Catching shadows

When a British Army officer is killed by a rifle marksman while standing outside the church at a wedding, there are virtually no clues. The only witness says the shooter looked like a monster. Then a candidate for Parliament is killed in similar fashion, and farmer is wounded but survives. When Inspector Ian Rutledge from Scotland Yard is assigned the case, he is told it will be like hunting shadows.

Hunting Shadows (2014) is a solid entry in Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge mystery series. British mysteries can sometimes be difficult for American readers to follow, but that is not the case here. But then Charles Todd is an American, actually two Americans — a mother and son. (There are several Americans writing British mysteries, Elizabeth George being among the most prominent.)

As it is 1920,  just two years since the Great War ended, Rutledge reasons the killer must be a veteran,  perhaps a former sniper, who somehow managed to bring his rifle home with him. But what ties the three victims together? Or are they tied together? Might the killer just be someone who came to like killing?

Rutledge, himself a veteran of the war, works alone, except he is rarely alone. Accompanying him in his mind is Hamish, a Scottish soldier whose death haunts Rutledge. Hamish tends to butt in with commentary at key moments, yet he is mostly silent in this novel, much to the relief of both Rutledge and the reader.

The ending comes with multiple surprises, as one hopes to find in a good mystery.

The mad writer

It would have been remarkable enough that Charles and Mary Lamb, the son and daughter of servants, both rose to become significant literary figures in 18th century England, intimate friends with the likes of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. What makes their story even more remarkable is that Mary was officially insane, having stabbed and killed their mother with a kitchen knife. Susan Tyler Hitchcock tells their story in Mad Mary Lamb (2005).

Mental instability seemed to run in the Lamb family, and Charles himself suffered from bouts of depression. He was devoted to his sister, who was about a decade older, and when she was released from the madhouse, she moved in with him. Neither ever married, and they lived together until Charles died in 1834. They even, in effect, adopted a daughter together..

Yet about once a year Mary could feel and Charles could see that she was again being overcome by madness. He would lead her to one or another madhouse, where she would stay for several weeks. Hitchcock goes into detail about what madhouses were like in that era, long periods in a straitjacket being among the most bearable treatments. Upon her return home she would resume her housework, earning money making clothing for women and, in time, writing.

Charles is regarded as one of England's best essayists, but Mary was a skilled writer in her own right, although most of her work was not credited to her at the time. The children's books the siblings wrote together carried only her brother's name, even though most the writing was hers. This was even before Mary Ann Evans wrote her novels under the name of George Eliot to increase their appeal to publishers and readers, so Mary Lamb wrote in an age when female writers faced significant challenges. Hitchcock seems to blame Charles for grabbing the credit rather than giving him his due for encouraging his sister's literary efforts.

Even so, Coleridge, Wordsworth and others recognized Mary's abilities and welcomed her participation in the literary discussions held almost nightly in the Lamb home.

Hitchcock tries now and then to turn her biography into a feminist tract. At one point she even suggests Mary's killing of her mother might have been a good career move because it led to living with Charles and rubbing shoulders with literary greats. Like Mary Lamb, the author is at her best when she is thinking straight.

One can still go into any good bookstore and find or order a copy of Tales from Shakespeare, the most significant book Charles and Mary Lamb wrote together. Today both of their names are on the cover.

The last word

Someone told me that if you want to know what a book is really about just read the last word.

Will Schwalbe, Books for Living

This sounds ridiculous, that one need read only the last word in a book to know what it is about. It makes about as much sense as phrenology or astrology. Even so I decided to put it to the test with some of the books I’ve read over the last few months.

Schwalbe’s own book passes the test, which perhaps should not be surprising. His last word is life, which sums up the book as as well as any single word I can think of.

Most of the fiction I’ve read lately does not come close. Yet there are exceptions. The final word in Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool is contentment, which nicely reflects the end of the novel, if not the novel itself. The last word in Whiskey Island by Les Roberts is Cleveland. The plot revolves around political scandal and murder in Cleveland. Felix J. Palma’s The Map of the Sky ends with love. A love story does lie at the center of this sci-fi adventure, so OK.

Now let’s look at some nonfiction books:

The Rhine by Ben Coates. Last word: goes. This is a travel book, but still that seems a stretch. Verdict: Fail.

This Idea Is Brilliant edited by John Brockman. Last word: future. This is a book of essays about science, and science does point toward the future. Verdict: Pass, but just barely.

Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood by Karina Longworth. Last word: life. Almost any word in the subtitle would make a better summary. Verdict: Fail.

Wonderland by Steven Johnson. Last word: play. The book is about how recreation and the pursuit of pleasure has, through history, led to surprising developments. Verdict: Pass.

The Girl at the Baggage Claim by Gish Jen. Last word: triumph. Verdict: Fail.

What Is the Bible? by Rob Bell. last word: telling. Verdict: Fail.

How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas C Foster. Last word: imagination. One needs imagination both to write poetry and to read it. Verdict: Pass.

It’s All Relative by A. J. Jacobs. Last word: Earth. Jacobs argues that everyone on Earth is on the same family tree. So let’s be generous. Verdict: Pass.

Life with Father by Clarence Day. Last word: it. Verdict: Fail.

Bob and Ray by David Pollock. Last word: did. Verdict: Fail.

Words on the Move by John McWhorter. Last word: fun. Well, the book is fun, at least if one loves language and McWhorter’s sense of humor. Verdict: Pass.

So that’s five out of 11, which is much better than I expected.

More magic

The magic Amy Stewart instilled in Girl Waits with Gun, the first novel in her Kopp Sisters series, remains in her second, Lady Cop Makes Trouble (2016). Oh, maybe it’s not quite the same magic. Her characters, so original and surprising in the first outing, are now familiar, and the plot lacks complexity. Even so, the second novel entertains from beginning to end.

Constance Kopp is now working for Sheriff Heath, but without a badge. The sheriff questions whether he is legally permitted to hire a female deputy in New Jersey in 1915. So Constance is made jail matron, in charge of female prisoners. When she is called to assist with a hospitalized male prisoner because she speaks German, she sees it as a break. Instead it is the prisoner, the Rev. Dr. Herman Albert von Matthesius, who gets a break, or rather makes a break. And he escapes while Constance is supposed to be watching him but briefly leaves his hospital room.

Now with her job on the line (as well as the sheriff's), not to mention any chance she might have of ever becoming a deputy, Constance is determined to track down Matthesius herself, never mind that the sheriff has ordered her back to the jail. So most of the novel involves her disobeying direct orders while staying a step ahead of the sheriff and his deputies in tracking down the escapee.

There are no murders here, although there is a killing in a subplot, and we are never entirely sure what Matthesius is accused of doing. (The novel is based loosely on actual events, and the crimes of the real Matthesius are unclear in the historical record.) Still there is plenty of action and plenty of suspense. Supporting characters — the sheriff’s unhappy wife, Constance’s older sister, Norma, with her passion for homing pigeons, and the theatrical younger sister, Fleurette (actually Constance’s daughter, although Fleurette doesn’t know it) -- fill out the story without slowing it down.

Name recognition

He outraised her five to one, ran attack ads. But all the money in the world couldn't buy a name like Brant.

Laura Lippman, Wilde Lake

Names matter in elections. Who among us hasn't gone into a voting booth and discovered races where neither candidate is familiar. In nonpartisan races, we can't even depend on a political party listing for guidance. What do we do" Chances are we pick a candidate to vote for the way we may pick a horse to bet on in the Kentucky Derby, if that's the only day we ever have an interest in horse racing: We go with a name we like. And some names are better than others.

In Laura Lippman's novel Wilde Lake, reviewed here a few days ago, Luisa F. Brant is running for state attorney (called district attorney or county prosecutor in other areas) against the incumbent. Despite the other candidate's apparent advantages, she wins easily because of her name. Her father was state attorney in that Maryland county for a long time. Voters are used to seeing a Brant on the ballot.

And so it goes. When in doubt, voters tend to go with familiar names. Perhaps this helps explain why the United States has had two presidents named Adams, two named Roosevelt and two named Bush. There easily could have been two named Taft or two named Kennedy or two named Clinton. There might even have been a third Bush.

In state and local elections, names can be even more important on election day. These contests are more likely to be obscure, getting little press coverage and fewer yard signs or TV ads. I always seem to be surprised to find races for district judge or township trustee on the ballot. I never seem to hear about these races before the election. So what do I do? Just like everybody else, I choose a name that's familiar or, failing that, pleasing to say.

I recall an instance when a county recorder in Ohio had a long career in which re-election every four years was automatic. Usually he didn't even have opposition. When he retired, his son took his place on the ballot and was elected handily. The only problem was that the son was clueless, having an IQ that must have barely registered on the scale. Thankfully his father had put together an efficient staff that ran the office smoothly. The new recorder had little to do, and the less he did the better. But eventually he attended one too many candidates' nights and, perhaps more importantly, he proved unable to cope with the need to bring his office into the computer age, and he was voted out of office.

Thaksin Shinawatra

Two months ago the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article about how political candidates in Thailand have been changing their names to Thaksin to take advantage of that name. Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted by a military coup in 2006, remains popular in that country. And so there were Thaksins running for parliament in at least four provinces, and other Thaksins running for other offices throughout Thailand.

Maybe you can't buy a name like Brant in the Maryland county of Laura Lippman's novel, but the name Thaksin has become cheap in Thailand.

Play works

Like Tom Sawyer's friends, most of us are willing to work very hard if it seems like play. How else explain the appeal of crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, cross-stitch and golf? Because of all the work invested in play, pleasure and simple amusement, civilization has made great strides. Various writers have touched on this subject. Eric Hoffer comes to mind. Steven Johnson has made it the focus of an entire book, Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World (2016).

"You will find the future wherever people are having the most fun," Johnson writes. As proof he looks to the past.

Computers are now vital to virtually every business, every government office, every military operation and every bank transaction. Back in 1961 computers were big and slow and seemed to have few practical uses. Then three MIT grad students invented a computer game called Spacewar! Many more computer games followed, and soon youngsters pleaded with their parents for home computers to play these games. This led to more interest in computers and multiplying uses for computers, and adults wanted home computers for themselves.

Taverns and coffeehouses have for centuries been places where people go for fun. While there they talk, communicating ideas and rallying support for causes. Johnson traces the success of the American Revolution to taverns, where Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence were often read aloud. As for coffeehouses, he says public museums, insurance corporations, formal stock exchanges and weekly magazines all had their roots in them.

Johnson does much the same kind of thing with the spice trade, tea, movies, chess, fashion and other pleasure pursuits that led to unexpected developments.

Sometimes the process works in reverse. The author says both Disney's EPCOT and shopping malls originated as ideas for modernistic residential communities. In neither case did the housing aspect of the plan ever happen. EPCOT became a theme park. Shopping malls became places where people, especially women and teenagers, go to get away from home for a few hours.

Looping back

In his memoir Hollywood, author Larry McMurtry writes that he considers Loop Group a better novel than Lonesome Dove, his Pulitzer Prize-winner. This surprised me, for I had a low opinion of Loop Group when I read it soon after it was published in 2004. I decided to give Loop Group another try, this time with the Recorded Books version narrated by actress C.J. Critt.

My vote still goes with Lonesome Dove, but I now admit I badly underestimated the later novel. I had remembered it as a rather mindless “hero takes a journey” story with two mature women in a comic version of Thelma and Louise. I discovered on my second encounter with the novel that it is far from mindless, and while Maggie and Connie, the two women who have been best friends since sixth grade, do take a journey (from Hollywood to Texas), most of the action takes place close to home.

Both women, whether married or not, have been on the prowl for lovers since they were 12-year-olds. Now they are 60 and determined not to turn into matrons. But Maggie has just had a hysterectomy and is in the dumps. She doubts if any man will ever desire her again. She has never strayed far from Hollywood in her life, but she wonders if a road trip, perhaps to visit her one surviving aunt in Texas, might revive her spirits. Connie has no interest in going to a Texas, but she can’t bear being separated from Maggie.

Maggie heads a loop group that provides background voices for minor Hollywood films. Freeing herself of her obligations to her group, as well as to her three grown daughters, slows her departure, as does the sudden realization that she is in love with her longtime analyst.

The novel’s title, we come to realize, refers to more than just Maggie’s group. There is her and Connie’s looping and loopy drive to Texas and back. There’s the way Connie, her daughters and others tend to go round in circles, with Maggie at their center. And there is the way the entire novel seems to travel in a loop, returning Maggie and Connie to where they began, two hot, very unmatronly, on-the-prowl women.

The novel is fun, if naughty fun, but it is also a fine work of literature. But better than Lonesome Dove? I think not.

H.G. Wells saves the planet

As much as I enjoyed The Map of Time, I was not prepared for the brilliance of Felix J. Palma's sequel, The Map of the Sky (2012).

Both sci-fi adventure novels revolve around H.G. Wells and his novels, The Time Machine in the first instance and The War of the Worlds in the second. (The Invisible Man lies at the center of the third book in the series, The Map of Chaos.)

While the first novel seemed a bit disjointed, the second, although long (nearly 600 pages) and complex, holds together nicely, returning a few characters from the earlier book and even giving another prominent author, Edgar Allan Poe, a major role.

In Wells's novel, the Martians invade the Earth in terrifying fashion. Now, as if they had read the book, Martians (actually aliens from a far distant planet, although they are called Martians throughout) really do invade in much the same way Wells described. In fact the invasion started many years before, with the invaders taking human form (a tribute to Invasion of the Body Snatchers). Now the Envoy has arrived to signal the start of the campaign to conquer Earth, kill most of its inhabitants and make over the planet, using human slaves, to restructure it and its atmosphere as a new home for the invaders. Like humans, these Martians don't take care of their planet and so have to relocate every few centuries.

Wells discovers he has inadvertently awoken the Envoy from a deep sleep. Now, with help from an interesting assortment of characters, he must find a way to stop the horror he described so well in his novel.

To fully appreciate this novel, it might help to have read Palma's earlier book, as well as the works of both Wells and Poe, but that is hardly necessary. The Map of the Sky can stand on its own.

More ideas on language

John Brockman

Scientists who discover new species, new planets, new concepts or whatever also need to be adept at discovering new words to describe them. While reading This Idea Is Brilliant, John Brockman's collection of essays about "lost, overlooked and underappreciated scientific concepts," I often noticed new words, or at least words new to me. Usually these new words just gave a new twist to already existing words.

Take fallibilism as an example. According to researcher and anthropologist Oliver Scott Curry, fallibilism is "the idea that we can never be 100-percent certain we're right and must therefore be open to the possibility that we're wrong." Other such words in the book include complementarity, objectivities, hermiticity, intersubjectivity, optimality, satisficing and frequentist. Try using each of these words in a sentence. My speller challenged all of them.

Last Friday I began writing about ideas (brilliant or otherwise) about language found in Brockman's book. Here are some others:

Nothing is named after its discoverer.

This thought is found in an essay by journalist William Poundstone, but it is actually Stigler's law of eponymy, named for statistician Stephen Sigler who coined it in 1980 (but presumably did not discover it). Poundstone gives such examples as Occam's razor, Halley's comet and Gresham's law.  Yesterday in a novel I found it mentioned that the Doppler effect was known long before Christian Doppler came along.

Examples outside science include the Hudson River, Columbus, Ohio, and America.

Our vast vocabulary arose more for the purposes of seduction than anything else.

Rory Sutherland doesn't give much support to this idea in his essay. Still it's an interesting idea. Human beings probably didn't need much of a vocabulary to go hunting (when silence would be a good idea), to grow crops or raise children. But impressing a potential mate? One can never have too many words.

Putting an experience into words can result in failures of memory about that experience.

This idea comes from linguist N.J. Enfield. Can it possibly be true? I think it can, but if it is it has significance for courtroom trials, congressional hearings, books, newspapers, conversations ... any time memories are turned into words. I have always thought that writing about the books I read helps me remember them. And that is true, except perhaps what I remember is mostly what I wrote about a book, not the book itself.

Enfield writes that what he calls "verbal overshadowing" can change our beliefs about is true. He refers to languages as "filters for reality." Of course, language has always been an attempt to express reality, not reality itself. It is why even the best writers must struggle so hard  to convey the truth.

Ideas on language

One would not expect a science book to contain a wealth of interesting ideas relating to words, language and communication in general, yet the essays in This Idea Is Brilliant often touch on these subjects.

Words can be content synonyms but emotional antonyms.

This thought, expressed by mathematician Eric R. Weinstein, is hardly original. You have probably noticed it yourself, as have I. Words can have very similar dictionary definitions, yet affect those who use or hear them in very different ways. My wife, for example, reacts almost violently when hearing the word crippled, yet accepts the word disabled without a word. They are, as Weinstein observes, content synonyms but emotional antonyms.

His own example is the word whistle-blower. Compare it with words like snitch, fink and tattletale. They may mean the same thing, yet one seems positive, while they others negative. He quotes Bertrand Russell's famous example: I am firm, you are obstinate, he is pigheaded. The three words mean the same thing yet sound very different to us.

Thought follows language.

1950s car ad

In an essay called "Spatial Agency Bias," Simone Schnall observes that studies show automobiles shown facing right in advertising appear faster and more desirable. Similarly a soccer goal made from left to right appears more elegant than one moving in the opposite direction. In paintings and photographs, the more dominant person usually faces to the viewer's right. Why? Schnall says it is because we read from left to right. Among people whose languages read from right to left, such as Arab and Hebrew speakers, the spatial agency bias goes in that direction, as well.

When scientific concepts become metaphors, nuances of meaning often get lost.

This idea comes from Victoria Wyatt, a professor of history in art. Metaphors are important in science, as in other fields, for making difficult concepts easier to understand. Wyatt's objection relates more to scientific terms working their way into everyday language, becoming metaphors for situations that have nothing to do with science. Her specific complaint is the use, or misuse, of the word evolve, as when people speak of their friends or spouses evolving. This, she suggest, confuses what the word means in the scientific sense.

"When these misunderstandings infiltrate popular language and thought, realistic approaches to global problem-solving suffer," she writes. This may be true, but I don't know what scientists, or anyone else, can do about it.

I will continue with this next time.

The war back home

War is hell, not just for the soldiers but also for their families back home. This point is driven home by Tim Farrington in his excellent 2005 novel Lizzie’s War.

Mike O’Reilly served first in the Korean War. Now a decade and a half later and promoted to captain, he’s in Vietnam fighting another hopeless Asian war. We get glimpses of him in action there, but Farrington’s focus falls mostly on his pregnant wife, Liz, who already has four children to raise alone. They are a good Catholic family, a fact that is key to the plot at several points, such as when a young priest falls in love with Liz.

Mike may place fighting a war ahead of his family and spend most of the novel on the opposite side of the world, yet this is essentially a love story. We read their tender letters to each other, although neither is candid about what they are going through, him with the full extent of his injuries, she with the difficulties of her pregnancy. Sometimes love means not telling the whole truth.

Farrington, as in his bestseller The Monk Downstairs, has a gift for writing sentences that one wants to reread, then reread again. Here’s a sample in a passage about the priest and a dying man: “He gave his wife a glance, lingering and tender, almost apologetic, then closed his eyes ad sank into his suffering.”

If you've read The Monk Downstairs and are looking for another novel with the same blend of spirituality and romance, give Lizzie's War a try.

Wilde story

Laura Lippman’s Wilde Lake (2016) is a novel that starts small and stays that way for a long time until eventually stray pieces come together in surprising ways that may leave readers gasping.

In alternating chapters Lippman tells of Lu Brant, newly elected state attorney, preparing to prosecute her first murder case and of her girlhood as the daughter of another state attorney and a brother, A.J., several years older.

The murder case seems like a slam dunk. The defendant’s DNA was found at the scene. The most interesting aspect of the case to her is that he is being defended by the man she defeated in the recent election.

As for her memories of her youth, they mostly center on her brother and his friends, one of whom, all these years later, is now her secret lover — secret because he’s married and she certainly doesn’t need a scandal.

Even though not much of note happens during most of this novel, Lippman is a skilled writer who knows how to keep her readers hooked even when the hook is small. Not until the final chapters do readers, along with Lu herself, discover how the two threads of the story — her murder case and her family history — tie together. Then a tame, if interesting story, becomes riveting.

Thoughts on reading

Will Schwalbe

Will Schwalbe has much to say about the reading life and about books in general in Books for Living, which I reviewed last time. Below are some quotes from his book, followed by my own comments:

"People who write books generally read books, and most books carry withm traces of some of the hundreds or thousands of books the writer read before attempting the one at hand."

Schwalbe offers the example of British author Henry Green, little read today, who was a major influence on such writers as Sebastian Faulks, Anthony Burgess, Eudora Welty and John Updike.

My friend Steve Goble, author of the Spider John murder mysteries, gives a long list of authors who “fueled my desire to write” at the end of The Devil’s Wind. Among them are Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Ellery Queen, Patrick O’Brian, C.S. Forester, Rafael Sabatini and J.R.R. Tolkien. I’m sure other writers have their own lists.

"...reading is one of the few things you do alone that can make you feel less alone; it's a solitary activity that connects you to others."

Reading is bit like eavesdropping into other people’s lives, in the case of fiction, and into other people’s minds, in the case of nonfiction. And so while we may be alone, we don’t feel alone.

"Books can attach themselves to memories in unexpected ways."

A book, just the sight of it on a shelf or a mention of the title in conversation, can trigger memories of  where and when we read the book, even what we were thinking when we read it. We may have forgotten every detail of a novel’s plot while still remembering how much we enjoyed reading it.

"Every book we've read and everyone we've known, living and dead, is with us."

This seems like overstatement to me. Sure both books we’ve read and people we’ve met stay with us. But every book and every person? Doubtful.

"Reading brings with it responsibility."

Some books, both fiction and nonfiction, do call us to do something, to try to change either ourselves or the world we live in. Schwalbe writes about how a variety of books have changed him.

"Books remain one of the strongest bulwarks we have against tyranny."

Freedom of expression means not just writing and publishing books but also reading them.

"And reading all different kinds of books is not simply reading all different kinds of books; it's a way of becoming more fully human and more humane."

Like the author, I am a believer in reading a variety of books, not just those by certain authors or in certain genres. Does this make me more fully human or more humane than the guy who reads only thrillers or perhaps nothing at all? I doubt it. But it does make me better than I was before I read those books.

"When I read, I'm reminded to be more thoughtful about how I approach each day. And that's not just important for living: it's the least I can do for the dead."

It is the last phrase that strikes me: “it’s the least I can do for the dead.” We honor the dead by improving upon the world they made for us, respecting what they did right, forgiving what they got wrong. Reading books by dead authors is also a way of honoring them, of keeping their ideas and imaginations alive.

The right book at the right time

But just because you know that you can find anything you need in a book doesn't mean you can easily find your way to the right book at the right time, the one that tells you what you need to know or feel when you need to know or feel it.

Will Schwalbe, Books for Living

Almost any book can teach us something, even if what it teaches us is to avoid that particular author in the future. Will Schwalbe identifies lessons learned from a wide assortment of books in Books for Living. And what a wide assortment it is. There are classic books (David Copperfield), best-sellers (The Girl on the Train), obscure books (Zen in the Art of Archery), children's books (Stuart Little) and even a cookbook (The Taste of Country Cooking).

The lessons learned are equally varied. From Reading Lolita in Tehran he learns about choosing the life one wants to lead. From A Little Life he learns the value of a good hug. From What I Talk About When I Talk About Running he learns about the importance of a nap. From Bartleby, the Scrivener he learns not to never give up but rather that sometimes quitting can be the best option.

In each chapter he delves into his own past, as well as into the book that is the focus of that chapter, what it's about, how the author came to write it and, of course, how it taught him the lesson he needed at that particular time in his life. He recognizes that other readers will discover other lessons at different times. The best books have an endless number of lessons for an endless number of readers.

Schwalbe's book has a lesson for me: Pay more attention to what each book is saying. The right book at the right time means nothing if one is not alert for the lessons hiding in its pages.