The 1619 Project : How The U.S. Failed As A Beacon For Liberty From The Beginning

Like The System, which I reviewed here, The 1619 Project edited by Nicole Hannah Jones, Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman and Jake Silverstein is a book that I borrowed from my landlady. I learned that it was originally an article for The New York Times Magazine, but it was expanded into an anthology.

                                           

Right wingers believe that school children need to be rescued from this book.  I'm sure it's not taught to children because it's way above grade school level.  It's far more likely to be taught in college history classes.

This book mentions that ten of the first twelve U.S. Presidents owned slaves.  I'd imagine that the two that didn't were the Adams Presidents--John Adams and John Quincy Adams.  I know that there were Presidents who considered themselves opponents of slavery who nevertheless owned slaves.  Thomas Jefferson is the best known anti-slavery enslaver, but Martin Van Buren was another according to my research.   We usually call that hypocricy, and I don't see any reason not to call Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren hypocrites.  I read in a later essay in this book that Thomas Jefferson mortgaged his slaves to build Monticello.  So Mr. Jefferson, if you believed that your slaves were human beings, why would you have treated them like property?

The South was well-represented at the Constitutional Convention, and they got 20 more years for the Atlantic slave trade in addition to the three-fifths clause (Slaves count as three fifths of a person.  They can't vote, but counting them gains influence for enslavers.)and the fugitive slave cause. (Escaped slaves will be returned to their owners.) Ugh!

Lincoln thought that American democracy was intended for whites only, according to Hannah-Jones. I already knew that Lincoln thought that free blacks should live in a colony in Africa.  As I've indicated in earlier blog entries, I've never been a Lincoln fan and the news that Lincoln thought the U.S. should be for whites only makes me even less positive toward Lincoln.

 I also learned from Hannah-Jones that there was no public education in the South until the Reconstruction.  Black state legislators were responsible for compulsory education laws in Southern states. Louisiana and South Carolina briefly had some racially integrated schools during this period.  Reconstruction lasted only twenty years.  It was ended with violent White domestic terrorism.

An essay by Ibram X. Kendi included judgemental comments about the behavior of free blacks made by 19th century abolitionist William Garrison.  This implied to me that Garrison didn't really respect blacks at all.  His abolitionism was an abstract principle that had nothing to do with real people.  That's really disillusioning.

Kendi also revealed that the main reason why expanding slavery to the West was nixed was that it would take paying jobs away from white laborers.  I should have known. Abolitionists gave their speeches, but economic motives were what really prevailed.

There were numerous other insights in these essays which make this book highly recommended.  I am  glad that it was expanded from the original article.

                                         

The Lost and the Found: Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson

  I borrowed a book from a friend, but she asked me to confine my reading of it to my room. She thought that I could more easily avoid damaging it that way.  This is not about my record for damaging books.  It's about the situation for books in my house being difficult to control mainly due to the activities of the resident felines.  Cats are wonderful creatures, but they can get into a great deal of mischief.

 So whether I was commuting to my job, was engaged in other travel or was even reading something in another room in the house where I live, it would have to be another book entirely.  I agreed to those terms, but another consequence is that I'm reading her book more slowly.  I'm only about half way through the borrowed book, but have finished the one that I was alternating with it.  That's the subject of this review. It's a mystery in the Longmire series by Craig Johnson.

I've previously reviewed a total of four of the Longmire mysteries if you look at my reviews on Goodreads, but there has only been one on this blog.  It was a review of  Next to Last Stand, my first read of 2021 which can be found here .

 Daughter of the Morning Star is the most recent volume in the Longmire series.   I gave the review the title I did because the mystery deals centrally with a number of people who are lost in various ways, and the consequences of their being found.

 

                                 

  The main impetus for Craig Johnson to write this book is the issue of missing indigenous women.   The statistics are very disturbing. Craig Johnson tells us in Daughter of the Morning Star that 5,590 indigenous women went missing last year alone.  He wanted to bring this tragic problem to the attention of his readers.  So he put his detective Longmire on the case of a missing Cheyenne woman named Jeanie One Moon.

Yet some people in this book aren't physically lost. They are spiritually lost.  I think that Jaya, Jeanie's sister, is an example. It seems to me that for Jaya everything spiritual is linked to her sister who disappeared.  This frightens her which causes Jaya to be spiritually blocked.   Right now, Jaya is a teen basketball champion in high school, but what happens after she graduates?  Will she need to find a new center for her life?  Can she overcome her inability to connect with the spiritual and become whole?

 There were interesting historical bits in Daughter of the Morning Star that I enjoyed--particularly the origin of the term "gumshoe" used for detectives, and the account of female heroism in the Battle Where The Girl Saved Her Brother.  

This novel seems to be largely unresolved.  Reviewers on Goodreads are expecting a sequel that will answer some of the bigger questions about unexplained phenomena and events.  So Craig Johnson is asking for trust which he has certainly earned over the course of the Longmire series, and some degree of patience from his readers.  I don't know about you, but I expect my trust and patience to be well-rewarded.  

                               

            

                

The Madness of Crowds: Violence in the Midst of Controversy

 I've seen The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny called preachy.  I didn't experience it that way.  I thought it was a book with a strong message, but I didn't see the author preaching overtly.  I wonder if those who call it preachy don't think a mystery should have a message  other than the general one that "crime doesn't pay".  

(Though I've seen dark mysteries in which the perpetrators got away with it.   One of the reasons that I find mysteries so satisfying is the expectation that whoever committed the crime will suffer the penalty.  I want to see justice done.  I consider that one of the essential characteristics of mysteries.  I dislike books that break that particular rule of the genre.)

                                      

There is a character who lectures in favor of  the mandatory abortion of fetuses who aren't perfect.  I'd worry that when eugenics starts being a basis for termination, dominant local prejudices could come into play.  In some localities pregnancies could be terminated on the basis of race or immigration status.  She also advocated for the termination of those who are bedridden! How long would they need to be bedridden before they are placed on the termination list?  Would illness become illegal? How far would such a law be taken?

 When a nursing home that was recently abandoned by the staff with the patients left to die is mentioned in the book, I wondered if this had actually happened.  So I ran a search and discovered an example of the owners abandoning the nursing home.  The staff had stayed on even though their paychecks had bounced.   I found the staff's dedication inspiring.  I was glad to discover that new homes had been found for all the patients. So the current situation was transitional.

A character in The Madness of Crowds had a book called How To Lie With Statistics. I was intrigued by the title. I ran a search for the book which does indeed exist.  The author is Darrell Huff.  I placed it on hold because I'd like to know what examples are cited in the book. It could be very illuminating. 

Three Pines, the village in  Quebec where most of the Gamache series take place, has unusual graffitti.  Someone inscribed "Surprised by Joy" on a bench.  The first work with that title that comes up in search is the C. S. Lewis memoir, but C. S. Lewis apparently borrowed the title of a Wordsworth poem which can be found here.   In the poem, the poet imagines seeing a beloved person who is dead.  Since I haven't read the C. S. Lewis memoir, I don't know how the poem may or may not relate to any event in the life of C. S. Lewis.  I was just curious about the source of "Surprised by Joy".

In the Acknowledgements we learn that Penny started writing this novel during Canada's coronavirus quarantine, but she set it after the quarantine was over.  Since there may be any number of variants, we can't know when we will have "normality"( however you want to define that term).  Yet even when this crisis is over, I'm sure there will be other events that will fuel future plots for mysteries.

                                

                                   

 

 

The System Must Be Overhauled

 My landlady offered to allow me to read her copy of  The System by Robert B. Reich.  I've never read a book by him, but I'd seen what he's had to say on various issues online.  I also liked the back cover summary.  I thought Reich was likely to be insightful.

                                  

Reich says that the income of most people is either stagnant or has declined.  I can certainly confirm that this is true in my own case.  My income has declined since the beginning of the 21st century.

I liked Reich's rather pointed observation that the U.S. has a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, but no Domestic Corrupt Practices Act.  Perhaps the text of a Domestic Corrupt Practices Act would be too long, requiring too many specifications in order to be effective.  I think it would also continually be amended by Congress because new technologies would cause the evolution of new corrupt practices involving those technologies. 

As I read Reich's description of the irresponsible behavior of corporations, it occurred to me that they were like unruly children.    If a community is aware that a company had moved precipitously after considerable investments were made for them at their previous location, they should definitely refuse to make any similar agreement with that company.  If the company then decides to leave, I would say "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

He shows parallels between The Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century and our current era.  I felt particularly enlightened by the reasons why Senator John Sherman introduced what became known as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890.

I also learned about the Glass-Steagall Act, which Elizabeth Warren was continually mentioning during her Presidential campaign.  It separated commercial banking from investment banking.  This meant that commercial banks couldn't make risky investments with their depositors' money.  The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999. Robert Reich warned against it.  

In the final chapter, Reich addresses Jamie Dimon of Chase.  He tells him about the policies Dimon needs to support including "treat the environment as your largest stakeholder and fight like hell to preserve it."  The reason he gives for it is that even his biggest shareholders won't survive if the planet becomes uninhabitable.  I pointed out in my notes that the technology that science fiction novels develop for humans to survive on other planets that were otherwise uninhabitable, could be used on an uninhabitable Earth.  It's not a good idea, but unfortunately it does seem likely.  It's more likely than the idea that our irresponsible corporations will follow extensive environmental regulations to keep Earth habitable.  So in the future we'll all be wearing spacesuits when we go outdoors on our own planet, and living in sealed artificial environments because Earth is too toxic. In fact, I've seen science fiction novels like that. 

We can't rely on Jamie Dimon and others of his ilk to become environmentalists.  If we want to avoid the future I've described, we'll have to create an even more extensive body of environmental laws, and break up those powerful corporations who would prevent those laws from existing.

 

                              

                             

 

                                     

                                     

Drawdown: Possibilities For Remedying Climate Change

 I decided to read Drawdown edited by Paul Hawken because I needed to read a book while I was updating to Windows 11, and this one dealing with energy alternatives seemed to be the most worthwhile of the current crop of library books.  I expected the Windows 11 update to take six hours, and it turned out to be an eight and half hour process. So I finished Drawdown and made a start on another book during that time period.  Afterward, I decided Drawdown deserved a review.

                         

                              

                                 

                                   

The forward to Drawdown was by  Tom Steyer.  I knew little about this billionaire before he became an advocate for the impeachment of Donald Trump.  At the time, I considered him high profile evidence that other billionaires despised Trump.  Later Steyer became known as a strong supporter for environmentalism.   I knew nothing of his investment in polluting companies at the time.  In fact, I just read his Wikipedia article, and found out about his business background.  When he decided to run against Trump,  it certainly seemed as if he'd repented of his support for earth ruining enterprises.  He sold those polluting investments in 2012.  Yet I suspect the American people weren't inclined to trust billionaires at that time.  His forward to Drawdown did seem sincere.

I appreciated the fact that Drawdown  avoids jargon and has fewer acronyms so that general readers can understand it.  Paul Hawken also wanted to avoid military terms.  "Climate change is a natural process, not an enemy," Hawken tells us.  I thought that Hawken's attitude was constructive.  Seeing climate change as an enemy to be fought takes focus away from the positive changes that will make our planet more livable for all of  Earth's inhabitants.

Reforesting the oceans is a solution that I'd never previously seen discussed.  These are kelp forests which grow so much more quickly than land vegetation.  Kelp also has a very positive impact.  It produces half of Earth's oxygen.  I had no idea that kelp is that significant.

Most of the content didn't impress me as much.  So I gave this book a B grade.

 

                             

The First Emancipator: In Order To Form A More Perfect Union

Few of my readers will have heard of founding father Robert Carter. Neither had I before finding The First Emancipator by Andrew Levy in my library system's catalog. Carter wanted to be forgotten.  He did such a good job of it that now he is practically unknown.  One thing that sets Robert Carter apart from our famous founding fathers is that Carter emancipated his slaves during his lifetime. 

                            

 To 18th century Virginian Robert Carter, Thomas Jefferson was someone he knew.   Jefferson wasn't a historical personage then, as he is today. Carter had been a deist like Thomas Jefferson, but he went through a process of spiritual transformation.  He then became a convert to the Baptist denomination which goes back to the 17th century English separatists according to Wikipedia.  Being a Baptist then could be dangerous.  I read in The First Emancipator about Baptist services being attacked by armed mobs during the American revolutionary period.  Yikes!

The Anglican Church, which later became known as Episcopalian, was the established religion of early America.  The Baptists were among the Protestant sects that Anglicans called "dissenters".  Ministers from dissenting denominations could be imprisoned for up to a year for trying to convert slaves according to a law passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Currently, the U.S. is having a political crisis of legitimacy.  Many wonder who has the right to speak for all Americans. I discovered in The First Emancipator that the founding fathers also wondered about that.  Patrick Henry asked  in 1787 how the members of the Constitutional Convention could take it upon themselves to say "We the People".  

 From quoting the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, I'm moving on to more topical concerns.  In The First Emancipator, we learn that Carter's son died after an assault by a law enforcement officer.  This tragic incident is a very unfortunate reminder of protests against police violence I've been seeing on television lately.

 Author Andrew Levy tells us that Carter wrote "tarred and feathered" three times across the tops of pages in his journal.  It seems to me that writing this phrase three times is very emphatic.   It was unclear to Levy who had been tarred and feathered. Yet I'm pretty certain it must have been Carter who was the victim of this barbaric colonial practice.  He left his family estate in Virginia very abruptly due to local animosity.  I think Carter became so unpopular because he allowed former slaves to live on his property.   White Virginians of that era would have been outraged.  Tarring and feathering could conceivably have been their reaction to such a sin against their ethos.

Robert Carter, the wealthy 18th-19th century Virginian who freed all his slaves during his lifetime, was quite a discovery.  It is too bad that other wealthy American slaveholders didn't follow his example.

                                     

 

 

                  

The Gods of Tango: A Female Tango Musician in 1913 Argentina

 The Gods of Tango marries two favorite reasons for me to read novels.   The protagonist is a woman pretending to be a man, and it deals centrally with music.  In this historical/geographical context, the first reason is a necessary condition for the second.  In 1913 Argentina, Leda couldn't become a professional musician without disguising herself as a man. 

                                        

 It's not that there weren't any women at all in Tango music in 1913, but Tango was and still is very male dominated in the areas of composition and performance.  

I discovered that the first well known woman composer of  Tango music was Eloísa D'Herbil.  She was born in Spain, and originally studied classical music with Franz Liszt who called her "Chopin in skirts". See her Wikipedia article here. 

In The Gods of Tango, there was an exchange about the origins of Tango.  One character said that Tango is African, but another insisted that Tango began with the drums and was therefore "the sound of the gods".  I've heard drums in the background in Tango music, but no dominant drum beat.  My guess is that I've only heard the White people's version of Tango. 

I loved the protagonist's long term lesbian relationship with a singer who performed at the venue where she played.  I also loved the music aspect.  Its rare that I find so much content that I love in a novel.   I'm sure that this will be one of my favorite novels of 2021, if not my top fiction read of the year.

 

                              

 

Blog Tour--T. J. Young and the Orishas: The Gatekeeper's Staff (Book 1)

T. J. Young and the Orishas: The Gatekeeper's Staff  is book one of a series by Antoine Bandele.  I was delighted to be chosen for the blog tour by Shealea of Caffeine Book Tours.  As I've said elsewhere on this blog,  I consider myself a student of all religions including the Orisha religions.  The Orishas are worshiped in a number of Caribbean spiritual paths as well as in Brazil. 

 I do have to say that the last time I mentioned the Orishas on this blog was in 2018 when I reviewed The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark here.

                                       

The figure on the cover looks like he could be a teen-age image of the Orisha known as Olokun who is supposed to have been chained under the sea.  There are chains surrounding this underwater figure. Yet the novel is called The Gatekeeper's Staff.  The Orisha of doors and gates is Eshu who is as prominent in this novel as Olokun.  

There are a number of other Orishas who are mentioned in this book including a few who I needed to look up on Wikipedia because I wasn't familiar with them.

One of the Orishas that I needed to look up was Olosa, the Orisha of lagoons.  Some say that Olosa's messenger is an alligator and others that it's a crocodile. There are differences between alligators and crocodiles that aren't particularly relevant to this review.

I took author Antoine Bandele's quiz about which Orisha I'm aligned with.  The quiz can be found on Bandele's website here . My quiz result was that I'm aligned with Orunmila, the Orisha of wisdom according to Bandele.  Others believe that the Orisha of wisdom is Obatala.  See this You Tube video here. 

I went along with Bandele's idea that his adolescent protagonist, T.J., was himself a new Orisha.  Some readers might find this view problematic or incomprehensible.  The concept that there are new Orishas, or that a human being could be an Orisha would be unthinkable in certain spiritual approaches.

I enjoyed  reading The Gatekeeper's Staff.  It is my hope that T. J. Young and the Orishas will be a long and successful series.

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Good Kill: A School Shooter Is Terminated

 I learned whodunit fairly early on in A Good Kill by John McMahon, but the story is mainly about the man who took the killer down and how his action impacted him.  I received a copy of A Good Kill from publicist Wiley Saichek.  He requested that I review it.

 

                                

 The protagonist is  Police Detective Paul T. Marsh, but he is called P.T. by the overwhelming majority of the characters.   This is the third book in the P. T. Marsh series, but it's the first that I've read. I didn't have any preconceptions about P.T. when I began this book.  Other reviews say that P.T. is obsessed by the death of his wife and son.  I thought he had every right to be obsessed by that particular crime, and that his ability to become obsessed with his work was what made him such a good detective.  He  follows up on every bit of evidence. 

There's a substantial amount of content about guns in A Good Kill. In fact, a major plot strand involves the bleeding edge of gun technology.  I found the gun tech aspect fascinating. I could see how some advanced guns would pose a tremendous challenge to law enforcement.

My main quibble with A Good Kill is that it didn't feel like it really took place in Georgia.   I don't recall any vivid location details that could have given this novel a sense of place. It might easily have been set in a major metropolitan area like Los Angeles or New York City.

 A Good Kill had a suspenseful plot.  I raced through it.  I hope I will have another opportunity to read another P.T. Marsh novel in the future.

 

                               

                                 

Do Better: Can A White Reviewer Steer Clear of White Supremacy?

 Black author Rachel Ricketts believes that whites are too enmired in systematic white supremacy to steer clear of it.  Maybe I can't, but I'm going to try my best in my review of  Do Better by Rachel Ricketts.

               

When Rachel Ricketts was a child, she tried out for the role of Snow White because it was the school play.  Instead they gave her the role of the Witch's black cat which was a racist thing to do.  She was also condemned for running while black.  I had the experience of being chased off the track in high school because the track team needed it for practice.  This was in the early 1970's.  There was no girls' track team.  So I was running on the track while female. Such a scandal!  The boys' track team thought I was trespassing on their territory.  I never ran again. 

The kind of friendship commitment problems that Ricketts had with some of her white friends, were issues that I also had with some of my friends.  I decided that they must define friendship differently than I did.  I believe that people in my life who think friendship doesn't involve commitments, must be considered acquaintances instead of friends.   

Ricketts points out that I and other white readers haven't been victims of white supremacy.  True, but I have experienced anti-semitism. The first time I was six years old.  The younger sister of a friend told me I killed Jesus.  I ran home in tears.  

In Ricketts' definition of racial justice she says that it requires getting rid of white supremacy.  So it seems to me that she considers racial justice an ideal that has never been achieved.  I would say that when you consider the centuries of harm that white people have perpetrated, it would probably take centuries of positive acts to balance the scale.

When I look back at 2021, I expect to consider Do Better to be the best book I've read this year.  My criterion for non-fiction is how much I've learned from the book and I think I've learned more from this book than any other.  It  caused me to reflect a great deal about racism, and how I personally could have caused harm unknowingly.

                                

 

The Manuscript : A Short Story Rooted in Spanish History

Author Marie Ryan Connelly requested that I read and review The Manuscript which is a 53 page short story.  She made it available to me through Net Galley. I was able to read The Manuscript in a few hours and am now posting the review.

                                   

So there is a manuscript that is at the center of this story. It was written in the 1340's by Ibn al-Jatib.  He is an actual historical personage. For more information about him see this web page.  

In Conolly's short story, there are students who are reading Ibn al-Jatib's manuscript together.  When they reach the end of the manuscript, the story is finished. Where do we go from there? 

We'll need to know something about the history of the Nasrid Sultans who are the relatives of  Fátima , the story's protagonist.  Although this is a short story, beneath the tale's surface lies an extensive context that is rooted in centuries of Spanish history. The Nasrids ruled Granada from 1230 until 1492 when the last of the Nasrids was exiled to Fez in Morocco.

The Alhambra in Spain was built by the Nasrid Sultans.  That's historical.  Connelly's fictional story has al-Jatib's manuscript being found under the fountain in the Court of Lions at the Alhambra. This didn't happen, but below is the real location where it didn't happen. 

                                   

Now let's explore the mark of the tree on a person's neck which proves that someone is a Nasrid in Connelly's story.  Protagonist Fátima calls it a curse.  Why is it a curse? Why can't it be a blessing? It's all a matter of your worldview.  I see a tree as a thing of beauty.   I believe that someone born with a tree blooming on his or her body has been blessed.  For me, this was a key insight that gave me a deeper appreciation of  "The Manuscript".

Sometimes a story opens a door.  A reader can choose to go through that door, or close it behind them.  I  went through the door and what I found was rewarding.  I learned unexpected things.  You might also learn something from "The Manuscript by Marie Ryan Connelly.

                                      

  

 

 

                              

                                    

                                     

Crimson Angel: A Mystery Novel In Which A Free American Black Man Goes To Haiti in 1838

Crimson Angel is the 13th novel in the Benjamin January mystery series by Barbara Hambly.  Benjamin January is a free Black man in 19th century New Orleans.  I've read several of the books in these series, but it was before I joined Goodreads or started this blog.  So I have no record of them.  

The first thing you should know is that Crimson Angel  isn't primarily about solving the mystery. You do find out whodunit, but  it's more about the characters and their histories.

                               

                                 

Benjamin January ends up going to Spain, Cuba and Haiti not mainly to solve a murder, but to find out why people were following and harassing both him and his wife, Rose. 

I learned that at the time, some Cubans wanted Cuba to become part of the United States.  I thought that if Cuba today had the American medical system, they'd wish their ancestors had chosen differently.  It was the slaveholding plantation owners who wanted to become Americans.  They wanted to bond with their counterparts in the American South.  It occurred to me that this probably wouldn't have worked.  The Cuban plantation owners were Catholics.  There was and still is a great deal of intolerance against Catholics in the American South.

One of the characters was abusive toward his wife.  In addition to physical abuse, he took away her books because he said they gave her "bad ideas".  People often read books that confirm the ideas that they already had.  I suspect this was the case with the wife who was behaving more independently than her husband liked.  I don't think the books were the cause of her behavior. 

I found out  from Crimson Angel that there is a loa named Marinette who is a Petro spirit in Voodoo.  Although I am more acquainted with Rada spirits who are associated with healing, I see nothing wrong with Petro spirits.   (See my discussion of Rada and Petro  here .) In fact, Marinette is associated with the Haitian revolution and she is said to be able to free individuals from situations that they want to escape.  I discovered that there is a novel in which the loa Marinette is the main character.  I intend to read it some time next month.

 I liked Crimson Angel more after doing the research on Marinette than while I was reading it.  When I finished it, I thought it was a well-told tale, but discovering a loa that I hadn't known about gave this novel additional value.

                                   

Freedomville: Non-Fiction Account of A Rebel Slave Town in Current Day India

 Most people believe that slavery has disappeared from the modern world.  Yet debt slavery, which was common in the ancient world, still exists today.  The slaves are supposedly working off their debt, but they're never successful because the landlords find ways for them to accumulate more debt.  It's also often multi-generational because successive generations inherit the mountain of debt.  Debt slavery can be found in many countries, but Freedomville by anti-slavery activist Laura T. Murphy deals with a community of former slaves in 21st century India who freed themselves. 

                                      

                                      

Laura T. Murphy tells us in  Freedomville that she first encountered slavery in New Orleans where immigrants are currently being forced to rebuild the city after the massive destruction that took place during Hurricane Katrina.

 It was heartbreaking to learn how so many in India had been entrapped into modern slavery, but inspiring to discover a slave revolt that resulted in the formation of a community. In the 18th century the people of Haiti freed themselves from slavery and became a nation.  Azad Nagar, which is what the former slaves called their community, was on a much smaller scale but still represented a victory against oppression. Azad Nagar is in Uttar Pradesh.  Based on what Laura Murphy said, this is the Indian state that has the largest percentage of poor people.  She also tells us that almost a quarter of the world's slaves live in Uttar Pradesh.

Murphy reveals the history of the relationship between the Kols (the enslaved ethnic group in Uttar Pradesh) and the landlord caste in Freedomville, how the Kol revolt came about and the impact of the revolt on  the Kols.  The landlord caste was for the most part extremely ruthless, but that wasn't what was most noteworthy about the revolt.  The rebels also pooled their resources to purchase a mine lease, so they would have a source of income that would allow them to remain free.  Unfortunately, their lease ran out.  Not all of the revolt participants remained free.

I was  particularly impressed with Laura Murphy's comments about non-violence.  She said that non-violence is romanticized.  She adds that if the Kols were non-violent in the face of  the ruthlessness of the landlord that they revolted against, the Kols wouldn't have been able to survive.  So they couldn't remain consistently non-violent.  Murphy also pointed out that conditions in Azad Nagar were by no means ideal.  This caused all those who remained free to leave Azad Nagar eventually.  

I appreciate Laura Murphy's commitment to accuracy and realism.  If she had told us that Azad Nagar was a utopian community, I wouldn't have believed her.  So although Murphy had idealistic beliefs, she remained committed to giving us a genuine history of the revolt.  I respected Freedomville as a work of scholarship.  It gave me insight into the real conditions on the ground in Uttar Pradesh.  I thought that I understood both the Kols and the landlord class after reading it.

                                    

 

 

Embers: Reindeer Killings Among The Sami

 Embers is a first novel by Josephine Greenland.  I downloaded it from Net Galley.  It's a mystery that takes place amidst conflict between contemporary Swedes, and Sami reindeer herders who want to preserve their traditional way of life. 

                      

                           

 The young protagonists of Embers are Ellen and Simon.  It seemed to me that although Ellen was a good deal older than Simon, she seemed less definite in her opinions.  Simon, an autistic seven year old, was far more certain.  He was also very determined to find out who has been killing reindeer. 

 This investigative team were partly descended from Sami. The Sami are the indigenous inhabitants of Lapland.  Speaking of Lapland, my favorite book as a child was Lapland Outlaw by Arthur Catherall.  For me, this children's book was centrally significant, and I never forgot it.  I briefly discussed how I felt about Lapland Outlaw in this review. 

I often track down references to books in whatever I read.  The character Simon read a number of mysteries in a series by Martin Widmark.  I discovered that Widmark is a major author of children's fiction in Sweden.  

Author Josephine Greenland had mentioned "Levinians", but I have to say that this search term didn't lead to any useful results until I identified Levinians as a Lutheran sect.  Then I hit paydirt with Laestadian Lutheranism, and its founder 19th century Swedish Sami Lutheran clergyman Lars Levi Laestadius on Wikipedia. 

At one point in the narrative of Embers, Ellen and Simon talk about the nature of dreams.  Simon said that dreams aren't supernatural.  I actually do believe that dreams are supernatural, full of symbols and rich with meaning.  Sometimes a novel like Embers reminds me of the ideas that I consider foundational.   I feel well rewarded by such tales.

Attempts to end Sami reindeer herding have increased.  Embers reveals that the pressure to stop the Sami traditional way of life is due to resource extraction industries.   Any other land use is incompatible with mining.  Another important consideration is that unless the mining companies agree to restore the land after they've finished mining it, the land will be useless for any other purpose for quite some time.  This goes beyond the Sami losing their traditional lifestyle.  Swedes should realize that they are allowing the environment of Lapland to be wrecked by the extractive industries, and they will not be able to use that land either.

Another issue that is brought up is the exploitation of Thai agricultural workers in Sweden.  So the Sami aren't the only ones being mistreated in Sweden.  There probably aren't any laws protecting non-Swedes from exploitation. 

An individual who is identified as  responsible for crimes is portrayed sympathetically in this novel. I think that mysteries in which those who have committed crimes are portrayed in a complex manner are better written than the ones in which the perpetrators are portrayed as stereotypical villains.  I thought that Embers is a superior first novel.

 

                                        

  

A Rebellious Woman: The Life of a Civil War Southern Belle

 I think I'm getting back into the reading and reviewing frame of mind.  So I expect to be blogging more in August.  My first August review will be of a historical novel called A Rebellious Woman by  Claire J. Griffin

From a feminist perspective, the most important aspect of a woman rebel would be how her rebellion benefits that particular woman and/or women in general.  Was the protagonist of A Rebellious Woman  a positive example from a feminist standpoint?

                                 

                                                             

At the opening I was applauding Belle for her unconventional behavior.  She was multi-talented in areas that weren't considered ladylike and didn't feel the need to hide her abilities. Yet she wasn't some sort of paragon of political correctness from a 21st century standpoint.  She did have a slave, and wasn't an abolitionist.  On the other hand, she taught her slave how to read which was against the law in the 19th century South.  That was probably her most daring act.  

I understood Belle's actions in support of the Southern Confederacy without approving of them.  Belle was literally a Southern Belle, and her bedrock loyalty to her class turned out to be her most important trait. I wasn't enamored with Belle's desire to be famous.  It made her seem rather shallow and self-absorbed.  She also tended to have very poor judgement.  Over the course of the narrative I found her increasingly unsympathetic.  I didn't expect Belle to throw away her loyalties.  I just wanted her to have more common sense. 

  

                               

The Bombay Prince : A Mystery of Murder and Unrest In 1920's Bombay

 I've been blogging so minimally lately that I wonder if readers have given up on this blog.  I wish I could say that I'm going to do better in the future, but I can't promise that.   At this point, I don't think I'll be able to be any more reliable during the remainder of the year. 

                              

The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey is a Mistry mystery.  The protagonist is Perveen Mistry, and this book is the third in the series.   I reviewed the first book in the series, The Widows of Malabar Hill on Flying High Reviews here.   I received a digital copy of The Bombay Prince from Edelweiss, but I mainly read a print version of this book that I checked out from my local library.

One of the aspects of The Bombay Prince that drew my interest was that it deals with the actual historical unrest in India over the arrival of the British Prince of Wales in  Bombay, which is now called Mumbai, during November of 1921. 

In  The Bombay Prince, Perveen went to a protest over the Prince's visit. An American journalist was also there.  He was from The San Francisco Chronicle.  I consulted Wikipedia which informed me that this newspaper was founded in 1865.  Perveen commented to the journalist that no one read The San Francisco Chronicle in India.  I'd imagine that Indians who read foreign newspapers in 1921 would have been more likely to have been reading British newspapers.

 I think that this Mistry mystery felt much less distanced than the previous book in the series,  The Satapur Moonstone, which  I had considered skipping.  I was much more pleased with The Bombay Prince because it was rooted in real history. I also thought that  the inclusion of all the themes that are central concerns for Perveen made The Bombay Prince my favorite of the Perveen Mistry series.

There was the theme of prejudice against Parsis, the theme of English dominance of India, class snobbery and the suppression of women by men who don't respect them.

 I'm hoping that Perveen Mistry will continue to deal with significant issues in future Mistry mysteries.

                                

 

 

                           

Pyotr: A Biographical Book About Tchaikovsky

 When I end up reading two books in a row that take place in the same country in a similar period, I tend to feel less interested in the second one than I might have been otherwise. This was actually the first of two books taking place in pre-revolution Russia, but it's the second one I'm reviewing due to the deadline I had for the review I just posted.  I'm feeling disinclined to make the effort to write another review at this point. Tchaikovsky doesn't deserve that treatment.  So I'm going to read something completely different and come back to this review later.

6/4/21

I read a contemporary mystery with paranormal elements as a nice change of pace.  Ah, that's better!

 The book I reviewed before this one contained a Tchaikovsky memorial being planned and constructed during the reign of Nicholas II.   (It was not the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin that is the actual Russian Tchaikovsky memorial.  This was a complex that was designed by the architect who was that book's protagonist.  See The Fabergé Secret by Charles Belfoure which I reviewed here.)  So in some ways, it felt like a sequel to Pyotr by Steve Moretti and Paul van Geldrop.  I received an ARC of Pyotr from Steve Moretti and I'm reviewing it voluntarily.

                                    

   Pyotr contains elements of non-fiction biography and analysis as well as fictional scenes.  I remember reading a novel about the Russian aviator, Lilya Litvyak, that had considerable documentation included in the text.  So I called it a docunovel.  See my review of Call Sign: White Lily here.  It seems to me that Pyotr is another docunovel.  So perhaps docunovel can be considered a book category.

 I am  a lover of Russian classical music.  My favorite is the 20th century composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. (See his article on Wikipedia here.)Tchaikovsky would definitely be second for me, but I would still consider Tchaikovsky a great composer.  When I was a child his 1812 Overture was one of the pieces that I listened to constantly on my record player. (That was the musical technology that was available at the time.) 

Pyotr tells us that  Tchaikovsky met his lover Victor at what we would call a gay bar.  Victor said he was willing to support Tchaikovsky while he learned how to compose music. 

Tchaikovsky's instructor, Anton Rubenstein, told Tchaikovsky to "reincarnate" Beethoven's music.  Tchaikovsky didn't know what that meant or how he could do that. Reincarnation of people involves someone being reborn as a different individual.  Some religions believe that reincarnation happens in order to deal with issues that hadn't been dealt with in previous lives.  It seems to me that a composer might come to the realization that a piece of music composed by Beethoven hadn't completely addressed its theme.  There was more to say about that theme musically.  That composer could then write a new piece to deal with that theme more thoroughly.  It might then possibly be considered a reincarnation of what was originally a work by Beethoven. 

Later when Tchaikovsky had become a composer, he taught students of composition.  A student was sent to Tchaikovsky who was a violinist.  His name was Iosif.  He had started to compose a violin concerto.  Tchaikovsky was attracted to Iosif, and was interested in an unusual violin technique that Iosif used.  Tchaikovsky and Iosif collaborated on more than one violin concerto.  They quarreled and re-united much later.  So his feelings for Iosif weren't transient.

My perception is that Tchaikovsky's male lovers were supportive of his work and inspiring.  Yet Tchaikovsky struggled with internalized homophobia.  He wanted to be married to a woman and be cured of his homosexuality.  He did eventually marry, but the marriage didn't work.  Tchaikovsky did have a female patron whose financial contributions allowed him to maintain his career.

   The Tsar honored Tchaikovsky by making him a member of The Order of St. Vladimir.  I am linking to the Wikipedia article about this order.  Tchaikovsky is listed as one of the recipients in the article.  Andrew Carnegie also honored Tchaikovsky. His music was played at the very first concert at Carnegie Hall in New York.

This book humanized Tchaikovsky by showing us his struggles.  I wish that Tchaikovsky could have been born in a time when his homosexuality would have been more accepted.

 

                                     

 

 

The Fabergé Secret: A Novel From the Perspective of An Aristocratic Russian Architect

I wouldn't have known about the existence of The Fabergé Secret  by Charles Belfoure if  I hadn't encountered it on Book Sprout.  I had to prioritize this review over a book that I had finished previously because Book Sprout gave me a deadline for posting this review.

 

                                 

The Fabergé eggs that the Tsars of Russia cherished as art , were more than art in this novel.   They became a means of hidden communication.  While I was reading, it occurred to me that too many people had access to these eggs. I don't know why none of the characters seemed to realize this.  The Fabergé secret was too widely shared to really be a secret.  This was bound to get some people into huge trouble. That definitely wouldn't be a surprising development.  The element of suspense in the book was limited.The only question was when it would happen, not if it would happen. 

I did find the protagonist, Dmitri, very sympathetic.   Some readers might not find it credible that he didn't share so many of the prejudices of his class.  He did seem pretty modern in his outlook. Yet I felt that he was believably exposed to differing perspectives.  It was also believable to me that his friend, Tsar Nicholas II, was so hermetically sealed away from the general population that he couldn't transcend his limited way of looking at the world.  

I suspect that it's possible that author Charles Belfoure may not have always researched his portrayals of the Jewish characters.  The most notable example was the Jewish Baron inviting a non-Jewish character who liked challah to a Passover seder saying that there would be plenty of challah.  On Passover all leavened bread like challah would be forbidden.  They would have been eating the unleavened matzoh instead.

The high level conspiracy behind the anti-Jewish pogroms revealed in this novel seemed so similar to the current white supremacist conspiracy to attack Black communities.  Both conspiracies seem so culturally insidious, but neither are inevitable.  I'd like to think that over time there will be so many more people like Dmitri that racist conspiracies will no longer be viable.