Dear Specks, 6/1/1997 Paul28

Only half a year has gone by, but I’m finally back into reading mode again, gang. Sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve written. I have several excuses, but I know you don’t want to hear them. So I’ll just get to commenting on the wonderful letters which have arrived since my last correspondence.

Keith,

First to Keith22. Good point Keith about inscribing a book when given as a gift. The only time I don't inscribe a book is when I know it isn't going to stay in the recipient's collection when they're done reading it. But I wholeheartedly agree with you, I am disappointed too when I open a book given to me and nothing cheery is there to inspire me to treasure it, even before I know the quality of the book itself.

Also, you made an observation about the movie Return to Oz that makes me think I had the wrong movie listed in PAUL26. I thought the film was called The Wonderful Land of Oz, But the film I was talking about also made the characters to look like the John R. Neill drawings, so I suspect you got it right, I did not.

Mike S.,

I wanted to comment quickly on MIKE21 & 22. Your review on Boy's Life was very inspiring. I moved it up a few on my reading list. I also saw how much a group read would do for the club. Mike really got into the book and, from what he said, the book got into him. It's great when you can relate to a story like that. I'll try to get our group read done by next letter.

In Mike22, did you all see Mike's muse at work or what? I've never seen him get riled up that much before. You chewed Pedro Paramo apart pretty well, but it deserved it. Odd that Leigh Kleiman recommended it to us so many years ago. If you want to see her positive comments on the book, see Leigh1 (SA1988-94, p. 82).

You also chewed up Dying Inside (but I'm glad you finally got around to reading it Mike. Even though I haven't read that book in nine years, I feel I have to come to its rescue. I don't think you guys really give the book the credit it deserves. Look how much it steamed both Mike and Suz!

The book causes some real strong emotions in the reader; it starts with envy of Selig's mind-reading abilities then it turns into repulsion as we see him misuse his gift and whine about his eventual loss of it. Usually, I need to feel sympathy for a character to be interested in him, but in this case, I think Robert Silverberg intentionally made us hate Selig's attitude so that we'd reflect on our own use or misuse of the talents we possess. Mike caught on to this and summed it up well in his letter. The book is about squandering God-given talents. Selig ends up with no one to sympathize with him in the end. No one likes a loser. Especially when we all imagine how well he could have used his talent. I think the book is very well written and very successful in its purpose. That's why I recommended it so many years ago.

Charles,

As for Charles comment on Dying Inside - you can't judge a book by what Mike used to defend his points. There are some sections that are well constructed. I think Silverberg has a great writer’s imagination. I’d write out some good scenes for you, but I no longer have the book. Your loss.

I also think you bashed Illusions a little too hard. Wait a couple years and I bet you still remember some key points that Bach tries to make in that book. I still recall the first chapter where there's a parable about the pebble at the bottom of the stream that wants to travel down stream and have adventures. However, the other stones act like the Jewish Pharisees and warn that there is nothing but heartache waiting for those who seek the unknown. It sets up the story really well, because the reluctant messiah is doing the opposite of what everyone expects; yet he has truly found happiness. Many words of wisdom found "from poor writing and adolescent narcissism", I think.

As for your group question of the value of fantasy and science fiction as literature (Gillispie4), I think they do exactly what literature is supposed to do. I know I’m a little late in formally responding to that question, but I’m still going to.

The dictionary defines science fiction as "fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society..." (Webster’s Ninth new Collegiate Dictionary, 1986). So, it doesn’t mean the references to science are necessarily fiction. What better way to spark our imaginations than to see possibilities for applied science? Besides the practical issues like; "inspiration", "entertainment" and "introducing diversity" (opens your mind to non-gender-green-aliens-from-Mars that eat pure energy for lunch as an acceptable lifestyle), Science Fiction and Fantasy also encourage young kids to keep reading. Therefore, I do think science fiction and fantasy do what literature is supposed to do.

Anyhow, I actually want to get to discuss some books I’ve read here. So let me start with The Bone People by Keri Hulme (450pp, 1992). I have to say that in some respects this book slowed me down with my normal reading frenzy back in January. I found this piece to be complicated and emotionally draining. My next door neighbor recommended it to me so I stuck through to the end. She said she felt like she never needed to pick up another book again after finishing this one - I was not so taken with it obviously.

Briefly, I’ll tell you that the story has to do with a white independent woman who has cut herself off from her wealthy family in hopes to escape all the bitterness she feels from them. She moves into a castle-like house on a small peninsula in New Zealand. She tries to be as far from people as she can, but, in truth, she can’t get rid of the feelings of loneliness and homesickness she feels for her family. It sets up the explanation for why this woman who seems like she can’t tolerate people to open up to a small, hurt boy who she catches after he has broken into her house. The boy is troubled to say the least. He can’t talk due to some tragic boat accident he was in where his guardians die. He has broken into people’s houses before and that is how the main character, Kerian Holmes, can find out so easily through the local operator who the boy’s current guardian is. Because the guardian, Joe, lives so far away, he asks if the boy, Simon, can stay the night with her. She relents and by morning the boy has found his way into Kerian’s heart. After only a few more visits, so has Joe, who is an alcoholic Aborigine who has recently become a widower. His relationship with Simon vacillates from being filled with inseparable love to being very physically abusive - leaving the five-year-old with welts and bruises all the time.

The three spend time together socializing - even going for a short trip to one of Kerian’s family’s beach house. However, this small trip shows Kerian exactly what has been going on when Joe gets too drunk. It almost looks like the end of their new friendship. She lays Joe flat on his back when they get into a fight out on the beach. She makes him promise to let her intervene whenever he feels like he wants to hit Simon. He agrees. However, after only a few days back from their holiday, Simon sees the dead body of an older friend in the neighborhood and goes crazy - breaking windows in all the shops on main street. Joe and Kerian misunderstand his release of violence. Kerian agrees that the boy should be punished, but Joe goes too far. Simon lashes back with a shard of glass and cuts Joe deep in the stomach. Joe slams Simon against the edge of a door. Joe ends up in jail. Simon stays unconscious in a hospital for months. Kerian decides to move away to where she doesn’t have to be involved any more. After all that, the author manages to get them all back together to be one big happy family again. Not before Joe manages to be released from jail and find himself taking care of a god on sacred Aboriginal land. I thought it was a large segues from the main story myself.

This strange story which intertwines three very different people seems to be a combination of several social commentaries about family feuds, falling in love, child abuse, and even ancient Aboriginal religious beliefs. It seemed like several stories put into one book. I think the author was handling the subject of child abuse well and should have just stuck with that. We grow to have sympathy for each character’s actions and reactions to each other, but the awkward wrap-up ending was disappointing. Things aren’t "happy ever after" in a house that has or has had such severe physical abuse. I felt the time spent dealing with obscure Aborigine folklore could have been better spent on resolving some more of what the child was feeling and how he could forgive someone who has hurt him so much.

I really don’t like to read about child abuse as it is (or any kind of physical abuse), but after I got into the book, I was hoping for a sign of some characteristics of those who become abusive. The book should tell me some way of preventing it from happening in the real world or show more time with the doctor that treats Simon when he wakes from the coma. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in the author. If I wanted to dwell on pathetic lives that were filled with problems that were never really resolved and didn’t teach me anything, I could just watch soap operas on TV.

 It seems appropriate to talk next about Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and The Conscience of A Nation by Jonathan Kozal (274pp, 1995). This book is a true to life documentary put together by the author after his visits to the poorest parts of New York, around Harlem and Mott Haven.

The stories of what children growing up in these areas have to face are very disturbing. Starting from when these children are born (in an area where the birth rate that is lower than some third world countries) going till they either leave, go to prison or die, the children are faced with daily fears of being shot on the street, getting caught in a building fire (common because of the unsafe housing situations), getting into drugs or contracting AIDS. All of these threats are very real to the children who Kozal interviews. Kozal seems to be well read and fairly informed, but even the extent of what he finds shocks him. He struggles to find an answer to why the good suffer along side the corrupt in the gettos. I thought that he sums it up the best he could.

Despite the fact that the just are dying with the unjust, wrote Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, at the time of the epidemic there in 251 a.d., "it is not for you to think that the destruction is a common one for both the evil and the good. The just are called to refreshment, the unjust are carried off to torture." The plague, he wrote, "examines the mind of the human race" and "searches out the justice of each and every one."

Still isn’t much consolation for the adolescents who are dying slowly of AIDS or drug addiction. For many, the gettos of New York City seem more like Purgatory on earth. Religion still seems to be a pillar of strength for the community, at least the church. The Catholic Church, believe it or not, actually is keeping many people from starving to death with the daily handouts it provides. Kozal interviews several people who work at and attend the church.

Another startling fact that I ran across in the book was regarding the number of people in prison with AIDS and the nature of health care in the prisons of New York.

Nationwide, 50,000 men and women who are HIV-infected or have AIDS are now behind bars. About 8,000 of them are incarcerated in New York, where, as of 1992, nearly 1,400 prisoners had died of AIDS while still imprisoned, with about 200 more fatalities projected for each subsequent year. "New York’s prison system," notes the Times, "is now apparently the largest AIDS care provider in the state."

Some inmates from New York’s poor neighborhoods, however, according to a nun who works with female inmates, get better care in prison than they can obtain on the outside. If they are pregnant, they receive prenatal and perinatal care, parenting classes, and additional therapy, in addition to the nurseries. A woman from the South Bronx, says the nun, "begged us not to take her out of prison…until her baby was delivered, because there was a four-month waiting list for prenatal care at Lincoln Hospital."

So sad. Can you imagine such a place in the United States? I have been far from having a silver spoon in my mouth, but this book made me appreciate every bit of money and health (as well as the good health care benefits) that I do have.

Kozal really gets out on the streets too. Some of the children he meets and interviews talk about the murders and crimes they’ve seen as if they were reading out of a book. No emotions are shown, like these events are accepted as daily life for them. However, happiness still exists were you’d think it couldn’t. Anthony, one special five year old interviewed, always has a sparkle in his eye and helps people around him out with the innocence only a child could have. Even though Kozal recognizes Anthony’s tendencies towards stretching the truth every time he’s interviewed, Kozal also sees how genuine Anthony is with many of the older people on the street and in the church.

Kozal states that he doesn’t want to paint a picture of hope about these people that might make the reader feel unobliged to get involved with the travesties going on in our own country. However, he admits that when the situation he went to investigate got to be too depressing, he’d go interview Anthony again to lift his own spirit. For the people living in such harsh situations, turning to faith in God or in the church was their only way of coping. Kozal was surprised to find such a strong belief in God in the getto.

The book is about finding out the truth about the living conditions in the gettos of New York. The best way was to ask the children who lived there how they saw their lives. The answers were so sad sometimes, but it certainly opened my eyes to what poor really means. For instance, most of the children in these slums have asthma due to the unhealthy smog, as well as the huge cockroach infestation. The asthma is transferred by the disease carrying roaches from building to building. Since most of the children are so malnourished, they easily succumb to any disease as it is.

Even though I haven’t given this book the sufficient praise it would take to make you pick it up, let me say that if you’re interested in those things television doesn’t tell you, this is your kind of book. It is honest and very eye opening to how our society is still treating minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics. Some might say that the segregation only has to do with the high population and unique demographics of Harlem, the Bronx and Mott Haven. However, Kozal discovered that only a few subway stops away in Manhattan, there is a new $150 million high school where there are more students graduating that become doctors than anywhere else in the United States. Yet, the kids in the gettos are lucky to graduate from high school and their education is almost worthless even if they do, because of the lack of jobs. I could go on with dozens of other interesting facts, but like I said, this one is worth the read if you’re interested in the truth.

Everyone’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s fingers. -Hans Christian Andersen

This is a quote from the front cover of The Gift of Acabar by Og Mandino & Buddy Kaye (114pp, 1978). Obviously this one is also about some special kids. This book is very much in the spirit of The Alchemist, but not as well written. Tulo and his little sister are the children of a reindeer herdsman in the small village of Kalvala, deep in the hills of the Netherlands. They lose their mother and father while they’re still young and Tulo is desperate to take care of his sister by himself. In a dream, he has a vision to fly a large kite in a storm and he would catch something that would be the answer to all of his problems. He does build a giant kite and buys all the twine in town, but he never suspects that he would catch a star in his kite. The star’s name is Acabar and it brings a message for all mankind that, if followed, would bring a rewarding life. So far so good, but as the village starts to move the star, so that it can warm the whole village, it falls out of the tree it landed in and "breaks". Dead. Everyone is sad, but wants Tulo to get another star for them. He does. The second star warms the village and teaches them about sharing. Tulo feels he needs to send the star back up to heaven when spring finally comes to the village. He does, but he feels his destiny is to be carried up on the twine with the star to make sure it gets back to heaven – in the process Tulo becomes a star himself. OK?

Now, maybe this is just me, but where is the moral of this story? Was Tulo’s destiny to die after bringing the message of the stars to earth? How stoic. What about his little sister? Did he forget about his promise to look after her? What happens when it’s cold again next winter? What was the point of the first star dying? Obviously the book brings up some questions for me and leaves me quite unimpressed.

I was impressed, however, with Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wess Roberts, Ph D (108pp, 1993). Not a thick book, but I learned some historical facts about Attila that I didn’t know. The Romans and the Huns had sort of a student exchange project going when Attila was young and since he was inquisitive and probably had a high IQ, the leaders decided to send him to study the customs and laws of Rome. The things he learned in Rome turned out to give him a great advantage when he was warring with them later on in his life. In fact, the only adversary that was able to win a battle against Attila’s army was a Roman named Aetius, who was sent to learn the customs of the Huns as a young man.

The book goes through the qualities that Attila must have possessed, coined Attilaisms, and puts them into a twelve steps of success type format. Some titles are "Aetius – picking your enemies wisely," "Horse Holders – The Art of Delegation" and "Chieftains as they appear to their Huns." The author is reaching for a correlation at times, but still kind of cleaver and he keeps it interesting with historical details throughout the book. Worth the quick read.

Mike and I have been talking about creating a new colorful look to the letters – maybe some borders and graphics too. Let us know if you think we’ve gotten out of control. OK?

I also want to introduce a new member. We haven’t had one of those for a while. He is Chris B**** at ***. He just moved to Las Vegas to start a new high school teaching job in the Fall. He knows sign language and paints in his "spare" time. He has many other talents, but I’ll let him share the ones he wants known.

Well, it’s about time I got this letter out don’t you think? Hope to hear from all of you about your summer reads any time now. Hope all is well.

Paul Potts!