Hero or villain? It's all relative

How do you turn bad guys into good guys in fiction? By creating even worse guys.

Donald E. Westlake used this device time after time in his books, especially when writing Parker novels under the name of Richard Stark. Butcher's Moon (1974) is a classic Parker novel, longer than most and with a higher body count. The 2011 reprint has a foreword by Lawrence Block, another novelist known for converting bad guys (a burglar and a hit man) into good guys, comparatively speaking.

Parker, a professional thief with barely a soft spot in his character, decides to return to the midwestern city of Tyler to find $73,000 he left hidden there after a heist went bad years before. (Why he left the money behind or why he waited so long to try to retrieve it is never explained.)  He enlists the aid of another professional, Alan Grofield (a recurring character), in case finding the money isn't as easy as he hopes. It isn't.

Not only isn't the cash where he left it, but he suspects it was found by someone in the organized crime syndicate that runs Tyler. Adding another complication, the Tyler gang is in the midst of a power struggle, a younger man trying to gain control from an older man. Parker and Grofield quickly bring things to a boil. When Grofield is seriously wounded, Parker recruits former associates from around the country to help him get his money and save Grofield, proving he does have a soft spot after all.

The action, like the twists and turns in the plot, is nonstop. Parker may really be a bad guy, but this is a good book.

Piling on metaphors

Steven Pinker

We don't just mix metaphors; we pile them on top of each other. There, that is an example.

Steven Pinker argues in The Stuff of Thought that we cannot think, let alone speak or write, without metaphors. They help us give shape to our thoughts, then help others understand what we are thinking. Pinker compiles many of the common phrases used by those in romantic relationships, all suggesting that love is a journey. Among them:

Our relationship has hit a dead-end street.

We're at a crossroads.

We may have to go our separate ways.

This relationship isn't going anywhere.

We're spinning our wheels.

Our marriage is on the rocks.

I'm thinking of bailing out.

He compiles a similar list suggesting that argument is war:

Your claims are indefensible.

His criticisms were right on target.

He attacked every weak point in my argument.

She shot down all my arguments.

We use, hear and read metaphors so frequently that we are usually unaware that they even are metaphors.

I thought of Pinker when I read the following sentence in Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. Notice the metaphors, one after another:

The course which these adventures shape out for themselves and imperatively call upon the historian to observe, now demands that they should revert to the point they attained previous to the commencement of the last chapter, when Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride were left together in the house where death had so suddenly reared his dark and heavy banner.

Dickens tells us, metaphorically, that adventures both shape out a course and call upon historians. Then they demand that we return to a previous chapter where two characters were left together and where death had reared "his dark and heavy banner." That's a lot of metaphor packed into one long sentence.

Try explaining anything — how you spent your day, what's wrong with your car, what you think about President Trump — without using at least one metaphor. You may be able to do it, but it would be a challenge. It also may not be as clearly expressed or nearly as interesting as it would have been with a few metaphors piled into it.

Sentences worth returning to

Charles Dickens

Some sentences we must read a second time, or even a third time, because we didn't understand them the first time. This may be our fault, perhaps because our mind wasn't focused on the sentence, or it may be because of bad writing. More often it is because of long, complex sentences, difficult words or unfamiliar ideas.

And then there are those sentences we reread simply because they are so good, so beautifully written, so wonderfully expressed.

One encounters both kinds of sentences in Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, the novel I commented upon a few days ago. My edition of the novel has 777 pages, but I must have read the equivalent of well over 800 pages simply because I read so many sentences more than once. Dickens didn't write many simple sentences. He liked to throw everything into them, so some need to be reread to fully grasp them. Others beckon us to read them again because they are so good. Here are a few I found that fall into that latter category.

"She was neatly, but quietly attired; so much so, indeed, that it seemed as though her dress, if it had been worn by one who imparted fewer graces of her own to it, might have looked poor and shabby."

This line reminded me somehow of the atrocious hairdo Bo Derek had in the movie 10. At least it would have looked atrocious on almost any other woman. But this was Bo Derek.

"It may be further remarked that Miss Knag still aimed at youth, though she had shot beyond it years ago ..."

This sentence goes on and on, but this is the part worth rereading.

"It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one that the last."

At least every new mother believes so.

"Pride is one of the seven deadly sins; but it cannot be the pride of a mother in her children, for that is a compound of two cardinal virtues -- faith and hope."

I mentioned this to a group around a dinner table recently, and a woman commented that this was no less true of a grandmother's pride.

Before Scrooge

Before there was Scrooge, there was Ralph Nickleby. In my comments last month about The Man Who Invented Christmas, I noted that the film shows Charles Dickens getting the idea for Scrooge from an encounter with a miserly man before he started writing A Christmas Carol. Yet years before this Dickens had already created a character in Nicholas Nickleby who could have given Scrooge lessons in miserliness.

The novel, published in 1838, opens with the death of Ralph's brother, making him responsible for his brother's widow and her two grown but not yet independent children, Nicholas and Kate. First he moves them into much more humble accommodations, then finds Nicholas a position as a tutor in a boy's school far from London. With the brother out of the way, he uses pretty Kate to entice two playboy noblemen into some business dealings, unmindful of what might happen to Kate afterward.

Nicholas soon discovers the headmaster at the school to be abusive toward the boys in his care. He flees with one of those boys and finds himself for a time with a wandering theater group before learning of his sister's situation. When he returns to rescue her, a long struggle between uncle and nephew begins, with many complications and adventures.

Nicholas Nickleby was not a successful novel in its day, at least in comparison with Oliver Twist, but it is hard to understand why. While it may not be one of the best novels Dickens wrote, it provides nonstop entertainment (except for one chapter that is obviously just padding and could be skipped without missing any of the story). It would make an excellent entry-level Dickens novel for those intimidated by that author's reputation for meandering plots and multitudes of characters. Here the plot rarely strays far from the Nicklebys, and the characters, while plentiful, are easy to keep straight. If the reader becomes confused about who a character is, Dickens soon enough makes it clear.

This was one of the early Dickens novels. He was still learning the game he would soon master, but we can already find evidence of some of the writer's greatest personal interests and concerns, among them the plight of boys in schools operated for profit, young women coerced into careers in the sex trade and the theater, his greatest love, perhaps even including writing.

There's humor here (Mrs. Nickleby ranks among his greatest comic characters), an abundance of romance (the clergy will have all the weddings they can handle by the end of the novel) and all the plot twists a reader could want. It's a massive novel, of course, but this is Dickens in an age when writers were paid for bulk. When a novel is this much fun, however, size is more blessing than curse.

Movie moments

When we remember movies seen in years past, what we mostly remember are certain moments from those movies. These moments stick with us even after most other details have faded away. That is the point film critic David Thomson makes in Moments That Made the Movies (2013), and I think he has it right.

We don't, of course, necessarily remember the same moments, or even moments from the same movies. And so Thomson's choices are very personal: his movies, his moments. We can choose are own.

His book is generously illustrated with stills from the chosen films, which go from a movement study of two nude women by Eadward Muybridge in 1887 to Burn After Reading, a Coen brothers film from 2008. Actually his last "film" is a still photograph taken during a violent Stanley Cup victory celebration in Vancouver in 2011, chosen because to him it seems like a moment from a movie.

Readers are likely to most appreciate Thomson's commentary on familiar scenes from familiar movies, whether or not they represent the moments we most remember. These might include Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) restaurant shooting of a police captain and the man responsible for the attempt on his father's life in The Godfather; the meal Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) shares with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Psycho before she is slaughtered in the shower (the moment other viewers might remember best); David Huxley (Cary Grant) ripping Susan Vance's (Katherine Hepburn) dress in Bringing Up Baby; and the fake sexual bliss demonstrated by Sally (Meg Ryan) to Harry (Billy Crystal) in When Harry Met Sally.

 Most of Thomson's choices are more obscure. He has a fondness for Japanese films of the 1950s and French films of the 1960s that few readers of his book are likely to have seen (although sometimes his commentary may make us want to see these films). Even his English-language choices tend to be rarely viewed films. Regarding Mickey One, a Warren Beatty movie from 1965, he says, "This a real film -- you can look it up." One film is unavailable on DVD in the United States. The moment he chooses from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid does not appear on most DVDs.

So there's a lot of showing off in Moments That Made the Movies. "I've seen this, and you haven't," he seems to suggest. Still, we are free to write our own accounts of the movie moments we most remember. Chances are they would not be as readable as his.

George Orwell's Burma

George Orwell's best-known novels, Animal Farm and 1984, are political at their core, and the same is true of Burmese Days, even though this 1934 novel is a tragic love story on its face.

Based on his experiences as a member of the Imperial Police in Burma in the 1920s, the novel shows the British Empire cracking under the pressure of native resentment of the racism practiced quite openly by the small, tightly-bound British community that regards the Burmese people as dirty inferiors fit only for service to them.

One exception to this attitude is John Flory, a lonely man in his mid-30s whose best friend, and perhaps only friend, is a capable Burmese doctor. In their conversations, Flory criticizes his countrymen, while Dr. Veraswami defends them. Flory has a disfiguring birthmark on one side of his face, but even without that he would have difficulty finding a wife way out in Burma, for there are no single British women. He settles for a troublesome Burmese mistress.

Then Elizabeth comes to live with her aunt and uncle after being orphaned. Her uncle thinks only of raping her, while her aunt thinks only of getting her married and out of the way. Flory may be her only option. Flory loves her from the start, never mind that her attitudes are totally opposite of his own. She is as racist as anyone in Burma and hates mixing with the natives. She also frowns on art and culture, while Flory longs for intelligent conversation. Yet twice Flory comes within an eyelash of winning a marriage commitment from Elizabeth, only to be thwarted at the last minute.

So controversial was Orwell's novel in England that it was published first in the United States. Even now it packs a wallop in its portrayal of blatant racism. But if the breaking of the British Empire moves us, it is nothing compared to the breaking of Flory's heart.

Language was play

Harper Lee

Harper Lee's idea of a good time, as told by Marja Mills in The Mockingbird Next Door, was to read aloud the social news in her hometown newspaper, laughing heartily all the while. It wasn't that she was making light of the people of Monroeville, Ala., whom she loved, or their calls on friends and neighbors, which she did herself, but rather the fact that somewhere in the 21st century this was still considered news and, more importantly, the language used to describe these events. More than anything, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird loved to play with language.

Lee, for example, delighted in talking about Alabama place names, some of them towns too small to appear on any map. The state has places called Burnt Corn, Smut Eye, Reform, Bug Tussle, Needmore, Murder Creek, Massacre Island and Penitentiary Mountain, among many others.

Even more pleasurable to her were certain expressions heard in rural Alabama and perhaps nowhere else. Here are some of them:

"I had a brother under me." This refers to a younger brother.

"Pounding the preacher." When one lacks money to put in the offering plate on Sunday, a pound of chicken or vegetables from the garden for the preacher will do.

"Journey proud." When you are anxious the night before starting on a trip, you are journey proud.

"Mashing buttons." Pushing buttons.

"Shopping buggy." Grocery cart.

She also enjoyed church signs. Her favorite was "HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SPEND ETERNITY? SMOKING OR NON?

Harper Lee spent about half of each year in Monroeville and the other half in New York City. She was comfortable in both environments, yet perhaps at the same time out of place in both. She was too intelligent, too sophisticated for Alabama, yet at the same time too much a simple country girl for New York. Thus it was necessary for her to go back and forth, feeding on the culture of both places. And wherever she might be, she played with language.

Harper Lee trivia

Marja Mills

In the early years of the 21st century, when Marja Mills built a friendship with the elusive author Harper Lee, as told in The Mockingbird Next Door, the best way to communicate with her or her sister Alice was by fax. That's because Nelle, as Lee was known to her friends, was then in her late 70s and Alice was in her early 90s. Both were too deaf to hear their telephone or a knock on their door. And they were reluctant to answer a phone or a knock anyway because too many people were trying to contact the famous author, who valued her privacy. So Mills, when she moved into the house next door, needed a fax machine.

This is just one of the many fascinating bits of Harper Lee trivia to be found in this book. Here are a few others:

• Both of the Lee sisters were Anglophiles, although Alice had never been to England. They avidly read books and poetry by British writers and subscribed to such British periodicals as the Spectator, the Weekly Telegraph and the Times Literary Supplement.

• Although a Methodist, Harper Lee attended virtually every church in the Monroeville, Ala., area and had friendships with many of their pastors. She encouraged Mills to attend all these churches as well, perhaps to better understand the writer's ecumenical beliefs.

• Harper Lee enjoyed football, especially when the Alabama Crimson Tide were playing. Mills describes Nelle's reaction to Janet Jackson's famous "wardrobe malfunction" during a Super Bowl halftime.

• The author lived very simply, although To Kill a Mockingbird remained a bestseller for decades and royalties were substantial. She donated large sums of money, Mills says, and there are many college graduates who will never know that their scholarships were paid for by Harper Lee.

• Nelle referred to Mills as "a class-act journalist," meaning that the Chicago Tribune reporter checked her facts and didn't color those facts to make a better story. The author was very critical of what has been called the New Journalism, or what Donald Trump calls fake news, journalism with an agenda. Yet Mills points out that Harper Lee, by assisting Truman Capote research In Cold Blood, called a nonfiction novel, the author was herself one of the founders of New Journalism. Yet Lee defended Capote's book.

• She did not defend Capote, however, especially in his latter years when his talent was consumed by alcohol, drugs, pride and jealousy. At one point she tells Mills, "Truman was a psychopath, honey."

Becoming Harper Lee's friend

For decades following the overwhelming success of To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee deliberately kept her distance from reporters, would-be biographers and even fans she suspected of trying to take advantage of her. So why did she suddenly welcome Chicago Tribune reporter Marja Mills into her life, even to the point of encouraging her to move into the vacant house next to the one she shared with her sister in Monroeville, Ala.? The answers come in The Mockingbird Next Door (2014), the book Mills wrote about her surprising friendship with the reclusive, yet far from retiring, author.

1. Nelle (like her other friends, Mills refers to the late author by her real first name) liked the fact that at that time (2001) Chicago was encouraging its citizens to read and talk about her novel. These kinds of programs, now common in many communities, was a relatively new idea back then, and however much Nelle wanted to avoid public exposure, she enjoyed having her novel front and center.

2. Nelle was in her 70s then and she realized that her opportunities to get the facts straight for all those who would inevitably be writing about her life were running out. Charles Shields was already working on his unauthorized biography, and when it was published, she didn't like it.

3. Marja Mills first approached not her but her older sister Alice. Then in her early 90s, Alice was still practicing law in Monroeville. Nelle called her "Atticus in a skirt." Alice invited the reporter into her home, Nelle being away at the time, and answered a few questions. After Mills passed the Alice test, Nelle herself called the reporter at her motel and suggested getting together.

4. Mills herself was somewhat vulnerable. She was more introverted than the typical reporter, plus she suffered from lupus, a condition that can leave a person too tired to do anything for days at a time. It was lupus, in fact, that caused Mills to take a leave from the Tribune and move next door to the Lees.

5. The reporter didn't push for information as much as wait patiently for the author to reveal it. Gradually Nelle gave Mills access to her closest friends in Monroeville, and gradually Mills herself became a close friend. Every day she and Nelle would have coffee together. Every week they would go to the laundromat together.

The lively mind, tormented soul and generous heart that Nelle Harper Lee revealed to Marja Mills already makes her book a great source for all those who want to write about the writer. And perhaps now they will get their facts straight. For example, Truman Capote, her one-time friend and neighbor, did not help her write To Kill a Mockingbird, though she did help him write In Cold Blood.

Want another book with that?

There are more public libraries in the U.S. than McDonald's restaurants.

Mental Floss

More public libraries in the United States than McDonald's restaurants? This is one of those things, like the phrase "you may already be a winner," that you would like very much to believe but just seems too good to be true.

Many of us can remember when it certainly was true. In my youth the public library was about three miles away, a healthy bike ride. The nearest McDonald's was in Toledo, about 20 miles away, and we went there maybe once a year while on a major shopping trip, such as at Christmas. We must have passed several libraries to get there.

In the years since McDonald's restaurants have sprouted up everywhere, while the number of libraries probably hasn't changed much. My hometown now has a McDonald's but still just one public library. Ashland, Ohio, where I live half the year, has one library and two McDonald's. Largo, Fla., where I spend the other half of the year, has one public library and several McDonald's. There are still many towns too small to have a McDonald's, but they are also too small to have public libraries.

So how can Mental Floss possibly have it right?

It may depend upon what one counts as a "public library." Municipalities, and in some cases entire counties, have a single public library, but they may have several branch libraries. So does this count as one library or several? Does a bookmobile count as a separate library?

Ashland is home to Ashland University and Ashland Seminary, both of which have fine libraries available for public use. So do they count as public libraries?

Most public schools have libraries, or so I imagine. Does that make them public libraries too? Schools probably do outnumber McDonald's.

Unfortunately Mental Floss doesn't give the source of its intriguing little "fact" or explain what it means. We can only hope that it is, indeed, still true.

More than you might expect

The Young Clementina ( 1938) by D.E. Stevenson, at least in its 2013 edition, is an easy book to misjudge by its cover. I expected something light and breezy, rather on the order of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, also first published in 1938 and made into an equally delightful film 70 years later. Stevenson's novel, while of comparable quality, is composed of more serious stuff.

We might also misjudge this book by its title. Charlotte Dean, the novel's narrator, has a younger sister named Clementina, though this pretty, manipulative woman calls herself Kitty. Kitty's daughter is also named Clementina. To which does the title refer? Neither, it turns out, lies at the center of the plot, although both are vital to it.

The key character, if not Charlotte herself, is Garth Wisdon, heir to an estate, whom she has loved since childhood. They plan to marry but the Great War interrupts those plans. When Charlotte first sees him after the war is over he is dramatically changed and shows no affection for her at all. He marries not her but Kitty and they soon have a daughter, while Charlotte settles into spinsterhood.

The marriage proves a stormy one, and Charlotte becomes a reluctant witness at their divorce trial. She discovers that her sister expects her to lie under oath on her behalf. Much else happens, best left for readers to discover on their own. These discoveries will be pleasurable and, for the most part, surprising.

Stevenson's novel turns into melodrama by the end, and that ending may be predictable. Still, on the whole, this is fine stuff, not the book we might expect but one we can enjoy.

A less than tasty mystery

The mysteries of Ian Sansom are an acquired taste. I acquired that taste by the end of the first book in his Mobile Library series, but after reading a second book in his County Guides series, Death in Devon, I am not there yet.

Set in England in the 1930s, the series features Swanton Morley, a writer who seems to know everything, or at least pretends to, and his young assistant, Sefton, who acts as Watson to his Holmes, This time they go to a boys' school in Devon, where Morley is the featured speaker at an event that brings parents and wealthy donors to the school. One of the boys is found dead, apparently from an unfortunate accident. This death hardly seems to dampen festivities. Nor does it keep Morley from gathering information for his next county guide.

Sansom mysteries are, like those of Alexander McCall Smith, more character-driven than plot-driven, Sansom's characters are, however, less interesting. They talk too much, especially Morley, who soon bores readers even more than he bores other characters. He dominates every conversation, expounding trivia about every subject. Whenever he hits upon an idea that might make a topic for yet another book, he tells Sefton to make a note.

It isn't even clear in Death in Devon who the novel's true hero might be. While Morley acts the part, it is Sefton who first realizes that something is terribly wrong at this school and that what's wrong has more to do with adults than students. To get Morley to take an interest in the bizarre events going on about them, he must manipulate his boss to move in the necessary direction. At this point, of course, Morley assumes it was his idea all along. And it is Morley's own daughter, Miriam, who is most in danger.

If less humorous than the Mobile Library series, the County Guides series does have comic elements. The cases at least are more serious than missing library books. Yet one must read through most of Death in Devon to realize there even is a mystery, let alone a mystery worth turning another page to get to the bottom of.

A book reveals a story

A common theme permeates the two Phaedra Patrick novels I have read so far: Physical objects open windows into the past that, in turn, open doors to the future.

In The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, it is a charm bracelet that belonged to his late wife that allows Arthur Pepper to discover the life she gave up to marry him, making it easier to face life without her. Now in The Library of Lost and Found, it is a mysterious book that allows its finder to understand her oppressive family history and begin living for herself.

Martha Storm grew up with a dominating father,  a mother who always yielded to his wishes and a younger sister, Lillian, who was always loved best. Her sister got married and had two children, while Martha broke off her engagement to become her parents' caretaker until their deaths. Now she volunteers at the local library. She regularly applies for full-time employment, but the head librarian prefers hiring younger women. Besides, if Martha is already the most productive member of the staff, why hire her?

Everyone takes advantage of Martha, including her sister who appreciates her free babysitting services. Others count on Martha to do their laundry, their mending and whatever other chores they don't want to do themselves.  Martha doesn't know how to say no.

Then someone hands her a ragged book full of stories written by Martha herself in her youth and by her beloved grandmother, Zelda. She has never before seen the book, which was published by Zelda some years after she supposedly died. And so Martha begins using the book to track down her grandmother, now actually dying, and discover all the family secrets that had been hid from her for so many years.

As with Arthur Pepper, there is a lot of contrivance here. It can be difficult believe that everyone she knows would take advantage of Martha as easily as they do and then suddenly change their behavior as dramatically as they do by the end of the story. But if one takes the novel as a magical fairy tale, much like the stories Martha wrote as a child and that ended up in her book, one will find much to enjoy.

Premature celebrations

Although this blog normally concerns itself with language and literature, today's brief essay has more to do with numbers. But let's begin with words: decade, meaning 10 years, and century, meaning 100 years. So welcome to 2020, but is this really the start of a new decade? Only if there was a decade somewhere in history that had only nine years in it.

So why is it that everywhere one looks, supposedly intelligent people are talking about the beginning of a new decade and remarking on the best and worst of the previous decade? These same supposedly intelligent people 20 years ago were celebrating the start of a new century one year early.

I think these people may be confused by their own birthdays. On your 10th birthday you have lived 10 years and are beginning your 11th, a new decade in your life. But on the day of your birth, your age started at zero and began building from there. There was no year 0 on the calendar, however. The counting of years, totally arbitrary based on an erroneous estimate of the year Christ was born, began with 1. The previous year was 1 B.C., or before Christ. And so the first decade of the Christian era ended with the conclusion of the 10th year, not its beginning. Every decade since then has ended with the conclusion of a year ending in zero and every century with a year ending with double zero.

On a related matter having more to do with language, I wonder if 2020 will finally be the year the majority of English speakers finally leaving out "thousand" when they say the year. Back in 1999, nobody pronounced the year as one-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine. It was just nineteen-ninety-nine. For the next ten years, however, it made sense to include "thousand" when saying the year, since to do otherwise would have been more cumbersome. That changed in 2010, yet out of habit most people said two-thousand-ten rather than the simpler twenty-ten. And so it has continued every year since.

But 2020 may be the year we all finally break the habit. Twenty-twenty is just so much easier and more fun to say than two-thousand-twenty. Perhaps a year from now the word thousand in our year will, like the decade, finally be history.