Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 5

Oct31

The conference, “Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century,” that I attended in New Orleans along with Eldest Daughter was a very Catholic conference. I would guess that most, not all, of the speakers at the conference were Catholic. The conference was held on the campus of Loyola University, a Catholic Jesuit university. I told one man at the reception on Friday evening that I had eight children. He immediately assumed that I was Catholic. I should have said, “No, I’m just a fertile Baptist.” I did tell him that I was Baptist whereupon he asked me what I was doing at a Walker Percy conference in the middle of all of the Catholics. Didn’t we (Baptists) think they (Catholics) were all a bunch of heathens?

I reassured him that I was OK with Catholics if he was OK with Baptists. Everyone else at the reception drank alcohol. I didn’t, but I enjoyed the food. We all enjoyed the keynote address, and then Eldest Daughter and I went back to our bed and breakfast and enjoyed a good night’s rest.

On Saturday morning Eldest Daughter and I decided to mirror the theme of the conference by getting lost in New Orleans. New Orleans, at least the part of New Orleans where we were lost, has lots of narrow, one-way streets, with potholes, and people park alongside the streets, making them even narrower. It’s picturesque, but confusing. We wandered the byways of NOLA for over an hour before we happened upon the Loyola campus and were returned to the bosom of the Walker Percy conference. It all felt predestined.

We did miss the first seminar sessions of the morning, but we were able to make the 10:15 session on Technology and Media in Lost in the Cosmos. The first panelist used the word “semiotics” more than once, but I did not walk out or make any rude noises. If one attends a conference about an author who is interested in something called “semiotics” one must put up with a certain amount of semiotics. Anyway, apparently the alphabet is to blame for modern man’s alienation. The post-alphabetic self gains the whole world (on paper) but loses itself? Actually this analysis of the plight of modern man bears thought. What were the negative results of the invention of the printing press? What did we lose when we put everything into print? The art of story-telling? Community? And what are we losing now as we put everything into pixels on a computer screen?

The next presenter spoke about “the liquid society”, a phrase coined by a sociologist named Baumann. The idea is that we live in a society of individuals and individualists with fragmented lives, no long-term career, no family ties, no sense of place or community, our identities in constant flux. This lack of fixed identity is a major theme of Lost in the Cosmos.

May 9, 2011. Venice. European society, said the Holy Father, is submerged in a liquid culture; in this regard, he pointed out “its ‘fluidity,’ its low level of stability or perhaps absence of stability, its mutability, the inconsistency that at times seems to characterize it.”
He noted that Bauman attributes the birth of the “liquid” society to the consumerist model. The philosopher stated that its most profound impact has been felt in social relations, and, more in particular, in relations between man and woman, which have become increasingly flexible and impalpable, as manifested by the present concept of love reduced to a mere passing sentiment.
Speaking to an audience in the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, Benedict XVI opposed this model of a liquid society with a model of the society “of life and of beauty.”
“It is certainly an option, but in history it’s necessary to choose: man is free to interpret, to give meaning to reality, and it is precisely in this liberty that his great dignity lies,” said the Pope.

Again, the loss of community, and the resultant loss of self, is a theme. Belief in technology and progress alone is inadequate and dangerous. We need a community to “in”form our sense of self. Lost in the Cosmos involves the reader in the message through a repeated use of the second person: “You grow thoughtful” or “you feel like a castaway on an island”. Also, the reader is asked questions and enticed to participate in thought experiments and multiple choice quizzes.

Percy said that “words have a tendency to wear out.” Because of this loss of meaning, authors in particular keep trying to find new ways and new words to express old truths. Percy was always trying to “tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

Tell All The Truth by Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

I’m not sure how successful Mr. Percy is in communicating with me, but I’m also not sure I am his target audience. Percy was born in 1916, so he’s a twentieth century author to be sure. However, I’m something of an anachronism. I’ve never felt the twentieth century alienation and loss of faith in God that most twentieth century authors exhibit. I settled the God question when I was a teen with C.S. Lewis, a little Josh McDowell, G.K. Chesterton and two verses from the Bible:

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face. Job 13:15

Simon Peter answered him, â€œLord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.â€ John 6:68

Not saying I have all the answers or never feel depressed or never doubt God’s intentions or nearness. But who or what else is there to assuage the ache? (Listen to Ben Shive’s song, Nothing for the Ache, which I would embed here if I could.)

Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 4

Oct29

I said in Part 1 of this series that I would talk about Moby Dick and Gulliver’s Travels in relation to Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos in Part 2. But either the conference itself or reading half of Lost in the Cosmos or something else has made me longwinded and rambling, more so than usual, and I am just now getting to the part in which we consider Melville and Swift and Percy and Kierkegaard and many other arcane and enigmatic writers and subjects.

Bear with me. This post may be even more disjointed and meandering than usual.

One panelist noted that Ishmael in the Bible was exiled to wander in the desert. He drew a parallel to Melville’s character Ishmael who chose self-exile to the sea and Walker Percy’s “self” who is lost in the cosmos. Then he also said that Melville’s detailed and scientific description of the whale does not encompass and define the whale completely. The meaning of Moby Dick is something more than the accurate and exhaustive minutia of whales and whale-hunting that Melville treats us to in his tome, which is really half-novel, half nonfiction treatise on whales and whaling, and half philosophical thought experiment similar to the ones Percy provides in Lost in the Cosmos. Similarly, Percy says that man is more than the sum of his scientific parts:

“The peculiar predicament of the present-day self surely came to pass as a consequence of the disappointment of the high expectations of the self as it entered the age of science and technology. Dazzled by the overwhelming credentials of science, the beauty and elegance of the scientific method, the triumph of modern medicine over physical ailments, and the technological transformation of the very world itself, the self finds itself in the end disappointed by the failure of science and technique in those very sectors of life which had been its main source of ordinary satisfaction in past ages.”

Next we move on to Percy and Swift. Did you know that Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, was an Anglican clergyman? I didn’t. Swift and Percy were both fascinated with Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, another “lost in the cosmos” kind of guy. The book Lost in the Cosmos is a parody of self-help books in general, a satire of modern culture, and a portrayal of the predicament of man in his lostness. Gulliver’s Travels is a parody of the then-popular travel narrative, a satire on politics and politicians of the time, and a portrayal of the predicament of man in his lostness. My favorite quotation from Gulliver’s Travels (which was not quoted at the conference):

“I am not in the least provoked at the Sight of a Lawyer, a Pick-pocket, a Colonel, a Fool, a Lord, a Gamester, a Politician, a Whore-Master, a Physician, an Evidence, a Suborner, an Attorney, a Traitor, or the like: This is all according to the due Course of Things: But when I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride, it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience.”

Percy’s goal, as with Swift, was to startle the complacent and present the reader with such dizzying changes in perspective that he is jolted into an awareness of his lost estate.

The presentations I’ve written about so far took place on Friday afternoon. Then, there was a reception and a keynote address by Paul Elie, “author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, a biography of four American Catholic writers: Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy.” (Note the use of colons. Mr. Elie fit right into the overall “theme” of the conference.)

I can’t tell you much about Mr. Elie’s talk because I didn’t take notes, but I did enjoy it. And I would like to read his books, both the one referenced above and his new book called Reinventing Bach. It’s about how new technologies can enhance and even re-invent old art forms and works.

The reception itself was interesting, but I’ll save that, and the performance art that Eldest Daughter and I enacted on Saturday morning, for Part 5.

Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 3

Oct28

My notes on the first panel I attended at the conference, “Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century.” I’m not going to put the presenters’ names here because they might google themselves (what would Percy have made of that ability to “find ourselves” while losing ourselves on the internet?) and find these ramblings and tell me that I’ve committed some egregious error of academic etiquette.

Panelist #1: Percy “liked to write about people in the shadow of catastrophe.”
I like to read about people in the shadow of catastrophe. It should be a good match, me and Percy. Writer of catastrophe and reader of catastrophe. So why did The Moviegoer make me want to shake Binx Bolling until he woke up and quit the navel-gazing? Now that I think about it there is no impending catastrophe in The Moviegoer. Binx lives in the shadow of self-absorption, a catastrophe to be sure, but not the sort of calamity that leads to enlightenment.

Panelist #2: Said something to the effect that escape from this broken world may be necessary or even laudable. We escape into amnesia or narcotic refuge or compartmentalization or media (movies mostly). Amnesia can be a restart, an escape from the past and from self-preoccupation.
I escape into books. But with Percy’s books, at least the two and a half that I’ve read, there is no escape because I keep being reminded of how annoying is the self that I want to escape from.

Panelist #3: The joke-title guy. “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.” This guy is the only other non-academic at this conference! He used to write self-help articles and lead personal growth and sales conferences. He points out the disconnect between self-help books and actual help or self-change. Percy in Lost in the Cosmos tells us all of the things in which we try to find meaning but are disappointed: science, work, marriage and family, school, politics, social life, churches. But Percy begs the question: where can the self find help or meaning? Then joke-title guy also begs the question. He doesn’t know where the self-help section is either.

I maintain that the “disconnect” is the power of the Holy Spirit. I can only change and become an authentic self if I receive “help” from an outside source, from God. The existentialists say that I can create my own meaning by making passionate, authentic decisions. But they never get there because they (we) are paralyzed by the inability to know what the right decision is. Jesus said to die to self, take up your cross, and follow Him. This death of self is the only way to get off of the merry-go-round of self-absorption and introspection. Follow Him. Die to self.

At this point in the conference I started thinking about Percy in comparison and contrast to C.S. Lewis. I’ve been reading a biography of Lewis, and in fact I brought it with me to NOLA and finished reading it there.

Walker Percy: The problem of boredom/lostness.
C.S. Lewis: The problem of longing/loss.
These are very similar issues. We experience what Lewis called “joy”, “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” But after the momentary and unsustainable experience of joy is over with, we either search for it and try to reclaim in art, literature, nature, religion, diversion, politics or any other of the many things we think will satisfy that elusive longing. And we become bored or lost or both because nothing really satisfies. Or we give up the search for this ineffable joy and resign ourselves to (Walker Percy) “depression in a deranged world.”

Walker Percy: “devised a transaction with the world” (according to one panelist).
C.S. Lewis: made a “treaty with reality” (according to McGrath’s biography).
Lewis’s treaty with reality was his way of coping with the horrors of war. He gave himself up to be a soldier but determined not to think about the war, not to write about it, not to make it the focus of his life. (This war experience was before Lewis became a Christian.) Later, Lewis came to believe that Christianity was the best “treaty with reality” that explained both the world’s miseries and its longing for redemption and joy.

Percy’s transaction with the world was also Christian, specifically Catholic Christianity. “The self is problematic to itself,” Percy wrote, “but it solves its predicament of placement vis-Ã -vis the world either by a passive consumership or by a discriminating transaction with the world and with informed interactions with other selves.” His discriminating transaction was an acceptance of Catholicism with all its teachings about sin and death and Christ and sacrifice.

Walker Percy in Esquire, December 1977, “Questions They Never Asked Me So He Asked Them Himself”: “This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer â€œScientific humanism.â€ That wonâ€™t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I donâ€™t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him.”

And so I contemplated the intersection of an AngloIrish scholar of medieval literature who came to Christ at Oxford University and remained a lifelong member of the Church of England and a Catholic novelist from southern Louisiana whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. They would not seem to have much in common.

Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 2

Oct27

I forgot to mention, in Part 1 of this series of posts on the Walker Percy conference at Loyola University in New Orleans, that Eldest Daughter was presenting a paper at the conference. I will not tell you which paper she presented, but it was good and it had nothing to do with French medieval poetry, the ostensible subject of her dissertation that she is supposed to be writing. Walker Percy is simply more compelling right now than French medieval poetry, a truth universally acknowledged, is it not?

For those of you who, like me, have never attended an academic conference, the format is quite simple. The presenters, mostly professors of something or another at some university or another, get up in groups of three or four and they read their papers. That’s right, they read to the audience, just as librarians read picture books to first graders in story time, except mostly there are no pictures, and then they take questions. Some of these academics are better storytellers and readers than others, but I will say that I learned something from almost every paper I heard read, except when I got lost in the cosmos of academia and erudition. (I heard and made lots of “lost” jokes at this conference.)

Here are some really, truly, actual sample titles of papers from Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century:

Alienation, Dislocation and Restoration: Percy’s Semiotic Psychology
The Semiotics of Shame and the Christian Meta-narrative in Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos (I can’t tell you about these first two because I refused to attend session or panel in which one of the papers to be presented used the word “semiotics” or meta-narrative”. I have my limits. See Part 1 of this series.)
Falling into Transcendence: Walker Percy’s Demoniac Self, the Erotic and the Lust for God
Walker Percy’s Semiotics of Self: A Case Study: C.S. Peirce and the Problem of Reentry (Two colons! But pardon my ignorance, who is C.S. Peirce, and does he really place the “e” before the “i” in his last name?)
Deceit, Desire, and the Self-Help Book: Rereading Lost in the Cosmos as a novel in light of Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory (Ditto Rene Girard?)
The Mishmash Theory of Man
Where are the Hittites? Tracing Walker Percy’s Theology of the Jews
A Moveable Piece: Stefan Zweig and Walker Percy’s Problem of Artist-Writer Reentry (And who is Stefan Zweig? I’m starting to feel like a low-information conference attendee.)
Revealing the Transcendent Third: Walker’s Percy’s Trinitarian Imagination
Starting Over: Amnesia, Escape, and Redemption in Lost in the Cosmos and in Percy’s Novels
Lost in the Cosmos and Gulliver’s Travels: Christian Satire in the Anglo-American Tradition
Walker Percy, Herman Melville, and Moby Dick, the (Second-to) Last Self-Help Book: An Intertextual Study of the Self (Ah, at last, Melville, Moby Dick, and Gulliver I know. I went to these two presentations, wanting to feel as if I had at least something in my brain besides mush, the mishmash theory of me.)
The Dialectic of Belief: Participation and Uncertainty in Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos

To begin with, I learned from just reading these titles that an academic conference requires colons. Without colons, the professors would find it impossible to give titles to their papers. However, my favorite title of a paper presented at the conference had no colons at all. It was a joke. Really, the paper was titled: “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.” It may have been my favorite, or at least second favorite, part of the entire conference.

So, the presenting of papers began on Friday afternoon in various conference rooms in the library at Loyola. I like libraries, and it was a very nice library. As we entered, to our left, was a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was wearing a purple T-shirt.

“Outside the front steps of the Monroe Library stands a life-size bronze statute of St. Ignatius de Loyola, a diminutive ex-soldier, courtier, and our patron saint.
Our students have named the statue Iggy, and occasionally loan him hats and T-shirts to promote various campus events and or decorate him with Mardi Gras beads during carnival season.”

I don’t think the purple shirt had anything to do with Walker Percy, but he might have appreciated the local color. The first panel I attended was transcendence, amnesia, and the paper with the joke title. I took notes. However, my notes may or may not have been recognizable as related to the topics being discussed. In my mind, My Self, the notes I took make perfect sense and are semiotically and integrally related to the papers that I heard. However, an impartial judge, if such a judge were to exist, might beg to differ. Perhaps St. Ignatius in his purple t-shirt will deign to judge in Part 3 of this series, Digression, Catastrophe, and Narcotic Refuge: Are the Existentialists Really Epicurians?

Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 1

Oct26

A couple of months ago Eldest Daughter asked if I would like to accompany her to an academic conference in New Orleans in October. New Orleans in October with Eldest Daughter who is one of my favorite persons? Of course, I would love to go. Then, she told me the subject of the conference, “Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century.”

Now I am not a fan, really, of Mr. Percy’s fiction. I say that, having read one, maybe two, books by Percy, The Moviegoer and another book long ago that I think was The Thanatos Syndrome. I remember people in trees(?) or sitting on flagpoles and something about poisoning the water supply and a priest and a doctor. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, and unfortunately that’s all I remember of the novel. The Moviegoer I read more recently, and according to Eldest Daughter herself, who is a fan, I just didn’t get it. I concur: I didn’t get it. The main character, Binx Bolling, was the kind of person who, if I were to meet him, I would feel strongly impelled to shake until he spits, as my mother would say. Existentialists (Percy had a thing for Kierkegaard) affect me that way, oddly enough.

Still I am a fan of Eldest Daughter and of a trip to New Orleans, and I like to feel as if I know what people are talking about when I listen to them speak. So in preparation for the conference I began reading Mr. Percy’s book, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. Lost in the Cosmos is not a novel, but rather a parody of the myriad of self-help books that tell us that we can categorize our angst and work it out in six easy steps or by repeating one mantra or by listening to the author who will tell us who we really are. The first part of the book is really quite clever as Percy gets the reader first to admit that “it [is] possible to learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than you presently know about yourself, even though you’ve been stuck with yourself all your life.” Then, through a series of “thought experiments”, Percy leads his readers to recognize the existential lostness that afflicts each of us: we are indeed lost in the cosmos.

So far, so clever. In the middle of the book, however, Percy stops for an extended tour of the science of semiotics, a word I had to look up in my handy, dandy dictionary. Semiotics is “the study of signs and symbols, and their use or interpretation.” (Clear as mud? No? You obviously need to undertake a serious study of semiotics.) This part of the book is called “A Semiotic Primer on the Self.” The print becomes much smaller, and the text much, much more dense. Diagrams are inserted, and footnotes abound. Percy himself writes, “The following section, an intermezzo of some forty pages, can be skipped without fatal consequences.” I skipped. Not only did I skip, I also skipped out and never managed to finish Lost in the Cosmos before the conference in New Orleans. The consequences were not fatal, but perhaps were an inhibition to my understanding of the presenters at the conference.

So, there you have a synopsis of my preparation for the Walker Percy conference at Loyola University in New Orleans. My preliminary studies were inadequate at best. However, I went with the expectation that I would be enriched and challenged by the conference speakers and satiated and enlivened by the food and sights of New Orleans. And Eldest Daughter is still one of my favorite people, even if she does understand Walker Percy when I do not.

Tomorrow, read part 2, Amnesia, Moby Dick, Gulliver’s Travels, and the Shadow of Catastrophe, or How to Title an Academic Paper on Walker Percy.

Saturday Review of Books: October 26, 2013

Oct25

“Not every book is a Damascus Road experience, but some are. Most books are road experiences of some sort, whether the road is a pleasant country drive or an interstate highway easing the passage from one place in life to the next.” ~Ben House

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Hope (Dandelion Cottage)
2. the Ink Slinger (Beowulf: A New Verse Rendering)
3. Becky (Return to Me by Lynn Austin
4. Becky (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator)
5. Becky (I’m A Frog; Not A Good Idea)
6. Becky (Charlotte and Leopold)
7. Becky (Unknown Ajax)
8. Becky (Prince of Foxes)
9. Becky (Civil Contract)
10. Becky (All’s Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare)
11. Camille (Duke of Midnight)
12. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Oct. Nightstand)
13. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Christmas Cat GIVEAWAY)
14. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Oct. Read Aloud Thursday)
15. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Boxers and Saints)

16. Victory over Fear
17. Beth@Weavings (We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea)
18. Janet (Framley Parsonage)
19. Barbara H. (From Cannibalism to Christianity)
20. Barbara H. (One Candle to Burn)
21. Barbara H. (Two books about J. O. Fraser)
22. Barbara H. (Climbing)
23. Barbara H. (William Carey, Father of Modern Missions))
24. Barbara H. (The Cambridge Seven)
25. Glynn (Weak Devotions)
26. Glynn (Rain: Poems)
27. Glynn (Aimless Love)
28. Becky (Drood)
29. Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies (Longbourn)
30. Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies (How To Be A Good Wife)

31. Sally @ Classic Children’s Books (Where The Wild Things Are)
32. Book Nut (Pi in the Sky)
33. Faith (The Fiddler)
34. Spencer Cummins (Boot Camp)
35. Jessica (Rooted: the Apostles’ Creed)
36. Jessica (Sewing Church Linens)
37. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Journey of Josephine Cain)
38. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Fear No Evil)
39. Beckie @ ByTheBook (I Saul)
40. Beckie @ ByTheBook (For Every Season)
41. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Martyr’s Fire)
42. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Libriomancer)
43. Harvee @ Book Dilettante (Incurable Insanity)
44. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (This Heart of Mine)
45. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Revolution of Every Day)

Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin

Oct22

Well, this episode in history was news to me. At the same time, actually on election night, that Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was in a neck-in-neck election race with Democrat Samuel Tilden, a group of counterfeiters became would-be grave robbers. Their plan was to steal the body of America’s favorite and perhaps most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, and hold it for ransom.

Although the grave robbers come across in the book as incompetent at best, criminally idiotic at worst, the plot was real, as were the guns the criminals carried to Lincoln’s tomb on that election night in 1876. They were serious, and the Secret Service agents who were determined to catch them red-handed were just as deadly serious. Not only does the reader get to read about a little known historical crime, but also we get a vocabulary lesson in criminal and counterfeiting jargon of the late nineteenth century. How many of the following words can you define? (There’s a glossary in the back of the book to help those of us who are unfamiliar with criminal underworld vocabulary.)

Boodle game or boodle carrier
Coney or coney man
Shover
Cracksman
Hanging bee
Resurrectionist
Roper
Ghouls
To pipe (someone)
Bone orchard

And what would you think of reading the following sentence in your local newspaper about a group of escaped criminals?

“If human ingenuity can track them it will be done. It is earnestly hoped that the double-distilled perpetrators of this attempted robbery of the remains of America’s most loved President will soon be brought to justice.” ~reporter John English in The Chicago Tribune

Double-distilled perpetrators? My, how writing styles have changed!

I enjoyed Lincoln’s Grave Robbers mostly as look into history and the almost comical antics of both criminals and police in the post-Civil War time period. The politicians and journalists were somewhat hapless and disorganized as well. On the other hand, I hope that counterfeiters nowadays are not as successful as they back in the late 1800’s. Sheinkin notes that “by 1864 an astounding 50 percent of the paper money in circulation was fake.” And “the one and only task of the Secret Service was to stop the counterfeiters.”

What does all this fake money have to do with stealing poor Mr. Lincoln’s bones? Well, there’s a connection, and it’s rather surprising–and ridiculous. I don’t know how the grave robbers thought they were going to get away with such a plot. But try they did, and you can read all about it in Lincoln’s Grave Robbers.

Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin has been nominated for the Cybils Award in the category of Young Adult Nonfiction. The thoughts in this review are my own and do not reflect the thoughts or evaluations of the Cybils panel or of any other Cybils judge.

KidLitCon in Austin, Texas!!!

Oct22

Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Boldenn

Oct22

Award-winning children’s and young adult author Tonya Bolden “offers readers a unique look at an often misunderstood American document.” It is unique. Part 1 of this nonfiction book about the proclamation that “freed the slaves” begins with a quotation from Frederick Douglass, recounting the the atmosphere on Thursday, January 1, 1863 as about three thousand people waited at Tremont Temple in Boston for word from Washington, D.C. that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed:

“We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky . . . we were watching,as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries.”

Part 1 continues on in third person plural as if both author and reader were there, waiting, too. “We waited for all America to repent.” “We abhorred the compromise of 1850’s Fugitive Slave Law.” “Many of us put great faith in the fledgling Republican party.” Since I wasn’t there and since I’m not a “person of color”, I found the continued use of “we” and “us” to be off-putting, at best, confusing, at worst.

Then comes Part II which is written as straight third person history. The author tries to get behind the history and unravel the enigma of Lincoln’s thoughts and motivations, but like most other authors who’ve tired, she meets with limited success. Lincoln was “moody, prone to brooding,”; he “truly loathed slavery.” Yet, Lincoln told abolitionist Charles Edward Lester in regard to freeing the slaves, “We must wait until every other means has been exhausted. This thunderbolt will keep.” And so, throughout Part II of this narrative history, Lincoln is is pushed and pulled back and forth by the events of the Civil War and the politics of maintaining what there was left of the Union, and he proposes or considers first one solution and then another for the slaves: partial emancipation of some slaves, compensation to slaveholders, banning slavery in the territories, gradual emancipation, allowing escaped slavs (contraband) to enter the Union Army, confiscation of Confederate property including slaves, deportation of freed slaves and free black persons to Africa or South America.

Part III returns to the disconcerting “we” for a couple of pages (p. 75-76) and then, inexplicably, back to third person narrative voice. I compared the entire book to the old classic children’s history of the same vent that I have on my shelves, The Great Proclamation by Henry Steele Commager, published in 1960. Other than the fact, dissonant to modern ears, that Mr. Commager calls African Americans “Negroes”, the book differs from Ms. Bolden’s account of the same events in other ways. Commager paints Lincoln as an unadorned hero, bravely attempting in every way possible to free the slaves as quickly as practicable. Commager does not quote Lincoln’s famous statement in a letter to Horace Greeley in 1862:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

That statement of intent should be a part of any discussion of Lincoln and his attitude about emancipation, and Ms. Bolden includes it prominently in her book. Ms.Bolden’s book also has the great advantage of 21st century illustration techniques, layout and design. Mr. Commager’s text in a layout similar to that of Ms. Bolden’s book would be a great improvement. However, what Mr. Commager does well is tell the story of the “great proclamation” straight, without the confusing changes in point of view. So, in the end I think I would either go with Commager’s book or find something else that would be less poetic and and more attuned to current historical perspectives than either of these books. There seem to be several to choose from.

Other books for children on the Emancipation Proclamation (found on Amazon):
Lincoln, Slavery, and the Emancipation Proclamation by Carin T. Ford.
The Emancipation Proclamation by Karen Price Hossell.
The Emancipation Proclamation (Cornerstones of Freedom) by Brendan January and R. Conrad Stein.
The Emancipation Proclamation: Ending Slavery in America by Adam Woog.

Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Bolden has been nominated for the Cybils Award in the category of Young Adult Nonfiction. The thoughts in this review are my own and do not reflect the thoughts or evaluations of the Cybils panel or of any other Cybils judge.

Too Many Stories, Too Much Drama

Oct20

Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves edited by E. Kristin Anderson and Miranda Kenneally.

Bullying Under Attack: True Stories Written by Teen Victims, Bullies & Bystanders by Stephanie Meyer, John Meyer, Emily Sperber, and Heather Alexander.

These are two similar collections of teen angst. In the first book, Dear Teen Me, YA authors write letters to themselves as they were when they were teens and in the process they tell some of their own back-story and give advice they wish they had taken when they were teens. It would have helped me to know how old the author who was writing any given letter is now. I would have been able to evaluate the advice in the letters better had I known the length of time elapsed since the events occurred. On the other hand, most of the advice was of the “hang-in-there” and watch out for hairstyles that you will later regret variety, so I guess it was all valid as far as it goes.

The second book, Bullying Under Attack, is a collection of stories of contemporary teens who have experienced bullying in some way. Some of the teens who contributed essays, poems, and photographs to the book were harassed and tormented by bullies, others were themselves the bullies, and others recount stories of standing by and being called upon to help. Again, the advice is fairly standard. Hang in there. Survive. Stand up for yourself. Show compassion for the bully. Change schools. It’s all good advice, if perhaps a bit inadequate in some situations. Generally, the adults are fairly useless in most of the teens’ experiences, which may sadly be the the way it really is on the ground in our schools and families and on the internet (some of the stories involved cyber-bullying).

Maybe my compassion fatigue while reading these two collections of teen drama shows a lack in me, but I must be honest. After a while the stories in these two books and the advice given by the authors and the teen victims and the teen bullies and the teen bystanders all started to blur together and convert itself into one big cliche. I wanted to feel for the kids who told horrendous stories of abuse, tragedy, cruelty, and bad hair-dos, but it was all too, too much. First of all, I shouldn’t have read both books back-to-back. In addition, I would even suggest to anyone who is interested in reading either book that they take it in a little at a time, perhaps one story per night. Although since Dear Teen Me has letters from seventy different YA authors, including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, Sara Zarr, and Tom Angleberger, to name the ones I recognize most readily, reading one story per day would stretch the book out over two or three months. That’s a lot of angst in daily doses.

Then, one could move on to Bullying Under Attack, but that’s a lot more sadness, and I’m just not sure it would accomplish the stated goal of the latter book, which is to end bullying and the culture of bullying. To end bullying, kids (and adults) need a change of heart, and I’m not sure that reading a book about the sources and effects of bullying will really make anyone stop being a cruel, abusive person or will help anyone to escape the bullies. But maybe I’m wrong.

From Amazon’s book description: “Stories of regret, promises, and encouragement that will help readers find solace during their teen years and show them howâ€”as adultsâ€”their words and actions can provide strength and reassurance to others experiencing all aspects of bullying. Ultimately, they will learn to find their voices in order to break the cycle for good.”

Many of the reviewers at Amazon say that the bullying book in particular should be “required reading.” I think a more radical prescription is called for: conversion to the ethic of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit for bullies and for their victims.

As for adults who are wondering what their role should be in regard to bullying, this piece and others like it by Dr. James Dobson speak directly to the point and instruct adults who are too often “bystanders” in the face of teen bullying. My weariness in reading these books does not mean that I believe that bullying is OK or not a real problem or that adults should become weary in confronting and stopping it when it happens.