Catching up on my reading
29/01/12 15:04 Filed in: Reading
Since my last post, I have finished three books from my list and have started working on a fourth. The three I've completed are, in order: Abraham Verghese's Cutting For Stone; The Match, by Mark Frost; and Shatner Rules, by William Shatner (with Chris Regan).
Perhaps surprisingly, I really enjoyed all three, but for very different reasons.
Verghese's ambitious novel is by far the best work of recent "literature" I've read in a long time. Cutting for Stone traces the life and personal relationships of the narrator Marion Stone, from his dramatic arrival (with twin brother Shiva) in the delivery room of a hospital in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopa, through his eventful and heart-wrenching childhood dealing with civil strife and personal challenge, and finally to his medical career in the United States, where the various conflicting threads of his life come crashing together once again.
This is a beautifully written book which is at once fictional biography, political history, cultural study and medical drama. Marion Stone is an extremely likable character who recognises his own personal biases and limitations and comes to recognise the forces in his own life that made him who he is. His relationship with his twin brother is particularly well wrought, in all its complexity. It's too bad I didn't find the final movement, wherein Marion confronts more ghosts from his past, as convincing or effective as the rest of the novel.
One of the aspects of this book that particularly interested me was Verghese's portrayal and extended examination of the relationships between people of different races and social positions. Marion Stone is the son of an Indian mother and a white American father. His adoptive parents are both of Indian background but work and raise their family in an Ethiopian society that is mostly African but still heavily dominated by a recently ended Italian occupation. Although he doesn't foreground the racial tensions too strongly, Verghese never lets them disappear entirely either, recognising that racism and social oppression are a constant in our society.
I went from Verghese's rivetting tale that examines the challenges of racial oppression directly into The Match, a book that focuses entirely on the interactions of a group of wealthy, successful, incredibly empowered white American men, playing a game that was, up until that point, open only to rich, White men. It was an interesting transition for me as a reader.
Mark Frost's book is, in fact, intended to be a study of the conflict that arose in golfing circles between the traditionalists (who felt that golf should remain pure, the sport of gentlemen amateurs who could afford to spend hours each day honing their skills in practice and putting them to use in tournaments) and the new wave of professionals (white men from all walks of life who had managed somehow to find the time and opportunity to learn and perfect the game, despite their financial limitations, and to seek to earn a living on the golf course).
The core of the story is an almost mythical 18-hole encounter involving four golf legends: amateurs Harvie Ward and Ken Venturi playing an informal best ball competition against professional powerhouses Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. Frost goes to great pains to portray Nelson and Hogan as heroes of the everyman, men from impoverished backgrounds who, by finding work as caddies at their local Texas course, managed to learn the game to the point of being able to challenge the well-heeled amateurs who had dominated golf for so long.
The surprise for me was how enjoyable and eminently readable Frost's book turned out to be. He does a great job both of bringing the four golfers to vivid life, presenting mini-biographies of each, and of capturing the excitement of their mythical match that day in 1956. I am, you see, a terrible but frequent golfer and an avid watcher of golf on television. I knew of Ken Venturi and Byron Nelson only through their work as on-air television golf analysts and of Ben Hogan only through legend (and a very early Peanuts cartoon). I had, to be honest, never heard of Harvie Ward.
Frost manages to protray each as sympathetic in his own way, providing ample support for the contention that all four contributed greatly to the development of golf in the U.S. Even more importantly, perhaps, he describes that match in 1956 with such passion, in such detail, that I found myself wishing I could have been there to witness it. His efforts on social commentary were not as effective for me, perhaps because I had just finished reading the Verghese novel which couldn't help but place Frost's examination of what amounted to be competition between two sets of wealthy, empowered white men into rather telling perspective.
Speaking of wealthy, privileged white men, next up on my reading list was William Shatner's comic biographical work Shatner Rules. The actor is now 80 and apparently has decided that, as he has survived to this impressive age and is still one of the busiest personalities in the world of entertainment, he is entitled to speak his mind, on any subject that should leap into it,
The book is actually a lot of fun, especially if you are able to swallow the fact that the former Captain Kirk has an enormous ego, matched only by his ability (and willingness) to poke fun at himself. Structured around a series of rules that Shatner claims to have lived by, the book is a quirky collection of anecdotes and life lessons from one of the more interesting people in Hollywood.
My favourite "lesson" from the book comes in Chapter 1. Shatner admonishes his reader to "Say Yes" in all situations and to all opportunities. To quote the Captain: "'Yes' means opportunity. 'Yes' makes the dots in your life appear. And if you're willing and open, you can connect those dots. You don't know where these dots will lead, and if you don't invest yourself fully, the dots won't connect. The lines you make with those dots always lead to interesting places. 'No' closes doors. 'Yes' kicks them wide open."
I think it's great advice. Maybe not to a teenager considering entering the world of sex, or drugs, or crime or whatever, but in most other situations. Shatner's book is really about how saying "Yes" to every opportunity has enriched his own life.
These three books were all very different but all remarkably successful in their own ways.
And now I'm on to P.D. James' Talking About Detective Fiction, a study of the genre I love so well by one of the finest, most eloquent writers I know. It's an absolute pleasure to read and I'm learning a lot, including the titles and authors of too many more books I have to add to my reading list.
Today's Photo: A dramatic tree against the skyline on the island of Grand Manan.