As I write this I am listening to an hour long interview with Rebecca Solnit. While I'm listening I'm scrolling through the most recent interviews appearing on the Web site for the Bat Segundo Show. Ever since beginning this blog (several years now), I've been receiving periodic emails from the Bat Segundo Show. Since they were unsolicited emails, I didn't pay any attention to it. It wasn't until a few months ago that I thought I would actually visit the site. The emails were interesting enough and infrequent enough that I had never put them in junk mail, but I am wary of following up on unsolicited email as I imagine most of you are as well.
But The Bat Segundo Show turns out to be a treasure trove of interviews with contemporary writers from the world of fiction, film, philosophy, and current cultural comment. People interviewed in the most recent round of pod casts include, besides Solnit, Laurel Snyder, Michael Muhammad Knight, Nicholas Meyer, Majorie Rosen, Lawrence Block, Laurie Sandell, Brian Evenson, and Dick Cavett.
The interviewer asks challenging questions and the person interviewed is given free reign to follow up on the answers. These are not fluffy celebrity interviews, but free ranging glimpses into the thoughts, thought processes, and works of the writer being interviewed. The interviewers are smart and familiar with the work of the writer as well as related writers and subjects.
You can subscribe to the podcasts through Live Bookmark or through ITunes.
http://www.batsegundo.com
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Americans in Siberia are recommending:
Kazuo Ishaguro's The Unconsoled. NY: Knopf, 1995
Burling 3rd Floor PR6059.S5 U53 1995
And on this particular American's reading list (purchased at the "Krasnoyarsk Market of Book Culture"). Titles are inprecise because they are in Russian:
1. A collection of Solzhenitsyn short stories
2. A book about Stalin era politics in Siberia and the Urals
3. A book about Soviet and Stalinist film
4. A book called "There is Light Everywhere": a collection of stories and excerpts from novels and memoirs about living in a totalitarian system. It's published by the Marina Tsvetaeva museum in Moscow.
5. "Unforced Labors" by Ariadna Efron and Ada Federolf (in English translation). It is also from the Tsvetaeva museum publishers. Their publishing company is called "Return" and all of their books have to do with the Gulags and political repression.
Taken from No Gray Hairs
Burling 3rd Floor PR6059.S5 U53 1995
And on this particular American's reading list (purchased at the "Krasnoyarsk Market of Book Culture"). Titles are inprecise because they are in Russian:
1. A collection of Solzhenitsyn short stories
2. A book about Stalin era politics in Siberia and the Urals
3. A book about Soviet and Stalinist film
4. A book called "There is Light Everywhere": a collection of stories and excerpts from novels and memoirs about living in a totalitarian system. It's published by the Marina Tsvetaeva museum in Moscow.
5. "Unforced Labors" by Ariadna Efron and Ada Federolf (in English translation). It is also from the Tsvetaeva museum publishers. Their publishing company is called "Return" and all of their books have to do with the Gulags and political repression.
Taken from No Gray Hairs
Juliet Naked
Hornby, Nick. Juliet Naked. NY: Riverhead Books, 2009.
Submitted by R. Stuhr
Nick Hornby follows up his dark novel about suicide (A Long Way Down, 2005) with a more light-hearted novel about the Dickens-reading, retired and reclusive rocker Tucker Crowe, one of his remaining ardent fans, a Croweologist and college instructor Duncan, and Duncan's partner Annie, a museum curator. Duncan and Annie live in the faded seaside town of Gooleness in England. Crowe lives in Pennsylvania with his third wife, and fifth and youngest child Jackson. Crowe's last album, Juliet, is considered the greatest "break-up" album ever recorded. His remaining fans participate in a Crowe chat room parsing out every possible element of the album and attempting to piece together details about Crowe's life. So, when after two decades of silence, the demo version of the songs are released, it is a major event in the world of Crowe devotees. This becomes the pivotal moment in the novel leading inevitably to Duncan and Annie's break-up, to Annie's meeting with Tucker, and to Tucker's acknowledgment of his past mistakes.
A shark's eyeball, pub toilets, northern soul dancing, mistaken identity, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Barnaby Rudge, and medical advice on sex after a heart attack are just a handful of the nuggets awaiting the lucky readers who dip into this latest Nick Hornby novel. I enjoy Nick Hornby very much. My favorite of his novels is still How to Be Good although I thoroughly enjoyed Juliet Naked. There is always something in Hornby's novels that makes me laugh out loud (and that is always a good thing), but at the same time Hornby exposes the ironies, hypocrisies, and quirks of modern middle class society.
Enjoy!
Coming soon to Burling Library
Other books by Nick Hornby at Burling:
About A Boy (1998)
Burling 3rd floor PR6058.O689 A64 1998
High Fidelity (1995)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 H54 1995
How to Be Good (2001)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 H69 2001
A Long Way Down (2005)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 L66 2005
Slam (2oo7)
Smith Memorial PR6058.O689 S52 2007
Submitted by R. Stuhr
Nick Hornby follows up his dark novel about suicide (A Long Way Down, 2005) with a more light-hearted novel about the Dickens-reading, retired and reclusive rocker Tucker Crowe, one of his remaining ardent fans, a Croweologist and college instructor Duncan, and Duncan's partner Annie, a museum curator. Duncan and Annie live in the faded seaside town of Gooleness in England. Crowe lives in Pennsylvania with his third wife, and fifth and youngest child Jackson. Crowe's last album, Juliet, is considered the greatest "break-up" album ever recorded. His remaining fans participate in a Crowe chat room parsing out every possible element of the album and attempting to piece together details about Crowe's life. So, when after two decades of silence, the demo version of the songs are released, it is a major event in the world of Crowe devotees. This becomes the pivotal moment in the novel leading inevitably to Duncan and Annie's break-up, to Annie's meeting with Tucker, and to Tucker's acknowledgment of his past mistakes.
A shark's eyeball, pub toilets, northern soul dancing, mistaken identity, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Barnaby Rudge, and medical advice on sex after a heart attack are just a handful of the nuggets awaiting the lucky readers who dip into this latest Nick Hornby novel. I enjoy Nick Hornby very much. My favorite of his novels is still How to Be Good although I thoroughly enjoyed Juliet Naked. There is always something in Hornby's novels that makes me laugh out loud (and that is always a good thing), but at the same time Hornby exposes the ironies, hypocrisies, and quirks of modern middle class society.
Enjoy!
Coming soon to Burling Library
Other books by Nick Hornby at Burling:
About A Boy (1998)
Burling 3rd floor PR6058.O689 A64 1998
High Fidelity (1995)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 H54 1995
How to Be Good (2001)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 H69 2001
A Long Way Down (2005)
Burling 3rd Floor PR6058.O689 L66 2005
Slam (2oo7)
Smith Memorial PR6058.O689 S52 2007
Await Your Reply
Chaon, Dan. Await Your Reply. NY: Ballantine Books, 2009.
Submitted by R. Stuhr
If you read the blog entry for Cloud Atlas, then you already have read my comments on novels made up of separate stories that slowly become connected, so I won't repeat them here. Oberlin College professor Chaon uses this method with Await Your Reply. This novel starts out with stories about young or youngish people who have left or are preparing to leave friends and family behind: a young man who repeatedly disrupts his life to search for his twin brother; a young girl whose parents have died gives up her plans for college to leave town with her high school teacher; a young man leaves college after receiving a phone call from his biological father who is calling to tell him that he has been living with adoptive parents. In some respects, this novel is a mystery. The reader collects clues and slowly puts together the disparate pieces into a meaningful whole. Chaon's novel depicts everyday people making good and bad decisions, driven from forces from within themselves and from without. Some are motivated by love, others by greed, and all from loneliness.
Dan Chaon's novels and short stories (all highly recommended!):
Await Your Reply
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553 .H277 A95 2009
You Remind Me of Me
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553. H277 Y68 2004
Among the Missing (short stories)
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553 .H277 A8 2001
Submitted by R. Stuhr
If you read the blog entry for Cloud Atlas, then you already have read my comments on novels made up of separate stories that slowly become connected, so I won't repeat them here. Oberlin College professor Chaon uses this method with Await Your Reply. This novel starts out with stories about young or youngish people who have left or are preparing to leave friends and family behind: a young man who repeatedly disrupts his life to search for his twin brother; a young girl whose parents have died gives up her plans for college to leave town with her high school teacher; a young man leaves college after receiving a phone call from his biological father who is calling to tell him that he has been living with adoptive parents. In some respects, this novel is a mystery. The reader collects clues and slowly puts together the disparate pieces into a meaningful whole. Chaon's novel depicts everyday people making good and bad decisions, driven from forces from within themselves and from without. Some are motivated by love, others by greed, and all from loneliness.
Dan Chaon's novels and short stories (all highly recommended!):
Await Your Reply
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553 .H277 A95 2009
You Remind Me of Me
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553. H277 Y68 2004
Among the Missing (short stories)
Burling 3rd Floor PS 3553 .H277 A8 2001
Cloud Atlas
Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. Random House, 2004.
Submitted by R. Stuhr
It seems to be more and more common in novels and films to take seemingly disparate stories that gradually link link together through the characters and details of the narratives. Although it may start to seem like a cliché, it does reflect life if you step back outside of your everyday existence. Meetings that are chance or random become significant, actions of people unknown to each other may gradually (or not so gradually) may bring those people together or change the lives people unmet. Movements within history and politics, culture, science, dramatically change the lives of people born decades and centuries later. Mitchell uses this technique in his novel Cloud Atlas, but adds something a little different. His novel presents six stories that move forward in time in great leaps. It begins with a remnant of th journal of kept by a notary, a passenger on a 19th century ship voyaging through the South Seas.The next story jumps to Belgium between the world wars. A destitute, disinherited, morally shallow young man is seeking to study composition with a once prominent composer who has succumbed to ill health brought on by syphilis. These first two stories could be entirely separate short stories. The next story is reminiscent of the Karen Silkwood case of the 1970s. A minor overlap is introduced into this story. The next story takes place in what is perhaps the present day. The main character is a failing publisher who through sibling conspiracy winds up confined against his will in a gothicly horrific rehabilitation home. He has in his possession a manuscript that tells the story of Luisa Rey (the Karen Silkwoodesque character from the previous story). The next story takes the reader far into the future. Consumerism has triumphed; commodification is everything; cloning (taken a step further than the clones in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go) has done away with the need or possibility of most noncloned people to work. Finally, the story at the peak of this triangle of stories, takes place after most of the world has been laid to waste whether through war, environmental disaster or all of the possibilities of human induced catastrophe combined. Civilization is starting over in some cases with remnants of memories and evidence from earlier civilizations, in other cases, Battle Star Gallactica like, survivors of the disasters travel together on a ship, observing the newly developing civilizations. At this point in the novel, the reader is starting to pull some threads together and a theme is developing. In the second half of Cloud Atlas, Mitchell continues the stories in reverse order... all of the threads and themes coming together.
Now that I've gone on in great detail about the make up of the novel, I should say something about what first struck me about Cloud Atlas. It was Mitchell's incredibly beautiful writing. I was in love with this novel before the end of the first story. Mitchell's writing changes as the stories change. The first two stories have the most formal and evocative style because that is in keeping with the time period. The story that takes place far into the future (in Korea) features txt mssgng influenced vocabulary and spelling. Nothing seems haphazard or rushed off in this work. Mitchell's writing isn't a hobby or a commercial enterprise (merely), but he is truly a master with words and ideas.
Having said that, his novel, as I interpret it, explores how far greed, acquisitiveness, selfishness, and a craving for power can be taken. The penultimate story (moving forward) describes a society that has taken these aspects of the human character about as far as they can go. The novel opens and closes with the 19th century voyage. The notary is a simple and good man. He is troubled by the uninhibited colonial appropriation of land and control and throughout tries to reconcile his national loyalty, his religious instincts, and his belief in the essential goodness of his fellow "man" with what he observes. In the end he almost dies because of his faith in others, but even his narrow escape does not end his sense of hope and optimism. "Belief is both prize and battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves, and Gooses shall prevail" (508).
Can the opposite be true? You'll need to read this novel for yourself. Cloud Atlas, recommended to me by Claire Moissan, a Grinnellian and Writing Lab instructor, is a consummate novel. It tells a compelling tale as it sheds light on the human condition, provides new ways to view history and the future, taking away all hope and handing back a spoonful of it before the last page is read, all in beautifully crafted prose.
Read this book!
Burling 3rd Floor PR6063.I785 C58 2004
Other Novels by David Mitchell:
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
Black Swan Green (Random House, 2006)
Number9dream (Random House, 2001)
Ghostwritten (Random House, 2000)
Submitted by R. Stuhr
It seems to be more and more common in novels and films to take seemingly disparate stories that gradually link link together through the characters and details of the narratives. Although it may start to seem like a cliché, it does reflect life if you step back outside of your everyday existence. Meetings that are chance or random become significant, actions of people unknown to each other may gradually (or not so gradually) may bring those people together or change the lives people unmet. Movements within history and politics, culture, science, dramatically change the lives of people born decades and centuries later. Mitchell uses this technique in his novel Cloud Atlas, but adds something a little different. His novel presents six stories that move forward in time in great leaps. It begins with a remnant of th journal of kept by a notary, a passenger on a 19th century ship voyaging through the South Seas.The next story jumps to Belgium between the world wars. A destitute, disinherited, morally shallow young man is seeking to study composition with a once prominent composer who has succumbed to ill health brought on by syphilis. These first two stories could be entirely separate short stories. The next story is reminiscent of the Karen Silkwood case of the 1970s. A minor overlap is introduced into this story. The next story takes place in what is perhaps the present day. The main character is a failing publisher who through sibling conspiracy winds up confined against his will in a gothicly horrific rehabilitation home. He has in his possession a manuscript that tells the story of Luisa Rey (the Karen Silkwoodesque character from the previous story). The next story takes the reader far into the future. Consumerism has triumphed; commodification is everything; cloning (taken a step further than the clones in Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go) has done away with the need or possibility of most noncloned people to work. Finally, the story at the peak of this triangle of stories, takes place after most of the world has been laid to waste whether through war, environmental disaster or all of the possibilities of human induced catastrophe combined. Civilization is starting over in some cases with remnants of memories and evidence from earlier civilizations, in other cases, Battle Star Gallactica like, survivors of the disasters travel together on a ship, observing the newly developing civilizations. At this point in the novel, the reader is starting to pull some threads together and a theme is developing. In the second half of Cloud Atlas, Mitchell continues the stories in reverse order... all of the threads and themes coming together.
Now that I've gone on in great detail about the make up of the novel, I should say something about what first struck me about Cloud Atlas. It was Mitchell's incredibly beautiful writing. I was in love with this novel before the end of the first story. Mitchell's writing changes as the stories change. The first two stories have the most formal and evocative style because that is in keeping with the time period. The story that takes place far into the future (in Korea) features txt mssgng influenced vocabulary and spelling. Nothing seems haphazard or rushed off in this work. Mitchell's writing isn't a hobby or a commercial enterprise (merely), but he is truly a master with words and ideas.
Having said that, his novel, as I interpret it, explores how far greed, acquisitiveness, selfishness, and a craving for power can be taken. The penultimate story (moving forward) describes a society that has taken these aspects of the human character about as far as they can go. The novel opens and closes with the 19th century voyage. The notary is a simple and good man. He is troubled by the uninhibited colonial appropriation of land and control and throughout tries to reconcile his national loyalty, his religious instincts, and his belief in the essential goodness of his fellow "man" with what he observes. In the end he almost dies because of his faith in others, but even his narrow escape does not end his sense of hope and optimism. "Belief is both prize and battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves, and Gooses shall prevail" (508).
Can the opposite be true? You'll need to read this novel for yourself. Cloud Atlas, recommended to me by Claire Moissan, a Grinnellian and Writing Lab instructor, is a consummate novel. It tells a compelling tale as it sheds light on the human condition, provides new ways to view history and the future, taking away all hope and handing back a spoonful of it before the last page is read, all in beautifully crafted prose.
Read this book!
Burling 3rd Floor PR6063.I785 C58 2004
Other Novels by David Mitchell:
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
Black Swan Green (Random House, 2006)
Number9dream (Random House, 2001)
Ghostwritten (Random House, 2000)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Coming Soon
Reviews for Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply, and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Also, Dismantling the Public Discourse, and Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked.
Hold your breath.
Hold your breath.
Parasol in a Hurricane
Greer, James. A Parasol in a Hurricane. Wild Child Publishing, 2009.
Reading on the run? For less than the cost of coffee at the diner you can download a book for your PC, iPhone or Palm Pilot. Try this police procedural for $1.99 from Wild Child Publishing.
"A Parasol in a Hurricane."
Take two universal ingredients—abusive relationships and a struggle for personal growth—mix them in the cauldron of a small-town police environment, add a dash of corrosive personalities and bureaucracy and you’ve cooked up a tasty crime drama. James Greer brings his expertise in law enforcement to the recipe called A Parasol in a Hurricane, a new e-book release from Wild Child Publishing. (Disclaimer: I have two collections published by Wild Child.)
The reader can tell Greer has done his share of professional homework, quoting Stephen King on marital restraining orders that are no better than the eponymous parasol. He also mentions recommended reading for on-the-make detectives and provides a précis of squad car communications and codes. Both protagonist Detective Karen O’Neill and the object of her inquiry, runaway Marsha Beston, are independent, on-their-toes women conflicted with less-than-understanding men and a struggle for self-realization.
Greer handles a tough job well of getting into the mind of a woman saddled with a loutish husband who has dragged her from San Diego to rural Wisconsin. Through the author’s dialogue, his protagonist also does a solid job of standing up to the department’s internal affairs officer while defending her suspect. And, yes, for a generally non-violent story, there are satisfactory killings to leaven the entrée. Parasol is a quick read filled with tension. Who knew life in rural Wisconsin could be so tasty?
A Parasol in a Hurricane, by James Greer, Wild Child Publishing
(www.wildchildpublishing.com), 2009, PDF file, 29 pages.
Reviewed by Walt Giersbach ’61 (http://allotropiclucubrations.blogspot.com)
Reading on the run? For less than the cost of coffee at the diner you can download a book for your PC, iPhone or Palm Pilot. Try this police procedural for $1.99 from Wild Child Publishing.
"A Parasol in a Hurricane."
Take two universal ingredients—abusive relationships and a struggle for personal growth—mix them in the cauldron of a small-town police environment, add a dash of corrosive personalities and bureaucracy and you’ve cooked up a tasty crime drama. James Greer brings his expertise in law enforcement to the recipe called A Parasol in a Hurricane, a new e-book release from Wild Child Publishing. (Disclaimer: I have two collections published by Wild Child.)
The reader can tell Greer has done his share of professional homework, quoting Stephen King on marital restraining orders that are no better than the eponymous parasol. He also mentions recommended reading for on-the-make detectives and provides a précis of squad car communications and codes. Both protagonist Detective Karen O’Neill and the object of her inquiry, runaway Marsha Beston, are independent, on-their-toes women conflicted with less-than-understanding men and a struggle for self-realization.
Greer handles a tough job well of getting into the mind of a woman saddled with a loutish husband who has dragged her from San Diego to rural Wisconsin. Through the author’s dialogue, his protagonist also does a solid job of standing up to the department’s internal affairs officer while defending her suspect. And, yes, for a generally non-violent story, there are satisfactory killings to leaven the entrée. Parasol is a quick read filled with tension. Who knew life in rural Wisconsin could be so tasty?
A Parasol in a Hurricane, by James Greer, Wild Child Publishing
(www.wildchildpublishing.com), 2009, PDF file, 29 pages.
Reviewed by Walt Giersbach ’61 (http://allotropiclucubrations.blogspot.com)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Calligrapher’s Daughter
Kim, Eugenia Sunhee. The Calligrapher's Daughter. New York: Henry Hold and Company, 2009.
Elena Filios
I just finished a very interesting book which I would like to recommend to you all. The Calligrapher’s Daughter, by Eugenia Sunhee Kim. It is a very richly drawn novel about Korea, a country torn between ancient customs and modern times during the early 20th century. The central character is a young woman who fights against the traditional role of women. Although a novel, it is very “ethnographic,” with many details about a country and a culture I was unfamiliar with.
Elena Filios
Community Information Technology Coordinator
Hartford Public Library
Hartford, CT 06103
www.hartfordinfo.org
www.hplct.org
On order for Burling Library
Elena Filios
I just finished a very interesting book which I would like to recommend to you all. The Calligrapher’s Daughter, by Eugenia Sunhee Kim. It is a very richly drawn novel about Korea, a country torn between ancient customs and modern times during the early 20th century. The central character is a young woman who fights against the traditional role of women. Although a novel, it is very “ethnographic,” with many details about a country and a culture I was unfamiliar with.
Elena Filios
Community Information Technology Coordinator
Hartford Public Library
Hartford, CT 06103
www.hartfordinfo.org
www.hplct.org
On order for Burling Library
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Patriotic Treason
Evan Carton. Patriotic Treason: John Brown and the Soul of America. New York: Free Press, 2006.
Reviewed by Joe Hewitt
(Missouri State University)
Today, Americans know John Brown as the man who ignited the U.S. Civil War with his failed attempt to start a slave revolt with weapons from the Harpers Ferry armory in Virginia. Shortly after his capture, a Virginia court charged him with treason against the commonwealth of Virginia, conspiring with slaves to commit treason, and murder. After a four-day show trial, the jury’s inevitable guilty verdict took only forty-five minutes. Brown discouraged any talk of a rescue attempt by antislavery allies saying “I am worth more to hang than for any other purpose.” During the month’s wait before his execution, he read the Biblical passages affirming the righteousness of human equality, wrote many letters to family and friends, and received a steady stream of visitors from the North.
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason examines the life of John Brown, his abolitionist activities, his friends in the antislavery movement, the role of religion in his motivation for freeing slaves, his military exploits and terrorist acts in Kansas, his personal and public life, the role of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in creating Bleeding Kansas, the role of the Fugitive Slave Act in criminalizing abolitionists who refused to return escaping slaves as required, and his final desperate act. An unconventional historian, Carton describes John Brown’s inner conflicts much like a novelist would write about a major character giving the entire narrative an exciting, page-turner quality, but the history is thorough and detailed with its story of a man of action and faith losing faith in the political process to correct a systemic wrong.
In his epilogue, Evan Carton notes that the American historical establishment demonized John Brown as a dangerous fanatic. “Private citizens agitating on single issues were not the preferred engines of history.” Carton argues that the story of the Civil War needed a villain and John Brown offended conventional mores enough to fit that role.
This book helped me understand why Kansas, where John Brown emboldened the Free Staters to drive proslavery hooligans from the state, has done so little to recognize this founding father. Although his image reigns over the Kansas State Capitol’s rotunda in John Steuart Curry’s famous mural, his homestead near my boyhood home in eastern Kansas is not marked. One hundred and fifty years after Harpers Ferry, John Brown’s vision of a democracy for all, regardless of race, is still misunderstood.
On order for Burling Library
Reviewed by Joe Hewitt
(Missouri State University)
Today, Americans know John Brown as the man who ignited the U.S. Civil War with his failed attempt to start a slave revolt with weapons from the Harpers Ferry armory in Virginia. Shortly after his capture, a Virginia court charged him with treason against the commonwealth of Virginia, conspiring with slaves to commit treason, and murder. After a four-day show trial, the jury’s inevitable guilty verdict took only forty-five minutes. Brown discouraged any talk of a rescue attempt by antislavery allies saying “I am worth more to hang than for any other purpose.” During the month’s wait before his execution, he read the Biblical passages affirming the righteousness of human equality, wrote many letters to family and friends, and received a steady stream of visitors from the North.
Evan Carton’s Patriotic Treason examines the life of John Brown, his abolitionist activities, his friends in the antislavery movement, the role of religion in his motivation for freeing slaves, his military exploits and terrorist acts in Kansas, his personal and public life, the role of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in creating Bleeding Kansas, the role of the Fugitive Slave Act in criminalizing abolitionists who refused to return escaping slaves as required, and his final desperate act. An unconventional historian, Carton describes John Brown’s inner conflicts much like a novelist would write about a major character giving the entire narrative an exciting, page-turner quality, but the history is thorough and detailed with its story of a man of action and faith losing faith in the political process to correct a systemic wrong.
In his epilogue, Evan Carton notes that the American historical establishment demonized John Brown as a dangerous fanatic. “Private citizens agitating on single issues were not the preferred engines of history.” Carton argues that the story of the Civil War needed a villain and John Brown offended conventional mores enough to fit that role.
This book helped me understand why Kansas, where John Brown emboldened the Free Staters to drive proslavery hooligans from the state, has done so little to recognize this founding father. Although his image reigns over the Kansas State Capitol’s rotunda in John Steuart Curry’s famous mural, his homestead near my boyhood home in eastern Kansas is not marked. One hundred and fifty years after Harpers Ferry, John Brown’s vision of a democracy for all, regardless of race, is still misunderstood.
On order for Burling Library
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