend is principally looking for forgiveness. Compounding the hero’s confusion is the older woman’s reluctance to either acknowledge the event or countenance any forgiveness for her jilting fiancé.

The hero works on the electrification of Ireland. He works with the jilting groom to negotiate with Ireland’s landowners on the physical placement of electrical poles to be installed across the country. Ireland’s leadership negotiates with Finland to buy 1,000,000 trees.

The jilting groom is working for the company that is to install the poles, but his primary motive is to meet with the woman he left at the altar. They meet but no mention is made of their past acquaintance and his disreputable behavior. When the young boy hears the story from his older friend, he grows to believe he has some obligation to reconcile the two. His friend had married and divorced while the jilted bride marries a pharmacist whom she marries after her fiancé stands her up. The young boy believes neither his friend nor the jilted bride will be happy without forgiveness.

An accident occurs when a pole falls on the young boy and he is taken to a doctor who has three daughters near the young boy’s age.

As he comes to his senses in the medical treatment room, he sees one of the older daughters whom he thinks he loves. The boy’s infatuation grows with the first daughter he meets but later he is surprisingly asked by a younger sister to go to the movies. The younger sister introduces the hero to kissing at the local theater. He begins to think of this younger daughter as something more than a friend. A third daughter is introduced, and the boy concludes he is in love with all three of the doctor’s daughters.

A young boy’s confusion about life’s happiness is his first inkling of love for one and then all three of the physician’s young daughters. Obviously, this is not love but youthful infatuation.

Williams cleverly ties his story together with Ireland’s electrification and power line connections that have to be installed throughout the country. The story of electrification is complicated. There are religious differences, private property, and social concerns of its citizens.

The complication of tying the nation together with a power system is like the complications of building and maintaining human relationships.

The hero works on the electrification of Ireland, works through his dalliance with one of the doctor’s daughters, sadly loses his mother to illness, and chooses a life in the church. He cares for the woman left at the altar with respect for her failing life from old age and an undisclosed illness. The young man learns how one should care for one nearing death. One sees in the dying a sense of acceptance but a wish of the dying to control what remains in their power to control. The care giver needs to respect the dying’s limited power and help only where help is asked or needed.

At last, the jilted bride and errant groom begin to talk about what happened on the date of their unconsummated wedding.

The explanation by the groom may be a lie or an Irishman’s tale, but the jilted bride tells him there is no need for forgiveness. She implies there is nothing that can be done to change the past. In the end, she forgives the errant groom, enjoys his company and the stories he has to tell. She dies with knowledge of the love and care of the people she knows.

Niall William’s story is about growing to manhood, dying, and old age. In William’s mythical Irish town of Faha, everyone knows everyone.

The mythical town of Faha, Ireland is a community where knowing is accompanied by responsibility for care of the living, dying, and dead. There are no secrets. Happiness is within the person who chooses to be happy, regardless of life’ events and circumstances.

TOO CLEVER BY HALF

“Golden Hill” is an interesting commentary on the tenor of an historic time, and it reveals some founding principles that trouble America to this day.

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Golden Hill (A Novel of Old New York)

By: Francis Spufford

Narrated by: Sarah Borges

Francis Spufford (Author, received the 2017 Desmond Elliot Prize and Costa Book Award for “Golden Hill”, the author’s first novel.)

Francis Spufford captures a listener’s interest in “Golden Hill” with the idea of an Englishman sailing from London to New York City in 1746. New York City has a population of maybe 20,000, while London is a city of 630,000 to 740,000. What would a young Englishman with a 1,000-pound Bill-of-Exchange want in traveling from London to New York city? In today’s dollars 1,000 pounds would be over $127,000. The hero’s reason for leaving London for New York is not given until the end of Spufford’s story.

This is New York city in the 18th century. One could walk around the city in a day with its circumference less than a square mile.

This is a fascinating beginning to a story that gets bogged down by too many incidents that are mystifying until the last chapters of the book. The incidents are relevant to what it must have been like in 1746 but some listeners will become impatient for answers that could have been explained earlier.

New York City in 1746 is a mecca for protestants from many parts of the world. Spufford implies many New Yorkers are Dutch, a prominent ethnic group in wealthy New York.

Spufford’s hero is found to have a deep understanding of the theatre and its impact on an audience if an actor’s parts are well played. He attends a bad play that has an actress who, in spite of her poor lines, shows talent he recognizes. His appreciation of her acting leads to an unforeseen tragedy. This becomes a clue to the traveler’s perception of others and how unintended consequences impact one’s life. He seems to walk through life as though the City of New York is his stage. He plays his part, but his acting chops end with a mixed review.

Spufford’s hero appears to be accepted by the influential citizens of the city. At least, until it appears the Bill-of-Exhange is not going to be honored. The hero is thrown into debtors’ prison.

Debtors’ prison is an interesting place to write about. Spufford reflects on its barbarity in a confrontation with a fellow prisoner. The Bill of Exchange is eventually honored, and the hero is released. The next chapters address the repatriation of the hero to the Poo Bahs of the town and a woman of interest becomes more enamored with the traveler. The profile of the woman is somewhat unbelievable because of her implied business influence in a time when women have even less power than today.

The hero attends a party set up by leading members of the city that is, in part, to apologize for his mistreatment and to carry out whatever his mission is in the city. An interesting historical point of the apology is that America is primarily a barter system of exchange. Even though the traveler’s security is in English pound sterling, any negotiation for exchange is in goods, not cash. This is fine for the traveler’s purpose, but it reflects a point in American history that is often forgotten. There is no full faith and credit of a bank with gold or some other form of value to back-up American currency.

An interesting point Spufford reminds listeners of is the American’ anti-Catholic sentiment of the time.

One realizes how important Protestantism is in the foundation of America. The hero is almost killed by a mob that believes the traveler is a papist. Some historians have noted Protestantism is one of the deepest biases of early American citizens.

The reason for the hero’s appearance in New York is explained at last. To avoid discouragement of listeners, the purpose of the hero’s journey is not disclosed. “Golden Hill” is an interesting commentary on the tenor of an historic time, and it reveals some founding principles that trouble America to this day. The criticism of Spufford’s story is that it is too clever by half with a denouement too long in its revelation.

RUSSIAN SHORT STORIES

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov. Vol 1

By: Anton Chekhov

Narrated by: Anthony Heald

Anton Chekhov in 1989 (Author, 1860-1904, physician and philanthropist.)

Most societies in the 1800s have variations of the same story. However, one recognizes there are societal remainders that carry through to modern times. Anton Chekhov’s short stories tell much of what is evident in today’s Russia just as stories of the wild west is in today’s America. In both Russian and American history (as well as most of the world), women are considered the inferiors of men. Children were generally seen as a burden until they could take responsibility for work that had to be done. Rarely did women work outside the home except as servants to families with means to pay for their work. In the 1800s, both Russia and America had a gap between the rich and poor.

Chekov’s first story is of a young woman who is characterized as beautiful, vivacious, and promiscuous.

She chooses or is seduced by a man who is not her husband. She is caught in an embrace with this man by her husband who berates her for her flirtations. The cuckolding suiter offers 100,000 rubles to allow the husband’s wife to divorce him and leave her husband to marry the alleged seducer. The husband agrees but at a price of 150,000 rubles. This is an example of two transgressions. One, a human being treated as property and two, a woman having a right to choose how she wishes to live her life. Just as in most of the world today, this Russian story shows women being treated as unequal to men.

Uneducated Americans and Russians in the 1800s took advantage of the environments in which they lived. One of Chekov’s stories addresses a peasant who removes a nut from a railroad track because he needed a weight for his fishing line. He is taken to court for removing the nut because there were incidents of derailment from peasants who took several nuts from railroad track bolts for not only a single fishing line but for nets used for the same purpose. American killing of bison for sport is a similar ignorance that reduced a major resource for food and protective clothing of native Americans.

Serfdom in Russian history is long and sustained as a social and economic reality.

What Chekov’s short stories tell listeners is that though there are similarities, there are differences. Serfdom never takes hold in America, but its consequence extends into the mid 19th century despite Czar Alexander’s decree to eliminate it and Catherine the Great’s effort to end it. Even with the Alexander’s decree, serfdom remains a law until 1861 with its true abolition only begun during Catherine’s reign. Of course, America’s tragic faults are black slavery and Indian displacement with consequences that extend into today’s century.

Because serfdom did not take hold in America, the growth of capitalism created economic opportunities not available in mid-19th century Russia.

American capitalism is a two-edged sword that undermines the ideals of equality by denying equal opportunity for all. An underclass exists in both Russia and America, but Russia’s underclass suffers from slower economic growth as well as discrimination.

Though economic growth is turbocharged by capitalism it creates an underclass based on easily identifiable racial, ethnic, and sexual differences.

Social position in Russia came through military experience and promotion, or in association with unique opportunities offered to peasants by wealthy landowners. Capitalism had little place in Chekov’s mid-19th century history of Russia. What mattered to Russian citizens is social hierarchy. This seems evident even in today’s Russian kleptocracy.

In almost every Chekov story, heavy drinking is a common part of Russian men’s, if not women’s, lives.

Reasons for the Russian tradition of drinking may be related to the economic, or socio/political environment but its tradition is evident in today’s Russia. Not that alcoholism is not a problem in America, but in Russia alcohol seems an ever-present libation in all political and social recollections of modern events.

Wealth grows as a societal leveling influence in America while Chekov shows wealth only reinforces societal separation in Russia.

He tells a story of a woman actress that makes more money than her husband. The husband sees that reversal as a challenge to his ability rather than a benefit to his family. The husband acts like a petulant child when his wife is awakened late in the night by his drunken arrival in which he rants about money needed to start a business that has little prospect of success.

As with all short stories of an era, there is much to be learned about a nation’s cultural roots. Most of Chekov’s stories in this first folio are well written and informative. One will find them entertaining and interesting, maybe even enlightening.

TRUTH IN FICTION

What is clear in “Waiting” is that misogyny is a multicultural reality.

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Waiting

By: Ha Jin

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Ha Jin is the pen name of Jin Xuefei (born in 1956, a Chinese-American poet and novelist. Graduated from Brandeis University with an MA and PhD.)

Ha Jin’s book, “Waiting”, reminds one of our misogynistic world.

“Waiting” may be a true story or a mix of truth and fiction. The last chapter infers it is a part of Ha Jin’s life during Mao’s reign in the late 1960s as leader of China.

Ha Jin is the pen name of Jin Xuefei, a Chinese American poet and novelist. Jin’s father was a military officer in China. At 13, Jin joined the “People’s Liberation Army” during the Cultural Revolution in China. He left the army at nineteen to earn a bachelor’s degree in English at Heilongjiang University and a master’s degree in Anglo-American literature at another Chinese university. He went on to Brandies University to extend his education.

As is noted in the last chapter of “Waiting”, Ha Jin receives a scholarship to Brandeis University which is interestingly the author’s destination in America. He chooses to emigrate after Tiananmen Square’s Massacre in 1989. Of course, this is long after Mao’s cultural revolution between 1966 and the early 70s, i.e., the time of Ha Jin’s story in “Waiting” and the time of the author’s experience in the “People’s Liberation Army”.

The “People’s Liberation Army” was created as a teaching body for Mao Zedong Thought.

“Waiting” is about a 23-year-old nurse in the Peoples Liberation Army that falls in love with a doctor named Ha Jin, who is already married with a daughter who lives with her mother. The mother and daughter live in a village away from Ha Jin while he serves in Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Ha Jin may be viewed by a reader/listener as either a strong moral character or a weak “go along to get along” Maoist survivor.

Ha Jin either chooses or is compelled by the influence of the 23-year-old nurse to seek a divorce from his wife. Ha Jin takes 20 years of numerous appeals (the “Wait”) for the Chinese judicial system to finally approve the divorce.

During those 20 years, he and the nurse have no sexual relationship. In that time, the nurse is raped by a soldier who had befriended Ha Jin. The rape is unreported for the same reason many rapes are not reported today. The nurse does not believe the authorities will believe her story. The nurse tells Ha Jin of the rape. Ha Jin tries to convince her to tell the authorities. She refuses and Ha Jin reconciles himself to an understanding of her position and blames himself for what happened. As has been reported by other women who have been raped, the nurse feels guilt for the rape even though she said no and fought the rapist.

Ha Jin continues to pursue a divorce from his wife. His wife, despite Ha Jin’s numerous appeals for divorce, stands by her husband and cares for their daughter throughout the 20 years of their pending divorce. She finally agrees and Ha Jin is free to marry the nurse.

Ha Jin agrees to pay his ex-wife a monthly fee as a part of his obligation to her for their years of marriage. Ha Jin grows to love his daughter and wishes to help her succeed in life.

The nurse, at the time of marriage, is now in her early forties. She becomes pregnant and twin boys are born. The delivery is premature, but the boys are born healthy. Their fate is undisclosed. The relationship between the father and the nurse deteriorates for reasons that seem related to the hardship of the birth and a growing animosity of the nurse toward her husband.

The nurse suggests Ha Jin visit his ex-wife and daughter to see how they are doing. Ha Jin visits appears to realize he has made many mistakes in his life, not the least of which is the pursuit of a divorce and his failing marriage to the nurse.

The story ends with Ha Jin leaving China and becoming a professor at Brandies University in the United States. The listener is left to ponder which of these personalities, the husband, or the nurse and ex-wife are the strongest mental and physical humans in this battle of the sexes. At the very least, what is clear in “Waiting” is that misogyny is a multicultural reality.

A SHATTERED LIFE

Ali Smith is a good writer of interesting stories if one judges this audiobook as an example of her skill. However, to this reviewer, the dissection of Smith’s intent spoils its entertainment value.

Ali Smith (Scottish Author, playwright, academic, journalist.

Ali Smith has written several books and plays, mostly fiction with one nonfiction titled “Shire”. In 2014, she is awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (A prestigious UK Prize for fiction), and the Costa Book Award (also a UK award) for “How to Be Both”.

For this audiobook listener, “How to Be Both” is a difficult book to grasp.

It is two stories separated by eight centuries. The two stories are written from the perspective of a camera and what is categorized as “eyes”. Smith has the book published in two ways, i.e., with the first of the stories to be a photograph of “life” and the second, presumably, “life” as it happens. One can read either story first. The audiobook version of this listen is the camera version first. The two stories are related to each other. Camera takes place in the 21st century while “eyes” is in the 15th century.

The book is a little too clever. Both stories are well written, but each is entertaining on its own.

The tie between the two stories is about living lives, the inevitability of death, and the heart break of loss from death of those we love. The themes are viewed as a camera’s picture in one story and evolving events in the other. The tie between the stories is the loss of a mother who views a painting with her daughter, Georgia, by a 15th century painter, Francesco del Cossa. Georgia’s mother dies soon after seeing the painting with her daughter. The story of the painter’s life is part of its relevance. The painter’s talent is undervalued by his own standard just as Georgia seems undervalued by her 21st century belief about herself.

Georgia, like del Cossa, is tutored by an insightful and intelligent person (her mother) just as the artist is trained by a talented and aged painter of the 15th century. Georgia promises a great intellect just as del Cossa is eventually recognized as a great painter by his contemporaries.

“Triumph of Venus” by Francesco del Cossa.

There are many parallels one might draw in the two stories, but it is tiresome to contemplate what they are, and trying to ferret them out will make some reader/listeners quit this review, let alone the audiobook. Ali Smith is a good writer of interesting stories if one judges this audiobook as an example of her skill. However, to this reviewer, dissection of Smith’s intent spoils its entertainment value.

BROKEN

Laurel Snyder’s story is as interesting and satisfying in its end as in its beginning.

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

My Jasper June

By: Laurel Snyder

Narrated by: Imani Parks

Laurel Snyder (American Author, Poet, writer of children’s books, and PBS commentator.)

“My Jasper June” is a beautifully rendered story of life by Laurel Snyder. Snyder shows different ways of coping with life’s broken parts. It takes place in Atlanta, Georgia, but it could be in Anywhere, America. It is a story of a 13-year-old girl, her friend, and her family. Every parent who has a teenage child will be entranced by Snyder’s tale.

Having lived long, older reader/listeners know every life has broken parts. We either recover from the broken parts or we lose our way.

Snyder’s novel of a family who loses a son from drowning may be at the extreme end of life’s broken parts, but every life is touched by loss and hardship.

Snyder shows how a mother, father, and daughter respond to a child’s loss in their family.

Snyder’s story explains a broken part in life is suffered individually. Being broken comes in many forms. It may be a death of a loved one, failure in work, failure as a mother-father-daughter-son, failure in intellect, failure in physical health, so on, and on. Every person is broken in their own way. Care for broken parts is often lost in a fog of grief and despair. That grief and despair only disappears with time, understanding, and action.

Snyder’s novel shows grief is ameliorated with acceptance and reworking of one’s perspective.

Snyder’s story is not just about a death in the family. There are many ways Snyder’s story resonates with its reader/listeners. The most significant is in ways of coping with broken parts of one’s life. Some run from problems, but as the boxer Joe Louis famously said, “You can run but you can’t hide.” Snyder shows healing from broken parts can only begin with being honest with yourself and those around you. Understand how you are broken and explain the broken parts to those who are important to you. Snyder shows with understanding of what is broken, plans can be made, and actions taken.

Snyder’s novel shows–only with honesty of explanation can one’s relationship with another be restored.

Laurel Snyder’s story is as interesting and satisfying in its end as in its beginning.

TRANQUILITY/ANXIETY

Dead authors may give understanding of life that offers a “…Tranquil Mind” but change in belief by renowned living authors explain why some feel they live in an age of anxiety.

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Breaking Bread with the Dead (A Reader’s Guide to a Tranquil Mind.)

By: Alan Jacobs

Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan

Alan Jacobs (Author, distinguished professor of the humanities at Baylor University, considered a Christian conservative by the media.)

Alan Jacobs offers an example of why book’ reader/listeners are “Breaking Bread with the Dead”. A personal reason for reading/listening to books is to acquire understanding of an author’s opinion. Of course, perceptions may be incorrect, but a book writer’s intended meaning, at the very least, makes a reader/listener think. Jacobs gives many examples of what past authors made him think. He explains how and why dead writers are a “…Guide to a Tranquil Mind”.

In a short book, Jacobs notes knowledge of the past gives context and perspective to the present.

Dead authors add the dimension of a past that is either very like the present or very different. When a dead author’s beliefs are more like the present, it makes one think there may be something universal about their belief. At the least, a dead author’s beliefs help one understand the difference between the past and the present. Both circumstances offer what Jacobs suggests are a “…Guide to a Tranquil Mind”. Belief either remains the same or modern life makes past beliefs unique to their time.

Renowned dead authors, or for that matter, insightful living authors make one realize how much they do not know.

Dead authors may give understanding of life that offers a “…Tranquil Mind” but change in belief by renowned living authors explain why some feel they live in an age of anxiety. In either case, it pays to seek understanding from both dead and living writers.

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

There must be no discrimination in society based on sex, race, religion, or ethnicity for equality of opportunity to evolve.

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Mrs. Bridge

By: Evan S. Connell

Narrated by: Sally Darling

Evan S. Connell (American Novelist, 1924-2o13., died at age 88.)

Evan Connell captures a woman’s middle-class life in the twentieth century. “Mrs. Bridges” is a story of a twentieth century woman whose life begins in the middle-class and rises to the upper middle-class. She marries, has three children (one boy and two girls) with a husband who becomes a highly successful lawyer. Her son is characterized as moderately intelligent with two sisters, one sister characterized as smart and haughty and another quiet and reserved. The story is set in middle America.

In 1959, “Mrs. Bridge” received the National Book Award in fiction. The novel became a moderately successful movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Bridge”, starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

“Mrs. Bridge” will resonate with many women’s and men’s aspiration in America. It is a reminder of what it is like to be an American in a world ruled by white men, i.e., not women or people of color. “Mrs. Bridge” is a wife slowly becoming aware of an evolving society that is far from the ideals of equality of opportunity outlined by the 1868′ 14th Amendment.

The Bridge’s smart and haughty daughter graduates from high school, chooses not to attend college, and decides to move from the Midwest to New York. She moves to Greenwich Village and finds a job as a manager’s assistant while living a bohemian life that mystifies her mother.

The son chooses to go to college and appears on his way to becoming an engineer with a fascination for measurement and construction. He seems to have a plan to achieve his father’s success. However, he rebels in a different and similar way to his sister by dating girls who do not reflect the staid relationship of his parents. On the one hand, the son strives to emulate his father, on the other, he rejects the privileges of wealthy upper-class existence in white America.

The youngest daughter takes a different route to adulthood. She is the quiet one who never challenges her mother or father.

She turns to religion. Ironically, she abandons her religious obsession, marries a plumber’s son who drops out of college to take over his uncle’s business with the ambition of becoming a financial success like his new wife’s father. That goal is unrevealed in Connell’s story, but he shows their marriage is rocky, presumably because of their societal upbringing. The husband unjustifiably strikes his wife. He apologizes but Connell infers the reason for their conflicts is because of the different economic circumstances in which they were raised. The Bridge’s young daughter is accustomed to having housework done by servants while the plumber’s son is self-reliant and an ambitious doer. The story infers they stay together but it is an untold exploration of their remaining lives.

Nearing the end of this family’s story, Connell illustrates the growing boredom in Mrs. Bridges’ life.

The children grow away from her. She feels a sense of loss of purpose in life. Housework is now entirely done by servants. The children no longer listen to her or seek her advice. Her husband is consumed by his work. No one seems to need or care about her. The only solace seems to be in wealthy women friends who are experiencing a similar ennui. One of these upper-class women commits suicide. Mrs. Bridges suggests to her husband that she should see a psychiatrist for her growing depression. Her husband suggests that is nonsense and the idea is dropped.

The life of the Bridges family is disrupted by WWII. The son chooses to leave the university and enlist in the Army. The implication is that life goes on for the family as it had before, but the experience of war is only reinforcing the dynamics of their family’s socialization.

Self-interest permeates human life. In a capitalist culture, self-interest is measured by wealth.

One suspects some who have lived this twentieth century life see themselves in Connell’s story of the Bridges family. In socialist culture, self-interest is measured by power. In a communist culture, self-interest is a combination of wealth and power as evidenced by Russia’s and China’s rule in the 21st century.

The value of Connell’s “Mrs. Bridge” is in its dissection of American society, and not just of its time but of today.

Its story implies American wealth should not be a measure of human value. The gap between rich and poor is a measure of how far America is from the intent of the Constitution’s statement “all men are created equal”. Connell’s story infers the statement in the American Constitution should have been “all people are created equal”, not just men. In being created equal, the 14th Amendment stipulates all citizens are to have equal rights in pursuit of life, liberty, and property.

Connell masterfully shows the strength and weakness of American society. Its strength lies in freedom to exploit human self-interest. Its weakness is in believing wealth is a measure of human value.

The only way wealth can be considered a measure of human value is when all human beings have equal opportunity, as their interest and ability allow.

There must be no discrimination in society based on sex, race, religion, or ethnicity for equality of opportunity to evolve. That is aspirational in America, but whether equal opportunity can ever be achieved is problematic based on the nature of human beings.

IDENTITY

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

We Love You, Charlie Freeman

By: Kaitlyn Greenidge

Narrated by: Cherise Boothe, Karole Foreman, Myura Lucretia Taylor

Kaitlyn Greenidge (American novelist.)

Kaitlyn Greenidge’s “We Love You…” is an ironic tale about love and discrimination that blurs the line between science research, social truth, and exploitation. The story of Greenidge’s book does not cross the same line as the Tuskegee Experiments in 1932 and 1972 but it shows how it could happen. One may argue Greenidge defines the line to explain the ethical purpose of scientific research, but she also clearly illustrates how emotional entanglement influences human behavior which interferes with ethical purpose.

The Tuskegee Experiments were on 400 Black Americans who were purposely not treated for syphilis. Like test animals, these American patients were studied for the consequences of syphilis infection. None were given penicillin injections that could cure their infection.

“We Love You…” is somewhat difficult to follow because it goes back and forth in history with too many characters. If taken in order of history, the story begins with a white British anthropologist who is interested in studying “Negro” culture in the 1920s.

This well-educated white Anthropologist travels to a Black American community to observe the behavior of Black children being schooled by a Black teacher. The students object to the intrusive interruption by the anthropologist who asks questions and draws images of the children. The teacher asks the anthropologist to stop interviewing and making pencil drawings of the students. As a substitute for his interviews and drawings, the anthropologist asks the teacher to allow him to sketch her. In return, he would no long bother the students. She hesitatingly agrees. That agreement leads to increasingly intimate drawings of the teacher without her clothes. The teacher falls in love with the anthropologist while the anthropologist only sees her as a subject of study. The intimacy of the drawings alludes to the impropriety of the Tuskegee experiment.

The story jumps back to present time with the same research institute that the 1920’s anthropologist had joined. A Black family is employed by the institute to raise a chimpanzee and teach it to communicate by using signing like that used by the deaf.

One presumes the reason this particular Black family is chosen is because they use sign language to communicate with each other. Signing may be a more utilitarian and productive method for communication between chimpanzees and humans.

The father and mother of the family come to the institute for different reasons.

Though the father, Charlie, is a teacher, their income and housing will be better because housing is provided at no cost, and Charlie can teach at a local school. Improved income seems the primary motivation of the father while the mother is interested in the idea of caring for an additional child-like animal. Their two children are not happy about relocation to the institute. The repugnant nature of the story is that race, rather than communication with the simian world, might be the unstated purpose of the research.

“We Love You, Charlie Freeman” takes many twists and turns that diminish its impact on a listener.

One might argue the story is about how love grows between humans and animals and between humans and other humans. The story is also about the impropriety of scientific research that is not clearly spelled out to those who are part of the research and what use will be made of the results. Impropriety was introduced earlier with the anthropologist who visited the school to draw pictures of children. That study evolved into a study of the genitalia of a Black woman. The author alludes to love of the anthropologist and how it developed in the Black teacher as a one-sided obsession.

Greenidge’s story addresses three types of love. There is family love, human to animal love, and human to human love.

Loves similarities, differences, and causes for break-up are illustrated. A woman loves a man who does not love her but exploits what she has to offer. A woman loves a woman but moves on to love another woman just as many of both sexes do. A married couple falls out of love with their mate. A spouse chooses to love an idea more than a person.

To this listener, there are too many fragmentary ideas in Greenidge’s story that fail to move one to a singular appreciation of her creativity.

MYSTICISM

Audio-book Review
 By Chet Yarbrough

Blog: awalkingdelight)
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Sentence

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich (American novelist and poet, member of the Chippewa Indians, a tribe of Ojibwe people.)

This is a review of a third novel of Louise Erdrich’s books. The three that are reviewed are about native American experience in the U.S.

Louise Erdrich who wrote “The Round House”, “The Night Watchman” and this book, “The Sentence”, grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Erdrich’s parents, a Chippewa mother and German father, taught at the “Bureau of Indian Affairs” in Wahpeton.  She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. (Erdrich’s husband was a professor and writer who was the first director of “Native American Studies” at Dartmouth. He died at the age of 52.)

Erdrich begins “The Sentence” with a bizarre story of an addled brained addict, (the heroine of the story) who is convinced by her roommate to pick up a dead body from a friend’s house.

The addict agrees to do it in return for $26,000 lottery win that had recently been received by her friend. At first, one thinks the dead body is really just a pet, but it is actually a human that was once the boyfriend of the lottery winner. Further, we find this seems to have occurred on an Indian reservation which introduces an element of understandability because of the complication of reservation law versus America’s national government law.

The heroine rents a refrigerated van, picks up the body, and the next thing we find is she is arrested on a cocaine drug running charge. The corpse had bags of cocaine taped to its armpits. The heroine is convicted and sentenced by the federal government to a long prison sentence for breaking a federal law for drug running. The sentence is shortened from 60 years when her arresting reservation officer gets witnesses to recant their testimony. The former accused drug runner is released and marries the reservation lawman who arrested her for the alleged crime.

Finally, “The Sentence” begins to settle down to a somewhat normal life story. The now married couple adopts a young Indian girl who rebels against her mother’s care and attention. This seems a rather common case of mother/daughter relationships that either mends itself in maturity or remains ambivalent for the remainder of their lives.

The adopted daughter appears at her mother’s doorstep unannounced, with a baby carriage her mother presumes is loaded with some inane material items she brought with her.

What the mother finds is that it is a weeks old baby recently born from the daughter’s union with a man her mother has not met. The mother is thrilled to see her new grandson but asks too many questions about the father and disrupts the tentative truce between mother and daughter. The daughter withdraws to a bedroom, slams the door, and the mother realizes what she perceives to be her fault for asking about the baby’s father and his responsibilities.

However, the now grandmother is ecstatic about her new grandson and regrets having angered her daughter, presumably for fear of losing a future relationship with the baby.

Not too much new here from anyone who came from a broken home. Erdrich’s story begins to lag at this point because this seems like a common story of many American families. Then, Erdrich begins to refine her story.

Erdrich turns to events of America’s 21st century world and the story reclaims a listener’s interest. A bookstore in which the heroine works after her release from prison is in Minnesota, the home of George Floyd’s senseless murder by the Minneapolis police.

The heroine’s husband, as a former reservation police officer, offers a whiff of irony to the story. As a police officer, he had looked at crime on a scale of threat to others rather than transgression of a written law. He gauged his action in arrest based on a scale of threat to others rather than violation of the letter of law.

Erdrich’s story encompasses Covid19. It is becoming a clear and present danger to the characters in her story. Businesses are beginning to suffer from the reality of a worldwide lock down. Bookstores are identified as essential services, but customers are reluctant to visit because of fear of public contact. The government offers loans to essential businesses that may be forgiven if they choose to weather the growing pandemic.

The world seems on the cliff edge of collapse with violence on the streets of Minneapolis and a virus that will consume humanity. A feeling from which many Americans are still adjusting.

Erdrich brings these events to the small world of one family. This family is every family with all the good and bad things that happen in life, but Erdrich implies bad things are more common in native American societies. The daughter is an alcoholic with an innocent baby born with an absent father. The daughter chooses to be in a pornographic movie to live a life she is able to afford. She expresses personal shame in a confession to her mother, a fact of her life of quiet desperation.

A layer of mysticism is added by the author that seems superfluous except that it is a reflection of native American’ belief in a spirit world.

The bookstore in which the heroine works is being haunted by the spirit of the woman who owned the bookstore, a woman that played an important role in the early life of the heroine. The haunting of the bookstore is related to the history of the deceased owner’s life. The bookstore owner lived a life dedicated to helping native Americans, believing she was born as an American Indian. Edrich recounts the discovery of a book by her husband that reveals a secret about the bookstore owner’s life. That secret becomes the focus of the story.

The storeowner’s spirit haunts the bookstore because of a book’s mysterious content.

The spirit will presumably continue to haunt the store as long as the book is missing. The heroine, without knowing the contents of the book, buries it in the hope that the storeowner’s spirit will leave the bookstore. Hiding the book doesn’t work. The storeowner continues to haunt the store and plans to possess the heroine’s body. The storeowner’s desire for possession of the heroine’s body is part of the mystery of the buried book.

The finale of Erdrich’s story is about life and death, love of family, reconciliation between mothers and daughters, and the fate of a storeowner’s spirit. The attraction of Edrich’s books is to know something more about native American culture. In a larger sense, “The Sentence” is about the broad meaning of poverty and discrimination in America and those who suffer from it. To appreciate much of what Erdrich offers in “The Sentence”, a listener needs to be patient.