Memorare

This lovely word is Latin--an exhortation to remember. I use it to address the Pope, who recently "rehabilitated" three rogue bishops, among them a Holocaust denier. I knew the Church was in trouble when the College of Cardinals elected a former member of the Nazi Youth to the papacy. I'm as naturally suspicious of that as of people from South America with German names. And because of this association embedded in his past, this pope, of all men, should be more conscious that his actions are judged by a finely tuned standard, sensitive to the slightest quiver in the direction of Nazi sympathy.

When questioned, the Vatican explained that the bishops had agreed to adhere to the Church in matters of doctrine and papal authority, and that personal opinions, however reprehensible, are not subject to sanction. Oh really? An institution that asserts its moral authority in virtually every aspect of life cannot take a stand by excluding from its clerical ranks those who deny that the systematic murders of millions of Jews ever happened?

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me say to people who ask if I've fallen away from the Church, that no, in fact, the Church fell away from me.

But in truth I cannot deny my Catholicism. It's imprinted on me and part of what defines me. Through my family upbringing, my parochial schooling, my seven years in the convent, I have oriented my life to the rhythms of the liturgical calendar. The time--the precious time--that I spent in the convent, and especially in the novitiate, gave me a much deeper understanding of God, the Who Is, and the closer I came to that, the freer I became in matters of rubric and ritual. But I still feel a sense of guilt on behalf of the Church when matters such as this arise.

The Church's troublesome ambivalence in the matter of the Holocaust, the questions surrounding the actions of prelates who may have assisted former Nazis in escaping the post-War dragnet, the role the Church played historically in creating a centuries-old cultural climate of anti-Semitism: all of these issues tug at the collective conscience of Catholics. In his book, "Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews," former Jesuit (and writer of some of my favorite fiction) James Carroll writes a searing analysis on this subject. I highly recommend it.

The most consistent message I've heard and read from Jews regarding the Holocaust is that we must never forget that it happened; we must not let time erode the horror, or form a protective scar over the wound. Allowing it to become ancient history will make us less vigilant in the present. Remember, they exhort us: remember.

In turn, I say to Pope Benedict: Memorare, memorare.

Bill

Twenty years ago today my husband Bill died. I won't write a lot here, because once I start I could go on forever about him.

I just want to acknowledge him today, and to say that I still miss him, sometimes viscerally. I miss the person he was, and the person I was with him, and the person our marriage was. Every day I had with him was the happiest day of my life. I was never so completely myself--my best self--as with him. The only way I can describe the deep contentment I experienced with him was that I felt he knew me the way we think God knows us--all our concupiscence and faults and sins, and all our potential and goodness and virtue. It's freeing beyond description to be known and loved that way. How lucky I was. He made me more gentle and kind, and he would say I made him more socially conscious and responsible, since I was always dragging him out to picket and protest and leaflet against war and nukes and the mistreatment of the poor and disaffected.

When my wonderful friends of more than forty years--Beat, Ellen, Kathy, Sandy, Sharon, and Sue--got together last fall, we talked briefly about him, and my thought that the concept of eternity means that although I am trapped in time, and experience his absence in time, he is in eternity, and therefore doesn't feel the loss: I am always present to him. At Christmas, my sister Margaret gave me an Andrea Bocelli CD, and we cried as she shared a wonderful song she said made her think of Bill and me: "the moment won't last..." but "like stars across the sky, we were meant to shine..."

Bill, of course, had already had this thought about time and eternity. Here is one of his poems, written October 28, 1984:

I think God put us in time
so that He'd always have something
for which to forgive us.

Only in time could a lost opportunity,
a lost friendship, a lost watch,
evoke the same sadness
so long since the loss.

So persistent is time's hegemony
that to break free makes us believe
we could be saints.

And in that, we are.

I kiss you today, Bill, across time and into eternity.

The Farrell Review of Non-Fiction Read 2008

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard
This was the best non-fiction I read in 2008. Packed with adventure, it illuminates the fearless, risk-seeking side of TR's character and, at the same time, his ability to lead: to make decisions that sacrifice personal comfort and friendships for the sake of the enterprise.

In 1912, battered and bruised by the drubbing he'd received as a third-party presidential candidate, Roosevelt accepted an invitation to explore one of the many tributaries of the Amazon. His guide (and someone should write a book about THIS guy) and co-leader of the expedition was Colonel Candido Rondon, born a poor Indian, who joined the Brazilian army and made himself into the country's most celebrated Amazonian explorer. He it was who had so aptly named the uncharted tributary "the river of doubt."

Poorly planned and supplied, the trip soon encountered difficulties, requiring TR and Rondon to split the expedition in two. This meant that some of the men, among them TR's friends, had to miss the opportunity to trace the river to its source. As they progressed, they discovered countless flora and fauna, beautiful, exotic, and some deadly. Their canoes were unworthy of the rough and tricky rapids, they were stalked by cannibals, and Roosevelt came down with a leg infection that nearly killed him.
Yet they soldiered on, overcame numerous near-disasters, found the source of the River of Doubt, and left us with a thrilling tale.

Millard has researched this story meticulously, and tells it clearly, with a keen sense of its dramatic elements. Well done.

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, by Gordon S. Wood
This is a fascinating study of the amazing men who founded our country. We all know the basic outlines of their stories, but those of us who can't stop reading about them also know that each new book reveals something new, or discovers a lode not yet fully mined, or treats the subject from a slightly different perspective. Wood gives us the usual suspects, but his approach is to analyze each of their characters with a view to understanding how their personal gifts and foibles gave rise to their prominence in the forming of the new nation.

We frequently hear that Washington's refusal to run again after his second term was a turning point that set the nation on the course of true adherence to the rule of law and not of men, but Wood makes the same case for an earlier moment: when Washington handed his sword to Congress after the war. This act was virtually unprecedented--it was more or less accepted that a winning general would seize his country's leadership. Wood explores this kind of thing with each of the country's founders.

An important concept I grasped while reading this book is the organic nature of our republic. We tend to think that there was a period in the country's infancy--a few years, or the first few administrations--when it was as perfect an institution as possible. What didn't exist then, in that ideal moment, was the erosion that has set in over the years--the sniping between the parties, the pork, the reliance on polls over principles. In fact it's never been perfect, and shameful moments have been succeeded by shining ones. The glory of America is that we have that ideal always before us, that we are forever trying to achieve a "more perfect union." Our ambition is so bold because of the civility and intelligence of the founders.

This is not an academic treatise--Wood's writing is clear, concise, and accessible. Thet's not to say the book isn't educational in the best sense of the word: it explains big ideas, provokes further thought and reading, and inspires intellectual curiosity.

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford, by Julia Fox
I don't know whether it's Shakespeare, or George Bernard Shaw, or Winston Churchill, or Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton in "Beckett," or Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn in "The Lion in Winter," or the countless historical mysteries I devour, but I love British history. And one of the richest periods in terms of dramatic events and compelling characters is the one Julia Fox writes about here.

Jane Boleyn was not Anne Boleyn's sister, but her sister-in-law, married to Anne's brother. Her life is an abject lesson in the perils of proximity to power. Born into the aristocracy herself, the daughter of a lord, Jane was familiar with the world of the privileged and with the stresses that accompanied it. She was expected to marry well, and she did--the progeny of Thomas Boleyn were considered good matches because of his closeness to the King. Women of the highest rank were brought into the royal household to serve as ladies-in-waiting to the Queen, and Jane was already ensconced there serving Catherine of Aragon when the fireworks started over her flirtatious sister-in-law.

Despite her relation to the mercurial Anne, Jane came through the controversy basically unscathed, with her head still attached. Though banished for a brief period, she came back to serve as lady-in-waiting to the next two queens, Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves. It was her misfortune to be there when the immature Kathryn Howard married the King.

What could Jane do when asked to serve as go-between for Kathryn and her young lover? If she refused, she could be dismissed and disgraced on a trumped up charge. If she assented and was caught, she would be put to death as a traitor. Jane made her choice, passed letters arranging trysts, and paid with her life.

I like this book because it tells a well-known story from the point of view of someone who is usually relegated to minor status, and gives insight into the real dangers lying in wait for those in the royal household.

Fox has done her research, and her knowledge and love of the period shine through this gripping tale of intrigue and betrayal.

The Radioactive Boy Scout, by Ken Silverstein
The terrifying sub-title of this book is "The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor." Yes. In 1995, a 17-year-old in Michigan built a nuclear reactor that had to be dismantled by a federal EPA crew in hazmat suits, after they had evacuated the neighborhood.

David Hahn was a troubled boy, emotionally neglected by his divorced parents. His closest relationship was with his grandfather, who gave him, when he was in elementary school, the "Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments." A spark was ignited, and his curiosity led over the years to more and more complicated experiments. He was intelligent in an unconventional way--he did poorly in school except in science, and consequently his teachers ignored him rather than fostering or channeling his obvious enthusiasm for all aspects of the subject in which he excelled. They should have been suspicious: he had already earned an Atomic Energy boy scout badge, and his classmates called him "Glow Boy."

Shifting back and forth between his parents' households, he was able to hide a lot of his dubious activity. Perhaps the most amazing and frightening part of his obsession was the ease with which he conned scientists and corporations into sending him samples of dangerous materials. By the time his home-made breeder reactor was discovered, his parents' homes and he himself were highly radioactive.

Hahn graduated from high school and enlisted in the Navy, but when he got out he continued experimenting and was arrested in 2007 for stealing and hoarding smoke detectors, a source of americium. Look up his mug shot on the internet and see the effects long-term exposure has had on his face.

Silverstein tells this story at a brisk pace, and along the way manages to teach the reader quite a bit about the history and science of atomic and nuclear energy. This is a really fascinating book, but worrisome. Parents, teachers, and the corporate and scientific communities demonstrated a cluelessness and an irresponsibly casual attitude toward David Hahn's atomic fixation.

What, really, are those kids next door to YOU up to?

Rah Rah Rahm

I'd better admit this from the start: I'm a Rahn Emanuel groupie. I liked him when he was part of the Clinton Administration, and even more when he asserted himself as a Congressman and led that Democratic comeback in 2006. Then I saw him with his equally impressive brothers on Charlie Rose, and it was all over.

Why do I like him so much? First, because he's smart. Second, he's a wily politician with a knack for achieving his goals rather than just blathering on about them and making up excuses for failure. Third, I think he really wants to do good, to make policy that helps ordinary, middle class people and those in the forgotten underclass, who so need a champion. Fourth--and most important, in my current mood--he won't take any guff. (Source for "guff:" eighth grade teacher Sister Mary Alfreda, as in, "Sit there and study the map until you can name the state capitals, and don't give me any of your guff!")

My sister feels the same way about her New York Senator, Chuck Schumer. He's tenacious, she tells me, and won't let the Republican right-wingers push him around. And he takes care of New York. He doesn't back down just because people throw around phrases that seem to paralyze other Democrats, like "east coast intelligentsia," and "do-gooder liberal." Right now she's hoping that he won't let the NFL take her beloved Bills away from Buffalo without a fight.

Rahm strikes me as a take-no-prisoners kind of guy. I believe he won't get distracted from the new Administration's agenda to fight about silly things like the culture wars when the problems we face are so dire.

Earlier in this blog I expressed my hope that President-Elect Obama would demonstrate good judgment in appointing people to positions of power. Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Leon Panetta--wow. My hopes are soaring.

But really, Mr. Obama, the truth is: you had me at Rahm.

The Farrell Review of Fiction Read 2008

North River, by Pete Hamill
This was the best fiction I read last year. I first came to appreciate Hamill's creative and narrative gifts when I read "Snow in August," and here he proves again his talent for making a time and place live in the reader's imagination. In 1930's New York, an Irish-American doctor, abandoned by his depressed wife, discovers that his estranged daughter has left his baby grandson in his care. He hires an Italian immigrant woman as nanny, and goes about his rounds, attending to the physical and emotional needs of his working class neighborhood by the North River, haunted all the while by questions surrounding his wife's disappearance: has she run away, or has she committed suicide?
The fantastic miracle in "Snow in August" is not repeated here. The miracle in "North River" is of the more common variety: as life goes on, bonds grow among the doctor, the nanny, and the baby boy, creating a family nurtured by love and the sacred ordinary.
Although this story could essentially be set anywhere, anytime, Hamill's evocative prose makes the reader believe, and fervently wish, that it really all happened then, in the 1930's, and there, by the North River in New York City.


The Spies of Warsaw, by Alan Furst
Furst writes a wonderful series set in World War II and the years leading up to it. There are no recurring characters, but the theme is the same: ordinary people are thrust into circumstances requiring heroic choices that endanger their lives. In this novel, it is the winter and spring of 1938, and a French officer, a decorated veteran of the First World War, is assigned to the French embassy in Warsaw, where he and his counterparts in other nation's embassies spy on each other and especially the Germans. He is confronted with the plight of a Jewish married couple, delegates from Russia, who have been called home to certain death in one of Stalin's infamous purges. He runs a dangerous operation to get them safely to Paris. Just fifteen months later, of course, the Nazis overran Poland, and the reader cannot help but wonder what happened to the people in this story. But that's the poignancy of each of Furst's novels: there are no epilogs, just characters living in their time, doing what they can to prevent or disrupt a Nazi hegemony over Europe.


Death Comes for the Fat Man, by Reginald Hill
Nobody, but nobody, writes as well as Hill. This is the British mystery series featuring Andy Dalziel, the obnoxious and overbearing and, somehow, lovable Superintendant, and his sidekick, the more refined and educated Peter Pascoe. Andy has been severely wounded in a terrorist bombing, and hovers dramatically and hilariously between life and death throughout the story, while Peter must investigate and discover the villains. Hill's mysteries are intriguingly plotted, but that's not really the point. The enjoyment for this reader is the delicious use of language, the fun that Hill has with vocabulary and wordplay. English is his instrument, and he plays it like Yo Yo Ma at the cello. Prodigiously.


The Last Temptation; The Mermaid's Singing; The Torment of Others; The Wire in the Blood, by Val McDermid
It doesn't often happen that one discovers an author by seeing a movie or television series; it's usually the other way around. But last spring I began watching the two-hour episodes under the series title, "Wire in the Blood," on the BBC Channel. I was hooked by the first one I saw, noticed in the credits that the series is based on books by Val McDermid, and simply had to read her. These are psychological thriller mysteries, and not for the faint of heart. Dr. Tony Hill (played by Robson Green in the series--curiously attractive!), is a psychological profiler attached to the Bradford CID in northern England. He and his team pursue deviously clever, but seriously deranged, serial killers. Hill's disadvantage is that many of the rank and file are skeptical of his specialty; his dubious advantage is that he can put himself into the mind of his prey, forming an empathetic bond that inflicts a terrible mental torture.
I realized that I came into the television series in the 4th or 5th season, so I'm now frantically looking for the earlier ones I missed. Thank the library gods for ILL!


The Painter of Battles, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Perez-Reverte is probably more famous for his delightful series featuring the daring escapades of 16th century Captain Alatriste. This book is set in present day. A solitary man lives in a tower high above the Spanish coast. There, he is painting a mural around the inner circular wall: a mural depicting the horrors of wars throughout history. This painting emphasizes the brutality of death, not the glory of battles and famous heroes. A disaffected war photographer, he has profited from a series of books featuring his photos. Haunted by the wartime death of his colleague and lover, he paints to exorcize the demons that possess him, especially his memories--in Africa, the Middle East, and Serbia--of getting the picture rather than saving a life. A Croatian man who was the subject of one of his most famous, prize-winning photos, has stalked him to confront him with this question: "How did the photograph change your life?" It has obviously affected this man's life--tracked down by the Serbs, he was tortured and left with no family or country. He tells the painter that he has come to kill him. Their subsequent conversations, their subtle dance of thrust and parry, of accusation and acceptance, are deeply unsettling.


Careless in Red, by Elizabeth George
I've been a faithful reader of George's Thomas Lynley mysteries over the years, but lately she has really strained my loyalty. The first books were fascinating, tightly-plotted puzzles, with interesting back stories for the main characters. I eagerly followed the developments in their lives as much as I followed the mysteries. About four books ago, I began to feel uncomfortable at the level of angst experienced by each main character, and at what I perceived to be the secondary role of the mystery in each book.
I realize that "too much sunshine makes a desert," but isn't the reverse also true? There is no let-up to the agony. It seems to me that drama--even tragic drama--is enhanced by lighter, comedic moments. Here we have Tommy, desperately trying to cope with a tragic loss, walking the coast of Cornwall in an effort to numb his pain. He finds a body on the beach and gets drawn against his will back into detection. I figured out pretty quickly "whodunit," but worse, I didn't care. There is not one likeable character in this book, always excepting Tommy's partner Barbara Havers; they snarl and snipe at each other, and suffer--I almost wrote "untold," but that's the problem, it's told to excess--psychological and emotional problems, and we're treated to all their inner thoughts as they work through them. George has a sense of humor; every now and then she lets a character get in a zinger. But this series has descended into bathos, and now is little more than a novelistic soap opera. Only great reviews will entice me to read the next installment.


Next: non-fiction read in 2008.

Doing the Typo Tango

I'm back after a long hiatus, forced upon me by a computer that--well, it didn't crash, but it didn't work, and the problem is too complicated and, really, too boring for me to spend time here attempting to describe it.

I now have a laptop hooked up through the cable connection, and have spent the last couple of weeks trying to adapt to the keyboard. I suppose practice will increase my comfort level, but in the meantime the typos are flying.

Once, while writing a recommendation for a friend, I thought I'd see how well I could touch-type--not once looking at the keyboard. The results were hilarious, with coinages such as "cherful personalitu" becoming catchphrases between my friend and me.

But I must post--as usual, I have much to say. I think I'll catch the typos, but if some slip through, I hope the reader will accept them with a cherful personalitu.

Happy New Year.

Macavity

"Stand back! Let me handle this." He moved forward assertively.

"No!" I cried. "You don't know about these things. You'll get hurt!"

"Don't be scared," he said. "I'll have this taken care of in no time. Look, it's just a flitty little thing. Lots of fun to play with." He jumped up and batted at it. It buzzed at the screen and swooped down at my hero, who promptly scampered behind the couch.

"It's a hornet, you see, Macavity. They sting."

His head popped out from the corner of the couch. "You won't let him get me, will you?"

This is what I love about Macavity. He's a take-charge kind of cat, but he's not afraid to show his vulnerabilities. And he doesn't see or acknowledge any contradictions in his reactions to changing circumstances.

What am I doing with a cat? I'm not, or so I once thought, a cat person. A little over ten years ago, I happened to be walking through the library when I overheard Paulette say to Cyndi, "And if we can't find anyone to take him, we'll have to take him to the pound." I could have just shrugged and moved on. Why didn't I? Too late to ponder "what might have been" now.

I stopped and asked. Paulette explained that her husband had discovered a mother with her litter living in the wood pile in their backyard. They had been bringing plates of food out, but a few days later the family had disappeared--except for one little ginger and white head poking out from the wood pile. Paulette's cat had feline AIDS, so they couldn't bring the kitten inside. They kept feeding it in the backyard, but the weather was turning colder, so they knew they had to find a home for him or take him to the pound.

The impulse erupted--I have no rational explanation. Bring him in, I said, and introduce us, and I'll take him home and try to live with him. I spent the next few days scurrying around buying litter and kitten food, and Paulette said she'd lend me her carrier until I got one.

Not at all sure this would work, I told Paulette if it didn't work out I'd find him a home--my step-daughter runs her own personal rescue league and will take all strays. She married a man of similar sensibilties, and now they and my two grandchildren have a dog, three or four cats, a gecko, and some other amphibian thingy.

The morning Paulette brought the kitten into the library I was quite nervous--animals pick up on all sorts of feelings, I'd heard, and he would sniff out my reluctance and uncertainty. Not to worry! He had the situation well in hand. He greeted me with a purr that sounded like an over-flying jet, sniffed and batted at my hand, and gave me that wide-eyed, I'm-so-frightened-won't-you-help-me kitten look.

Thus conquered, I took him home, where he easily established himself as Lord of All He Surveyed. He loves to supervise my work, especially the changing of the sheets, which ripple invitingly when they're shaken out.

His behavior is quite admirable: He's prudently wary, approaching anything unfamiliar with caution. He won't be coaxed into doing something he doesn't want to do, and guilt is a foreign concept to him. He expresses his needs openly and without manipulation, making it plain that he wants to cuddle, be petted, or play.

I often wonder what happened to the rest of that litter. The mother abandoned him, the vet told me, because she judged that he was least likely to survive. Ten years and going strong. The twist of fate that brought him into my life was not a cruel one--it saved him, and gave me an endlessly entertaining companion.

Having read this (he really is precocious), he tells me to write not "companion," but "friend." Then he commands me to get away from that computer and take up my book, so he can settle comfortably in my lap.

Be right there, Macavity my friend.