L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

From The Week of July 10, 2011

We are conformists; this is one of humanity's most fundamental truths. Most of us grow up to reflect the environment we were born into. If that environment is marked by racism, abusiveness, or cruelty, then odds are we will be racist, abusive or cruel. This is not only a self-defense mechanism, the normalization and externalization of the pain we felt, the pain we now want to inflict, it is a natural byproduct of a species designed to be social, a species programmed to participate in communities. And communities cannot exist without conformity. Consequently, nothing is more important to the health of a community than the actualization of fairness, lawfulness, and kindness. Conversely, there is nothing more damaging than the institutionalization of brutality, criminality and exploitation. It is difficult to imagine a piece of crime fiction getting at this truism any more effectively than Mr. Ellroy's dizzying 1990 classic, L.A. Confidential.

Set against the backdrop of 1950s Hollywood, L.A. Confidential is a serpentine chronicle of the corrupt practices of the Los Angeles Police Department as exemplified by three officers. Bud White is the survivor of a broken and abusive home who exercises his demons by punishing wifebeaters. His penchant for ruthless violence is cultivated by Captain Dudley Smith, a sinister Irishman who appears to have his fingers in many, disreputable pies. Jack Vincennes, the high-flying Big V, is the second leg of L.A. Confidential's cop tripod. A participant in the Bloody Christmas beatings, Vincennes is dangerously unstable, capable of episodes of ugliness and violence that would make Bud White blush. Finally, Ed Exley, college graduate and hero of WWII... An opportunist, Exley uses a mixture of competence, cunning and political connections to rise through the LAPD, attempting to remain a clean skin even while he swims through the cesspool of seedy L.A. And its even seedier police department.

The lives of these four men entwine when an apparent robbery gone wrong leaves employees of the Night Owl cafe grotesquely murdered. Initially, suspicion for the foul crimes falls on a trio of African Americans who are brutalized by police eager for a confession. When the three men are exonerated of the murders, it's far too late. They are already dead, crushed under the bootheels of ambitious men who care more about achieving their own ends than they do about justice. Slowly, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the Night Owl murders are far more than they originally seemed, the tip of an iceberg floating in waters soiled by pornography, child prostitution, and sadistic perversion the likes of which not even the hardened men of the LAPD can conceive.

L.A. Confidential is both a rewarding and a challenging work. Told in a stream-of-consciousness staccato, it unleashes upon the reader a bewildering array of sleazy characters and smutty deeds only some of which are explicable. But while the prose offers only blurry snapshots of L.A.'s 1950s underbelly, it succeeds in imbedding the reader in the heads of its dirty protagonists, forcing him to live in the twisted minds of men who each have their own ways of coping with the brutality of the police department and the depravity of the streets it is ostensibly sworn to protect. In this, we watch Mr. Ellroy explore how these men came to be what they are, how they were primed by their upbringings and then infected by the LAPD's ugly culture, a combination which transformed them into nightmares, ignoble men clutching at the tatters of their humanity.

If L.A. Confidential 's strength is its characters and their plights, its weakness is its mystery which is bogged down by labyrinthine twists and turns which leave the reader dizzy and confused. Too many names, too many moving parts, too many pieces of disconnected information, all of which Mr. Ellroy packs into a big, filthy ball and hurls at the reader like a Nolan Ryan fastball. As such, Mr. Ellroy's furious piece is far more crime fiction than it is mystery fiction, far more an indictment of corrupt cultures than an opportunity to catch the bad guy. But then it's impossible for L.A. Confidential can't catch the bad guys. There'd be no one left to walk the streets.

Quality work, but difficult at times to follow. (3/5 Stars)

Earth by Jon Stewart

From The Week of July 10, 2011

Jon Stewart is a wonderful satirist. His blend of humor and outrage seems, at times, to be the perfect cocktail for a world overcome with dishonest politicians, crazy celebrities and media sensationalists obsessed with the spotlight. Given that America, hit all these notes rather well, I expected a similarly potent cocktail from this latest effort, Earth. I was sorely disappointed.

Earth is an open letter to future aliens who visit Earth, only to find the planet deserted. Humanity, it seems, has exterminated itself in one of a myriad of ways, leaving the aliens to pick over the bones of our forgotten civilization. The letter tries to explain to the aliens who we were by first laying down some basic facts about humanity, before layering on details about our politics, our societies, our customs and our religions. In this, Mr. Stewart pokes fun at many of our ridiculous notions while offering a what can I say, this was who we were' apologetic shrug to the curious aliens.

Though Earth does have its humorous moments, these come far too infrequently for good satire. America worked because, even in the midst of its absurdity, it had a point to make, primarily that, for a country claiming to be great, the people of the United States, on balance, know far less than they ought to about both their politicians and their political system. In this, it taught even as it gently scolded. Earth offers no such lesson wrapped in absurdity. It is merely an all-too-familiar recitation of the litany of mistakes we've made as a race. There is no teachable moments here, no central objective. Earth is a weak attempt to laugh at how pathetic we are. Perhaps if the aliens had brought some more biting criticism to the table, there might've been some punch here. As is, Earth commits the cardinal sin of all comedy. It just isn't that funny. If there are no teachable moments and the humor is hit and miss at best, then what's left? Precious little... (2/5 Stars)

Jon Stewart is a wonderful satirist. His blend of humor and outrage seems, at times, to be the perfect cocktail for a world overcome with dishonest politicians, crazy celebrities and media sensationalists obsessed with the spotlight. Given that America, hit all these notes rather well, I expected a similarly potent cocktail from this latest effort, Earth. I was sorely disappointed.

Earth is an open letter to future aliens who visit Earth, only to find the planet deserted. Humanity, it seems, has exterminated itself in one of a myriad of ways, leaving the aliens to pick over the bones of our forgotten civilization. The letter tries to explain to the aliens who we were by first laying down some basic facts about humanity, before layering on details about our politics, our societies, our customs and our religions. In this, Mr. Stewart pokes fun at many of our ridiculous notions while offering a what can I say, this was who we were' apologetic shrug to the curious aliens.

Though Earth does have its humorous moments, these come far too infrequently for good satire. America worked because, even in the midst of its absurdity, it had a point to make, primarily that, for a country claiming to be great, the people of the United States, on balance, know far less than they ought to about both their politicians and their political system. In this, it taught even as it gently scolded. Earth offers no such lesson wrapped in absurdity. It is merely an all-too-familiar recitation of the litany of mistakes we've made as a race. There is no teachable moments here, no central objective. Earth is a weak attempt to laugh at how pathetic we are. Perhaps if the aliens had brought some more biting criticism to the table, there might've been some punch here. As is, Earth commits the cardinal sin of all comedy. It just isn't that funny. If there are no teachable moments and the humor is hit and miss at best, then what's left? Precious little... (2/5 Stars)

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

From The Week of July 10, 2011

While we lend, as a rule, too much sway to the Great Man version of history, that view of our past which filters historical events through a preoccupation with presidents and generals, popes and revolutionaries, overlooking the overwhelming contributions from the countless common citizens, humanity does, from time to time, churn out an individual so vigorous of spirit, so immense of reputation, so unyielding of will, that we must take notice of him and his deeds. In this, few figures can match Theodore Roosevelt. Racist, imperialist, Christian supremacist perhaps, but also a man of such relentless determination, such indomitable fortitude, that his deeds ought to be remembered, and even respected, in spite of his sins. Ms. Millard has captured here the most daring of Roosevelt's non-military pursuits and, in doing so, brought to light not only an aging president's awakening to the rights of men from other races and creeds, but the story of a Brazilian hero who has, for the most part, been unjustly forgotten by the world beyond South America.

After failing, in 1912, in his bid to re-capture the presidency of the United States, an office he'd relinquished to his hand-picked successor, William Taft, a man widely considered to be a failure in the office, Theodore Roosevelt was at a loss. Afflicted by the familial melancholy, he dwelled in his electoral rejection until a chance meeting with an arrogant priest of his acquaintance alerted him to an exciting expedition being assembled to explore the River of Doubt, a then mysterious and unexplored river running through the Amazon Rainforest. Signing on with enthusiasm, the expedition quickly took shape around his famous name, adding Kermit, his eldest son, George Cherrie, a famous naturalist and explorer of the time, and Candido Rondon, the Brazilian commander of the expedition and a man with immense experience with the region. After months of planning and dozens of diplomatic engagements, the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition finally got underway early in 1914, taking weeks just to reach the river. On February 27th, 1914, after offloading supplies and men they could no longer afford to carry, the expedition started down the River of Doubt, embarking upon a weeks-long mission of starvation, disease and danger which would see men lost to the rapids, men lost to madness, and men lost to the deprivations of a journey no one had ever before undertaken. Countless, laborious portages; innumerable and unavoidable insects; and unknowable and lethal indians with no prior experience of the outside world all characterized the journey which nearly took the life of its most famous participant, the formidable Roosevelt.

Ms. Millard is a first-rate storyteller. Though she, at times, takes liberties with the thoughts of the Indian tribes the Expedition encountered, Her account is otherwise authenticated by the first-hand reflections of the expedition's members who, in writing frequently to their loved ones back home, vividly expressed the seemingly insurmountable dangers facing them. Ms. Millard ties these accounts together with an excellent and informative primer on the Amazon Rainforest: its evolutionary design, its bewildering composition and its innumerable menaces. Her efforts here are unquestionably aided by what is a story out of legend, a script fit for a movie, but the author's keen, biographer's eye allows her to augment a great story with informative sketches of each of the Expedition's participants.

For all that The River of Doubt is primarily about Theodore Roosevelt and his struggle to find meaning after the doors to ultimate power are closed to him, Candido Rondon is, without doubt, the story's true hero. The Brazilian commander is far ahead of his time, a thoughtful and honest humanitarian whose impoverished and difficult adolescence gave him an empathy for the plight of the Native Indians that far surpasses the call of duty. Rondon's attempts to explore, to see, and to understand, all without judgement or enmity, mark him out as an extraordinary soul who clearly has a positive influence on the here-to-for prejudicial and provincial Roosevelt. Easily the star of this wonderful, literary show.

This is, in virtually every way, a successful and enjoyable biography. Top five this year, with a bullet. (5/5 Stars)

Napoleon's Wars by Charles Esdaile

From The Week of July 10, 2011

Histories which concern themselves with events prior to the 20th century invariably collide with a problem endemic to the genre. The farther back in time they attempt to reach, the more opaque events become. Not only do the ravages of time rub out valuable sources of information necessary for the corroboration of events, the context in which the events took place is lost, leaving us to only wonder at the myriad motivations which impelled the past's prime movers. The Napoleonic Wars are a classic example of this problem. For while they transpired at the dawn of the 19th century, in a time of printing presses and parliaments which disseminated information that survives to this day, the shifting alliances, internecine conflicts and political firestorms are 200 years removed from us, mired in a barely post-feudalist world mostly ruled by absolute monarchs and the ambitious men who sought to eclipse them. In other words, this is very much not our world. Though Mr. Esdaile goes a long way to illuminating the wars themselves, he fails to connect us to the thought processes of the men who instigated them, an inadequacy which dooms his history.

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of ruinous campaigns which, for the first time in history, coupled technological advancements birthed by the Industrial Revolution with new military ideas of mass-conscription and standardized training to create huge armies the likes of which the world had never seen. These titanic forces smashed into one another all across Europe, soaking lands, from Russia in the east to Spain in the west, in the lifeblood of millions of dead soldiers. Sparked in 1793 by the First Coalition of European kingdoms which, in the wake of the French Revolution, banded together to use military force to restore the Bourbon monarchy to the vacated French throne, they did not end until the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, casting him from Europe and condemning him to a death in exile. In the intervening 22 years, Napoleon rose from the ranks of a disorganized French army, hurriedly raised to defend the new republic from coalition invasion, to become the most powerful man in Europe. Originally cloaked in republican idealism, he soon became a tyrant, sweeping aside the violence and the confusion that followed in the wake of the French Revolution and replacing it with a military-backed empire with Napoleon at its head. He lead campaigns to conquer territory in Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Russia and Egypt. In doing so, he very nearly succeeded in creating a single block of European kingdoms bent on locking his greatest enemy, England, out in the economic cold. But a guerrilla war in Spain, followed by a notoriously calamitous invasion of Russia sapped his great French army of strength and legitimacy, leading to his overthrow and abdication.

Mr. Esdaile bites off far more than he can chew in this self-styled international history of the period between 1803 and 1815, when Napoleon was emperor of France and very nearly ruler of Europe. Though the author is mostly successful in his attempt to escort us through the ever-shifting sands of the various alliances that sought to oppose Napoleon, he fails to provide anywhere near enough background on the various players involved, leading to confusion and dismay for a reader drowning in a sea of unfamiliar names and labyrinthine political compacts. As a result, Mr. Esdaile hits most of the major notes, the rise of Napoleon, the consolidation of the powers against him, the wars the two sides waged, and the consequences of those wars, while failing to animate the why behind these conflicts: the ambition that drove them, the politics that shaped them, the recriminations and retaliations that perpetuated them.

To be fair, Mr. Esdaile set himself a difficult task. How does one write a history about multiple wars, on multiple fronts, all while providing enough background to tie it all together? His unfortunate answer was to middle it, a single volume history which is too brief to tell the whole story and too long to provide a synopsis. Damningly, I learned more about the Napoleonic Wars from two hours spent with Wikipedia than I learned from blurrily staring at these 650 pages of half-explained alliances and dizzying conflicts. This may be well-researched, but it fails to do what a history must always do best, make explicable events and times now removed from us. (1/5 Stars)

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud

From The Week of July 03, 2011

Of all the cruelties humanity has, spawned during its time on Earth, none can match war for its corrosiveness. It has shattered families, inspired generational hatreds and ended entire civilizations. But while the physical and societal damage it has wrought is obvious and detectable, its deepest cut, its gravest perversion, is the extent to which it corrupts the souls of the pure. For the Greatest Generation, those many veterans who returned from World War II, it lived in their pained silences. For the soldiers who suffered through Vietnam, it was in the shame imposed upon them by a violently antiwar populous. And for those who've prosecuted our most recent conflicts, it is in the PTSD brought on by never knowing friend from foe, innocent from combatant, bomb from IED. These wounds linger. They change lives and alter destinies. They make it impossible to live as one might have wished. And it is this idea which empowers Ms. Skibsrud's tale of quiet, quirky family life in the wake of tragedy.

The Sentimentalists concerns itself with an adult woman's reflections upon her eccentric adolescence. Growing up in the northern midwest of the United States and southern Canada, the daughter of a father who served in Vietnam narrates her childhood's key events, most of which center on her father's amusing peculiarities: his addled good humor, his fantastic projects, his endless stories, and his strange and devoted friendship with a disabled man tied to his past. Gradually, as the story develops, the reader comes to understand that many of the father's (Napoleon's) oddities are externalities of his time in the Vietnam War, and though he's initially reluctant to burden the narrator with his soldiering there, he eventually confesses that he was a witness to a war crime, committed by his company, an outrage which, to his credit, he tried to bring to the attention of his superiors. Armed with this new information, the daughter, who never names herself, realizes how her father's experience in the war changed him and made him into the quirky, dysfunctional and yet lovable man she's known for so long.

Though Ms. Skibsrud does a wonderful job illustrating the cost paid by an unprotected mind forced to witness atrocities, and while this provides the foundation for a story about family, the skill with which she reconstructs the thrills and the strangeness of adolescence is breathtakingly accurate. Her spare, reflective prose succeeds in conveying all of childhood's little details, the quirks, the rituals, and the jealousies, which shape our youth and form the language by which we learn to dialogue with our parents and the world. In this, Ms. Skibsrud has written an intensely authentic work which deploys the trappings of the humble family to say something profound about the human experience and the extent to which it is guided by what has come before. It's no wonder this piece of poetic fiction won the 2010 Giller prize. Beautiful in its sadness, its nostalgia and its ruminations on life as we understand it. (4/5 Stars)

Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard

From The Week of July 03, 2011

Who are we? And why do we do what we do? Surely, these are the most fundamental questions that can be asked of humanity and its nature, yet, odds are many, many years will pass before universal answers are found for them. Who we are as individuals may be the product of our genetics, our parents, our friends, our environments, our whims, or a combination of all or some of these, but we can't know for certain. And until we do know for certain, we cannot know why we succumb to foolishness, why we are ensnared by temptation, or why we repeat the same, stupid actions over and over until we've squandered what may be the only life we have. Out of Sight may be, in the grand tradition of Mr. Leonard, a fun, funny and subversive crime romp, but in its exploration of these fundamental questions, it advances itself from the mediocrity of crime fiction's back benches into the meritorious front row of inquisitive literature.

Blessed with memorable beauty and equipped with her father's moral compass, life for Karen Sisco, a deputy U.S. Marshal stationed in sunny Florida, ought to be fairly effortless. Her love life, however -- her last boyfriend turned out to be a bank robber --, suggests that, deep down, not all is well with the blond-haired honey with the shotgun on her hip. This thirst for danger is deeply indulged when Karen interrupts a prison breakout but, instead, winds up locked in the trunk of a getaway car with a dangerous convict snuggled up behind her. This is Jack Foley, a man who has done three sizeable stretches of time for bank robbery. It's no wonder then that he's eager to escape. But when Karen interferes with his flight, she stirs up emotions in him, feelings that stretch beyond the understandable anger one would feel for someone who ruined his plans. As they part ways and Foley latches on to the prospect of a job in Detroit that might get him the cash he needs to make a real getaway, Karen doggedly pursues him, both of them remembering their interlude together in the trunk and wondering if, in the brief window of time they have left to them, if there might be room for something that transcends the restrictions placed upon them by the roles they've chosen to play.

Out of Sight entertains the reader with an assortment of quirky, Leonardian characters who weave in and out of perils, some of which are of their making, some of which are completely beyond their control. But while the novel is well-served by a solid plot and suitable actors to fill fairly predictable roles, it is the core relationship shared by Foley and Sisco, criminal and woman of the law, which gives this piece its punch. In lesser hands, this would be nothing more than corny trash, the officer of the law tempted over to the dark side by the archetypical, irresistible bad boy, but Mr. Leonard avoids such cliches by ensuring that their attraction is equal and mutual. More over, they are cognizant of the fact that what they have is limited by time and circumstance, that it is a connection that must exist outside of the lives they've chosen for themselves, that it cannot possibly endure. They are two mature adults reaching across their choices, their histories and their self-interests to unite in common attraction, a need that supersedes their life paths.

In this, Mr. Leonard has done something special. He's understood that, being that we are nothing more than the culmination of a million choices across our years on this planet, it is possible to set aside, for a little while, who we are and what we've done. We are not owned by our jobs, our parents, or our chosen destinies. We can just be human beings, creatures capable of momentarily shrugging off their identities.Mr. Leonard grasps this somewhat scary notion and actualizes it in a delightfully subtle and praiseworthy manner.

This is quality and thoughtful work, a rare philosophical gem in the crime fiction arena. (4/5 Stars)

Getting Stoned With Savages by J. Maarten Troost

From The Week of July 03, 2011

When we were last with Mr. Troost in Sex Lives of Cannibals, he and his wife, Sylvia, were struggling to re-adjust to the saturation of Western life after spending two years in tiny and bizarre Kiribati, a country in the South Pacific leagues from civilization. Though they both found gainful employment upon their return to the West, a certain disaffection for the rat race, along with a seemingly insatiable wanderlust, soon motivated them into a search for another adventure. Which is how, not long after recovering from Kiribati, Mr. Troost is once again surfing the cultures of far away lands, this time dividing his penetrating wit between Fiji, which has recently suffered a military coupe, and the island nation of Vanuatu, later to be popularized by the television series Survivor which used it as the setting for one of its many cycles.

Getting Stoned With Savages is aptly named for it does often seem as though Mr. Troost's insights into these island cultures are gleaned through the powerful and revolting intoxicants imbibed there. And yet his willingness to try any substance, to risk every adventure, to confront every monstrous insect, imbues this, his second journey into the wilds of the undeveloped world, with a passion and a humor to rival his Kiribati experience. Despite the Kava haze which lingers over his account, Mr. Troost is able to knit his adventures here into a coherent if fragmented narrative which educates the reader on Vanuatu's French colonial history, on the eccentricities of its people and practices, and on the vast inequities between its rulers and its citizens which seem to characterize most island cultures. All this while Sylvia bravely gives birth to their first child who spends his initial year on Earth in the sun, sea and sweat of the Pacific islands.

Without his telltale wit, Mr. Troost's work would be nothing more than interesting if unspectacular logs of his various travels. But it is his packaging of his distinct brand of humor with a savage dislike for both colonialism and political corruption which allow hiss journeys to leap off the page. Though Sex Lives of Cannibals had a novelty that Getting Stoned With Savages lacks, Mr. Troost is, in every other respect, at the peak of his powers.

Conceptually, the only flaw here is the extent to which he has to cover up for the fact that this tale is devoid of a central event around which the rest of the story pivots. His attempt to talk to a living cannibal offers up some momentary hope in this regard, but this effort soon fails, lapsing the reader back into a series of barely connected adventures which have but one thing in common, that they all occur to Mr. Troost. This ought to be disappointing, but I would rather authenticity than dishonesty designed to sensationalize a flagging tale. And besides, the human experience is, here, a quality substitute for drama as, with admirable courage, the author exhibits himself and the cultures he explores, leaving little hidden away. Entertaining work. (3/5 Stars)