Grace Metalious - Peyton Place

 

Barse Miller,   Factory Town, 1946 (detail)

Grace Metalious apparently taught herself how to write novels by reading them - and I'm guessing that Thackery's "Vanity Fair"was near the top of her list.  It has the same kind of sharp eyed, but kindly narrator  -  a smart, opportunistic, upwardly mobile young woman as its protagonist.- and a somewhat global picture of a society.

Her husband reports that the story came to her in the middle of the night and she kept him awake until dawn telling it.  I believe that. She has  the gift of total immersion into imagination. But that possibly also  made her awkward in reality, accounting  for her disastrous personal life and early death.

******

I came to Peyton Place because one  review of  Strout’s “Amy and Isabelle”suggested that it was the better novel.  The resemblance is startling.  Both stories center around a single mother who pretends she’s a widow as she raises a teenage daughter in a small New England mill town. Both connect their lives to the local Congregationalist church, as well as the changing seasons of the harsh climate.  And both daughters have an interest in literature- much like, presumably, the two authors.

But  Allison’s mom, who’s “built like a brick shit-house”, has already worked her way up to the middle class, while Amy’s mom, who’s more plain looking, is still trying to get there.  So Metalious includes the entire community in her story, while Strout is more claustrophobic and female centric.  Allison’s mom dates the superintendent of schools, while Amy is raped by a substitute math teacher.

And eerily, both novels have a climatic scene where Mom invites her chosen mate over for dinner - and things do not go as planned. 

********

Peyton Place is a cultural shorthand for a seemingly calm, respectable place that hides dark secrets, hypocrisy, and complicated scandals just beneath the surface. —— Longman Dictionary

The narrator often reminds us that people are keen to hide whatever  truth will make them look bad  to the community. So Constance McKenzie prefers to be known as a widow rather than as the  gold digging mistress of a wealthy man who died.

But it’s not like that’s a mystery which the story must resolve. Her real story is told upfront. -And believe it or not, but NO ADULTERY IS COMMITTED within the town itself. ( Constance and later her daughter go to NYC for their affairs)

Which is not to say that the story is not permeated with the sexuality suggested by the very first lines of chapter one:

Indian summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay. ..

What’s actually controversial here is the sexual desire of women.  It’s as if Pride and Prejudice began with  “ it’s a truth, universally acknowledged that all women want sex” .  And as the young protagonist explains at the end, it’s not that they confuse sex with love, but having having had sex, they feel better afterwards if they think of it as love.

And there’s no suggestion that this is peculiar to Peyton Place. It’s more like the narrator’s  idea of the human condition. As David, the intellectual mouthpiece in the story tells us, sexual drive is not just  another physical need —- it’s as all consuming as  the instinct for self preservation.

But there’s much that is peculiar to a small New England factory town - and even more than an exploration of human sexuality from a woman’s perspective, this might be called an “American scene”novel, similar to the painting shown above.  And like that kind of painting, it’s at the margins of modernism in the arts, so its critical response has not matched its popularity.

You could hardly call it sentimental, but it is suffused with an aromatic energy as the seasons turn with three  pairs of lovers.  Will any of them live happily ever after?  Halfway through the novel, I wouldn’t bet on it.

........................................................................................................................................................

Notes:

*We’ve  known from early on that Rodney Harrington was going to die  in a car crash that involved women and alcohol. That’s who he was.  And we've been told many times that the town can't wait for something  bad to happen to his father, Leslie,  the heavy handed, tightfisted mogul who loves him.  So when  Rodney steps on the gas to take his date back to her apartment for sex, we know it will not end well. 

Five words are all that's needed to tell  us what happened. No gory description of the crash - and nothing at all to say about how Leslie takes the news.  What we get instead is many pages detailing  a town meeting where Leslie's forever anti-zoning agenda is soundly defeated - but nobody rubs it in - and the novel’s  good  guy articulates that. He's suffered enough, and the community knows that. And curiously even Selene, the poor girl making good, takes his side, even though she’s already sold all the sheep that might have used an out-of-code sheep shed. (he later returns the favors as foreman of the jury that acquits her of murder)

*the question does arise: is this novel primarily about its namesake, the  town of Peyton place ( not the original title, BTW) - or is it about the young woman who moves out to become a writer in New York City. Many pages are devoted to a variety of characters who have nothing to do with her, including the alcoholic handyman. But the final pages are all about her coming of age, as a woman and writer.

The story ends as she comes to terms with leaving the place that is so much a part of her. So I guess they are inseparable. BTW, the name of her book was”Samuel’s Castle”, referring to Samuel Peyton, an African slave who escaped to France, became wealthy, returned to Boston, and rejected by its blue blood society, built a castle on a hill above what would later become the town named after him. 

American racism is not a major theme in this book - but it’s not absent.  As one local put it: “Peyton Place is  a town named - for a friggin nigger”

*****

“Peyton Placei is widely classified as popular fiction or commercial literature rather than high literary art, though critics note its realistic and gritty portrayals of small-town life.”… Google AI

Probably because it is evident that, unlike Elizabeth Stroud, for example,  Metalious  was never taught how to write literature. She was just driven to tell a story. It  became very popular - but the pulp fiction readers only took what they wanted.

It’s not salacious, it’s just attempting to be honest. 

And it’s not about small town hypocrisy as much as it about the small town virtue of people caring about each other when they actually need to.  The sexual maturity of Allison  is an important theme. But even more important is the story of Selena, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Based on a newspaper account, it was the inspiration for the entire novel.  Living in a shack at the edge of town, Selena is at the bottom of society.  But Allison  befriends her, Constance gives her a meaningful job, Ted Carter wants to marry her, Dr. Swain risks his career to give her an abortion, and the jury of townsfolk acquits  her of murdering her abusive stepfather.. 

*****

This  author’s view of small town New England may be based on her experience- but that’s not to say that her experience is comprehensive. Coming from a broken home, her childhood was impoverished.  There are no two-parent families in this story (not counting the pathetic  Lucas and Nellie Cross.) and it is outside the Christian norms and practices of that time and place - though she does briefly touch on that issue in the episode of the Irish  Congregational minister who reverts to Roman Catholicism.  Not much explanation for his change - only on the consequence of his wife, a pastor’s daughter, leaving  him.  The author is less kind to the “Holy Rollers” who adopt one of the town drunks as a prophet.  They are an object of ridicule.

*****

I’m guessing that most of the novel’s early readership - the ones who made it a bestseller - were female. And part of its appeal was its bold presentation of female desire. But the ideal manly lover in this story is more than a little controlling. He’s definitely in charge - in and out of bed.

*****

The 1957 film version has great costumes, actors, sets, color photography, and the Franz Waxman soundtrack. But without the sharp bite of reality, it's just an episode of Ozzie and Harriet.  (and actually, their son,  David Nelson, is in the cast as Ted Carter - who, in this version, stays with Selena).

In other words, the movie does  precisely what the book excoriated: hiding the truth in order to be more acceptable.

******

Constance and her daughter have the only sex scenes in this book that aren’t comic or brutish. Instead they’re psychological - and they only have one each.

In both the physical and dramatic climax to her story, Constance triumphantly consumates  her relationship with Mr. Right.

Constance is a head strong woman, David is a bit controlling, and I have difficulty imaging them together for a long time. The thrill of surrender might just wear off for her.

And here’s where her daughter loses her virginity:

"You are truly beautiful," he said. 

"You have the long, aristocratic legs and the exquisite breasts of a statue."

She let out her long-held breath with a sigh that made her quiver, and her heart beat hard under her breasts. He placed his lips against the pulsating spot, while he pressed gently at her abdomen with his hand. He continued to kiss her and stroke her until her whole body trembled under his lips and hands. When he kissed the softness of her inner thighs, she began to make moaning, animal sounds, and even then he continued his sensual touching and stroking and waited until she began the undulating movements of intercourse with her hips.

She was lying with her arms bent and raised over her head, and he held her pinned to the bed with his hands on her wrists.

"Don't," he commanded, when she tried to twist away from him at the first thrust of pain.

 "Help me," he said. "Don't pull away."

"I can't," she cried. "I can't."

"Yes, you can. 

Press your heels against the mattress and raise your hips. 

Help me. Quickly!"

Once again the man is giving orders - firmly in control,

though in this case, a long term relationship or emotional connection

is definitely not on the table for either one.

She wants to start being a woman - he is happy to accommodate.

Elizabeth Strout : Amy and Isabelle

 James Feriola (1925-1997) Old Sawmill (detail)

The first half of this novel (up to Chapter 13) deserves a review all by itself - as Mr. Robertson (no given name) has finally gotten his fifteen year old math student, the protagonist, to pull down her panties so he can fondle what’s beneath. We’ve been getting prepared for this to happen beginning with the very first sentence of the novel:

 IT WAS TERRIBLY hot that summer Mr. Robertson left town, and for a long while the river seemed dead. Just a dead brown snake of a thing lying flat through the center of town, dirty yellow foam collecting at its edge. Strangers driving by on the turnpike rolled up their windows at the gagging, sulfurous smell and wondered how anyone could live with that kind of stench coming from the river and the mill. 

 These opening words also tell us that these characters live in a world that stinks —- as well as being ugly, uncomfortable, and toxic. And that negativity never lets up except for a few pleasant days of Spring when the above tryst takes place. (BTW - one page after he dampens his finger, the lovers are discovered and that dead brown snake reappears. The erotica in this novel is quite brief.)

 This place is nasty and it’s people culturally deprived. Curiosity, wonder, and creativity do not live here. The happiest person is Fat Bev whose moments of satisfaction are primarily bowel movements. The local Congregational Church has set a standard for propriety, not inspiration. The only excitement comes from forbidden sex - and what could be more illicit than the molestation of children. Is this fascination really typical of small town, rural Americans? It sure seems to obsess the folks who live in the MAGA echo chamber. 

 It’s beginning to appear that this will be a standard melodrama of an intelligent, sensitive young person trying to escape a stultifying world of poverty, ignorance, and to top it off, sexual exploitation 

 Young Amy had an unexplained attraction to the poetry of Edna St, Vincent Millay - perhaps because they both grew up in rural Maine, raised by an impoverished single mother. But Amy is puzzled by the poems and we may assume knew nothing of the poet. She requires Mr. Robertson’s intervention to begin using a dictionary to look up words she does not recognize. She’s not been serious student, - but neither is she a giddy, empty headed teenager who follows fads and seeks conformity. Because of her single mother, she’s an outcast in this small community of farmers and mill workers. Her only friend is Stacy, a ferociously alienated girl who had been adopted at birth by a psychiatrist and his wife.

 Isabelle is her serious, responsible mother. She’s told everyone that she’s a widow. That’s possible, but the narrator has left even her marriage unconfirmed. She diligently aims to please everyone - including her daughter- for whose sake she tries to read great literature, and failing at Shakespeare, can relate to Flaubert by weeping. We can expect a generation gap as she precedes the feminine liberation of the emerging boomers like Amy. 

 The big mystery here is Mr. Robertson whose interior life, or even first name, is not yet shared by the narrator. His behavior is illegal - as well as irresponsible and reprehensible, at least by American standards. Yet he appears genuinely moved by mathematics as well as literature - he’s no dolt. Is he just a smart, lonely man attracted to a girl much like himself- or is he a serial sexual predator ? The progression of their sexual interaction is more detailed than any other kind of interpersonal relationship between them. Their love making does feel rather distant. Amy never mentions his first name, and as she's fondled, thinks of him as “wonderful man”. Meanwhile, he mentions, more than once, how “horny” she is. This does sound more like they’re both into lust more than affection.

 ********************

Beleek porcelain creamer

( probably the only thing of beauty in Isabelle’s house, it once belonged to her grandmother, but got smashed to bits  when Avery Clark and his wife “forgot” to stop over for cake)

 And then the second half of the novel is quite different. 

Isabel goes front and center - while Amy becomes a dopey teenager. No more interest in poetry, she’s  desperately lonely and fixated on  Mr. Robertson. When Isabel finds community with the women working ^in the mill, she finally reveals and accepts her own real story: she’s not a widow at all, she was sexually abused by her father’s best friend and Amy was the consequence. Things start looking up as the hot summer cools off, Amy meets her father’s other children, Isabelle stops fantasizing about her boss, and eventually will marry the kindly pharmacist who dispenses Valium.

The story is a feminist melodrama for educated women ( the ones who don’t read Reader’s Digest), with anger towards the patriarchy and contempt for the backwards small town America that enables it. All men are oafs or worse. But the text appears to have been written forward and backward many times - arranged and then rearranged in a non-chronological order. One example: we’re told that Amy loves Fat Bev long before the passages about Mr. Robertson coming to town. But the story of Amy and Bev first meeting comes just two pages after Robertson reaches up Amy's legs. ( and Fat Bev, loves sex as much as candy - or, at least she did when first married) It’s that intensity of the writer’s involvement that makes the book so irresistible, There’s a precision to the patchwork dribbling out of information about each character that makes each scene so gripping. 

 Some of the little scenes  stand oui nicely as vignettes - like Amy watching the birth movie at Stacy’s house , and then walking home through the woods by the river. Or Isabelle fretting over whether to invite the boss and wife over for desert, and then, regretfully, going through with it. And the story is nicely tied together with the ever present weather as it progresses through the season. 

 But the dominance of feminist ideology gives this “Our Town"  kind of story a very narrow, politicized view. It’s a vertible encyclopedia of male bad behavior. Women are murdered, objectified, abandoned, exploited. Even the minister of the Congregational church was finally revealed to have been abusing his daughter.

 The story is set in the mid sixties - “hippies” have already entered the conversation - but Amy and Stacy have nothing to do with rock music - and indeed music is not mentioned at all except for the church organ. This imaginary American  town is a cultural desert. and as the novel made clear from the very first sentence, the reader is being lowered into a stinking cess pool. 

 A great novel? I don’t think so. But certainly fun to read!

******

Most reviews center in the mother/daughter relationship suggested by the title,  but this story is  really all about Isabelle , and her finally coming to terms with the arc of her life.  She’s a strong, brave person who finally stops trying to control her life by sabotaging it.

John Fowles - The Magus

 

Eventually I realized that all this cleverness was going nowhere,

but until then ……. Wow!

Right from its first words, this novel has a precision of narration that has me hanging on every word. The prose as spare and elegant as a Greek statue. The story moves from ordinary to possibly supernatural , making the reader as uncomfortable as the protagonist. A charming effect! 

 Up to chapter 20, it promises to be the story of a well educated young man in his mid twenties ,Nicholas, learning how to live from a man born about thirty years earlier, Conchin. Serving in the army right after WWII, he could not relate to his own, recently deceased, military father, and was a bit lost as he began to live independently. He was intensely critical of others and so critical of himself he contemplated suicide. He believed in nothing other than his own critical acumen. He reminds us that he graduated from Oxford about a dozen times. No career or woman had yet captivated him. Like myself at that age, he was a well educated incompetent. 

 The older man embodied success and profound mystery. He was wealthy, well read, independently minded, aesthetically astute, and claimed to have psychic as well as medical abilities. He was apparently living a good life - but why choose isolation on such a tiny island? How did he spend all that time? This book was published two years after “Meetings with Remarkable Men” and he may have been one of them - a kind of spiritual adept like a Sufi, Yogi, or Taoist master. He has met with two of Nicholas’ predecessors at the island school, but suggests that only Nicholas has been “elected” to be what might be called his student. The first exercise, a kind of Russian roulette, assaults his self esteem in both perceptual ability and character. Things are not as he sees them, including himself. Perhaps he will learn how to undermine his hyper critical ego. 

 And then the character of the novel begins to change. The old man shares stories that soon appear in the flesh - presumably performed by actors in costume. The characters become more like mouthpieces for ideas that interest the author, and less like people who might ever have roamed a Greek island, or anywhere else for that matter. The romantic prologue of Nicholas makes him feel quite real. His affair with the smart, sexy, intellectually inferior, Australian flight attendant is a bleeding slice of life. But once on the island, that realism fades behind a cloud of provocative ideas that often set self against society. Conchis tells his life story - is it real, or just a kind of teaching tool? His youth is certainly different from that of Nicholas. But he doesn’t really feel like a real, possible person. He may as well just be one of the inner voices in the young man’s head - a pastiche of his teachers at university. If the stories are real, perhaps all the playacting is an attempt to mitigate the shame of past failures. 

 Eventually we learn the source of his wealth - a casual acquaintance died and left him a fortune - at which moment we, and Nicholas, are given two documents to study. One is an idealized commitment to reason - the other suggests that some people can communicate telepathically with minds in distant parts of the universe - and two Greek gods, Apollo and Artemis, make their appearance. Then, since one of the characters represented is a long dead girl friend, Lily, the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis, appears at her side. Will someone now living soon be actually killed? The tension is building - just as it now occurs to this reader, that escape from boredom is the primary motive for both characters.  Nicholas feels stuck teaching school and Conchis ended up with a boatload of money and talent,  but no purpose in life. 

 Then, radical changes happen again. The story shifts to Nick’s romantic interest in Julie, the woman acting the part of Lily. Conchis reveals that all this play acting was created as therapy for her mental illness. Surprisingly Nick has little curiosity about how that treatment is supposed to work and he readily submits to be drugged/hypnotized to assist. His description of the subsequent psychedelic vision takes too many pages not to mark some kind of turning point. And indeed it has. He awakes to find the estate deserted, so he takes his weekend in Athens for a reunion with the Australian girl. Predictably, it results in a firm break up. The girl wants Nick as husband; Nick needs to pursue his enchantment with Julie. 

 This is where I’m beginning to disconnect from the story. Up to this point, I’ve identified Nick as an English version of myself at age 25. He doesn’t really have any direction, but sex will do for now. Is  Julie really damaged or just an adventurous young adult like himself ? I’m beginning not to care. 58% of the novel is ahead of me, and there’s nothing more i really want to get out of it - except perhaps for a few more fascinating references to English literature. Never heard of Robert Foulkes before. Never knew Dryden marked the turning away from Renaissance English literature. Never knew about the English Helicon; a period collection of Elizabethan pastoral poetry Nicholas invoked when seeing his girlfriend romping in a mountain field. 

I was surprised, but should not have been.  The narrator expresses dissatisfaction with himself in the very first paragraph- then goes on to express contempt for his country and his parents. Apparently, this is what he learned at Oxford.

 I’m afraid that I know as much about Nicholas Urfe as I care to - or as Fowles will reveal - so I’m stopping at page 296. Had lots of fun before that, however.

*********

What does Nicholas know about Julie by page 296?  Conchis says he is treating her for schizophrenia - and he is known to be deceitful. But why else are she and her twin sister on the estate ?  She is also deceitful - either to Nicolas or Conchis or both.   If she’s not mentally ill, she is a very skillful collaborator of Conchis - and what possible good could they be up to?  Relieving boredom? Testing the limits of credulity?

Nicolas is either an opportunistic sexual predator or an eager victim of who knows what  - or both. Either way, his destiny is not compelling.

The core of this story is nihilism - and looking back it was that way from very beginning - though the erudition, brilliant storytelling by the narrator/protagonist, and hints of profound content were hard to resist - and a big disappointment when it all went nowhere.  

There as to be some contemporary American/English fiction to which I can relate - but so far, nothing.

**********

It would have been better for the novel to end with chapter 42. ( the climb up Mt. Parnassus).  A brief postscript might have told us that Nicholas realized that there was nothing more to discover on this Greek island, his youthful adventures were over, it was time to move on to teaching in a university.  He would specialize in literature that explored the interface of 

between reality and illusion. Presumably he would advise students that the key to good reading, like good living, is knowing when to quit.

Might have killed it as a best seller - but I don’t think Fowles was the man to write a spiritual quest.  Good puzzle maker, though.

Waysun Liao : Dimension One

Waysun Liao —- Dimension One : the Laws of the universe according to Tao

Does theoretical physics affirm the Tao Te Ching ?

The technical sounding title of this book led me to hope this issue might be addressed.  But all we get are dumbed-down affirmations like:  "old Taoist wisdom is no different than the latest findings and most brilliant theories coming from today’s modern scientists". As the author calls  those ancient Taoists "scientists", he joins that propagation of populist ignorance that has  become so successful at undermining expertise on issues like climate change and pollution. Yuck!

The essential content here is a spiritual cosmology and guide to living - accompanied by relevant passages from the Tao Te Ching.  And apparently the target audience has  been identified as "suffering": 

 "The lessons of Tao can also help you navigate the ups and downs of your personal life. How? By explaining what has confused so many for so long: why, despite our best efforts, we cannot individually or collectively seem to pull ourselves out of suffering. Through understanding why suffering is inevitable and what causes it, you can employ the laws of the universe to reduce your distress and start on a path of more effective living."

I can’t really relate to this.  Sure, I occadionally suffer from  tooth ache or illness - but mostly I’ve had a very easy, rich, and pleasant life. I also can’t relate to the idea that most human thoughts, emotions, and creations  can or should be dismissed as "artificial".  I like being human.   We talk, build, argue, ponder, give, take, bargain, scheme, love, meditate —- and the last is no more authentic than all the others.

Nor would I deny what appears to be the reality of evolution: cosmic, biological, social, personal.  I see progress:  from lifeless rock to living planet; from one-cell organism to whales and elephants; from huts and caves  to great cities; from group chants to grand operas.  I live for progress - to both benefit and contribute - not just to have "more power and potential"- the goals which the author has presented for meditation.

Finally, I reject the notion of "heaven’s net" -  a big sticky spiders web of inevitable karmic consequences - complete with big hungry spiders - eager to respond to every errant thought or deed without exception or time limit.

But still I found many of the ideas and metaphors to be useful. For example;  universal consciousness as an infinite sheet of paper that crinkles up to create all the stuff in our world. And I’m charmed by the notion that it is characterized by the ability to think - rather than any specific thoughts.  Though I would disagree that it is more to be feared than loved.

From the passages quoted from the Tao Te Ching it does appear that such pessimism has had  a long history in China.  I respect that - but it’s not the world I inhabit.

So this book has helped me grasp just where I stand with Taoism.  I love the meditations - but the philosophy is in serious need of update.  (Just as with Christianity.  I love the art and music but ….. ). Has anyone ever called himself a Taoist-Humanist ?

It’s also gotten me more acquainted with the inner life of its author.  Though I once attended his school, I’ve never met him.  But he has trained or collaborated with every Tai Chi teacher I’ve ever had and  I continue to rent some of his many videos.  

Federico Faggin : Irreducible - Consciousness, Life, Computers, and Human Nature

 

The premise of this book - as suggested  by the title - is that consciousness is an irreducible whole, greater than the sum of its parts.  And so is life - in each of the myriad forms it may  take. Computers, however, well —- that’s a different matter.

And I agree - which is my major problem with a book mostly devoted to repeatedly - and repeatedly - and repeatedly again  - arguing a point that seems self evident. The book offers hundreds of validating quotes from the great philosophers, scientists, or spiritual leaders of the past - but no footnoted references for those like myself who are inclined to dive down whatever rabbit hole looks intriguing . Though as it turns out - most of the quotes were contributed by Faggin’s daughter-in-law - so quite possibly Faggin himself never read all those authors.

What I was hoping for was some connection between consciousness and the  bizarre world of  the sub-atomic - deep down where quantum mechanics defies the laws of reason and the natural world as we know it.  It’s been 90 years since Schrodinger’s  cat exemplified a typical quantum paradox by being both alive and dead - and still the greatest minds of humanity have not been able to sort things out. So it’s not too surprising that those with a poetic or mystical bent have been suggesting that the foundation of everything is a universal consciousness that, like your consciousness or mine,  is utterly unknowable,- only more so.

There really can’t be any knowable connection to the quantum world - so it was foolish of me to hope for one.  As Faggin puts it, it’s private.   It’s as unknowable as the personal lives of discreet parents to their children.  In addition to being a brilliant electrical engineer, however, Faggin  is also something of a mystic.  He had a vision one evening by the shores of Lake Tahoe - and it was life changing.  Regretfully, he does not share his subsequent  spiritual journey - but this book does sketch out the beginnings of a metaphysical cosmology - possibly best studied in the glossary of his special terms, many of which he invented. The cosmic consciousness, which Faggin calls the "One", in an eternal quest to know itself, generates other conscious, free-will entities on a similar quest. With an ongoing expression of love, they have built out a larger world of atoms, elements, and  compounds to share their self knowledge and remember it.  The laws of classical physics are whatever these entities have agreed upon.  There is a hierarchy, though no elaboration of it. One of them is planet earth - or the goddess "Gaia" as Greek mythology would have it.  And one of them is associated with each and every living creature which the conscious entity controls much as a player controls an avatar in a virtual reality game station.  When that creature dies, it’s as if its conscious entity jolts awake from a dream. 

There’s no explanation for how conscious entities can do such things - or elaborations on similar theories from earlier  writers - or even how Faggin came up with some  ideas himself.  The emphasis on universal love and the extended family of everything recalls Francis of Assisi and "brother sun, sister moon".  It’s so Italian - in the very best way.

I can only partially relate to it. I can appreciate a universe based on the love of learning.  I’ve wasted a lot of time being curious.  Studying this book being the most recent example. But it doesn’t really feel like I’m being curious about myself.  That seems too small an issue to be worth much attention.

In his next book, Faggin will probably elaborate the technicalities of this cosmology.  He’s an engineer - and that’s what engineers do.   But I do hope he gets more personal about his own spiritual journey.  Has he had a mentor? Does he meditate?  Does he attend a Franciscan church?  At this point, I think I’ll learn more about his vision by becoming more familiar with him.  The kind of universe he describes is better known by looking inward rather than outward.  At least for me. 

My Promised Land - by Ari Shavit

 A review of My Promised Land by Ari Shavit

A thoroughly entertaining and informative trip through the history of Zionism and the state it created - coinciding, to a limited extent, with the author’s family history.  The story is framed by references to his distinguished ancestor, Herbert Bentwich. And the whole book feels personal.  Rather than the distant, clinical view of the historian, we get interviews with the men who made it happen. ( I can’t recall meeting a single woman)

As the title makes explicit - the author is a Zionist and he lives at the center of the world he observes..  There is no hidden agenda here - it’s all upfront. He acknowledges that Israel needs American support to survive - and this book follows the grand tour he made throughout American universities to pitch the case for the survival of a small Jewish state in the heart of the Arab Muslim Middle East. He is a passionate advocate - but he has not written propaganda.  He presents his case even handedly. He respects the intelligence of his readers - and his own as well.  He exemplifies the adage: "Two Jews, three opinions"

As an American, I have no greater, or lesser, responsibility than any other citizen to consider that case —- and that is how I will respond to this book.  Full disclosure:  I am one of those totally assimilated Jews who - as the author sees it - exemplify the tragic disappearance of secular Judaism outside of Israel.  My mother’s parents were Jewish.  My Jewish connection, however, goes further than that.  As a young man, my German/Norwegian father chanced to meet a Ukrainian born Jew who was teaching art at a small Midwestern college.   Milton Horn’s mission was the creation of Jewish liturgical figurative sculpture pretty much in the style of  the medieval Christian art he collected. That chance meeting transformed my father’s life — and eventually provided a path for mine as well. 

Antisemitism was a good reason for Jews to want  their own country - and the Holocaust was a good reason for other countries to get on board.  But the project looks even more impractical, if not reprehensible,  today than it was in 1948.  What was supposed to  happen to all the Muslim Arabs who were living there?  Why would Arabs elsewhere be any less eager to help their own kind than the Jewish diaspora has been to to help theirs?  Looking at a map of the Middle East, it’s so much easier, and almost unavoidable, for them to do so.  Israel is so very small and isolated.

So 75 years later ( I know the number because I was born the same year), what can be done now?  Shavit is optimistic because Israelis remain vigorous and inventive, regardless of the changes in their demographic (being now more oriental than European in background).  He is pessimistic, however, because their problem with Palestinians and the Arab/Muslim world has not gone away - while their support from other countries is growing ever weaker. 

Ten years after the book was published, the recent breakout from Gaza exemplifies both Arab intransigence and incompetent Israeli leadership. Their solution to the Gaza problem was to build a super-wall to lock the Arabs in.  When they failed to monitor it, 1200 Israelis were brutally murdered.  Then their response was to invade and kill the Palestinian leadership.  So far, more than 20,000 Palestinians have died.  Will this work any better than the violent responses that began with the Arab revolts in the 1930’s and continued through several international wars and popular uprisings ? 

Why couldn’t Israel just rebuild the Gaza wall and monitor it much more carefully? Probably because that would be unacceptable to the nationalist Israeli public - just as peace and reconciliation is a minority, if not extirpated, voice in Palestinian politics.

I can see America helping Israel fend off the neighboring autocratic Arab states.  We usually help small states resist invasion from larger ones - especially if they are democratic,

 But should America help Israel fight the residents of their own occupied territories ? Should America help them exact a revenge that’s not going to make anyone safer?  Why should Americans be more concerned with the destiny of the Jews who sought refuge in Israel -  than Israelis have shown concern for the Palestinian population trapped in the struggle between two belligerents ? Even Shavit, who interviewed leaders across Israel's diverse society, including a Palestinian attorney, gives no voice to anyone living in the occupied territories. 

So as much as I enjoyed this informative, passionate  book -- it did make me less sympathetic to the author’s cause.  Shavit asserts that secular Judaism will eventually disappear without Israel - but he hasn't even tried to convince me that this problem is serious enough to merit warfare, much less a century of it.  He regrets that Israeli policy is currently driven by right-wing nationalism - but he asks for American support regardless. 

Looking back, Shavit has documented Israel’s survival as an ethno-centric state - and it is indeed a remarkable, thrilling story.  Looking ahead, however - the next remarkable achievement might  be to transform itself into a pluralistic nation with a Jewish minority.  But Shavit, the Zionist, doesn’t really want to look ahead . The other  two possible scenarios are endless war or nuclear annihilation.

And  given my own proclivities, I am less pessimistic about the future of a secular Jewish identity without Israel.  I am never going to raise Jewish children or keep the Sabbath or any other Jewish holiday.  But the Jewish tradition in literature, sacred and otherwise, has always fascinated me - and the literary importance of this book may outlive its subject matter - along with books by other great secular Jewish writers of recent times.  (my favorite being Isaac Singer).  Every character that Shavit introduces is succinctly and passionately drawn.  And as amazing as many are, they all feel true to life.

All good things must come to an end - but as long as free inquiry is protected, Jewish intellectual life , from the Torah to the latest Shavit, will live on — whether waxing or waning.  The rule of law in a pluralistic democracy is worth fighting for.  Other stuff — not so much.

 

Chetan Bhagat : One Indian Girl

The protagonist in this pulp fiction is hardly just "one Indian girl"

She's brilliant, attractive, ambitious, and hardworking.  She gets a job with a multi-national financial firm and soon makes half a million USD a year. Her only problem is that she also  wants  to be loved and  wants to have children.

Can this "one Indian  girl" ever have it all?

Men find her attractive -- and here are her choices:

*a creative artist in  advertising,  He wants her to be a housewife.
*a wealthy, married, partner in a financial services business. He wants her to be a playmate
*a tech-nerd who was picked by her mother from a marriage website for desis