Don't go looking for trouble may be sound advice, but thankfully the protagonist of Christopher Buehlman's Those Across the River does not heed this advice. In this debut novel, Buehlman tells the story of Frank Nichols and his inheritance of a rundown Georgia mansion in 1935. Nichols comes to the Savoyard Plantation with Eudora, who he calls his wife, but who may not actually be his legal wife. It seems as if Frank and Eudora became lovers and they left Chicago and his job as a professor in somewhat of a scandal.
They see the plantation as a place for them to start over as Frank decides to write a history of this plantation and his family, including a shadowy figure of a great-grandfather who Frank does not know well. There are definitely Faulknerian influences here with unknown secrets and dangers that someone like Frank might want to let lie. Of course if he did that, there would not be a novel, so this is a good hook used by Buehlman to suck his reader into the narrative. To that end, he has Frank receive a letter from his Aunt Dorothy who bequeathed the house to Frank. Ironically, she then tells him that he "MUST SELL" this house. She goes on to explain that "there is bad blood here, and it is against you (YOu) (sic) for no fault of your own & you will not have time to go stale in whitbrow."
Frank ignores the letter, but soon there are so strange events going on and warnings about staying out of the woods from some of the locals. The Nichols do befriend the local taxidermist Martin Cranmer, who doesn't quite fit the profile of most of the residents of Whitbrow and he owns a still to boot. One of the more unusual events is a gathering of pigs that are sent out into the woods as a offering from the town. Their local pastor is there as well and it has a seemingly civic and religious function too.
These types of events only seem to heighten Frank's curiosity so he finds himself exploring the woods on his own. He goes looking for a Civil War battlefield with partial directions from one of the locals. The directions are incomplete, because no one wants to or appears to have had much desire to go to the under side of the river. Frank finds himself lost, but keeps going trying to regain his way and the path to the battlefield. In the late afternoon, Frank has the distinct feeling that he is being watched and followed. He finally does see the "thing" that had been following him. "A thin pale mulatto just entering puberty. I knew this because the boy was n't wearing pants. Just a dirty shirt that stopped at his navel." Despite attempts to engage the boy in conversation, the boy refuses to speak, but continues to accompany Frank on his way, though from a distance.
Eventually the boy engages in a half-hearted assault on Frank with precision stone throwing. It is obvious that the boy could do more damage than he does, but he seems to be toying with Frank. Frank is irritated, but not scared until the boy tells Frank nonverbally that he is waiting for nightfall. Frank finds his way to Martin Cranmer's cabin, but Martin is not excited to see him and tells him to get lost.
Frank makes his way home, but he is uneasy with what happened to him. It only serves to fuel his curiosity.
Frank and Dora continue on with their life and make friends and go about their work and lives, but eventually "those across the river" make their appearance on this side of the river too. Slowly and masterfully, Buehlman shifts this book into somewhat of a gothic novel with supernatural creatures. I won't give away what they are, but the cryptic letter from Frank's aunt begins to make more sense as the plot advances. Frank and some of his former war buddies engage in a final showdown with these creatures. It ends essentially in a draw and Frank turns his back on his friends and on his wife, Dora, who he lost to "those across the river."
However, there is a coda where we learn that Frank had narrated these events from his relative youth. He is now a self-described "old lush." Without giving away the ending, let me say that there is more to the story.
Christopher Buehlman is a playwright and an award-winning poet, though this is his first novel. He is a helluva writer. The novel is assured and gorgeously written. He can go from a passionate love scene to a amusing and meandering conversation between Frank and Martin. He does a fine job with the action sequences too and creates a disturbing and mesmerizing atmosphere for the novel. The characters are believable and distinctive too. Most importantly, though I would characterize Buehlman as a literary writer, this story is a page-turner. One of the blurbs mentions that he is like a cross between Fitzgerald and Dean Koontz. That is pretty accurate, though I think his subject matter and setting makes me think more of Faulkner than of Fitzgerald. I would highly recommend this novel.
Czar
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Story Behind the Epic
David Damrosch's The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh is a fascinating book that is distinctive in its form. Damrosch is a respected professor and literary scholar in Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He has previously written books on Biblical topics, so choosing to write about the Epic of Gilgamesh is not an outlandish choice. However, The Buried Book is not your typical work of literary analysis. It is part literary biography, part detective story, part history, part literary analysis, part cultural studies analysis, and it also has an overall meta-analysis too of the process through which literature connects to us and helps define who we are as a civilization. For the most part, the book works in both its individual parts and as an integrated whole.
The story unfolds with a trip back to 19th century Iraq where a young amateur archaeologist Austen Henry Layard along with an Iraqi colleague named Hormuzd Rassam had uncovered the ancient city of Nineveh and the library of Ashurbanipal, the famed Assyrian ruler. At the time, neither Layard or Rassam fully understood the monumental importance of the find as they could not read the tablets they had uncovered. This task was accomplished by a young British Museum curator named George Smith. One would think that these men would have received equal credit for their discoveries, but history and academia are rarely so fair when it comes to these matters.
As Damrosch digs further into the controversy revolving around Hormuzd Rassam, he finds himself thrust into an analogous role to Layard and Rassam, as he digs further into the historical and cultural layers of this story. As he writes about his discovery of a long forgotten lawsuit initiated by Rassam: "Turning the musty pages of this volume, I experienced the archaeologist's sense of discovery as a long-lost drama unfolded, day by day, in the summer of 1893." (7)
Layard and Rassam had shipped thousands of fragments of these stone tablets back to the British Museum where they lay undisturbed for a quarter century until George Smith began to examine them. Smith was a self-educated man whose formal education ended when he was 14. Smith had never been to college, but he became an acknowledged expert in ancient languages like Akkadian and translated numerous works of Babylonian literature. However, as someone without the formal credentials, it is not surprising that despite uncovering the Assyrian account of a major flood that clearly preceded the Noah story in the Hebrew Scriptures. A rising star in the British engraving industry, Smith began his work in the emerging field of Assyriology by chance. Smith would take his lunch breaks in the museum where he could examine these ancient tablets.
Damrosch presents a vivid recreation of what life was like at the British Museum at the time. Despite its often stringent class distinctions that corresponded to the prevailing Victorian ethos of the time, the British Museum was surprisingly accessible and egalitarian when it came to allowing access to these tablets. Once some of the permanent staff realized Smith's ability to read these tablets, they brought him to meet the leading Near East scholar, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who hired Smith to help him with his own academic work. Smith continues his rise into the profession and after his famous discovery, Smith himself becomes famous. His desire to do fieldwork is denied, as he is deemed too valuable back at the Museum. He then puts all his efforts into the painstaking work of reconstructing and deciphering these tablets.
Damrosch is sensitive to the many personalities involved in this tale. He should be credited with helping to establish the overlooked role of Hormuzd Rassam and the subtle, but undeniable racism at play in determining who deserved credit for these discoveries. Even George Smith's tale didn't necessarily have a happy ending, as he died suddenly and before his time.
After recounting the tangled and messy process of the rediscovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Damrosch spends the second half of the story putting the epic in its historical, literary, and cultural context. At the very end of the text he attempts to recover the "historical Gilgamesh", but doesn't have too much luck with this. As someone whose doctoral work focuses on looking for the "historical" or "authentic" Malinche, I know how difficult this type of recovery project can be. Moreover, after hundreds or in the case of Gilgamesh, thousands of years, I don't know if there is any real value in such a quest.
There is however considerable value in Damrosch's work. I think this work can appeal to those of you who like a bit of historical detective work and who appreciate a first-rate historical and cultural critic who tackles a text like Gilgamesh. It is a well-told and tremendously well-researched account and it reads like fiction. Highly recommended.
Czar
The story unfolds with a trip back to 19th century Iraq where a young amateur archaeologist Austen Henry Layard along with an Iraqi colleague named Hormuzd Rassam had uncovered the ancient city of Nineveh and the library of Ashurbanipal, the famed Assyrian ruler. At the time, neither Layard or Rassam fully understood the monumental importance of the find as they could not read the tablets they had uncovered. This task was accomplished by a young British Museum curator named George Smith. One would think that these men would have received equal credit for their discoveries, but history and academia are rarely so fair when it comes to these matters.
As Damrosch digs further into the controversy revolving around Hormuzd Rassam, he finds himself thrust into an analogous role to Layard and Rassam, as he digs further into the historical and cultural layers of this story. As he writes about his discovery of a long forgotten lawsuit initiated by Rassam: "Turning the musty pages of this volume, I experienced the archaeologist's sense of discovery as a long-lost drama unfolded, day by day, in the summer of 1893." (7)
Layard and Rassam had shipped thousands of fragments of these stone tablets back to the British Museum where they lay undisturbed for a quarter century until George Smith began to examine them. Smith was a self-educated man whose formal education ended when he was 14. Smith had never been to college, but he became an acknowledged expert in ancient languages like Akkadian and translated numerous works of Babylonian literature. However, as someone without the formal credentials, it is not surprising that despite uncovering the Assyrian account of a major flood that clearly preceded the Noah story in the Hebrew Scriptures. A rising star in the British engraving industry, Smith began his work in the emerging field of Assyriology by chance. Smith would take his lunch breaks in the museum where he could examine these ancient tablets.
Damrosch presents a vivid recreation of what life was like at the British Museum at the time. Despite its often stringent class distinctions that corresponded to the prevailing Victorian ethos of the time, the British Museum was surprisingly accessible and egalitarian when it came to allowing access to these tablets. Once some of the permanent staff realized Smith's ability to read these tablets, they brought him to meet the leading Near East scholar, Sir Henry Rawlinson, who hired Smith to help him with his own academic work. Smith continues his rise into the profession and after his famous discovery, Smith himself becomes famous. His desire to do fieldwork is denied, as he is deemed too valuable back at the Museum. He then puts all his efforts into the painstaking work of reconstructing and deciphering these tablets.
Damrosch is sensitive to the many personalities involved in this tale. He should be credited with helping to establish the overlooked role of Hormuzd Rassam and the subtle, but undeniable racism at play in determining who deserved credit for these discoveries. Even George Smith's tale didn't necessarily have a happy ending, as he died suddenly and before his time.
After recounting the tangled and messy process of the rediscovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Damrosch spends the second half of the story putting the epic in its historical, literary, and cultural context. At the very end of the text he attempts to recover the "historical Gilgamesh", but doesn't have too much luck with this. As someone whose doctoral work focuses on looking for the "historical" or "authentic" Malinche, I know how difficult this type of recovery project can be. Moreover, after hundreds or in the case of Gilgamesh, thousands of years, I don't know if there is any real value in such a quest.
There is however considerable value in Damrosch's work. I think this work can appeal to those of you who like a bit of historical detective work and who appreciate a first-rate historical and cultural critic who tackles a text like Gilgamesh. It is a well-told and tremendously well-researched account and it reads like fiction. Highly recommended.
Czar
Fortunate Son
Dear Friends,
I apologize for not being a good blogger. The school year overwhelmed me as I took on two new classes this past academic year. It was a good year and I hope to blog consistently over the summer and try to blog on a more regular schedule come August.
I confess to having a fascination with the Adams family. No, not the TV series, but the actual Adams family consisting of John, Abigail, John Quincy, Charles Francis, and Henry Adams among others. This fascination began with my reading of Paul Nagel's Descent From Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. I first read this book in the mid 1980s when I was a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club. I joined this in high school and it proved to be formative for my intellectual development.
I love Nagel's compelling narrative of this family and the many tragedies that befall such a prominent American family. This book came out years before the John Adams resurgence and the surge in interest in the founding fathers that scholars like Joseph Ellis ushered in during the last decade.
I found there to be striking similarities between the Adams family and the Kennedy family. Both were Massachusetts families with a real passion for public service and both had numerous members who fell prey to alcohol or drug abuse. There were definite high points in both families, but there were considerable setbacks too. One family had strong and long lasting ties to the founding of the country and the other was a family of Irish immigrants who rose to the top of American society through force of will and perhaps a bit of bootlegging.
So, when I came across Harlow Giles Unger's John Quincy Adams, I couldn't resist trying it out. I had purchased this book, but it languished on a shelf for many months until I started reading it over the Winter break this past year. I was immediately hooked by the skillful narrative. Unger starts the action with John and his young son John Quincy in mortal peril from an approaching British ship. The United States has fought the Revolutionary War and John Adams is going to Europe to attempt to establish some diplomatic relations with European powers. He decided it would be good for his eldest son to accompany him to Europe for the education and the experience.
John Quincy proves to be an asset for his father even at a young age of 14 as he works as a secretary for another American diplomat. I was continually astonished at the brilliance of John Quincy Adams. He seemed to learn languages almost at will and when he returned to the U.S. to attend Harvard, he was fluent in French, spoke Dutch, German, and had been well versed in the classical languages of Latin and Greek too. He was a prodigious reader and gained tremendously valuable experience in diplomacy through his contacts with other American and European diplomats.
John Quincy also met the most famous men and women of his era. He knew Ben Franklin, was a close confidant of Thomas Jefferson, and in his long and productive life, he met kings, czars, and the most prominent intellectuals of his day in both Europe and the U.S. He was able to remember some of the Revolutionary War battles and lived to see the U.S. defeat Mexico in the Mexican-American War. He is largely responsible for the Monroe Doctrine as it was written, played a significant role in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. He was a fervent abolitionist who is renowned for his representation of the slaves who had killed their captors aboard the Amistad, and had the opportunity to serve as the Supreme Court Chief Justice, but turned it down. He served as Ambassador to many of the major European countries, was President, and then served and died on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also was a loving father, a good husband, and generous provider for members of his extended family, several of whom were left without their fathers who died from alcoholism.
He lived several lifetimes and yet never wavered from his fierce love and patriotism in service of his nation. In fact, his sense of honor may have cost him a second term as president, but he stood by his principles and refused to campaign for reelection while serving his first term.
John Quincy Adams comes alive in Unger's account. Unger, like David McCullough before him, uses correspondence of the Adams (John and Abigail too) family, but sparingly. He shows a tremendous grasp of the material and the historical milieu. Unger has written several books about other colonial figures and it shows in his story. He is at ease with the various political parties, constitutional issues, and cultural divides evident in the infancy of the United States.
I have not read any of Unger's other works, but I plan to seek them out. He is a graceful writer who writes in a compelling style that reminds me of some of my favorite historical authors like Robert Caro and William Manchester. Though I have suffered through doctoral colloquia in History, I typically don't like writing by academics, because they are often dry and pretentious. Unger is second to none in terms of his historical expertise, but like Caro and Manchester, he writes so vividly that I felt I had a good sense of the motivations of this American patriot and fortunate son, John Quincy Adams.
If you like biographies and works on the American colonial period, I highly recommend John Quincy Adams. It is an excellent work!
I apologize for not being a good blogger. The school year overwhelmed me as I took on two new classes this past academic year. It was a good year and I hope to blog consistently over the summer and try to blog on a more regular schedule come August.
I confess to having a fascination with the Adams family. No, not the TV series, but the actual Adams family consisting of John, Abigail, John Quincy, Charles Francis, and Henry Adams among others. This fascination began with my reading of Paul Nagel's Descent From Glory: Four Generations of the John Adams Family. I first read this book in the mid 1980s when I was a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club. I joined this in high school and it proved to be formative for my intellectual development.
I love Nagel's compelling narrative of this family and the many tragedies that befall such a prominent American family. This book came out years before the John Adams resurgence and the surge in interest in the founding fathers that scholars like Joseph Ellis ushered in during the last decade.
I found there to be striking similarities between the Adams family and the Kennedy family. Both were Massachusetts families with a real passion for public service and both had numerous members who fell prey to alcohol or drug abuse. There were definite high points in both families, but there were considerable setbacks too. One family had strong and long lasting ties to the founding of the country and the other was a family of Irish immigrants who rose to the top of American society through force of will and perhaps a bit of bootlegging.
So, when I came across Harlow Giles Unger's John Quincy Adams, I couldn't resist trying it out. I had purchased this book, but it languished on a shelf for many months until I started reading it over the Winter break this past year. I was immediately hooked by the skillful narrative. Unger starts the action with John and his young son John Quincy in mortal peril from an approaching British ship. The United States has fought the Revolutionary War and John Adams is going to Europe to attempt to establish some diplomatic relations with European powers. He decided it would be good for his eldest son to accompany him to Europe for the education and the experience.
John Quincy proves to be an asset for his father even at a young age of 14 as he works as a secretary for another American diplomat. I was continually astonished at the brilliance of John Quincy Adams. He seemed to learn languages almost at will and when he returned to the U.S. to attend Harvard, he was fluent in French, spoke Dutch, German, and had been well versed in the classical languages of Latin and Greek too. He was a prodigious reader and gained tremendously valuable experience in diplomacy through his contacts with other American and European diplomats.
John Quincy also met the most famous men and women of his era. He knew Ben Franklin, was a close confidant of Thomas Jefferson, and in his long and productive life, he met kings, czars, and the most prominent intellectuals of his day in both Europe and the U.S. He was able to remember some of the Revolutionary War battles and lived to see the U.S. defeat Mexico in the Mexican-American War. He is largely responsible for the Monroe Doctrine as it was written, played a significant role in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. He was a fervent abolitionist who is renowned for his representation of the slaves who had killed their captors aboard the Amistad, and had the opportunity to serve as the Supreme Court Chief Justice, but turned it down. He served as Ambassador to many of the major European countries, was President, and then served and died on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also was a loving father, a good husband, and generous provider for members of his extended family, several of whom were left without their fathers who died from alcoholism.
He lived several lifetimes and yet never wavered from his fierce love and patriotism in service of his nation. In fact, his sense of honor may have cost him a second term as president, but he stood by his principles and refused to campaign for reelection while serving his first term.
John Quincy Adams comes alive in Unger's account. Unger, like David McCullough before him, uses correspondence of the Adams (John and Abigail too) family, but sparingly. He shows a tremendous grasp of the material and the historical milieu. Unger has written several books about other colonial figures and it shows in his story. He is at ease with the various political parties, constitutional issues, and cultural divides evident in the infancy of the United States.
I have not read any of Unger's other works, but I plan to seek them out. He is a graceful writer who writes in a compelling style that reminds me of some of my favorite historical authors like Robert Caro and William Manchester. Though I have suffered through doctoral colloquia in History, I typically don't like writing by academics, because they are often dry and pretentious. Unger is second to none in terms of his historical expertise, but like Caro and Manchester, he writes so vividly that I felt I had a good sense of the motivations of this American patriot and fortunate son, John Quincy Adams.
If you like biographies and works on the American colonial period, I highly recommend John Quincy Adams. It is an excellent work!
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