Chris Little 2010 Winter Spring

[Chris Little]

Today’s pick for ten authors or books by them new to me over the past winter/spring: (limit three titles per author)

Duggan ... Winter Quarters, Family Favorites, Little Emperors
Forester ... Rifleman Dodd
Goldman ... Myself at Witness
Lund ... Daishi-San
Masters ... Bugle and Tiger (NF, perspective for Pressfield type tales)
McKenna ... Sand Pebbles
Pargeter ... Heaven Tree Trilogy
Schaefer ... Company of Cowards (In Short Novels of Jack Schaefer)
Shipway ... Paladin/Wolf Time, Warrior in Bronze
Zollinger ... Not of War Only, Riders to Cibola, Chapultepec

[annis]

The John Masters' is an excellent military biography, and evocation of the fading British Raj. He wrote a sequel which is much darker- it deals with his WWII experiences.

George MacDonald Fraser's ironically titled "Quartered Safe Out Here" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quartered-Safe-George-MacDonald-Fraser/dp/0007105932) is another of my favourite military biographies- it covers Fraser's experiences fighting with a Cumbrian unit in Burma during WWII.

[Chris Little]

Annis, two of my uncles experienced frontline combat in the jungles of the South Pacific, so I read John Masters vivid WWII biography with much interest. It was very informative, yet, I prefer his India NW Frontier volume for its perspective on current world events, as well as adding background to novels like M M Kaye’s “Far Pavillion” and Steven Pressfield’s “Afghan Campaign.”

Norman Zollinger’s two novels set in Mexico have impelled me to read more about that country’s tragic history. NZ’s “Not of War Only” has replaced “Cibola” as my favorite of his works. Given that Father Hidalgo led a revolt in 1810 and Francisco Madero started another revolution in 1910, this year seems appropriate for a following a Mexican reading thread.

Now, while reading the 1993 Penguin edition of John Steinbeck’s “Zapata,” which is cataloged as drama, the question occurs “Is drama fiction or non-fiction?” Can drama of this sort be compared to Harold Lamb’s narrative biographies as being in the gray intermediate zone on the fiction-nonfiction continuum? What was Dewey thinking when he created his shelving scheme? In USA libraries, drama is 812, between poetry’s 811 and fiction’s 813.

Here’s a quote from Steinbeck's screenplay:

“These stables are still in existence. They were built like palaces. The feed mangers were of marble. The bars of the box stalls were gilded, and the floors were of tiny cobblestones laid in patterns, and since there was unlimited labor, the horses were tended as very rich ladies are served. The carriages against the wall were luxurious to the extent of looking like units of a pageant. The seats of the closed carriages were of tapestry and sometimes of quilted silk. The wheels gleamed with paint. Borda, a little earlier, not only shod his horses with silver but he made the tires of his carriage of the same metal. This is a scene of the most profligate and wasteful luxury.

“Emiliano turns. His hand is on a marble manger. He looks out the wide door, past the carriages at the line of ragged people. His face becomes set, and the fire burns in his eyes. His whole posture is one of anger; his lips curl away from his teeth, and his face becomes cruel.

“DON NACIO: Emiliano! (Emiliano doesn’t answer. He repeats) Emiliano! (There is still no answer.) Emiliano! What is the matter with you! I am speaking to you. (His friendliness is slipping, and a little arrogance creeps into his voice.)

“We are looking toward Emiliano, and his back is toward Don Nacio. He finally hears, and we see his anger is instantly controlled. His expression changes, his eyelids drop, his face relaxes, and the tautness goes out of his body. It is the control of iron over his emotions. He turns slowly.

“EMILIANO: Yes, patron?”

[Chris Little]

Mexico – History – Fiction – 1910-1920

While WWI was underway, five armies contended in Revolutionary Mexico … it’s a setting heaped with HF. Fighting between Federals and one rebel army, the Zapatistas, is portrayed in Lucia Robson’s slender new book “Last Train from Cuernavaca.” In “Not of War Only,” Norman Zollinger places characters with Pancho Villa’s army of the north under the brilliant leadership of Felipe Angeles. NZ’s cast includes a spy reporting the big picture to Henry of US Intelligence.

“He exploded. ’For Christ’s sake, Henry! Do you have any idea what things were like in this country under Diaz and Huerta? Mexico was the most oppressive slave state since ancient Egypt!’ … did you know that in 1909—six years ago—every last inch of the land between Brownsville and Tijuana that abuts the United States was owned by fewer than two dozen families? The hacendados had their own armies, backed by those killers the rurales, and their own private courts and jails. They executed people on their own warrants. The peasants were tied to the land as securely as any medieval serfs. And what the rich didn’t own, foreigners did.’”

“’… Let’s be realistic. Granted that some things need changing, you still can’t turn a sovereign twentieth-century nation over to unskilled illiterates with no experience of governing. Why, when the Zapatistas finally did show up at Aguascalientes, the newspapers said they arrived like hobos. They begged transport from truckers as if they were vagrants, stowed away in mule trains, and even rode the rods under railroad cars, wearing little more than rags, and I’m told’—Henry shuddered—‘no under-linen … Once there, they couldn’t even look after themselves. General Obregon, an enemy, mind you, had to set up Bowery-style soup kitchens to feed them. Do you honestly think such incompetent ragamuffins could actually rule?’”

[annis]

Yes, there seems to be no place for dramatized history - it falls into the gap between fiction and non-fiction.

Pity George Shipway never wrote an autobiography. I guess Masters' Bugles and a Tiger is the closest we'll get to an idea what Shipway's life might have been like with the British Indian Army cavalry.

We've just been watching the Spielberg/Hanks TV production, The Pacific. I thought it gave a pretty good and reasonably realistic picture of war in the Pacific, though I found I become more involved with Band of Brothers.
One thing Pacific didn't shy away from was the fact that men found it so awful that in large numbers they cracked up mentally to varying degrees. The father of a friend of mine spent some time on coast guard watch during the war in the Pacific- a solitary and terrifying job, often spent only one step away from capture by the Japanese. He suffered from nightmares for the rest of his life.

Have you ever read JG Farrell's Singapore Grip (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/j-g-farrell/singapore-grip.htm)? Typically wry, ironic farce - Brits fiddling as Singapore is about to burn

[Chris Little]

Thanks, I printed out "The Singapore Grip" info from Worldcat for the ILL queue. It will fall in ILL formation behind the already ordered Laurence Gonzales "El Vago ($167 AmNew)," Trease's "Snared Nightingale," and Waltari's "Roman. But I may juggle the lineup and go to India when I leave Mexico. I've been postponing (with the promise of deferred pleasure) reading Shipway's "Strangers in the Land," and Farrell's "Siege of Krishnapur" caught my eye when I Amazoned Farrell.

(A Shipway bio would almost certainly have been a gem. Is there an HF set in NZ that you recommend?)

[annis]

Yes, Siege of Krishnapur is Farrell’s beat known book, winning the Booker prize in 1973. It’s the second in his Empire trilogy. Troubles, set in post-WWI Ireland, and another award winner is the first, and Singapore Grip the third. Farrell is a gifed satirist, but one with a quirky sense of humour and a heart.

Where to start with NZ HF! One of my favourite series is Maurice Shadbolt’s New Zealand Wars trilogy.

“-- Shadbolt’s New Zealand Wars trilogy, a triptych of revisionist-historical novels: Season of the Jew (1986), Monday’s Warriors (1990) and The House of Strife (1993). They form perhaps the most important work of historical fiction yet produced by a New Zealand writer. The first focuses on Te Kooti’s Poverty Bay campaigns of the 1860s. Monday’s Warriors moves to Taranaki, also in the 1860s, and the stories of Titokowaru and the rebel American Kimball Bent (http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/DNZB/alt_essayBody.asp?essayID=1B19). Here Shadbolt is mining ground already cleared in The Lovelock Version where Titokowaru, Kimball Bent and Von Tempsky all appear. The House of Strife moves back in time to the 1845–46 rebellion of Hone Heke, who cut down the flagpole above what is now Russell in the Bay of Islands on four occasions. Common to each novel is a central Pakeha figure—George Fairweather, Kimball Bent and the Ferdinand Wildblood/ Henry Youngman doppelganger—whose sympathies lie more with the Maori side than with the colonisers, and who provide Shadbolt with a detached narrative position. Together the three volumes offer a revised version of the New Zealand Wars. More importantly, they remind us that history is above all else story, and that there are many versions of it. Shadbolt’s work to date now presents a distinctive version of the whole of postcolonisation New Zealand history.”

(Ex NZ Book Council website)

One of my ancestors was a sergeant with Von Tempsky’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_von_Tempsky)s Forest Rangers, so I found Monday’s Warriors particularly interesting.

[Chris Little]

Annis, I'm curious about Shadbolt's frequent use of the term "tomahawk." When did the Maori start using the term and weapon? Did the British introduce a steel weapon that replaced a Maori stone version? (Interesting that it was even the name of a Dunedin suburb.) (Haka = war dance, and Tomo = cave?)

Thanks for the rec. I thoroughly enjoyed "Season of the Jew" and am now reading "Monday's Warriors."

Another two Qs: Have you read the O'Biso book, and did she become a citizen of New Zealand?

+NF … O’Biso, Carol. “First Light: A Magical Journey” … In 1982 and 1984, New York art administrator goes to New Zealand to organize an exhibit of Maori ancestral carving for display in New York, San Francisco, and St Louis. She negotiates with Elders who have pre-chauvinistic beliefs, in settings where women aren’t allowed to speak … a humorous tale of going through culture shock to become spiritually in tune with the country.

[annis]

The term “tomahawk’ is a European (Pakeha) description of a traditional weapon which the Maori called a toki . Metal definitely came with the Europeans around the early C19th - the Maori were war-like and very adaptable, and quickly adopted metal axes and muskets as weapons. The original was an adze with a blade chiselled to a sharp edge, made of stone, bone or greenstone (jade) and lashed with flax cord to a wooden handle. It had a dual purpose as a wood carving tool. Picture here (http://www.kiwitreasure.com/761-maori-adze---toki-pou-tangata.htm). A ceremonial version (toki pou tangata) was sometimes used by Maori chiefs as a symbol of power (rather like a sceptre). Example here (http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/Bes01Maor-fig-Bes01Maor444a.html). These ceremonial toki pou tangata had ornately carved handles.

I actually have the blade of a greenstone adze which was used by a Maori warrior to try and brain my previously mentioned great-great grandfather during the New Zealand Wars of the 19th century. My g-g grandfather got the better of the struggle and kept the adze as a souvenir.

Glad you ‘re enjoying Shadbolt’s novels ☺ Yes, I did read Carol O’Biso’s book when it first came out. I know that she did move to New Zealand after the Te Maori exhibtion, but whether she stayed on or not I’m afraid I don’t know

[Chris Little]

Trease … Snared Nightingale … 1958 Vanguard Press, rebound, no jacket … an enduring veteran of the library shelves ... ILL from San Francisco PL … Survived the SFPL Purges … short SFPL version Googled and added below without attribution …

… book has copious food stains early … someone (just like me) eating while reading and paying little attention to the food … just that mechanical arm-to-mouth without looking at the food … looks like popcorn or maybe olive oil stains …

third try with Trease and hooked early … wonder if school libraries ever had Trease back in the 50’s …

Quote: “I gave my mind to my manuscript again, slipping back into that other world which often seemed more real and important and satisfactory to me … He had made the antique pagans live for me.”

What Happened in San Francisco?
When the S.F.P.L moved into its new building, the administrators planned to dispose of cards from their catalog and auction off the cabinets. At this point, author Nicholson Baker intervened to preserve the card catalog. His action triggered an amazing series of events which ultimately resulted in the resignation of City Librarian Kenneth Dowlin. In the course of the controversy several issues emerged:
• Space allowances for technology gave critics ammunition for their charge that the book collection had to be compromised to make way for computers. There were a series of articles that leveled charges that the old library actually had more storage space for books than the new building.
• Internal procedures for storing and shelving books were criticized as being damaging to the books. Baker's description of the way books enter the sorting room (New Yorker, October 14, 1996):
o “”…a motorized conveyor belt pulls the books down a chute one at a time; when they jam, they get hurt. It's as if you sent your clothes down to the luggage handlers in the airport without putting them in a suitcase. Hundreds of books have been torn and broken this way. “
o He describes the sorting room and shelves this way: “But because the plan depended on the creation of a new, lower paid class of employee called a “shelver,” which the union has opposed (and because there is no money at the moment anyway) books can take more than a month to get back where they belong…..Hard-pressed book handlers until recently took the books that poured off the conveyer belt and flung them, as if they were dealing cards, into one of several huge mounds on the floor”.
• The biggest part of the controversy however had to do with weeding. Baker charged that over 200,000 books were hastily weeded. He charged that many were old, hard to find, out of print, and valuable. He describes the weeding process in several colorful ways:
o A staff member describing the discard room and weeding room said ”The ongoing crime was just so apparent by then. The blood was seeping under the door”
o Thousands of books which had never been entered into the computer were classified as “Not on File” and stored in a separate room ; at one point librarians were asked to decided if the NOF's should be kept or deselected. The storage room came to be known as the Deselection Chamber.
**

[annis]

Not sure how common Trease's novels were in the US. Thee was a US edition of Snared Nightingale (with an utterly boring cover), but it's pretty hard to find these days. I picked up my second-hand copy quite a few years ago.

Yes, I'm very familiar with the purge which follows the rush to add free internet computers in libraries :( A couple of years ago this happened to our library- computers are all the thing, don't you know- who needs books? We watched in horror as staff from our home branch (we couldn't be trusted not to save stock) came over and decimated our collection. Even now I'll sometimes tell a patron- "Oh yes, we have a copy of that" - only to find on checking that it was a victim of the purge.

We still have an uneasy and turbulent relationship between "old-style" patrons, who want books and a quiet place to sit, and loudly Skyping tourists and kids playing computer games-at high volume; one that will only be resolved by having a much bigger library, and that won't be happening anytime soon, alas.

[Chris Little]

The local ILL clerk is still trying to get a "Horse Coin" for me, now from a university library in Kansas, and I'll try her on another Trease next. "So Wild the Heart" might be available from three USA west coast libraries.

When I see members of the " (my) Old Girl Network" (the library's political base as the commissioners called it) in stores, etc, they ask me to come back to replace the recently departed guy who took my place. He was a computer oriented non-book person who also installed new catalog software that is very frustrating ... Still, there are signs of hope. The regional library bought a bunch of Sutcliff for the YAs. May the book people prevail!

The "fees in the library" discussion intrigued me, in predicting some of the ongoing changes to the book-library. It might be instructive to watch the UK. They may be the first major library culture to take some of the darker fee paths. Worldwide, at $54 annually, the UK spends more per capita for its libraries than any other country. Canada and Australia are second and third at approximately $45, followed by the USA $43, and Norway at $40. As a percent of GDP, the UK spends 0.21% of its “wealth” on libraries, with Australia and Canada allocating 0.20% each, and the USA 0.12%. (Don't have a lot of confidence in those stats, but ...)

[annis]

Snared Nightingale and So Wild the Heart seem to be the only surviving extant Geoffrey Trease adult novels, though he did write 2 others which appear to have vanished into a black hole (or if you’re a Terry Pratchett fan, perhaps they have disappeared more kindly into L-space )

SWTH didn’t grab me quite as much as SN, though it is a lovely piece of satire about academic life at Oxford and English tourists on the Continent in the post-Waterloo Regency period. It includes a free-thinking communal group ensconced at the Italian lakes, complete with some stereotypes recognizable to anyone familiar with similar groups in the 1960s :) Like SN it is at heart a romance.

I think Horse Coin (http://www.david-wishart.co.uk/horse_coin/horse_coin.htm) one of the best of David Wishart’s novels, but for some reason it’s extremely hard to find, and ridiculously expensive to buy second-hand. I took advantage of a very favourable exchange rate earlier this year to finally get a copy of my own from England, though I had read a library copy many years ago. It’s a good one to read in conjunction with Shipway’s Imperial Governor.

Edit- I'm surprised to discover from discussions on this forum just how much US readers get and expect in the way of free library services- either you have generous local authorities or philanthropic endowments of a sort the the rest of us don't benefit from!