Tag: europe

DAMNED & FORGOTTEN

Allen Esken’s story is too tedious and drawn out to be a great work of fiction. However, it reminds one of the injustices of life for those who get away with murder.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Quiet Librarian (A Novel)

Author: Allen Eskens

Narrated By: Livana Muratovic

Allen Eskens (Author, former defense attorney who lives in Minnesota.)

Allen Eskens has written a story of revenge and war without giving it context which diminishes its value. Having visited the former Yugoslavia which is split into 6 ethnic territories, the war that occurred between Bosnian and Serbian people can still be seen in pock marked buildings that were evidence of the war. Our guide for the trip reflects on America and NATO’s failure to aid a peaceful resolution while the conflict killed many people that may have been saved by international intervention. Eskens makes a passing comment about that feeling in his book, but the truth of that conflict is as real today as the people who lived through it.

Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavian ruler 1953-1980, died in May of 1980.)

When Tito died in 1980, Slobodan Milošević, a nationalist Serbian leader promoted the idea of a “Greater Serbia” without accommodation to ethnic differences of the former Yugoslavian people. Milošević capitalized on the historic conflict between Serb’ and Bosnian’ ethnic and religious beliefs to acquire and hold power. Serbian Christian beliefs were used as a tool to incite support of Milošević’s rule of Bosnians who are generally Muslim believers. Many Bosnians and Serbians die as a result of Milošević. Slobodan Milošević retained power for 13 years but is removed in October of 2000 when Vojislav Koštunica won the presidency. Though Milošević supporters try to protest the election results, they fail.

Slobodan Milošević (President of Serbia 1989-1997, died in 2006 of a heart attack.)

Milošević is arrested in 2001, extradited to The Hague, and tried for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. He is the first former head of state to be tried by the Hague court. The trial lasted for four years. Milošević is found dead in his prison cell. He was 64. Autopsy shows it to be a heart attack. No verdict is reached, leaving no closure to the victims of his perfidy.

The division of Yugoslavia after Tito’s death.

This history does not change Eskens’ story, but it offers context that helps one understand why a Bosnian emigree to America pursued a former Serbian nationalist who brutally raped her mother and murdered her family in front of her during the Bosnian/Serbian war. It is credible fiction of the consequence of war whether in Bosnia or anywhere in the world where the guilty go unpunished. The question becomes, is intent to murder a criminal by one who has firsthand knowledge of another’s heinous act equally guilty of murder? The question is not asked or answered by Esken’s story; probably because it is unanswerable.

The heroine of Eskens story is Hana Babić who emigrates to Minnesota to earn a living as a librarian.

She has adopted the grandson of a close friend who is murdered in the Bosnian/Serbian war. That adoption and her personal experience drives her to find and murder the man who destroyed her life in Bosnia. She has to choose between committing murder in America or letting a murderer go free when she finds her nemesis. However, protecting her adopted boy by letting a guilty person escape vigilante justice is what drives the author’s story. If one sticks with the story, they find her answer.

One wonders about lives of Ukrainians if a tentative settlement proposed by Putin in August 2025 is accepted by Ukraine. Territories under siege in Ukraine would be given to Russia in return for ending the war.

How many Ukrainians will leave their homeland to seek a new life? How many will stay, and secretly fight on? How many will reluctantly accept their homeland’s loss? These were decisions made by Bosnians in former Yugoslavia.

Allen Esken’s story is too tedious and drawn out to be a great work of fiction. However, it reminds one of the injustices of life for those who get away with murder.

TRAGEDY’S LESSON

The sharpened point of Slade’s story is that, like the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald and El Faro, it takes great tragedy before change takes place.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Into the Raging Sea” Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of the El Faro

By: Rachel Slade

Narrated By: Erin Bennett

Rachel Slade (Author, winner of the Maine Literary Award for non-fiction.)

Rachel Slade begins her book with the last words of a mariner calling for help from a sinking ship in the grip of a Hurricane. The ship is the El Faro. The author writes her story based on the El Faro’s written log during a severe storm somewhere between Florida and Puerto Rico. The storm was Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 Hurricane that had recorded wave heights of 10 meters (over 32 feet). Winds ranged from 130 to 156 mph with rough seas, roiled by rogue waves. Rogue waves are twice the size of surrounding waves and appear unexpectedly.

Slade methodically sets a table for the El Faro on a “…Raging Sea”.

Slade writes about a mariner’s desperate call for help. In its beginning, the story lags but the author offers cultural insight to the life of merchant marines, the equipment they operate, and the business of international trade. Her story explains how important and dangerous the life of a merchant marine can be, why it is important, and how mariners are dependent on equipment they use, their shipmates’ qualifications, and business owners’ drive for success.

Every person makes decisions about what they are going to do to make their way in life.

Becoming a merchant marine, like every decision in life, is based on personal circumstances, ambitions, and choices. Slade describes the El Faro mariners as adventurous and interested in seeing the world and being paid for what they do. Some are educated, others not, but all learn what they need to do to be part of a mariners’ crew.

There are schools for mariners at all levels of education but like any job, one can start at the bottom as a laborer that learns by doing. What the story of the El Faro shows is that like in any chosen job in life, some become expert at what they do, others try and fail, try again or move on. What Slade infers is that the El Faro sinks because of its crew but also because of others, both on and off the sea. As John Donne wrote in 1624, “no man (or woman) is an island”–emphasizing the interconnectedness of society.

The owners of the El Faro were in the business of internation trade to make money.

The crew of the El Faro wanted to be paid but to some it was adventure and/or escape from a humdrum of life. Undoubtedly, mariners were motivated for different reasons. Some wished to see the world, be recognized for good work, wished to crew on bigger and better vessels, or be promoted to higher position. Motivation and ambition are different for everyone. What is lost to history are details. Slade tries to reveal some of the details about the El Faro’ crew, its owners, the ship, and the business of international trade. Why did the El Faro sink? Who and what was lost? What is it like to be in a hurricane at sea? Is somewhat at fault?

Slade’s story gains momentum as sinking of the El Faro seems imminent.

The aftermath is a careful and detailed explanation of rescues at sea, why the El Faro sank, what rescue efforts were made, how families of the lost were affected, and what changes were demanded in the industry. The loss of 33 mariners, the entire crew of the El Faro, is a horrible tragedy for the families who lost their loved ones. The causes of the tragedy range from crew mistakes to ship design to corporate malfeasance. The common thread is human nature.

What this review suggests is that the fundamental issue in every form of government and society is balance between public and private good.

One will draw their own conclusions from Slade’s history of the loss of the El Faro. In a capitalist society, balance is dependent on prudent regulation. Prudence is meant to mean the use of human reason to balance the needs of the public with private interests. That balance is complicated by human nature that drives private interests to focus on money, power, and prestige rather than public need.

Slade shows regulation of international trade often conflicts with private interests that object to regulation and improvements in ship design.

Conflict between public good and private interest is not a new discovery. Neither is the sinking of the El Faro. The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 led to changes in international shipping. Business owners were required to provide survival suits for mariners in their employ, depth finders, positioning systems, improved ship design, and inspections by the Coast Guard became mandatory. These were regulations that increased costs of shipping that rippled through the economy and initially penalized private interests. The public benefits because mariners are safer, and families are less threatened by loss. The public also suffers because transported goods become more expensive. Balance eventually occurs as private interests are compelled to pay more for labor which is part of the public.

Capitalism works because it is a process that balances public need with private interests. Capitalism’s weakness is that the process takes time to balance public needs with private interests.

The sharpened point of Slade’s story is that, like the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald and El Faro, it takes great tragedy before change takes place.