In the Middle of Reading Four Different Books

As is the case from time to time, I have found myself in the middle of reading a number of books at once.  This is because I read circumstantially...that is, if I am at a specific time and place I'll have a certain book available to read while in other situations others will be available. I also avail myself of audiobooks and CDs that I check out from the library.  For example, I am listening to Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (by means of CD) whenever I drive...I'm about two thirds through it.  I have an audiobook version of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, the first (and rather lengthy) book in his new, ongoing Stormlight Archive fantasy series, that I listen to on my little MP3 player at convenient times.  I'm at the halfway point in that one.  I'm also midway through Isaac Asmov's fourth book (paperback edition) in his Foundation series, titled Foundation's Edge, which I've read before several years ago but have forgotten the details.  And I have just begun Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, a very long book whose contents don't seem transferable to the cinema, although more than one movie...including even a musical, of all things...have been made from it.  I say this because much of the text is composed of Hugo's musings on society, morality, and religion...how can that be effectively portrayed on the big screen?  No, I never did see any of the movies...I like to form my own internal images of the characters and locales from the written story before I see how others interpreted them...

All of the above I checked out from my local public library.  And with each of them, I searched the books online on the library website and placed holds on them so that they would notify me when they were ready for pickup...and at the library branch closest to me.  The only exception is the audiobook, which downloads directly from the online site that checks them out.  Now that's not to say that I don't have a sizable and growing library of books in my personal possession.  I need to get them organized and begin to read some of the many that I haven't yet read...most of them are science fiction novels and short story collections.  I'm also gradually accumulating books on my Kindle.  However, the public library is a great resource for reading and I have of late been heavily relying on it for my books...

Major Lunar Eclipse Sunday Evening

The moon will be offering a nighttime show on Sunday when it passes through the Earth's shadow, culminating in a lunar eclipse.  The effect will be a darkening...although not complete obscuring...of the moon...for around three hours for observers in the Eastern United States.  The total eclipse (the moon completely inside the Earth's shadow), for our EDT time zone, will be from 10:11 pm until 11:23 pm with the partial phases starting and ending 1-2 hours before and after.  The total eclipse will be visible in eastern North America, South America, western Africa and western Europe.  East Asia and Pacific Oceania will completely miss it, even the partial eclipse, because they'll be in the middle of the day when it happens...and you can't see a full moon at that time...

This event is being called the "supermoon eclipse" or the "super blood moon".  The reason for the "super" designation is that the moon will appear to be slightly larger than usual because it will be at its perigee (closest point in its orbit) to Earth, while "blood" seems to refer to the ongoing string of consecutive eclipses six months apart.  The earthsky.org website can furnish more information about this if you're interested...

If we're fortunate, the skies in Gainesville will be clear enough to watch this lunar eclipse, although in recent weeks a clear night sky hasn't exactly been something to count on.  I'd like to thank my Facebook and workplace friend Evelyn for having posted about this upcoming astronomical show, giving me some forewarning about it...

Grateful for Break from Torrential Rains

Not one who enjoys extremes in weather, I am heartened by the reprieve we've been getting the last few days from the nearly devastating rainfall that has pounded and flooded us this past summer.  And now it's fall season...not that a technical astronomical event as yesterday's fall equinox, with the sun's position on the elliptic passing across the celestial equator on its way into the southern celestial hemisphere, automatically calls for an instant climatic change where I live.  But still, I'm looking forward to our weather pattern shifting from a tropical (and humid) orientation, with storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and then passing over us, to one more temperate (and dryer), with cold fronts sweeping down from the northwest.  In any event, the temperatures may still be pretty hot outside, but at least the relative lack of precipitation is allowing the water that has saturated the ground to recede.  Of course, that's not saying that there won't be a big storm today, tomorrow, or the next day...

Baseball Great Yogi Berra Passes Away

The great Yogi Berra, who as New York Yankees catcher over the course of his playing career won ten World Series championships and three American League MVP awards, has passed away at age ninety.  As a little kid growing up in the early 1960s, I quite naturally assumed that he was named after then-cartoon superstar Yogi Bear.  I didn't understand his greatness then, but I did appreciate the baseball card of him I collected from the backs of Post cereal boxes...along with those of other early 1960s baseball players, including his teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  Later on I came to associate the name "Yogi Berra" with the chocolate drink Yoo-Hoo, which he promoted for a long time on TV commercials.  It was only later in life that I came to esteem not only the on-field accomplishments of this iconic sports figure, but also his humanity and humor.  And, of course, all of those incredible "Yogi-isms"...many of which I'm hearing on ESPN as they pay homage to his memory: "If you come to a fork in the road, take it", "The game isn't over until it's over" "It's like deja vu all over again", "I really didn't say everything I said", "Baseball is 90 per cent mental.  The other half is physical", ....and on and on it went.  As his off-beat quotes piled up over the years, there began to be a question as to whether some of them may not have come from him.  Oh well, I love hearing them, anyway...

Just Finished Reading John Updike's Rabbit, Run

John Updike, who passed away in 2009, was a writer of both short stories and novels, as well as serving as a regular critic for New Yorker magazine.  He was also someone whose works I never got around to read, and only did so this time because Stephen King's most recent novel Finders Keepers led me to him.  Although Updike wrote a lot, his most famous work seems to be the Rabbit series, the first book of which he published in 1960 and spaced subsequent installments in approximately ten-year intervals as he examined the unfolding life of its main character, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom...

Set in 1959, Rabbit, Run, as the first book is titled, sees Harry, our "hero", at age 26 in his home town of Mount Judge, Pennsylvania (a mythical suburb of Updike's mythical city of Brewer).  He is a former high school star basketball player and can't seem to let go in his mind of his old "glory days".  He lives near both his parents and those of his wife Janice, whom he had married after discovering that she was pregnant with his first child.  Janice is now pregnant again, and Harry is a door-to-door salesman for kitchen gadgets.  Being something of a dissatisfied "seeker" in life, but never really knowing exactly what he wants or in which direction to look, he starts up his car one night and spontaneously takes off in it, going several hundred miles south and west before returning to Brewer.  But he has left his wife, and the story takes off from this disturbing beginning.  How it develops and ends I'll leave you to read for yourself...

Self-discovery and personal fulfillment in the face of social obligations and responsibilities is a theme I found in Rabbit, Run.  The problem with the character of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is that, while he is continually upsetting the latter, he is clueless about the former...ultimately projecting the impression of himself as being something of a selfish, manipulative jerk.  I never could get into this character's mind or find a basic for empathy/sympathy.  Sure, we all have that struggle going on in our lives between what we want for ourselves and how we respond to others' expectations of us.  But Harry never seems to learn anything from his experiences: he is so focused on whatever situation he is currently in that he cannot see beyond it...and the ramifications of his often destructive behavior...

Not only did I find Harry a disagreeable character, but I didn't get how Updike portrayed his thinking. Although he is 26 and fully engaged in what people would call "adult" behavior, in dialogue Harry speaks like a little kid...reminding me of Dennis the Menace's way of talking ("Jeepers, Mister Wilson!")  Yet, when he is alone and the author wants to express his thoughts through the general narrative, Harry comes across as a very serious, contemplative man.  Was this discrepancy intentional on the part of Updike?  Who knows...but I had difficulty with his protagonist as someone who I could imagine as being real, and that was a huge problem for me with this book...

As far as I know, the Rabbit series is comprised of four books.  The next one is titled Rabbit Redux.  Seeing how it is set in time several years later than Rabbit, Run, it might be intriguing to see how Updike developed Harry Angstrom's character, if at all...

Return to Running, Albeit Cautiously

I am cautiously advancing once again with my running, being careful not to cause any aggravation to my right foot, which I now see is a case of plantar fasciitis.  I do the appropriate stretches recommended for this affliction before running and then run on a cushioned surface while wearing thick-soled running shoes.  I will continue to train this way at least until the end of October...and then I'll see where I stand.  I still maintain hopes of running some long-distance races down the line...but they'll most likely be early in 2016.  The main ones ahead of me are the Ocala Half-Marathon in January and Gainesville's FivePoints Half-Marathon the following month.  I had been considering trying to complete a marathon-distance race sometime this winter, but the foot problem has put that idea on hold...unless I make dramatic progress during the next few weeks...

Miami Dolphins, Especially Head Coach, Display Indifference About Loss

I watched in dismay today's Miami Dolphins football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Dismay is the proper word for a number of reasons.  For one, they lost, pure and simple...and in the worst possible way: Jacksonville won on a last-minute field goal, 23-20, after they moved into field goal range because a Dolphins defensive player angrily shoved back at a Jaguars player after the end of a play and was called for a personal foul.  As the camera followed this player walking back to the sidelines, he didn't seem particularly perturbed at what he had done...and neither, it appeared, did any of the other Miami players.  In fact, the Dolphins head coach Joe Philbin not only remained completely taciturn and untalkative at the game's end (and for most of it as well), but he actually had the nerve to clap when Jacksonville kicked through the winning field goal with only seconds left.  What is it with this guy and his team?  Where is the kind of passion I see in other NFL and college football teams?  Why should the Dolphins organization expect me, as one of their fans who followed them since 1968, to feel anything other than abject apathy about that team's performance when their own coach and players seem indifferent?  Miami has a lot of talent out there...although they do seem to have some issues on their offensive line.  Still, they have an excellent quarterback in Ryan Tannehill and enough key players to fill in gaps in their lineup.  After all, every team has its own weaknesses.  And I'm okay with the Dolphins having their own.  But weaknesses or not, they just don't seem to care that much whether they win or lose...

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Prelude to Foundation

The late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) originally published his Foundation series as a trilogy in the 1950s...or least that's how people in general regarded it, for it wasn't until the 1980s that he added the final two books to make it a quintet.  And upon rereading Book Three, titled Second Foundation, I also felt that the good author didn't properly finish the series and needed to add something else to make it a whole.  I've read all five books before, but time has passed since my first voyage through Asimov's Foundation universe and I forgot many of the more detailed facets of his saga.  During that last decade of his life, he also wrote two prequel novels dealing with how the pivotal character of Hari Seldon came to develop his theory of psychohistory that drove the narrative in the series.  These two, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation, I hadn't read before.  But before taking on Book Four, Foundation's Edge, once more, I decided  to take a little detour and read the first one...

In case you haven't read any of my other Foundation series book reviews on this blog, let me lay down the "foundation" of the story as it pertains to Prelude to Foundation.  It has been more than 10,000 years since our galaxy has been unified under a single political authority called the Empire, with its capital based on a very densely population planet, called Trantor, near the galaxy's center. Unlike the case with Star Trek or Star Wars, the intelligent population is entirely human.  The origins of humankind have been lost to history, although there are myths that people originally came from one planet, with Aurora and Earth coming up often in speculation.  Also, there were apparently very advanced robots back then at the beginning, too...whether or not this information is ultimately relevant to the book is up to you to find out.  In any event, Hari Seldon is a mathematician by training from an outlying planet in the empire who visits Trantor and gives a speech in which he states the possibility of developing a new science, which he calls "psychohistory" and combines psychology, history, sociology, and mathematics to be able to make long-term forecasts about the future state of the Empire.  Upon being notified of Seldon's speech, the sitting Emperor seeks him out in order have him propogandize the Empire's agenda...in spite of Seldon's informing him that his theory has yet to be developed and his ultimate conclusions about the Empire's future are as yet unknown.  With the aid of others, Seldon flees into the very complex underground world of Trantor, encounters very disparate societies...and tries to hit upon a workable strategy for developing his psychohistory.

Having read the Foundation series before and picking up on some of the hints that Asimov laid throughout the book, I was able to figure out early on some of what would be revealed at the conclusion of Prelude to Foundation as a surprise ending. As it turns out, looking back on it all, the author may well have felt the need to write the book this way, especially considering the shocking way he concluded his series at the end of Book Five...

Because Prelude to Foundation is chronologically the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation according to his fictional narrative, I would instead recommend to new readers that they start their reading with the original Book One, simply titled Foundation...and read through the five-part series before reading the two prequels.  Or, maybe, do what I did and, after reading Book Three, go "back in time" and read Prelude to Foundation.  In this way, it may help you if you hadn't read beforehand Asimov's other series about the Empire and what preceded it...

The Florida Teams as the 2015 MLB Season Draws to Close

At the start of the 2015 Major League Baseball season, the National League's Miami Marlins were given a lot of support in the sports media for being a team that was on its way up...definitely a playoff contender and even possibly vying for the East Division title.  In the American League, on the other hand, the Tampa Bay Rays, after losing its longtime manager Joe Madden to the Chicago Cubs in the off-season and trading away some of its major talent, weren't expected to do much beyond finishing last in their East Division.  Instead, the Rays, with its new manager Kevin Cash, surprised most of us, actually being in first place for much of the early part of the season and remaining in wild card contention until just recently.  Miami, however, started out dismally slow and never recovered.  After the All-Star break, they went into an even worse tailspin, actually falling briefly into last place in their division.  Of late, however, they have been playing very well and are now solidly in third place...albeit with a horrendous 64-83 record.  This team disappointed me and many others this year: proven veteran players that they acquired in the off-season, with the notable exception of overachieving 2nd baseman Dee Gorden, have had substandard performances.  Losing their star slugger Giancarlo Stanton halfway through the season to injury didn't help, either...and don't get me going about their pitching...

Tampa Bay is currently only a half-game ahead of last place Boston with a 70-76 record, considerably better than Miami's but getting worse.  They have sixteen games to go in the regular season to try to stay out of the cellar.  Seven of these games will be against the Red Sox...and they will most likely determine where the Rays end up in the standings.  As for the Marlins, I'm sure at this point that they're just looking ahead to 2016 and the many changes they will need to make: a new manager would be a good start...

Voter Turnout, Presidential Election, Off-Year Elections

The second Republican presidential debate was held last night, this time on CNN, and it was that network's turn the following morning to be all giddy about its "news" story.  But to me, as I have interpreted the last few elections, both of presidential election years and of the "off" years, whoever ends up winning the Presidency (or US Senate seat, or state governorship) in politically-divided (or "purple") areas will depend more on voter turnout than on the candidates' comparative virtues or ideology...unless these characteristics are seen as being way over-the-top.  Take the state of Florida, for example.  I ask you: does it make any sense at all for this state to go for Barack Obama, a left-leaning Democrat, in 2008 and then elect as governor a tea party right-wing Republican, Rick Scott, in 2010?  But wait, there's more...two years later, the state went right back and went for Obama again!  Yet even with this, I'm not finished...this same Florida turned around in 2014 and returned Mr. Scott, a favorite of Sean Hannity, back to office!!!

I don't believe for an instant that the Florida people politically veered left in 2008, turned back right in 2010, switched back left in 2012 and then doubled back right in 2014.  No, what happened was that a larger segment of the Democratic-leaning voters decided in the 2010 and 2014 off-year elections that they weren't "motivated" enough to get off their asses and invest about 10-15 minutes of their oh-so-precious time at their local precincts...

Well, 2016 is an "on-year" election, so I expect my fellow moody Democratic voters to be "motivated" once again to actually participate in the electoral process.  Which doesn't bode very well for any of the candidates currently running on the Republican side, regardless who ends up wearing that party's mantle in the general election.  Of course, should either party commit political suicide by nominating someone without a prayer of a chance at winning a nationwide election, voter turnout won't matter much.  Unless, that is, BOTH parties end up nominating "unwinnable" candidates...which I see as a possibility right now with Trump and his repulsive personality ahead on the Republican side and the leftist/Socialist Sanders surging with the Democrats...

Just Finished Reading A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I was rummaging through a pile of stuff in the house when I came across a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge that belongs to my son.  Upon further investigation into this author, I discovered that he has written a science fiction series titled Zones of Thought.  I got a copy of the first book, titled A Fire Upon the Deep, and just finished reading it...

One thing about science fiction that is often considerably different from more reality-based genres like mystery, crime, war, or romance is that the "world" that the author has introduced, along with the technology within it, involves an extensive use of new terminology and concepts.  This can make sci fi reading a bit cumbersome at the beginning of a story as the reader struggles to understand what the heck is going on.  A Fire Upon the Deep is no exception, with its own computer lingo and Vinge's idea of a galaxy divided into four different zones that affect attainable velocity and consciousness.  Since he didn't explain everything up front at the beginning, I had to just read on in faith until I could start to make sense of the scenario.  Once I did, though, it turned out to be a pretty good tale...and with well-developed characters who brought out the feelings of empathy, sympathy...and sometimes antipathy...that made them believable and memorable.

Three situations drive the plot in A Fire Upon the Deep.  One is the accidental reactivation, by human explorers, of a long-dormant, malevolent transcendant entity that threatens the very existence of life in the galaxy.  Another is the stranded party of people fleeing this Blight, as it has come to be called, as they struggle to survive around their adopted planet's dominant life form: the Tines.  And the third centers on an unlikely foursome as they race through space to rescue the survivors and recover from that group's grounded spaceship what may be the only thing that can stop the Blight...

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of A Fire Upon the Deep, besides those four galactic zones, is how Vinge studies the concept of group identity and consciousness through the civilization of the dog-like Tines.  I was also impressed with his unpretentious writing style...this made it much easier to grasp the mind-stretching ideas he was introducing into his story...

So now I'm hooked on another series.  A Fire Upon the Deep came out in 1992.  The next book, A Deepness in the Sky (1999), is said to be a prequel to the first book.  And Book Three of the series, the last one to be published, was only released in 2011.  So Vernor Vinge's Zones of Thought project isn't exactly one that I should sit around awaiting the next installment: he took 12 years to get around to the last one...    

Piecing Movie Fragments Together

For most of the movies I've seen, I sit down at the beginning and watch them through to the end.  However, there are movies I've experienced piecemeal...I may start off with a clip near the end, then maybe a scene toward the middle or beginning, usually because I encounter them while channel surfing at those particular stages.  After a few "sightings" of such a movie, I'll start to form a picture of it as a whole, with gaps throughout that I haven't yet seen.  Usually a movie like this is one that I feel I would like to watch but for whatever reasons can't seem to find or make the time for it.  In this category, for me, is the latest Star Trek movie: Into Darkness.  I knew there was a real nasty villain in it, played by Benedict Cumberback, with whom Spock had a chase/fight scene.  There was a brutal attack on Federation headquarters early in the film.  Something else about Scotty in a bar somewhere getting drunk with his weird-looking alien buddy when Kirk calls him.  Kirk and McCoy running in hooded robes from a mob of painted aboriginals on a red planet, with a volcano erupting in the background.  A huge black spaceship crashing into the downtown of a large city.  And on and on it went, until...

Until I finally had enough of all the fragments and set out to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness in its entirety.  I checked out my streaming Netflix and, for a change, they actually had the movie I was searching for!  Last night I enjoyed it from start to finish...it was worth it, one of the best Star Trek movies ever made.  The next movie in the series comes out next year.  In the meantime, maybe I should put together some fragments from other movies I've never completely watched...

Gators Manage to Win Sloppy Game vs. East Carolina

After the University of Florida football team breezed by New Mexico State in its first game of the 2015 season 61-13, many fans expected a similar outcome yesterday against their second non-conference opponent, this one being East Carolina.  But the Pirates were a much better team than Florida's first opponent: last year they beat then-seventeenth ranked Virginia Tech 28-17, clobbered North Carolina 70-41 and severely challenged the SEC's South Carolina before finally succumbing 33-23. And then they played the Gators at the very end in the Birmingham Bowl, losing a hard-fought contest 28-20.  So East Carolina was never a second-rate team.  That having been noted, however, it was clear to me that Florida played a very sloppy game yesterday in spite of their ultimate 31-24 victory.  The Gators committed turnovers directly leading to ten East Carolina points, and two crucial penalties cost them dearly...one nullifying an early touchdown and one putting the Pirates in good field position for their last touchdown drive.  Also, Florida was remiss at capitalizing on the many East Carolina fumbles in the first half.  The quarterback play was generally good, but Will Grier threw three passes that should have been intercepted...while the one pick he did throw was a deflection off the receiver...

Florida plays Kentucky in Lexington next Saturday evening.  By all accounts, I think the new Gator head coach Jim McElwain is doing a good job...but man, that dude can really get agitated on the sidelines...        

Just Finished Reading Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation (Again)

As I continue to reread renown science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's celebrated Foundation series, I have just finished Book Three of the five main books, titled Second Foundation.  The story is set tens of thousands of years into the future, as humanity...now inhabiting the entire known galaxy...is recovering from the destruction of the ten thousand year old Empire that once politically, economically, and militarily united them all.  Hari Seldon, the famous psychohistorian/mathematician who had predicted the Empire's demise and had laid out plans for two "Foundations"...one on the planet Terminus at the galaxy's frontier and the other at "Star's End"...has been dead for four hundred years.  His plans were for the two Foundations, the first run by physical scientists and the second governed by psychologists, to preserve and then spread into the galaxy to resurrect human society into another, more benevolent empire and avoid a protracted dark age.  But those preparations have come unraveled: a singular element in the form of psychic mutant named the Mule has conquered much of the galaxy, unanticipated by Seldon and throwing off his equations and predictions.  How the Mule's reign culminates and its ramifications dominate the story of the first part of Second Foundation.  And the Second Foundation becomes forefront in both the confrontation with the Mule and in Part Two of the book...the main questions being (1) where exactly is the Second Foundation located, (2) who are in it, and (3) what exactly is it up to...

Second Foundation is a good, fast read...especially for science fiction when sometimes the heavy emphasis some writers place on discussing technical matters, in order to give their works more credence, can bog down the reader.  Instead, Asimov adroitly moves the plot along while presenting sympathetic characters.  As opposed to the beginning of the Foundation series, however, I am finding that some of the themes of the developing story line deal more and more with paranormal, psychic abilities...that, I'm afraid, tends to inject too much uncertainty and too many possibilities into the narrative, making it harder for me to follow and even harder to relate to...

Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation were all published in novel form in the 1950s.  Asimov would wait until the 1980s before capping off this series with Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth.  I decided to take a little detour in this series and next read (this one for the first time) his 1980s prequel novel Prelude to Foundation, which purportedly goes back to the earlier years in Hari Seldon's life...

Tomorrow's 9/11 Television Coverage

The terrorist attacks against our country and its people on the morning of September 11, 2001 should never be forgotten or swept under the rug.  I don't know how all of the various news channels and networks on TV plan to cover it...I only know from my TV schedule about the two channels that plan to devote special programs in remembrance of this outrage against America: MSNBC and The History Channel.  Late tonight, at 1 AM Eastern Time, MSNBC will have a one-hour show about 9/11, while tomorrow morning at 8:30 they will rebroadcast, as they do every year, the NBC Today show as events unfolded that tragic morning 14 years ago.  The History Channel has a whole slate of interesting programming scheduled for tomorrow.  But I'm hoping that, although other channels may not be setting aside time for special programs exclusively devoted to 9/11, they will still be giving a considerable amount of air time about it on their regularly scheduled shows...

Just Finished Reading Exit Ghost by Philip Roth

Philip Roth is one of those famous writers whose works have slipped by me over the years.  Stephen King, in his latest book Finders Keepers, dropped Roth's name a few times...prompting me to investigate something he wrote.  I went to my local public library branch and grabbed Exit Ghost off the shelf...it had the added incentive of being relatively short.  Unfortunately, Exit Ghost is apparently the last book in a long series that Roth had been writing concerning the fictional character of Nathan Zuckerman, a famous New York writer.  Since I tend to try to avoid picking up books in mid-series, end-of-series has to be the worst!  Nevertheless, I gamely pressed on with my reading...

The setting of Exit Ghost is New York City of 2004, right at the time of the presidential election between Bush and Kerry.  Zuckerman, who has gone into retreat to woodsy western Massachusetts for more than a decade following death threats emanating from around the New York metropolis, has shed all of the trappings of his former life and has been devoting himself, in rural isolation, to his craft of writing.  Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier and had been compelled to return to the city off and on for treatment of the disease and the complications arising from that treatment (I'll leave the sad details for you, the potential future reader, to find out).  During one of these return trips, at that time I mentioned, he decides to stay in town for a year...and becomes involved in two subplots that intertwine throughout the book.  What they specifically are and what happens I'll leave others to discover for themselves.  Let's just say that there is a lot of introspection here, presented in the first person narrative by Zuckerman...

There are many things I derived from Exit Ghost.  One is that I didn't need to read all of those other Zuckerman books after all...Roth did a masterful job of creating a complete story here without making me feel as if I needed to go back to previous stories to fill in gaps.  Another is the author's Jewish heritage and experiences as he applied them to his characters.  Roth also employed a device that I found intriguing: the playing in Zuckerman's mind, eventually transferred to paper, of imaginary conversations he has with characters...when in the real narrative of the story his communication with them is full of awkwardness and missed moments.  This resonates with me...and probably would with many people...as I've often recreated scenarios from the past with different outcomes if only I had said this or that...of if the person I was talking with was just a little more reasonable or compassionate...

In Exit Ghost, Philip Roth explored a potential problem that many authors of fiction face as they tend to put much of themselves and their own lives into their characters. Sure, it's "fiction", but can one, by reading a writer's books, conversely work backwards from the fiction and make conclusions about his or her personal life?  I have to admit to believing sometimes that Nathan Zuckerman IS Philip Roth in fictional disguise...but that's probably not the case at all.  Well, maybe Zuckerman does serve as a spokesman for many of Roth's views and they may have some common life experiences, but he is make-believe nonetheless.  The problem is that once I realize that an author is speaking their views and expressing at least some of their own real-life experiences through a particular character, the temptation is to extrapolate that everything that character says and does has a reality to it reflected in the life of the author...

And finally, for the purposes of this particular blog entry at least, there is that recurring theme of mortality and aging that pervades the book.  This probably resonates stronger with someone like me who is close to 59 and who just lost a friend from elementary school to cancer than it would to someone in their twenties or thirties.  How does one deal with the progressive degeneration of their physical and mental abilities?  If this subject bothers you, then perhaps Exit Ghost may not be the book you want to read.  Then again, if such is the case, maybe it's a book you need to read...

Watching Some U.S. Open Tennis Matches

During the last few days I've been watching the U.S. Open tennis tournament, one of the major events in the sports world.  ESPN and ESPN-2 have been showing the various matches, which for both the men and women are now down to the quarterfinals stage.  Right now France's Kristina Mladenovic has her hands full with Italy's Roberta Vinci...both players were unseeded for the tournament.  Tonight will be the much-hyped match between the Williams sisters Serena and Venus, with Serena going for the first calendar-year tennis Grand Slam since 1988.  Yesterday, England's Andy Murray and Switzerland's Roger Federer each had close matches against their respective opponents Kevin Anderson and John Isner to try to qualify for the quarterfinal round.  Murray lost his and Federer won...it was interesting to compare the demeanor and behavior of the two as they were tested like this.  Murray was agitated and cursed while under adversity, while Federer was poised and confident...just as much when his back was against the wall as when he was triumphant.  There's a lesson here: whom do I want to emulate the most in my own personal walk through life??!!

I am by no means a tennis fanatic as my parents were for decades, but I can see how one could get drawn into the sport.  It's not like football, basketball, hockey or soccer where the clock determines the sport's parameters...no, tennis is more like golf or baseball in that, as a player, you can be only one hole or out...or in tennis, just one point...from victory. But that last hole, out, or point MUST be accomplished or ultimately you lose...

Melissa and I Celebrate Our 29th Anniversary

It was 29 years ago on this date, on a Sunday afternoon, that my sweetheart Melissa and I got married in a small southwest Gainesville church.  And now, in 2015, I can say that my love for her has only gotten stronger as we have gone through many seasons in our lives together.  She is a priceless treasure!

Happy Anniversary, my dear Melissa!

Just Finished Reading John Grisham's The Brethren

Last month, Melissa and I went to a retreat in Ocklawaha, on the shores of Lake Weir not far from Ocala.  During it, one night after dinner, we got into a discussion with the others sitting at our table about the books we liked.  When I mentioned John Grisham, a renown author of many law-centered novels, the guy seated on my left suggested his two favorite titles: The Testament and The Brethren.  Having already read three of Grisham's books (The Pelican Brief, The Firm, and The Appeal) and being disappointed in that last one, I was anxious to get a little advance encouragement before taking on another of his works.  With that endorsement in mind, I just finished reading The Brethren.  As it turned out, my new-found friend was right: it was one of Grisham's best...at least with the limited number of his books that I've yet read...

The Brethren refers to the informal name given to a trio of ex-judges serving sentences in a low-security federal prison near Jacksonville, Florida.  They come up with a scam extorting money from various men across the country whom they have snared answering their fake ads in magazines for male pen pals.  Concurrently, a presidential campaign is on, and the CIA director, intent on having the country's military budget dramatically increased, has created a candidate out of an obscure Arizona congressman.  How these two subplots ultimately connect determines the flow and outcome of the story.  Grisham kept what could have been a lot of extraneous material and characters out of this novel and made it an easy and quiet suspenseful, enjoyable reading experience.  Naturally, you're going to have to read it for yourself to discover the details and its ending...

If you're inclined to believe in the invisible hand of forces behind the scenes in our politics manipulating politicians and public opinion with their cynical actions, then The Brethren is the book for you.  It was published in 2000, a full year before 9/11 and the "Truther" movement with its "false flag" accusations arising from that tragedy.  It also reaffirmed a sad truth of our times that I've learned from the mistakes of others: never express anything in a letter, the phone, or on the Internet that you aren't fully prepared for the entire world to know...privacy as we grew up expecting as an inalienable right is almost nonexistent anymore, regardless what the written law says...

Now I'm going to get hold of John Grisham's The Testament...well, after I read some other books by other authors, that is...

Preseason Football Rankings 'Rank'le Me

The college football season began this week, culminating today in the first full day of games.  Already there are preseason polls out, ranking not only the top 25 teams in the country but even the most likely prospects to win the Heisman Trophy as player of the year.  To me, these polls are ludicrous as the structure of college sports is very different from that of the pros.  Each year, the seniors leave school...as well as those underclassmen entering the NFL draft early...and the various schools have to essentially overhaul their teams.  Plus, the entering freshmen class of players adds another level of uncertainty to each school's outlook for the upcoming season.  Yet Ohio State is Number One without having played a single game...some media folks are making an issue of the "fact" that Alabama has dropped down to Number Three after several years of being ranked preseason as One or Two.  They have to be kidding...

Well, maybe the rankings do have a certain bearing on things as we go through our first weekend of college football.  Those who gamble on the games need to have something to go by as they lay their money down...even if they don't yet know how good or bad the teams are going to be this year.  If I were a betting man (and I'm not...but I'll leave that for a future blog post), I would wait a little bit into the season before I began to wager any serious money.  On the other hand, Vegas puts its own line out for the individual games...no need after all to follow some mythical rankings chart when no games have yet been played...

Just Finished Reading Sue Grafton's "R" and "S" Mystery Novels

I've been a big fan of mystery writer Sue Grafton, whose claim to fame is her "alphabet mystery" series featuring California private investigator Kinsey Millhone and the titles of which have been published in alphabetical order, with just a couple of "letters" to go until completion.  I'm also going through it in alphabetical order, sometimes running across a book I've already read...but most of them are new reads.  This was the case with my latest: "R" is for Ricochet and "S" is for Silence, published in 2004 and 2005, respectively.  This is significant because Grafton has compressed Kinsey's ongoing sleuthing adventures to the point where the stories themselves are set in the late 1980s...and this can be important when dealing with such things in the stories as telephone access and computers...

Although I've enjoyed reading these books, I have to weigh in on the negative side about these last two.  In "R" is for Ricochet, the character of Kinsey Millhone is made passive and secondary by another character, a young woman named Reba who is the individual our private eye has been hired by Reba's father to guide through her initial stages of parole after imprisonment for embezzlement.  Reba seems to assume all of the spunky and intelligent aspects of Kinsey that I have come to admire...leaving the detective to spend most of the story "tagging along" or dealing with her 87-year old landlord's romantic situation or that of her own...quite separate from the main story line and presenting an annoying distraction for me, the reader.  As for "S" is for Silence, much of the story is presented as a 34-year flashback to a young woman's unsolved disappearance...no Kinsey in sight anywhere.  When she does occasionally make her presence known and finally figures out the case, her method and reasoning for finding the main culprit in the story is unexplained.  I was so frustrated by the ending to this book that I went on the Internet to read others' reactions...and found that many of them agreed with me...

If these last two books of Sue Grafton that I just read happened to be the first ones for me as well, I might have decided to abandon reading any more of her books.  As it is, however, I know that she is much more capable of producing a good result...after all, I've now gone all the way through book #19.  I'm looking forward to a better story with the next Millhone novel, which I discovered is titled "T" is for Trespass...

CNN Amends Debate Rules to Let Fiorina In

CNN has just recently amended its rules for which candidates qualified for its Republican presidential debate, which will take place on September 16.  Last month's Fox News main debate limited participants to ten while relegating the seven other "major" candidates to its secondary "happy hour" debate.  The criteria for who got in for the prime time debate was the average of several public opinion polls taken beforehand...fair enough, I suppose.  California former business executive Carly Fiorina finished low in those early polls...most likely due to lack of name recognition outside her home state...but performed very well in the debate provided for her and jumped markedly in the polls held afterward.  Unfortunately, most of the polls CNN used to determine their lineup for the upcoming debate were those done before those two Fox debates...so Fiorina once again didn't make their cut of ten.  Recognizing this flaw, one that essentially nullifies the performances of the candidates in the first debates, CNN slightly adjusted their rule to allow Fiorina in as the "eleventh" candidate.  But this is also, in my opinion, not enough...she has jumped in the polls far beyond any "eleventh" place and by no means should be regarded as an "extra" candidate.  The fault for her initial omission is with CNN for having placed too much weight on early polls.  Their excuse is that not enough more recent polls had been taken...that strikes me as being a bit disingenuous, especially when all I see when I watch cable news channels on TV is public opinion poll after public opinion poll...

Just Finished Reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet

I've been reading, off and on, Madeleine L'Engle's science fiction series for children called the Time Quintet.  I just finished reading the third book, titled A Swiftly Tilting Planet.  In it, we once again find the Murray and O'Keefe families, featuring main characters Meg and Charles Wallace.  But several years have passed between books two and three, and Meg has just married her old friend Calvin O'Keefe while the precocious Charles Wallace has by now turned fifteen.  A new crisis presents itself at the story's beginning: a South American dictator has gotten hold of the atomic bomb and is threatening a nuclear holocaust if his near-impossible demands are not met.  Meg's father, a physicist who has direct access to the White House, tells the grim news to his family.  Meg's mother-in-law, who is present at this moment, places a charge on Charles Wallace to set things right...and presents him with a "rune"...which takes the form of a prayer to heaven to influence the various forces on earth to rescue the speaker during a dire crisis.  Charles Wallace, with Meg psychically tuning in through a process called "kything", then travels back through time with the help of a nifty unicorn and tries, by subtly entering the minds of different people (and with the help of that rune), to influence events enough to change the present and alleviate the nuclear crisis...

First of all, let me just say that I "get it": this is a children's story, and fantasy and implausibility are lathered on thick here.  That being said, I have to object to the idea expressed within it that there is such a thing as an evil ancestral line any more than there is a benevolent one.  But part of the project that Charles Wallace is engaged in is just with that in mind: change the line of descent to the present so that the genetic makeup of the current ruler in that South American country is "good" instead of "evil".  Maybe I'm making too much of this, but it bothered me nonetheless...

So now I've finished three of these books, with two more to go.  But wait, I just found out that the author had also written another series parallel to this one...a series featuring the O'Keefe family and the eventual children of Meg and Calvin.  Maybe I'll just wait a few more years, Lord willing, before I start on that one...