Collected Miscellany

The Last Valley by Martin Windrow is one of the best military history books I have ever read. It objectively examines both sides in the first war in Indochina – the French and their Vietnamese allies against the Viet Minh. The book explains the strategies of both sides throughout the war and the tactics used in individual engagements.

Windrow describes the history of French colonialism in Indochina and how and why the Viet Minh formed to oppose the French colonial rulers. He offers an overview of the hostilities between the Viet Minh and the French-led forces leading to the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Windrow’s descriptions and explanations of the battles leading up to the battle of Dien Bien Phu provide an understanding of the strategies involved. Particularly, Windrow describes a French victory at Na San that the French used as a basis for future operations in North Vietnam’s High Region. The French believed that Dien Bien Phu would be fought in the same manner as Na San. Windrow explains the many differences between the two battles and how General Vo Nguyen Giap, military commander of all Viet Minh forces, effectively applied the lessons he learned at Na San to the battle of Dien Bien Phu.

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Sorry about the blog silence the last few days. I was out of town and without computer access (for three whole days if you can believe it). I am way behind on reviews of books I have read recently, so I will try to remedy that and post some reviews this week.

I hope you enjoyed Amber Hartley’s guest post on Friday. I might ask here to post again and discuss what she saw as the pros and cons of self-publishing.

Anyway, check back soon for the normal chewy goodness . . .

Now that my career as a sportswriter and prognosticator has come and gone the Friday review returns with a look at Drama City
by George Pelecanos.

Crime thrillers have to start with a bang these days in deference to our much-maligned attention span, that collective fugue state we wander through between thirty second ads and subliminal shots of triple cheeseburgers. Drama City defies convention with a set-up that walks the reader through the lives of Lorenzo Brown and Rachel Lopez, the damaged protagonists of this urban landscape. Lorenzo is walking the line after eight years in prison. Back on the home ground in Washington DC Lorenzo sees things with old eyes, the kids on the corner, the cops on the beat. Lorenzo has a job with the dog police, the Humane Society, and a grim determination to stay away from his old life.

Rachel is Lorenzo’s probation officer. Rachel is leading a double life, struggling with alcohol and high risk sex; good at her job, she cares about her clients like Lorenzo who seem to want to change their lives. At night Rachel is prowling hotel bars dressed to kill or be killed.

Lorenzo knows nothing has changed on the street except the faces. As the story unfolds the reader is drawn into Lorenzo’s austere routine. His old friend Nigel runs the drug corners just the way he used to. The young studs sneer and posture; a dispute over a corner sets the novel’s plot into motion. Lorenzo and Rachel are caught up in the retribution unleashed by brutality and above all, bedrock stupidity.

As a character study the novel makes excellent use of the tension inherent on DC’s uptown streets. Pelecanos employs a lean style and a deliberate pace that establishes his characters and the realities of their world. Theme drives the plot without moralizing or side trips. Cause and effect follow one another with grim efficiency. The volatile mix of guns and greed overlay the simpler hopes of staying sober, staying free, or simply surviving; the novel succeeds as a study of what people don’t want. Lorenzo puts one foot in front of the other, not wanting to be the man he once was; Rachel spends her days paying dues for the night before.

Pelecanos plays the bounce allowing Lorenzo to glimpse love and promise long enough to put it everything at risk. The crisis brings the storylines together as it merges the action with the thematic inevitability of violence. Rachel and Lorenzo, long separated by role and perspective, are united by the savage actions of a psychotic teenager. Rachel walks the same streets as Lorenzo, always mindful of lines she cannot cross; Drama City shows us how these constructs and class distinctions can vanish in a single moment.

The novel doesn’t offer lush descriptors or lingering metaphorical phrases; other reviewers have been kicking Pelecanos around for the dialogue driven no frills approach. I think his prose is perfect for the subject matter and overwriting would have killed the mood it creates. We know what a street corner looks like; Pelecanos shows us what that corner feels like to Lorenzo and Rachel. That’s the novelist’s job and he does it well.

One of my intellectual heroes passed away on Thursday. George F. Kennan was one of the most fascinating and important figures in American foreign policy. My Master’s thesis centered on the debate surrounding Kennan’s concept of containment. I spent a great deal of time in grad school reading this amazing man’s writing and wrestling with his ideas. He was talented writer as well as a first rate thinker. One might not have agreed with him on every issue but you had to take him seriously.

Perhaps I will post more later, but if you are interested here are a few books worth reading on the subject:

– Kennan’s memoirs are a good place to start. The first covers the years 1925 – 1950, the second 1950 – 1963. Also worth checking out are Sketches From a Life and At a Century’s Ending: Reflections, 1982-1995

– If I had to pick one book that dealt with Kennan and the larger scope of American Foreign Policy it might be American Visions of Europe : Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson by John Lamberton Harper. In many ways, this was the book that inspired my thesis. Instead of Roosevelt and Acheson, however, I picked former Marxist turned conservative James Burnham and the influential writer and columnist Walter Lippmann to go with Kennan.

– Another writer I love to read, John Lewis Gaddis, is expected to come out with a biography of Kennan soon. I for one can’t wait.

Interesting syndicated column this morning by Rich Lowry: Judy Blume is a major boy turn-off. Lowry argues that the Larry Summers flap at Harvard might ending up being a good thing as it has increased awareness of the role gender plays in education. Amongst other things, Lowry argues that girls and boys learn differently and that ignoring this fact harms children. Continuing with the status quo mean more boys who don’t read and girls who avoid math and science:

As it happens, the gender-insensitive American education system hurts everyone. Take boys and reading. According to a National Endowment for the Arts survey, between 1992 and 2002 the gap between young women and young men in reading widened considerably. High-school seniors who are girls score on average 16 points higher than boys on a reading test given by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. As an NEA official wrote recently, “What was formerly a modest difference is fast becoming a marker of gender identity.”

Do boys not have an intrinsic aptitude for reading? No. But those parts of the brain involved in language develop more slowly in boys than in girls. According to Sax, the average 5-year-old boy is two to three years behind his female counterpart, and the average 14-year-old is four to five years behind. Eventually it evens out, but the danger is that by pushing a boy to read too soon, or to keep pace with the girls when he can’t, you turn him off reading forever. Also, boys have different reading interests than girls (and their largely women teachers): war stories, technical information, potty humor. There is no better way to turn a generation of boys against reading than to assign them “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.”

I was a late starter when it came to reading. It wasn’t really until high school that I became a voracious reader. One set back I had was dyslexia. But interestingly, and counter to the normal gender type, I overcame that in terms of language development but not in math and science. Somehow it was much more fun to read books – and improve my reading ability – than it was to do math problems or accounting. My parents, however, got me started on the reading kick. As I might have mentioned previously, in my house we could only watch 10 hours of TV a week – one hour on weekdays and three each on weekends (this was mostly for sports). In addition, you were required to read one book a month (alternating fiction with non) or your television privileges would be revoked. Since I was such a avid reader the rules soon mean nothing to me (I was reading half a dozen books a month). But it remained a problem for my step-brother who never got into reading (he was the math guy). I can’t say I disagree with Lowry on the Judy Blume thing. I never read her, but focused on things like science fiction, heroic biography, etc. I read Isaac Asimov, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, as well as Christian biographies and history.

What say you? When did you start reading and what interested you? Are there guys out there who love Judy Blume? Girls who loved math and science from the start?

Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe wrote that Vermont’s basketball team, the Catamounts, has drawn Syracuse in the opening round. Quoth Bob, “Niagara has a better chance of beating Oklahoma than Vermont has against the ‘Cuse.”

I know this is a literary blog, but Niagara is my dad’s alma mater, so I’ve got them penciled in for the Final Four. My nephew attends Vermont, dear Catamounts, so with apologies to Sam Lipsyte, they have to find a way to get past Syracuse. Maybe the Orange will be snowed in…perfect on St. Padraig’s Day, resulting in a forfeit.
So we’ve got Niagara and Vermont in this mythical final four along with Pacific and SW Missouri State. Remember this is a lit blog; after the ‘Mounts deal with Syracuse, Duke and Carolina, Niagara will be waiting for them in a battle of the…bands, maybe?

By the way Bob Ryan uses Town Car as a verb when discussing the Fighting Illini, as in Illinois will town car its way through the tourney; maybe the Catamounts can Vee-Dub their way to St. Louis.