Reading Lolita in Tehran. By Azar Nafisi

There was a faded receipt left in the book, a few pages from the beginning. I couldn't read it all, but read this much: it was purchased new from a shop in San Francisco on August 16, 2004. The buyer paid $12.08 for it. Somehow the book found its way from SF to Jackson, New Jersey and eventually to me. It may be that I am the first to have actually read it.

I read about this book in various places when it first came out. It got good reviews yet I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to read it, although right now I am not sure why not. But when I had the chance to check it out I took it. Obviously it was not high on my list or I would have read it before now.

 The author is a professor of English literature, originally from Iran. She left with her family for the U.S. when she was 13 and returned thirteen years later. She arrived at a tumultuous time in Iran, during the time that Iran was changed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, hard-line religious fundamentalist.

While Nafisi was teaching at the University of Tehran, the laws gradually tightened around the populace, especially the women. While men were permitted to have more than one wife, including several "temporary" wives, women were required to be covered whenever in public, be accompanied by a male relative in many places, and whenever a couple had a child and then split up, the child automatically was given to the male.Women could not wear makeup or allow their hair to be seen.

And that was the least of it. There were arrests, imprisonment, and executions every day. A woman could be arrested for being too attractive, and what awaited her in prison can be imagined. One way that Nafisi found to deal with the restrictions was through English literature, possibly her greatest love. She taught classes on the great English writers, including Nabokov, Bellow, Austen, and others. She tried to reach her students through fiction, conveying how a fictional story can make you think and even break down prejudices and preconceptions.

Her students were not used to frank discussion and offering their own opinions.Some of them were "revolutionaries", dedicated to the current regime and distrustful of the characters in fiction, especially where morals were concerned. Nafisi refused to bow to the preferences of this type student by blacking out words like "sex", that might offend them. She insisted that fiction must be taken for what it is, and for where it comes from, and cannot be modified to suit one's religious beliefs. It became increasingly more difficult to teach during these times, with interruptions, bombings, students leaving for demonstrations or to join the army, and eventually Nafisi left the university.

Some years later, in 1995, she quietly formed a small class that met in her home, comprised of only women who were specifically invited to attend. These were young women who had showed a real interest (even passion) in literature and a mind capable of getting something from it. These weekly meetings became more than a class; they also revealed much about the students as well as about Nafisi herself. It was here that they discussed Nabokov's Lolita, among other masterworks. And related them to present-day Iran and the lives of women there. Nafisi is compelled to teach. She used this book as a means to reach us as well, to demonstrate what it means to discuss a work of literature. Thus we find out how she read Lolita, and Austen, and others.

Her view of Lolita is that it is the story of a dreadful pedophile who uses and destroys a 12-year-old girl. She feels for the girl, and not at all for Humbert Humbert. Her views are so damning that I was disturbed by them. I read Lolita several years ago and thought it was amazing. I had not expected to like the story of a middle-aged man with a 12-year-old girl. I was amazed that I developed sympathy for Humbert, even while I could not condone what he was doing. I also felt that Lolita was not a simple victim, but a strong character in her own right. That, of course, does not make it right that Humbert should have taken advantage of her. Still, to me, it makes the story remarkable in a different way from how Nafisi saw it. After reading her treatise on the subject I thought maybe I should read it again, but I didn't look forward to it (I rarely reread even my favorite books). My decision was to order a copy of the audio book. I will be able to listen to it while out and about and think while driving.

An interesting and rather odd part of this tale is the part of "the magician". Nafisi refers to this man this way, not because he performs typical tricks, but because he has a gift for helping others with their lives. Not a therapist but an insightful man who gives of himself while never wanting anything in return. Somehow Nafisi learns of him and during a bleak time in her life she calls him up and asks to see him. Thus forms a bond, at least on her side. The magician always is polite and kind. Offers a rare treat - chocolates - and tea, and listens. Makes comments. Helps her to see herself differently, and ultimately helps her develop "a plan". This is the type person I suspect most of us would dearly love to have in our lives: someone who just listens to us, knows us, understands us. There is nothing we want more than to be understood. Did he really exist? Nafisi poses the question later, but of course we aren't meant to take it seriously.

The story gives us an inside view of Iran during those difficult years (not that today life is a picnic there, but it is improving in some ways), into the effect of forced religious law (often having the effect of driving people away from their beliefs rather than the contrary), into the intimate lives of young muslim women, not allowed to express love except for their country's leader. The story also gives us insight into serious reading, really dissecting and thinking about great literature. I expect it would be a pleasure to be in classes like these, for those of us who value well-written words. It's a valuable book for these reasons. But I didn't love it. I couldn't get close to Nafisi. I felt she was pouring it on at times, telling rather than showing, and even making excuses for her lack of action during the revolutionary times. More than once, though, she points out that "we are responsible" for putting these people in office. But I wonder. How much power does one really have in a situation where dissent can lead to death? For whatever reason I did not warm to her. I also was confused by her way of jumping back and forth in time. Near the end she refers to the several years the group met at her house, yet it was only two years. I had to track down the dates to put it together. In spite of my misgivings I still came away with a new way of seeing, and that is what makes a good book.

Cheever: A Life. By Blake Bailey

I have read many of Cheever's short stories and I may have read a book or two as well - but am not sure about that. His stories are usually engaging and sometimes brilliant, but I did form the opinion that he was a misogynist. In his stories he always seems to be creating unsympathetic women, and men who are caught in their webs. I was curious about his own life. And it all became clear here. He did have problems with women. He also had severe long-term problems with alcohol. He appeared to have been self-absorbed, selfish, often thoughtless. Yet many thought of him as kind and fun to be around as well.

He was hard-working but had trouble keeping the wolves from the door. Selling short stories, of course, is rarely if ever as lucrative as selling a novel. Thus he worked hard on the few books that he did write. It took him many years for the first one, and every one was very difficult for him. He excelled at writing the short stories but not so much at the novels. Some writers are just made to create the little jewels, which honestly would be enough in this case.

One theme that was in much of his work, if not always immediately apparent, was his frustration with his sexual orientation. He was bisexual but did not admit it, and even when having sex with another man he would not admit how many such affairs he'd had over the years. I suspect that he told the same lies to himself, to be fair. Learning about this part of him illuminates a great deal that may have seemed incomprehensible in his work. Certainly I am just as much an admirer as I was before. I never hold a writer's flaws or predilections against him.

I do hope that this biography is bringing a whole new set of readers to Cheever. 

There Is No Me Without You, by Melissa Faye Greene

Greene brings home the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia in this book, by making it personal. She doesn't spare us the statistics, which are too large to be comprehensible, but she intertwines the numbers with the names. A small sample of names, drawn mostly from the orphanage created by one woman, Haregewoin Teferra.

Haregewoin is already on the wrong side of middle age when she loses her grown daughter, one of only two. She has known grief before, with the loss of her husband, and the loss of her daughter drags her down to an unrecognizable state. So when she is approached by a Catholic organization to take in and foster a couple of AIDS orphans, she initially can't see why she would do such a thing. But then she realizes that the priest is handing her a lifeline, bringing more children into her life when she desperately needs them. From then, she can't say no.

She takes children into her little compound, comprised of a small brick house and some metal shipping containers, surrounded by a wall. A day hardly passes when there isn't somebody at the door with another child. And Haregewoin has enough love for them all. For she is that rare person who loves deeply, who touches everyone with that love. For some time she survives with help from her other daughter Suzie (sending part of her paycheck), from donations from other friends, and from whatever she can dig up. When she is approached by an organization to adopt out some of her children, she moves into a different stage financially.

She begins to obtain more funding and more children, and is able to secure better accommodations. But money continues to cause her distress and soon the number of children has become so large that she no longer recognizes each by name. Through this detailed description of Haregewoin's life and work with orphans we learn that "even saints aren't saints", that having a passion for children is not enough.

We learn, too, how it is that millions in Africa have simply been written off because drug companies are unwilling to allow them access to effective AIDS drugs at reasonable cost and how politicians unfortunately back the drug companies. In other words, the AIDS crisis in Africa is as much a tale of greed as anything else.

Surprisingly, at least to me, it appears that the genesis of AIDS and its later spread have had nothing to do with sex. There is a lot of information in this book. There is also a touching story of one woman, along with brief stories of many of the orphans she saved. It is therefore highly readable and a way to bring some perspective to a problem so huge our minds can't comprehend it.

My Lobotomy: A Memoir, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming

I expected to like this book. I have done a great deal of reading about mental illness and the horrors that pass as cures, including lobotomy. Seeing lobotomy from the patient’s perspective is a rarity.

The story is certainly compelling. The telling of it is not. I suspect that a combination of the natural talents of Howard Dully and his co-writer, along with the effects of the lobotomy, is why the book is not all it could be. The book is unnecessarily repetitious, which takes away a lot of its power. Much of it is also infused with an adolescent point of view. I had the disturbing feeling that Howard Dully is a 50-something teenager. Or perhaps now a young adult.

I have heard that alcoholics tend to be stuck chronologically where they first became alcoholics. So if they were teens, that’s where they stay until such time as they burst free of the addiction, insofar as one can. It seems to me that the same might be said for this particular lobotomy. It was performed on Howard as a 12-year-old and his thoughts and actions for years afterwards mirror the feelings and impressions of a 12-year-old.

I became impatient with the explanations. Howard, as a young teen in Agnews, the mental hospital, did not know when he would get out. His reaction, therefore, was to “have fun”. Because he did not know nor was he able to control his future, he felt his only option was to have fun. This attitude, along with the lack of any real training for the real world, is what got him into trouble year after year. It also was the reason I had trouble liking Howard as I listened to this CD version of the book.

He recognizes, late in the book, that it was the lack of preparation for work or life outside that got him in trouble so often. Is this a common experience for people in similar situations? Those who are young and placed in mental institutions for a relatively short time? It seems an astounding lack of foresight on the part of the caretakers. How can you expect somebody to do well on the outside without the necessary skills? Even in prison inmates get an opportunity to train for some work.

The part of the book that is especially disturbing is the treatment of Howard by his stepmother Lou. The unfortunate combination of a distant father (emotionally), who does not share significant information or thoughts with his son, and a distrusting, disapproving stepmother who singled Howard out, was bound to have a significant effect on Howard’s behavior as a young child. He was beaten daily by either or both parents, he was not told of his real mother’s death when it happened (she just “left”), and it seemed to make no difference what he did. It makes sense that he acted out, that he rebelled, he made good on what his parents accused him of. When Lou took it upon herself to press for the lobotomy, Howard had nobody in his corner.

As I listened to the CDs I was also affected by the manner in which the book was read. It is not read by Howard, but by a skilled reader, who reads an attitude into the words. I was not fond of the way he read it and wondered if I would feel differently about the book if I had read the paper version. Therefore, I sought out information online, and especially looked for the NPR program featuring Howard. It was easy to find: NPR program

In this radio program we get to hear Howard narrate and talk to lobotomy experts and others affected by lobotomy. We get to hear the real Howard speak. His voice has almost a monotone quality to it, which is something I might expect of a person who has undergone a lobotomy. When he is emotionally caught up we can tell by the hesitation and difficulty speaking, so his delivery is not actually “flat”. I wonder if I would have liked the book better if it had been actually read by Howard. I think it’s possible, because it would have felt more real.

I am glad I had the opportunity to listen to this book, which I had not even heard of before I saw it on the list of books in a virtual book box through bookcrossing. It gave me a lot to think about. I do wish it had been more skillfully written, yet it is hard to see how it could have been done without changing the character of Howard Dully.

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

I was in elementary school when this classic was published, several years after Kerouac finished the first draft. That first draft was one long scroll (120 feet long, all one paragraph, all taped together so Kerouac could type without stopping to change paper), which has only recently been printed in its entirety. The version that Kerouac saw in print, though, is what Matt Dillon reads on this CD edition. I had not read it before and I was pleased to find it in time to listen to it on a short road trip of my own.

This official version was edited to remove the more sexually explicit passages, but it still reveals Kerouac's comfort with minorities and subcultures, an unusual position at the time.

On the Road conjures up visions of a free and easy lifestyle, rich in drugs, women, song, and adventure. Many others have gone on the road since Kerouac and his friend Neal Cassady, perhaps inspired by his tale. If so, I am not entirely sure why.

Yes, the road trips - there are several of them in this tale - do involve drugs, women, song, adventure. Certainly Kerouac appears to enjoy many of these adventures. But that enjoyment at times seems forced, as if he feels he should paint it all with a broad brush of crazy good times. Leaking through and finding a stronger voice as the trips go on is Jack's real goal: to find a woman to love, to marry, to settle down, to be a responsible adult. What also comes through in spite of some fairly wild exploits is his fundamental humanity, his compassion for others. I couldn't help liking him, in contrast to some of his friends.

It's easy to see how this lengthy confessional journey led to "gonzo journalism", a more personal point of view, and to today's public blogs.

Matt Dillon recorded the tale in a voice that seems to be not impressed with itself. It's almost flat, uninterested, trying to get the story out there and letting it fall where it may. By contrast, whenever Dillon speaks as Cassady ("Dean Moriarty" in this edition) he affects a voice that has years of drinking and playing around in it. While the voice is at times hilarious, I found it difficult to connect that raw voice to a very young man. It seemed at least forty years old to me. At times I wanted more from the Kerouac voice and perhaps a bit less from Cassady's.

A Wolf at the Table, by Augusten Burroughs

I bought the CD version of this book because it looked interesting. I had not read anything else by Burroughs, and I understand this is a departure. The book is read by the author, which seemed a good thing.

I am not sure about that last at this point. Burroughs has recorded his other books as well, on CD, in his "normal voice", according to him. In interviews with him and at the end of this edition, he talks about how he wanted this one to be different. He doesn't talk about his voice, but instead about the music interweaved throughout. He asked several contemporary musician friends to read the book and to write something based on it, and they did. So we are treated to original music along with the words. Good music, worth hearing.

To me there isn't anything earthshaking about adding music to an audio book. It is done all the time. Clearly most of the time the music is not written specifically for the book, of course.

What is striking is Burroughs manner of speaking. He speaks carefully, enunciating every word, and he has a habit of reading with this pattern:

[In a low, almost flat, yet intense voice, each word carefully pronounced] He stood [pause] waiting in the doorway [pause] for my eyes [pause] to meet his ["his" emphasized]. For a taste of the reading style, watch and listen to this excerpt on Amazon.

His habit of enunciating every sound, as if every word was precious and could not be let go without a fight, made me, at times, mad with frustration. "Get on with it!" I yelled, flailing my free hand at the CD player in my car. His manner of speaking overpowered the story itself so much that I had trouble deciding if I liked it.

I think I liked it.

It is a memoir about Burroughs's father, a cruel, insidiously cruel man. A man so wrapped up in his own world and so oblivious to the needs of others that he let a horrible disease build up in the family dog, never willing to take it to the vet. A man so frugal he could not abide the purchasing of small treats for his son - or, obviously, the visit to the veterinarian so badly needed. A man who clearly is disgusted by this son who appears more like a girl than a boy. A man capable of subtle threats. A man who plays games.

Listening to it at times made me cringe. At one point I even skipped a small section because the horror was beyond what I wanted to bear.

Perhaps it's a testament to the resilience of children, but I am happy to report that it isn't all smiles at the end. This kind of childhood is going to leave marks. And as is so often the case with abusive parents, the child is left clinging to a need for approval that he will never get.

Worth reading, I suspect, more than listening.

Lucky, by Alice Sebold

The story of Alice Sebold's rape, which happened when she was just finishing her first year in college. The rape was brutal, committed by a stranger, and 18-year-old Alice was a virgin.

Unlike many rape victims, Alice did not place blame on herself. She also wanted to talk about it - but often could not. Starting at the police department, where she made her report, she was faced with people who did not want the whole story, did not want the details.

Alice wanted the rapist caught and it did not occur to her to let the case go. Thus she took the stand at his trial and again told all.

This story is not just the story of the rape, of course. It is about Alice, about her family, about her life before and after. Her story is often funny in an offhand way and Alice comes across not only as a strong young woman but an interesting, perceptive one with various chips on her shoulder. The perfect person to write the story, in fact.

Her best-selling novel, The Lovely Bones, was written after Lucky but was started before. The two are dissimilar in style and one rape does not resemble the other. Nevertheless, the essence of rape lies in each. Both tell us something about what it does to many lives when one person is raped.

Eleni, by Nicholas Gage

An extraordinary blend of investigative reporting and imagination, originally printed in 1983. Nicholas Gage, who emigrated at the age of nine to America from Greece in 1949, was haunted by his mother's death. His mother, Eleni, was tried and executed in his little mountain village in 1948, by communist guerrillas, who controlled the village during the civil war there.

Gage wanted to know who was really responsible for his mother's death. True to his heritage, as an adult he set out to revenge her death, but his background in investigative journalism led him to seek out the truth first.

In this massive tale, over 600 pages in the cheap paperback edition I bought, Gage begins at the beginning and relentlessly takes us on every road, into every conversation, through the relatively good times and into the horrific, that holds a part of his mother. He sketches her early years and marriage, giving us a glimpse of her husband Christo, who sought his fortune in the United States, returning periodically to be with his wife but who believed it better to keep her in Greece, living the "old ways" while he lived the new. From 1940, when the communist and fascist guerrilla groups were gaining ground in Greece, until her death in 1948, Eleni lived a life of increasing hardship. She had come from a family of privilege and her husband had sent her money for her support while he was gone, but in 1940 the mail was cut off and she no longer had any support or any word from him.

Life in the mountain village of Lia was hardly a cakewalk in the best of times. The culture demanded that women follow strict standards of dress and behavior, much as fundamentalist Muslim women do now. Women were raised to obey the men in their lives, to make no decisions on their own.

It was just this fact that eventually led to Eleni's death. When she first had a chance to get out of Lia she did not take it because her husband, in his last letter to her, had said the guerrillas were their friends and they would not hurt her. She could not disobey him. Later, though, she saw that her fate and that of her children demanded that she make a different decision.

She engineered an escape, revealing a raw courage that belied her cultural background. Other women who joined the escape band were less secure, unsure of what to do or how to manage without direct orders from men. Eleni was unable to join the group ultimately, but gave her children directions to avoid detection by guerrillas when they slipped away. The escape shocked the village and the guerrilla government decided somebody had to pay.

Gage doesn't spare many details. His story reads like fiction, with characters, words, and thoughts fleshed out. Intermittently he inserts first-person narratives, reminding us that it isn't fiction. The blend reminds me a bit of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Mailer's The Executioner's Song, but Gage has a more personal relationship with his main character and this relationship is what drives the tale. The quality of the re-creation isn't as literary as the other two works but it's far beyond hackwork.

While the story is clearly about Eleni it also gives us a good picture of life in the mountain villages in Greece at the time. It also helped me to see how a civil war like this one can pit neighbor against neighbor, with horrifying consequences. Yet at the heart of it I was surprised to find that most of the villagers did not succumb to greed when it would have been easy, did not choose to speak against others to gain privileges for themselves. Certainly some did these things, but their characters had been evident before the guerrillas moved in. It is easy to become irritated at the superstitions, the cultural norms, the ignorance at the heart of village life. Yet the innate strength of many of the same people is impressive. Perhaps living in a village where everyone knows everyone else's secrets does make for stronger bonds.

Knowing the end ahead of time made the reading hard-going for me at times. I had nightmares two nights in a row, about executions. I couldn't wait to get through the details, details, details, and past the death itself. When it came it didn't hit me like a fist in my stomach as I had anticipated. I was relieved. An extra treat for me, having made it that far, was the wrapping up, the resolution of Gage's hunt for revenge. Riveting reading, all the way through.

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

A memoir about a family living on the edge, deliberately.

Walls is born to parents who are highly intelligent and creative but whose own presumably (and suggested) dark pasts make them both junkies for excitement and change. Thus they live from hand to mouth, rarely staying in one place longer than a couple of months, for the early part of Jeanette's childhood. Jeanette's father is an alcoholic who isn't able to keep a job but who has big dreams as well as big smarts. He manages to keep their various vehicles alive one way or another, devises engineering feats where necessary, teaches his children about the stars, about physics, about math, proudly pushes them (literally) into the water where they must sink or swim.

Her mother wraps herself into her own creative ventures, painting, writing, sketching, and is usually ready when the family has to "skedaddle" in the middle of the night. Neither parent worries about the health of their children, living by the maxim that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. On this front it appears that her mother is the tougher of the two in some respects.

By the time Jeanette and her family move into Welch, Virginia, her father's childhood home, she certainly can take care of herself. She worships her father yet recognizes that he has failed her time and again. All of the children - Lori, Jeanette, Brian, and Maureen - somehow manage to find food, stay clothed, and go to school, and even excel. They don't make friends easily, finding that even in this "okie" territory they are outcasts, dirtier, skinnier, and tougher than the rest.

It's a memoir of a tough life that at times seemed wondrous to Jeanette. Being given a star for her birthday. Sleeping in a cardboard appliance box. Being encouraged to challenge life rather than be challenged by it. Thus it is more than a sad tale of children of an alcoholic, even though those of us who share that distinction are going to recognize some of the responses. It is more a tale of resilience and hope and ultimately simply acceptance.

The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, by Jon Katz

The reviewer comments on the back cover of this book say “An inspiring portrait of the human-animal bond...”. “Funny, touching, and insightful...”. “Rewarding memoir...”. I might have said as much about other books on humans and animals, but not this one.

Jon Katz tells us straight out that his goal in taking on the care of three border collies, a herd of sheep, and two donkeys is to better himself, to “become a better human being”. It's an admirable goal – but at what sacrifice? When does it seem a good idea to experiment on animals for your own so-called personal growth? What kind of growth is that really?

Obviously I am in a different camp from Katz. Long ago I concluded that there is no animal on this earth who is safe from humans. I also concluded that human destruction of much of the natural world means that some animals, including cats and dogs, no longer have a natural habitat, that in fact their natural habitat now is with us, in our homes. A corollary: it is our responsibility to care for homeless dogs and cats humanely (which does not mean killing them); we created this situation and we are responsible for them. I offer this paragraph as a disclosure that explains part of the reason I take issue with the way Katz approaches the animals he takes on.

Katz sells his mountain hideaway (the subject of previous books) and purchases a run-down farm in upper New York state. He brings his three dogs there and accepts delivery of 16 sheep and the first donkey. Later he travels to the farm of a self-described “donkey lady” and purchases another, younger donkey as companion for the first. He works with his dogs, trying to train them to herd the sheep, and he spends much of each day cleaning, repairing, doing the chores associated with this life. He also spends part of his day writing about it and appears to spend nearly 100% of his waking hours trying to figure it all out. By which I mean he sorts through his relationship with the different animals and comes to conclusions about himself, those animals, and other people and their animals. Forcing himself to be responsible for all of these animals is supposed to make him a better person.

What others have characterized as “introspection” I see as justification. Katz spends endless paragraphs justifying actions that he suspects others may see as wrong somehow. He tells us honestly what trainers have told him (that, for example, he needs to stop yelling at his dogs) and that he bemoans his failures as a human being, and then he obstinately reverts to pattern (keeps yelling at his dogs). It is as if he wants to become a better person but retain all of his prejudices and habits in the process.

Again and again he describes occasions when he has gone against the advice of people he trusts, only to find out that their advice was good. A trusted trainer said don't bring another puppy into the mix until you have resolved the issues with Homer. Katz wants a new puppy so he gets it anyway, only to find out after much work with all of the dogs that perhaps that wasn't such a swell idea. I can't help but conclude that he is going after what Jon wants rather than what the dogs want or need.

When Katz wants a new dog he heads for the breeder. He chooses a breed and a specific puppy for its characteristics. He wants a border collie to herd sheep. He wants a labrador for companionship. He snipes at those who frown on obtaining dogs from breeders with this argument: some people adopt babies but most of us want one of our own. Is that a fair comparison, though? The comparison fails on more than one level:

* When Katz goes to a breeder it's like he's going to an adoption agency, not “having his own”. He also deludes himself by assuming he can specify exactly the dog he wants. Even when you choose a puppy of a breed that tends to have certain characteristics, there is no guarantee that the puppy will grow up to be the dog you expect. Katz's own experiences with different border collies are testament to this variability in dogs. All dogs. (not to mention all people)

*Even the best breeders produce dogs that are “not acceptable”: dogs they can't sell. These dogs are a result of the breeding process. Even the champion dogs tend to have physical or mental issues that are genetic, a result of the breeding process. The best breeders will claim that they find homes for all of their dogs, whether or not they are “perfect”. But every time a breeder's dog goes out the door the people who take that dog do not instead take another dog that needs a home. Thus breeders contribute to pet overpopulation and contribute as well to the population of genetic misfits.

* Approximately 40% of the dogs in shelters are purebred dogs. Many breeder dogs do not come to good ends.

* Katz ignores statistics because he wants his own chosen dogs, not some “rescue”, even though he has rescued dogs in the past, from inappropriate homes. Therefore he justifies his decision.

When Katz takes out his rifle and shoots a feral cat it is at the end of many paragraphs explaining he never thought he'd ever shoot anything and his dogs were being attacked and he did not have a choice. Actually, he did have a choice, but it would have taken more work of the kind he chooses not to do. It would also have labeled him some kind of bleeding heart there in the country, and we can't have that. He desperately wants (maybe needs) approval from the old-time “real” farmers and ranchers. Katz is no lazy person. He simply makes his choices for his own comfort and supposed better-personhood rather than for animals.

Katz does come to the conclusion that he cannot provide the kind of home needed by his sweet Homer. After agonizing and justifying this decision – a justification not needed, believe me – he places Homer with a family that can give him what he needs. In this Katz has done the right thing. He wears the hair shirt, however, over and over expressing distress that it was his own bad training practices that complicated life for Homer and made it necessary for him to go to another home. Enough already. He protests too much.

I have come to the odd conclusion that perhaps Katz is not the dog person he says he is.

He would say he's not a “Dog Person” too, but his definition of “Dog Person” is not what I mean. He describes his sister and others he has met as dog persons, and what he means is people who actively rescue “unadoptable” dogs, who care for them with every last scrap of their incomes, who let them overrun their lives in every respect, shutting out people – except other “Dog People” who meet the same definition. This type dog person is a small subset of the whole, the dog people I know personally.

Katz is not afraid to reveal what he sees are the problems in his own personality: a lack of patience, a tendency toward anger, especially quick anger. He refers frequently to a childhood of chaos where he learned these ways of keeping other people at bay. He obviously truly wants to find and keep a genuine long-lasting closeness to those who matter to him, and does not want to continue to alienate friends and family with his bursts of anger or silence.

He finds his salvation in the animals. Through them he learns patience especially. Through them he harnesses his will toward the care of others. Through them he finds a connection to his sister that had been lost. Clearly this is the message of the book. Animal people will all tell you that animals change you, make you better than you were. I have no argument with that. What concerned me throughout this book was the total me-ness of it. It was always about Katz and what he wanted and needed from the animals. Even though he went on various trips to find out what the animals needed, the need of the donkey to find her “inner donkeyness”, for example, ultimately he did these things because they would make him a better person. There is something backwards about this approach that simply bothered me the whole time I read this book.

At the end of the book Katz is laying in supplies and readying the farm for another winter. We are expected to believe that he has found his place at last. I for one doubt it. It was good enough for one book but the adventure will not be enough for many more.

The Most Famous Man in America, by Debbie Applegate

The Most Famous Man in America: the biography of Henry Ward Beecher, is a comprehensive, exhaustive story of Beecher's life, written almost like a novel. The book introduces us to a vaguely familiar figure in American history and brings him to sparkling life, complete with a look at his famous family and the scandal that later almost destroyed him.

Henry Ward Beecher was one of Lyman Beecher's children, and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lyman became well-known as a preacher in his time, as a strict Calvinist, a believer in the old testament way of seeing God: vengeful, punishing. He was known for following his own strict code of ethics, but at home he was a loving, forgiving father.

Unlike many evangelical Christians today, he also believed strongly in education and questioning, encouraging all of his children to learn all they could. He wanted all of his sons to follow him into the ministry. Eventually, hesitantly, Henry did just that.

From childhood, though, Henry did not resemble his father. He was easy-going, optimistic, playful. He made others laugh. He developed a vague sense that Lyman's view of God didn't mesh with Lyman's own actions, and he puzzled over the twisted logic needed to follow Calvinist tenets.

Over time, as much for self-acceptance as for any other reason, he strayed from the Calvinist and developed a view focused more on Jesus and on love. At first he took little steps away from his childhood teachings but eventually just threw the whole thing away, embracing not only love and forgiveness but even finding a way to meld the Bible's teachings with the early concepts of evolution.

Henry was a terrific orator. He discovered this talent early in school and eventually this is what made him most famous. What really drew them in, though, was his warmth. Over the years, as crisis followed scandal, he tended to emerge with his head above water mostly because of this capacity. People liked him.

Henry's unique brand of religion was more palatable than the old-style version. People liked to hear that there was hope for them, that when they sinned they were just human. Above all, Henry believed and taught that it is "more important to do good than to be good."

It's clear from his life in this book that much of what he preached is what he wanted to hear himself. He was far from a saint. He overspent, went into debt constantly, enjoyed riches and good clothes, loved being with women. Later in life he even took up drinking (he did continue the church's teachings against drink, gambling,and prostitution throughout his life). Eventually his relationships with a few women led to a major scandal, bringing all of the pundits of the day well out in the open, destroying friendships, and sobering his effervescent personality.

Overshadowed by his large presence was sharp, questioning intellect. Beecher became friends with several of the so-called transcendentalists, and in fact brought much of that high-minded philosophy down to earth, where he himself practiced it. He was passionately interested in science and in the origin of man as a biological being.

It was his radical approach to religion that earns him his place in history, however. Most modern churches follow his practice, so much so that we forget Christianity has not always preached love and forgiveness.

The biography is a sympathetic yet not sycophantic telling of the story. It's clear that Applegate likes what she knows of Beecher (and she knows a lot: she started this book as a thesis at Amherst,where Beecher went to college, and the librarians there led her to thousands of treasures about and by Beecher) but she does not let it cloud her vision. She tells it as it is, careful to specify what is known absolutely and what is not.

As a bonus,the story encompasses a wade swath of early American history. A significant portion of the book tells the tale of slavery and abolition. It is easy, sometimes, from the distance of time, to imagine that it was a simple situation: slavery is bad and therefore must go. But of course it was not simple. Lincoln himself famously said that he was for the union and if that meant slavery had to stay then it would; if that meant slavery had to go it would. In other words, political expediency outflanked moral obligations then as well as now.

What made Harriet's book (Uncle Tom's Cabin) so famous is that she made slaves human. This had not been done before. Critics now can easily rail against her sentimental writing and characters but those critics weren't there then. She wasn't a great writer but she said what others did not.

Henry, too, leaned toward abolition. But he wavered again and again, primarily for his own political reasons. He was no sturdy oak of principle. He would sacrifice principles and people to protect himself. Yet still people loved him.

There was more to this extreme man than can possibly meet the eye today. This book helps us realize that and gives us an excellent picture of the times.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins

It is often the personal stories that tell the bigger truths. As with Barbara Ehrenreich's intensely personal Nickel and Dimed, Perkins' story illuminates a larger picture in a way that more scholarly treatises cannot match.

I value the perspective I get from Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson and many others who have written about our modern empire. None of these works, though, explains it from the ground up. Perkins does that.

In this book, written in spurts since the early 1980s, Perkins really does tell it like it is. This is the book I have been waiting for, the book that fills in the blanks left behind by the writers of global theories, the book that tells us how it really happens. It is one thing to read that the United States engineered ousters of democratically-elected leaders who did not do the bidding of our corporations. It is another to read of the actual steps that led to these actions. As one who likes to be able to visualize all the steps, I found great comfort in reading a well-written personal story that allows me to do this.

In this rightly-named confession, Perkins puts on his hair shirt and chastises himself as he explains how he gave in to temptation again and again over several decades, while he worked to build an American corporation's profits at the expense of third-world countries. He does not describe in detail the benefits he accrued from being Satan's handyman. We do not hear stories of his exploits with women, of his flaunting his power, the meat of a LifeTime movie. These fruits of his labor are glossed over in favor of greater descriptions of the occasional pangs of conscience.

Take it as a given, then, that Perkins was right for the job of economic hit man because he was so easily tempted by material wealth, power, and adulation. There was, in his character, though, a little hint of conscience. He was interested in the world's people, happy to learn other languages and ways of living, open to old as well as new ideas. Thus he was able to make a more honest comparison of the world according to global corporations and the world as seen and lived by indigenous people. And he was able to see that his work only benefitted the few.

There was in him, as well, the radical view that a benefit to the few was not much of a benefit. I can see this story translated successfully to the big screen; either as a documentary or as the story of one man. Two very different films; either would be dramatic and informative. There are scenes in this book that could have come from a Graham Greene novel (and let's not forget that Greene tells the truth through fiction): clandestine meetings, sudden flights to escape uprisings, epiphanies on the beach.

By its nature, a memoir of this type cannot fully be documented. To the extent that it could be, it is, with many pages of notes and references. These private memories, though, may never be proven to be either true or false. It is my greatest wish that Perkins is telling the whole truth all the way through. Even the smallest of fibs could tarnish a work of great importance, given our media's inability to see bigger pictures. The real message, though, is clearly written and inescapable: this is not the story of "they", a "they" that can simply be removed from power. It is the story of us. [originally written in November 2004]

BTK: Unholy Messenger, by Stephen Singular

The story of "BTK", a serial killer who operated without detection for many years, comes alive in a peculiar way in this book.

Dennis Rader, who named himself BTK - Bind, Torture, Kill - wrote and recorded his thoughts and plans and goals voluminously. Thus it was possible for Singular to get as much into Rader's mind as possible, a rare opportunity when dealing with a serial killer.

What emerges is a rather ordinary, average man, a man with a wife and children, active in his church and respected by many. What he hides is his essential lack of conscience.

Strangely, he wasn't really good at what he did. He was clumsy and often careless. It appears that it was his very ordinariness, his attachment to his community, that shielded him from discovery for so long. In many ways he does not fit the classic serial killer profile. He is driven as much by a compulsion to copy other killers he admires as by his own deep-seated fantasies. In the end, a boring, dull man who unfortunately ends the lives of many.

I felt the story was left unfinished. Singular frequently suggests that many of his crimes were never discovered. The author believes there were many other murders. I am not sure.

A far more interesting character who deserves another look is Rader's pastor, Michael Clark. Clark came to the priesthood by an unusual path and indulged his sense of humor and a delight in donning clown outfits, which may have seemed a little unseemly to some of the congregation. But it is his commitment to Rader that tells the story. His congregation believes in redemption and even though they felt betrayed by Rader they did not desert him. Clark in particular stayed by him, continuing to visit him in his cell to help him in his spiritual journey toward forgiveness. Certainly this is not what we see so often today in religious institutions, although we might wish it were so.

Not a typical true-crime book, which is in its favor.

4 out of 5 stars

A Strange Piece of Paradise by Terry Jentz

This large nonfiction book details a woman’s exploration, many years after the event, of a night when a man wielding an axe attacked her and her friend. The two were seven days into a bicycle trip across the country, and camping in the Cline Falls Park in central Oregon.

The attack took place in June 1977. Jentz started to become obsessed with it in 1992, after many years of almost-flippant references to it, a kind of denial of her feelings that lasted 15 years.

She began her investigation by traveling to the scene of the crime and the surrounding area, gathering police reports and interviewing people. The trip left her unsatisfied and she returned two years later to continue the search, even though at the time she wasn’t at all sure what she was searching for. From then on she returned frequently, making dashes at various lines of inquiry, tracking down leads and involving the different law enforcement agencies in the area.

In the course of this long, involved investigation, Jentz discovers that nobody was ever charged with the crime and there were few suspects. The police seemed unable to pursue what leads they had. It appears that the collection, storage, and use of the evidence was far from thorough as well. Eventually her search narrows into a search for the attacker. The statute of limitations on the crime ran out three years after the attack, so she knows the perp will not have to face the justice system, but she desperately wants to find out who he is and, if possible, find a way to keep him from hurting others. She also has a vague idea that when she knows who he is she can start to heal herself.

The story is, as many reviewers have written, gripping and absorbing, and hard to put down. Other reviewers have complained that there is too much “navel-gazing”, too much time spent on introspection. Overall, I find it a book well worth reading. But not perfect.

Jentz is given to a writing style that seems unnecessarily “literary”, yet also incorporates a type of jargon popular in “victims rights” and “women’s rights” articles. It gives in to the passive voice frequently and awkwardly. There is a kind of unevenness to it, as it veers from one style to another, sometimes using words inappropriately. For example,

How could I access the rage?

The use of “access” as a verb seems to have its roots in the women’s rights and group therapy movements.

…I’d never wrapped my mind around what the experience might have been for her;…

I fight in vain for the removal of the term “wrapped my mind around” from the language.

Meticulous cowboy

This is the term Jentz uses for her attacker. He was carefully dressed, with his shirt fastidiously tucked in so there were no creases. He wore western clothing. I find the adjective “meticulous” not really right for this case. Most often it refers to a way of acting, of doing, not a way of appearing. This young man was fastidious, was dressed immaculately, but it’s hard to call his actions - driving over a curb, knocking over a tent, and slashing out at his victims with an axe – “meticulous”. Each time Jentz referred to him this way it jumped out at me. And she uses it constantly, like a drumbeat. Probably her intention.

Almost as often she refers to her attacker as a “headless torso” or “headless cowboy torso”, bringing to mind just the trunk of a man, with no arms. In fact, that’s what the definition of “torso” says. Given that he used his arms to wield an axe, I suspect – I know from her book – she saw the arms, too.

These are picky points and I can’t explain why they bothered me, except that they were repeated so often.

I fully believed that he was guilty of the attack against Shayna and me. But I couldn’t connect the dots between this man and the fingerprints he had left in my psyche. His presence had not triggered a seismic reaction in me.. . .

Some part of me at the edges of consciousness had lost trust in the order of things.

The facts of the world broke faith with me.

I was no longer deceived that life was following a script in which certain things would never happen.

Passive, passive, passive. “I was no longer deceived”? This type writing suggests that something other than Terri herself was taking control of her life. It’s an interesting perception, given that the book is also saturated with references, both direct and indirect, of fate somehow leading Terri here and there and forcing her to find the meaning in the attack or to make sense of random incidents and comments. She frequently runs into names of places that include “axe” in them and seems to think there is a personal reason for this. The reason is actually simpler than that they were put there for her alone. Oregon in the 1970s and before was a place where axes were far from uncommon.

Well into the book, Terri meets up with a couple who fight for victims’ rights and who do a great deal of investigating for other victims (their daughter was murdered in 1980), to help solve cases or otherwise right wrongs. This couple fills Terri in on their theory of crime and punishment in Oregon: they believe that a misguided “liberal” public favored the view that criminals are not responsible for their actions; “society” is.

I have met a few people who more or less subscribed to this theory, to some extent, in my life. Very few, even though I consort with so-called liberals (and am one). I believe that this couple, and Terri herself, misread the justice system, as do many victims’ rights advocates. They feel that the accused perps are given more attention and more help than are the victims, and that this comes from that perception that it isn’t really their fault.

It’s true that our justice system leans over backwards to protect the rights of the accused. The reason, however, is that it is “better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted”. The laws that protect the accused protect all of us. Terri and her friends forget this. Terri makes it clear again and again that she would never want to see anyone wrongly convicted, yet she rails against a system that tries to prevent wrongful convictions.

Jentz also joins her investigating friends in the view that “permissive parents” are more likely to raise criminals than those who abuse their children. One chapter begins with a quotation from the book Shot in the Heart, by Mikal Gilmore, brother of Gary (murderer of two who was eventually executed). The quotation is from a legal system that incarcerated Gary at one point, and it says that Gary’s parents would do anything for him, were overly permissive. If Terri actually read that book (which I did) she would realize that his father repeatedly beat Gary while his mother just watched. Is this a type of permissiveness? The quotation clearly did not represent the truth in that particular case.

I do not lack compassion for the victims. I believe that both the accused and the victims deserve special treatment, and to accord such treatment to one doesn’t automatically exclude it from the other.

This is Terri’s book and these are her thoughts and she has every right to them. Nevertheless, I feel a need to offer my own counter-thoughts to some of her conclusions.

One theme that screams loudly in here, and that needs to be heard, is that the law enforcement agencies did not do a good job investigating this crime. There appear to be many reasons for this lack of attention, which Jentz offers and which make sense:

· The term “serial killer” had not even been coined; what were called “stranger murders” were perceived as near-impossible to solve. The investigators apparently felt helpless without a motive or witness. There was plenty of physical evidence (tire tracks, a footprint, probably more if the forensics team had been really diligent) but the investigators seemed to believe they could do nothing with it.

· The attack did not result in murder. Attempted murder takes a huge backseat to actual murder.· There were two women involved. Some people believe there was a sense in the community that women should not be bicycling alone, that they somehow brought this on themselves.

· The law enforcement agencies were overworked. They had to set priorities.

· The head of the state police department that investigated this crime was not expert in criminal investigation and tended to block real investigation, certainly did not aid it.

· Although a great many people in the community immediately “knew” who did it (and many had stories to tell that more than backed up this charge) only one or two actually made an attempt to tell the police what they knew. A part of the reason for this strange neglect seems to be the “individualism” so prevalent in Oregon – a preference for staying out of the way rather than accusing someone who may not be guilty. What struck me was that the law enforcement officials did not follow the leads and find these persons themselves.

Jentz also considers a theory that some of the investigation was simply covered up. Records disappeared. To protect the community from its own? There doesn’t seem to be an answer.

Whatever caused this “miscarriage of justice” certainly needs to be evaluated and if there haven’t been changes to address it (current members of law enforcement say major changes have been made – and ultimately these agencies were more than helpful) there should be. I was constantly reminded of how criminal investigations are most often presented in television fiction, and how that representation is more the ideal than the real. Books like this do us a service by letting us see how horrific crimes can be left unsolved, in spite of adequate forensic and witness evidence. More, it gives us insight into how many lives are affected by a single incident, and for how long.

4 out of 5 stars

A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is the remarkable story of a young boy (age 12) who struggled to stay alive after rebels attacked his home village in Sierra Leone. His struggles kept him constantly on the run until he finally landed in a village protected by government soldiers, who eventually recruited him and his friends. It wasn't as if he had much choice. If he had refused he had little chance at living.

Ishmael Beah was thoroughly indoctrinated into the soldier's way of life and it wasn't long before killing was commonplace, unremarkable to him. It sounded to me rather like a gang mentality: kill them before they kill you. He didn't hesitate to kill villagers, including other children, with rarely a second thought. He even laughed at the stark terror in the eyes of his captives.

Ishmael was one of the lucky ones. He was rescued by UNICEF and placed in a camp with other boy soldiers, where he slowly learned how to become "human" again. Because of his excellent memory and literacy he was eventually whisked off to the UN in New York to tell his story, and later he found his way there to live.

The UNICEF camp appeared to be experimental; they didn't know what they were dealing with at first. But they seem to have figured it out eventually. After years of seeing nothing but greeting cards from UNICEF and no real stories of what they do, I was gratified to hear that they actually do some good.

It's a sad, horrifying, unreal story that actually has a happy ending. This incredible young man is only 26 years old. His ability to tell his story simply, without melodrama, makes it compelling reading.

Nicole Brown Simpson, by Faye Resnick

Truth: I am writing about this book as comic relief. Not because I think murder is funny and certainly not because I think it's funny to get away with murder. But because this is essentially the story of the rich and brainless.

The one thing Faye Resnick (written with Mike Walker) does in this book is convince us that she was a friend of Nicole Simpson's. She further provides the build-up to Nicole's murder somewhat convincingly, although I have to admit that I wonder if some of her histrionics are really after-the-fact. Did she really plead with Nicole to get away from Los Angeles because O.J. might murder her? Did she take O.J.'s proclamations, that he would kill Nicole, seriously right out of the gate? I will probably never know and I won't lose any sleep over it.

Much of the book details the friendship between Nicole Simpson and Faye Resnick. The two of them had married men who made a lot of money so they generally were not hurting financially, even after divorces. It appears that they spent their time going dancing, shopping, and to Cabo San Lucas. And occasionally hooking up.

When Faye goes to a friend's house she describes it as a nice house, "20,000 square feet". When she talks of Nicole, she amost always mentions how beautiful she was, how fit. Most of the adjectives describing places and events and people emphasize how expensive, how big, how beautiful. Quintessential Beverly Hills women. Which is to say, really, the newly rich, anxious to prove they have friends with money.

Although she frequently mentions what a great mom Nicole is, she usually means that she takes them to dance classes or recitals or holds big parties. We don't get to know the children at all in this book. We only get their names. And an odd, somewhat sensual photo of Nicole's two children which is described as her favorite.

Resnick says she wrote the book to quell the rumors about Nicole. I'm not at all sure she did her any favors. I came away seeing Nicole as a party girl, a woman lacking the ability for deep reflection, a woman lacking any sense of wrong when she has affairs with married men ("I deserve happiness"). She comes across, worse, as a woman who has "had black and can't go back". Such a cliche yet it's spelled out in here.

I have absolutely no idea about what kind of mother she was. Her long relationship with O.J. seems to have existed on a bizarre sense of what's important in a marriage - is it the diamond earrings, Nicole? The sex? Really?

Resnick drags out her dimestore psychology books and makes some attempts to explain Nicole's personality and she gets some of it right but doesn't go nearly far enough. The theories are hackneyed and in some cases just plain wrong. The result is a cardboard cutout suitable for teen boy adoration.

No reason to look for this book unless you are obsessed with Nicole. It's badly written and has nothing to illuminate Nicole's murder.