Lamentation 6: nothing could come to you

Someone we have known who has passed away often remains startlingly present for us. We may, for example, suddenly be reminded of them by a smell or a view, or by an activity we had shared with them, such as eating – or preparing – a particular dish. Or, in moments of accomplishment or success or transcendence, we may feel the urge to share our thoughts and feelings with them, only to be overcome (yet again) by the realization that it is no longer possible.

More profoundly poignant, however, is a circumstance that the brilliant Spanish author Javier Marías describes in his story Dark Back of Time: “It's frightening to think of hours – soon distant and forgotten, yet so slow and negligible while they're going by – during which our friends and relatives think we're alive when in fact we are dead...” (179)  He captures this from the point-of-view of the person who has died, but consider the implications for those of us among the friends and relatives. We go about our lives assuming that those we know are out there, going about theirs, and we may even have them in our thoughts or plans or actions, only to discover later that at that moment they were no longer among the living.

It can happen in so many ways: I have sent a letter to a friend that came back marked ‘deceased’; Christmas greetings from my family and from me arrived for my grandmother just days after she had passed away; you are awakened from a deep sleep, on a night seemingly like every other, to a call that your mother has died; the truly heart-rending thought of parents planning after-school activities with their children who they don’t yet know won’t be coming home…

In Three Poems for James Wright, the marvelous poet Mary Oliver captures the utter finality of such moments, while also reminding us of the accompanying beauty of the larger, ineluctable cycle of nature, carrying on without us in its own eternal rhythm. 

it was the time
the willows do what they do
every spring, so I cut some
down by a dark Ohio creek and was ready
to mail them to you when the news came
that nothing
could come to you
in time
anymore
ever. (225)

 

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I have taken the selection above from Mary Oliver’s collection New and Selected Poems, Volume 1, my review of which is linked to at right.

Other quotes from Javier Marías’s Dark Back of Time can be found here; I read the book before I began doing these reviews, but I can highly recommend it.  My reviews of others of Marias's works can be found here.

Another entry in an occasional series of posts of lamentation. (The introduction to this series can be found here, and links to the complete series here.)

Book Review: "The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende" by Nathaniel Davis

The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende (1985)
Nathaniel Davis (1925-2011)
480 pages

In September 1973, the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, died during a military coup. He and his government were replaced by a ruling junta led by General Augusto Pinochet.

Beyond these indisputable facts, however, the history of the coup quickly became mired in controversy, as already in its immediate aftermath conflicting claims and accusations dominated the discussion. The clandestine planning and often-chaotic execution of coup attempts can complicate getting to the truth in such situations, of course. But, in addition, the publicly visible animosity of the United States to Allende and his policies – among conservative politicians, and corporate executives with economic interests in Chile – bred a myriad of suspicions about US involvement.

With Cold War tensions running high and the US government having repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to aggressively contest the spread of communism, it is perhaps not surprising that a belief arose that the United States played a direct and material role in the overthrow of Allende’s government. The questions raised were in fact sufficient to trigger a US Congressional investigation. Although that inquiry found no conclusive evidence of US involvement, the idea that US agencies in some way actively conspired to bring about the coup nonetheless became the dominant narrative of events in Chile, not just on the left, but also in the political center, both within the US and globally.

Nathaniel Davis, the US ambassador to Chile during the last two years of Allende’s government, begs to differ with that deeply entrenched understanding of the Chilean coup, however. In his book The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende, Davis claims that the US government actually avoided giving any implication of support to groups potentially working to overthrow the Chilean government, and that the coup in fact erupted largely out of the social, political, and economic conditions particular to Chile at that time.

Davis began his ambassadorship in Chile roughly a year after the September 1970 elections that lifted Allende to power, and he presents his case based on his vantage point at the heart of events, as well as his later discussions with relevant colleagues within the US government. In the opening chapter Davis summarizes the first year of Allende’s presidency, before then beginning his recounting in earnest with his own arrival on the scene, which, he argues, coincided with a moment when “the Allende government reached a turning point … both in the political and the economic sense.” (xiii) The bulk of the book, then, covers the two years from Davis’s arrival to the moment of the coup and its immediate aftermath.

Davis tells the story roughly chronologically, with chapters developed around critical moments in the mounting turmoil. In the final part of the book, he explores in detail controversial aspects of the conventional narrative of events in Chile during this period, including what role the US government played, and whether Allende was murdered or committed suicide on the day of the coup.

Broadly, Davis argues that US engagement during the Allende presidency was focused mainly on maintaining “institutional democracy in Chile” (398), by providing support for opposition political parties and organizations on the center and right, so they could continue to act as viable counterweights to Allende and those on the Chilean left who aggressively sought to curtail their activities. He claims that during his period as ambassador he was meticulous about the US delegation in Chile not providing even the appearance of support for the idea of overthrowing the Allende government. He further states that he has found no indication of any support being given to the coup organizers from other elements of the US government, based on the results of the investigations that occurred in the US Congress after the coup and on his discussions with key figures in the State Department, the CIA and others within the US government, as well as within the ruling junta in Chile.

Davis contends that the coup in fact needed no impetus from the US, that it grew organically out of the increasing political and economic chaos that gripped Chile as the Allende government and associated leftist groups pursued a shift toward a socialist state. The Chilean government’s actions led to opposition from not only right-wing nationalists, but increasingly those in the middle class and political center, with the country disrupted by repeated strikes that spread from truck drivers to a wide variety of other commercial organizations and even professionals. Ultimately, Davis concludes that Allende’s vacillation during this period – wanting to achieve the transition to socialism without violence but unable or unwilling to “impose discipline on his own coalition” (405) as they engaged in ever more militant actions – fatally undermined his presidency.

Building on both his firsthand knowledge and his conversations with high-ranking sources, Davis develops a careful and thorough history of the final two years of Allende’s government, making a convincing case that US involvement, if not completely innocent, did not materially support the coup, and further that Allende died by suicide. Nonetheless, he faces a difficult dilemma throughout the text, one highlighted by a comment he makes at one point, referring specifically to the previous few pages of the book but that could be applied to the book as a whole: “The preceding pages may have the flavor of personal apologia.” (330) He recognizes that many, if not most, readers will come to his book with the deeply held conviction that the US was in some way involved in the instigation and prosecution of the coup, and that this belief means that every claim of innocence and non-involvement that Davis makes for himself, and for the US government more generally, will be met with, if not outright skepticism, then at least the shadow of doubt.

And it’s easy to understand why. Unless a reader is inalterably convinced about what happened in Chile in the early 1970s (US-led coup or not), it can be difficult to read Davis’s account without feeling oneself caught in a kind of hall of mirrors: his narrative and conclusions seem logical and persuasive, but at every step one wonders if one is being misled by misdirection, or careful selection of the facts. Davis himself acknowledges this dilemma at one point with a trenchant quote (that applies all too well to present-day conspiracy theorists in the US as well):

As Flora Lewis of the New York Times has commented, “everything that comes out [about US government actions] makes skepticism look nearer the mark on public affairs these days than credence, though there is also the danger of what David Reisman wisely calls ‘the gullibility of the cynical.’ (307)

It could in fact be argued that Davis somewhat undermines his own case, in that sense, with his pointed decision to focus tightly on the two-year period he spent as US ambassador in Chile. Although he presents convincing arguments about the limited US involvement in Chile during that time, by limiting himself to just the short period of his involvement – even if that was admittedly the critical moment – he tends to imply a rather benign picture of US global engagement more broadly. And much as one can argue that the US has been a force for good in the world, as Flora Lewis noted in her article linked to above, and as can be understood from a variety of other sources, the US government has often enough in its history aggressively intervened in countries to get its way, including directly resorting to armed intervention. Such engagements occurred repeatedly in the twentieth century in the Western Hemisphere alone, including in Chile in support of Pinochet in the years after Davis had left for other shores.

Such activities in fact impacted Davis himself, just two years after he left Chile: he reports having been eased into a low visibility role in the State Department – transferred to a post in Switzerland – after “Secretary [Henry] Kissinger and I had come to disagree profoundly on covert US intervention in Angola.” (387) One can take this as supporting Davis’s credibility, while still leaving room to wonder what he might not have been in the loop about what was happening in Chile.

Toward the end of his book, Davis highlights an important, more global, consequence of the dominant narrative implicating the US in the coup: it obscured the lessons of the coup for those on the left. Belief that the US aggressively tipped the scales in Chile led communists and socialists elsewhere to ignore the critical economic, social and political problems that Davis argues profoundly undermined Allende’s government and goals. Rather than coming to grips with the true causes of Allende’s failure in Chile, he argues, the belief in US involvement meant that 

communist advocacy of the Chilean Way and the peaceful road to socialism has effectively been replaced by the historically more orthodox Marxist-Leninist view that the dictatorship of the proletariat must normally be achieved through armed struggle and violent revolution. (393)

 By contrast, his account makes evident that Allende and the left in Chile lost the political center and with it any hope of success. It becomes clear that charting and executing a path to any significantly different political, social and especially economic future requires some level of majority support, as least passively, if one wishes to avoid a path of revolutionary violence, as Davis argues Allende did.

Although published in 1985, and exploring a period from just over a decade earlier, Davis’s essay provides startling commentary on the events of the last several years in the United States. With prophetic concern, Davis notes that 

It has been a long time since North America has been subjected to such a rending of the social fabric as Chile experienced before and after 11 September 1973. I hope Americans would react differently, but I am not sure they would. (369) 

Certainly, although our current moment in the US has little of the profound disruption that occurred in Chile over the period covered by Davis’s book, the “rending of the social fabric” that has been experienced here over the past decade or so would seem to confirm Davis’s doubts. His expectations for how citizens should instead react serves as a powerful reminder of what is lacking now:

The Declaration of Independence speaks of “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Americans do care that divergent points of view should get a decent hearing. We must feel ashamed when rancor silences discourse. We must be concerned that public servants not be pilloried…. As the old saying has it, we must get about the task of raising our voices a little lower. (397) 

One could, admittedly, argue that for every public servant unfairly pilloried, others have been all too willing to lead the charge of their constituents into a divisive partisan environment in which rancor silences nuanced discourse.

In The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende , Davis comes across as an ambassador of the old mold, a career diplomat with a deep understanding and respect for his position and work. For those familiar with only the claims that the CIA played an active role in overthrowing Allende, his book paints a clear and comprehensive picture of a country spiraling into chaos, needing no outside help to be tipped over the edge into a violent coup. Far from vilifying Allende, however, he acknowledges his respect for the former president of Chile, highlighting his virtues as well as his failures. His balanced presentation paints a believable counterpoint to the narrative of US overreach in Chile, however often such overreach may have taken place elsewhere.

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Other notes and information:

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Dune" by Frank Herbert

Dune (1965)
Frank Herbert (1920-1986)
694 pages

I’ve enjoyed science fiction for about as long as I can remember. On my bookshelves I still have stories I ordered from Scholastic Books in elementary school, such as Trapped in Space and The Runaway Robot. Back then I knew by heart all the times that Star Trek reruns would be shown on our local channel 50, and I eventually read the complete series of written adaptations of the show by James Blish.

Over time I discovered Isaac Asimov, devouring all his novels and short story collections (and quite a few of his nonfiction releases as well), and, from there, Bradbury and Clarke and so many, many others. A look at my virtual bookshelf of fiction reviews for this blog makes clear that my interest in sci-fi continues unabated.

On the other hand, fantasy has never attracted me. Although the line between science fiction and fantasy can be thin, and I suppose one could argue that the magic of warp drives and other far-out technology is not so very different from that of dragons and wizards, the latter never appealed to me. To be clear, I don’t consider one genre better or worse than the other; it’s just that my personal preference has leaned toward science fiction.

I recall having ordered from Scholastic Books one of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and not getting more than a few dozen pages into it before I set it aside. Admittedly, it was The Twin Towers and I only realized years later that I’d started with the second book in the series, which can’t have helped. But that early reading experience soured me on fantasy, or at least confirmed whatever opinion I may have already had. (I will admit that, years later, I very much enjoyed the epic sweep of the Peter Jackson films.)

All of which leads to why, despite having read so much science fiction over the years, I’ve never read Dune. Somehow, at some point, I got it into my head that it was fantasy, and that was that.

Then, over the last decade or so, a friend and fellow sci-fi aficionado (hey John!) found out I hadn’t read it and was amazed: “How can you like science fiction so much, but have never read Dune?” His recommendation made me rethink my position, but I still didn’t quite get around to reading it – until now. The final impetus came from seeing the new movie version over this past summer and loving it. Looking into it, I discovered that the movie had only covered the first half or so of the book, and I decided I wanted to read the whole thing before the sequel is released.

For those who come to this post without having read the book or seen the movie, Dune is set in our far distant future, when humans have spread widely throughout space to colonize many planets. It opens on one such world, Caladan, ruled by Leto Atreides, the reigning Duke of the House Atreides. We soon learn that the Emperor of the Imperium of planets has asked the Duke to shift the seat of his kingdom from Caladan to Arrakis, a planet known as Dune because of its vast desert.

Dune, despite its forbidding appearance, is the most important planet in the Imperium, being the sole source of a substance known as melange, colloquially referred to as spice. Spice slows aging and, more importantly, has psychological effects that allow navigators to operate spaceships successfully at faster than light speeds, an ability fundamental to the management of the Imperium. For that reason, the House that rules Dune has the opportunity to become fabulously wealthy. With control of the planet coveted by many of the Houses of the Imperium, the Duke recognizes the implicit danger in receiving the Emperor’s grant of title for the planet. He knows that the previous rulers in particular – an aggressive and relentlessly savage House known as the Harkonnen – will stop at nothing to regain their lost possession and control of the wealth it generates. Nonetheless, the Duke also realizes that he cannot risk rejecting the Emperor’s offer without losing face.

The setting soon shifts to Dune, where the Duke begins resettling the House Arrakis. He is accompanied by his “formal concubine,” Jessica, who is a part of the Bene Gesserit, a “school of mental and physical training” for select women that enables its graduates to exercise significant control over themselves and others through what can roughly be described as a profound understanding of meditation and psychologically. The pair have a son, Paul, the central character of the story, who Jessica has secretly – against the explicit rules of her order – been training in the ways of the Bene Gesserit.

The native inhabitants of Dune, the Fremen, are at first skeptical of their new rulers the Atreides, though happy to be rid of the draconian Harkonnen. When the Harkonnen and their allies then attack the Duke’s forces in a violent bid to retake Dune, Paul and his mother escape deep into the vast desert that surrounds the planet’s habitable zone, and they and the Fremen must decide whether to make common cause against a powerful, vicious and relentless enemy.

Herbert develops his story around the eternal themes of byzantine political intrigue and cutthroat competition for power and wealth. Though many technical marvels exist in the distant future he imagines, they support the story rather than dominate it. Instead, it is advanced mental and physical training that plays a pivotal role in the story. The members of the Bene Gesserit form a powerful sect-like group, and starkly differentiate between those who have some level of such powers and are considered human, and the vast majority in the Imperium who they consider, effectively, as little better than animals; and, though the Bene Gesserit play a highly visible role throughout the Imperium, their goals remain shrouded in mystery to outsiders. Ultimately, their powers and mystique come to play a decisive role as Paul and his mother attempt to win over the Fremen.

Certainly, with the Bene Gesserit, Herbert introduces mysticism and some level of psychic-like powers into Dune. But, the story never tails over into fantasy, at least for my taste. Instead, it is a thrilling tale of political maneuvering and infighting, of the desire for vengeance and the risks that it can unleash. I found myself in the position that perhaps best indicates a great read: I wanted to rush ahead ever quicker to see what would happen next but kept trying to slow myself down so that my immersion in the world Herbert has created would last just that much longer.

And, I’m now definitely looking forward to reading the sequel, Dune: Messiah, soon.

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Other notes and information:

The actual final trigger for reading Dune when I did was that I came across a gorgeous edition that’s been released as part of the Penguin Galaxy series, along with five other “greatest masterworks of science fiction and fantasy.”  That you can’t judge a book by its cover may well be true, but I’m an incorrigible sucker for a beautiful edition of a book I plan to read anyway. 

 The novel comes with a variety of appendices. Some of them are directly useful in reading the story, such as in particular the Terminology of the Imperium, a glossary of words particular to the world Herbert has created. Others provide background information on the planet Dune, the Bene Gesserit and other topics; I chose not to read those until after I’d finished the story, to keep the experience as ‘fresh’ as possible (given that I’ve already seen the new movie version). The additional bits of information are vaguely interesting, but when you read them, as I did, desperately hoping to stay immersed in the story I’d just finished, they weren’t particularly satisfying…

My review of the sequel, Dune Messiah, now posted, and linked to at right.

 

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "New and Selected Poems: Volume One" by Mary Oliver

New and Collected Poems, Volume One (1992)
Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
255 pages

My first introduction to the amazing poetry of Mary Oliver was through her interview on Krista Tippett’s wonderful program, On Being (which I listen to as a podcast – don’t miss the unedited versions!).  Along with the interview, Tippett’s feed includes posts of Oliver reading several of her poems. Listening to these various sessions reveal Oliver to have developed a profound connection to the natural world and, from that, insight into how such a connection can inform – as Tippett so often discusses with her guests – what it means to be human.

In the interview, Oliver describes spending hours upon hours wandering through the countryside to immerse herself in nature, with paper and pencil in hand to capture the revelations and reflections she has along the way. Her readings of her poetry left me eager for more, and I decided to begin with her collection New and Selected Poems: Volume One.

Published in 1992, the book has a selection from the first three decades of Oliver’s work, plus another thirty poems that had not yet been published. Interestingly, the poems are grouped in reverse chronological order, so that reading them sequentially from the beginning has the effect of peeling back on Oliver’s evolving understanding of our place in the world.

She seems to capture the core of her experience in a brief stanza of The Moth: 

If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more. (132) 

Open our eyes and our consciousness to our surroundings, she suggests, and we’ll suddenly become aware of the vast richness of the world before us.

The image of Oliver carrying pencil and paper on her walks into nature to capture moments in notes that later become poems powerfully colors the reading of many of the pieces in this collection. We find Oliver writing not about nature, but rather about her observations and experience living within it – its rituals and its pace – as in One or Two Things 

The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower. (120)

Many of her poems point to the need to slow down and appreciate all that nature offers, both in terms of marvels as well as an understanding about living. As she herself found in her own early life, people often struggle to look past daily concerns, to differentiate what is needed from what is desired, and so pass by nature largely unawares. In that vein, she asks us in The Sun: 

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed –
or have you too
turned from this world –

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things? (51)

Instead of giving in, then, to the often-damaging distraction of such human striving, she calls for a more contemplative embrace of nature, one that can guide us on what the poet David Whyte has referred to as our pilgrimage through life. Writing of her own longing for such a deep openness to the world, Oliver imagines in Entering the Kingdom: 

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees –
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention. (190)

This kind of clear seeing of nature, she finds, can teach us how to take the critical step toward equanimity. Instead of anthropomorphizing animals – projecting our human striving and planning and regrets onto them – we can discover them as they are, learn how they simply live life as it comes to them. Thus, in The Turtle, she writes of watching a mother laying eggs in some mudflats: 

and then you realize a greater thing –
she doesn’t consider
what she was born to do.
She’s only filled
with an old blind wish. (123)

What Oliver discovers in nature reflects an ancient contemplative tradition, the idea that we, as humans, can quiet our minds by recognizing ourselves as at base a consciousness experiencing the world – not directing our life, but receiving it. Her view touches close up upon the recognition of the illusory nature of human free will, a view she seems to not only embrace but long for in Roses, Late Summer: 

If I had another life
I would want to spend it all on some
unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or a tree
full of waving branches.
I wouldn’t mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question. (96)

In her collection New and Selected Poems: Volume One, Mary Oliver creates exquisite portraits of the natural world. More importantly, however, she shares through her poetry an invitation to seek out nature, to pass through it slowly, deliberately, and perhaps find a path away from the hectic lives to which we too often feel chained. Heed her call to wander out into whatever natural space you can find, with a mind open to the wonders that await, and you may begin to discover for yourself what it means to be human.

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Other notes and information:

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Allow Me to Retort" by Elie Mystal

Allow Me to Retort (2022)
Elie Mystal (1978)
270 pages

Conservatives are always worried that protecting too many rights might one day lead to a society that’s fundamentally fair. (170)

This pointed remark succinctly captures both the theme and the tone of Elie Mystal’s Allow Me to Retort. Subtitled A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, the book consists of an interconnected series of essays through which Mystal explores many of the divisive social and political topics of our day – from cancel culture to gun control and abortion, police brutality to equitable juries and voting rights – in the context of the relevant portions of the US Constitution and its Amendments. Convincingly detailing how conservative groups have artfully manipulated the content and interpretation of the law to systematically block or reverse progress toward a fairer society and so preserve their hold on wealth and power, Mystal’s prose makes evident his anger and frustration at the resulting impact on the many who have been disenfranchised.

Mystal argues that the Constitution in fact originated as a deeply flawed document, with the explicit definition of a slave as counting three-fifths of a person only the most blatantly obvious piece of evidence for that. At the Constitutional Convention, the white, male property owners who drafted the document enshrined into it an Enlightenment view of the ideal society that definitively differentiated the U.S. system of government from that of European aristocracies, while also carefully establishing and reinforcing their own power.

As Pankaj Mishra argues in his book Age of Anger (my review linked to at right), for Enlightenment philosophers:

Liberty primarily meant freedom for social mobility for the man of talent [and] means. … Hierarchy would still mark the new society [they proposed]: the mass of the people would remain necessarily subordinate to the authentically enlightened at the top. (59, Age of Anger) 

In that context, those who drafted the original Constitution and Bill of Rights created a system of government that would not threaten the status and power of the men of talent and means such as themselves. Mystal, with characteristic directness, summarizes the motivation for the Enlightenment society the founders created as: “rich people never have a problem with monarchy; they have a problem with hereditary monarchy.” (203)

Despite the Constitution’s questionable beginning, Mystal acknowledges that several subsequent Amendments made it better, as the general population gradually rose up to claim the rights they saw the elite enjoying. In particular, he points to the Thirteenth (abolishing slavery), Fourteenth (equal protection for all), Fifteenth (universal male suffrage), and Nineteenth (female suffrage), as

recast[ing] the entire document, destroying the slave state that the founders wrote into existence and replacing it with something new, something heterogenous, and something still flawed yet not utterly unredeemable. (128) 

But, he goes on to note, “the entire conservative legal project, since ratification of those amendments during Reconstruction to the present-day, has been to limit the scope and effectiveness of this “new” Constitution.” (129)

Mystal’s analysis of and reaction to this conservative legal project, as well as the origins and focus of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights in the maintenance of slavery and the power of an elite few, forms the central thread running through the book.

Thus, for example, he describes the Second Amendment as arising out of the desire of Southern leaders at the Constitutional Convention “to guard against slave revolts.” They worried, he writes, “that the federal government, dominated by Northerners, would choose to not help the South should their population of oppressed humans demand freedom [and] that the new Constitution put the power of raising militias with the federal government and not with the individual states.” (37) With this historical understanding, the scope of their demand for the inclusion of the Second Amendment becomes clear, as does the wording of its opening clause, a well regulated Militia. And yet, he notes, in recent decades conservatives have invented and successfully promulgated a personal self-defense intent to the Second Amendment, an interpretation that didn’t exist before the 1970’s, but that has now become fully internalized among conservatives, including politicians and judges.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Mystal brings a persuasive depth of legal theory and history to his analysis of the origins of the Constitution and Amendments, the present-day battles over their interpretation, and the implications for US society, while managing to keep his account readable. He brings in specific legal terms where necessary to explain how the courts operate, but clearly explains their meaning and significance.

His historical and legal understanding is applied to most devastating effect in his dismantling of the claims of constitutional originalists, whatever legal point they are trying to make. At its most clarifying, he points out the nonsense of even considering giving absolute priority to what the original intent was of a group of slaveholders who could write a constitution in which white-male property owners were give the exclusive right to participate in their own governance. For originalists, it’s as though society is not allowed to grow and learn, in terms of ethical and moral standards, beyond the situation when the Constitution and its Amendments were put in place.

All of this analysis Mystal delivers with a healthy dose of something between snark and vitriol. Though he acknowledges the complexity of finding a neat solution to some issues, and often finds those on the left too timid, he makes clear that liberals at least strive for increased fairness, while conservatives fight tooth and nail to hold back such progress.

Mystal’s fundamental philosophy about conservatives, and the direct language (in this particular case without obscenities) with which he delivers it, is evident in the following paragraph from his discussion of a critical turning point toward a more fair, multicultural society: 

The Reconstruction and Nineteenth Amendments say that white men have to share that political and economic power with everybody else. And not merely as a theoretical proposition either; those amendments demand that power is actually shared among our multicultural society, or else the government ceases to be legitimate.

Of course, conservative white men object to that. They don’t like sharing. I mean, have you met a conservative white man? They’re still flummoxed by the concept of letting a woman finish her sentence. You think sharing the wealth and power of a global hegemony is something they’d just roll over and accept? The only time conservative white men have agreed to share power is when other white men make them do it at the point of a gun. And whenever those more enlightened whites lose the will and the nerve to keep stuffing equality and fairness down the throats of their objecting brothers and cousins, conservative forces retrench, recalibrate, and reemerge with new strategies to violently reassert white male dominance, and new legal theories to justify their supremacy. (129-130) 

No equivocation, then, in his view of where the threat lies in the struggle for justice.

Presenting his arguments with such conviction and certainty can run the risk of undermining them. One example where it does, perhaps, is in his chapter on cancel culture, with which he, interestingly, chose to open the book. He categorically dismisses the conservative argument that cancel culture exists on the left, basically arguing that those impacted are “losing acting gigs or magazine columns because of their knuckle-dragging views,” (11) and that “the real cancel culture is the one practiced by conservatives.” (17)  One can agree with the latter as the greater threat, given its impact on social and political progress, while still finding the extreme left too often going overboard in its cancellation of figures who seem to have had a slip of the tongue or been in some way misunderstood.

For most if not all of the rest of the essays, however, Mystal remains on firmer ground in terms of the historical and legal analysis and arguments he presents, as well as his conclusions.

In the Epilogue, Mystal provides potential solutions to overcome the conservative push to slow, undermine, and reverse steps toward a fairer society for all. After exploring the challenges and weaknesses of several possible options, he declares that his “preferred solutions focus on restructuring and reforming the Supreme Court.” (247)

Citing Congress’ broad Constitutional ability to define the structure of the Supreme Court, he proposes first that some version of term limits for the Justices be put in place, and he reviews several approaches to implementing such a change. Acknowledging that the current Supreme Court would likely find this unconstitutional, he proposes first expanding the court, placing justices on it who would position the court with sufficient votes to find term limits constitutional. Noting that the historical variability in the number of justices justifies such a change, he argues that a larger number of justices, with term limits in place, would be more difficult to seed with a majority from the far-right, by ensuring turnover and spreading out the nomination of new justices.

In Allow Me to Retort, Mystal provides a valuable analysis of key elements of the Constitution and its Amendments, and their relation to the culture wars that continue to rage around so many social and political issues. He details how profoundly influenced the original Constitution and Bill of Rights was by its drafters’ goals of maintaining a stranglehold on power for those like themselves – slave holding, white male property owners. And he makes clear the myriad machinations of conservatives, especially since the Reconstruction era, to limit the scope of Amendments designed to shift our country to fairer social, political, and economic systems.

Some readers will surely be turned off by the aggressiveness of his language in attacking conservatives, either because they feel personally attacked or because, while they broadly agree with his arguments, they dislike his tone. But those who read through to the end will arrive at a deeper understanding of the fight currently underway over the interpretation and application of Constitutional law. And, they will most likely come away with some sympathy for the evident depth of Mystal’s frustration.

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Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf

Book Review: "Tales of Ancient Worlds" by Stefan Milosavljevich

Tales of Ancient Worlds (2022)
Stefan Milosavljevich
160 pages

The tween sections in bookstores and libraries – targeting children say eight to twelve years old – seem bursting with stories of fantastical creatures, zombie attacks and superhero rescues. And while such stories can be wildly popular with that age group, these young readers may not yet realize that real life can so often be far stranger and more amazing than fiction.

Author Stefan Milosavljevich aims to change that understanding with his gorgeous book of our early history, Tales of Ancient Worlds. Subtitled Adventures in Archaeology, the book presents brief accounts of some of what archaeologists have discovered about our past, divided up into sections from The first humans, through to the pre-Columbian Age of discovery.

Milosavljevich covers both general topics, such as Your ancient family tree and The reign of horses, as well as specific discoveries, including The tower of Jericho and the mysteries of Stonehenge. He has selected his topics from points across the globe, and his tales describe both well-known and less familiar histories.

The level of his writing seems targeted at perhaps the older end of the tweens, but the book can easily be enjoyed by those a few years younger, if they find such things of interest and get help on some of the terms. Even adults will enjoy these tales; certainly I did, as I read it to my children, learning many new things about even the items I was already somewhat familiar with, and discovering histories I had been completely unaware of. Helpfully – for all age groups – challenging vocabulary specific to archaeology appear in bold font and are collected in a glossary at the end of the book.

Milosavljevich’s tales include what has been discovered and understood at the sites he describes, as well as some of the mysteries that remain at many of them. Without ever getting too technical, he gives a clear picture of the kinds of tools and techniques archaeologist use, as well as the careful process of exploring finds. Often he references the archaeologists who made the key discoveries, thus personalizing the account; by also including local archaeologists, he subtly makes clear that it was not just Western scientists who were central to the work.

In his descriptions, he keeps the tone light, finding ways to tickle a young person’s fancy while sliding in the science. Thus, in A Stink at the Bank he talks about a find at a location in the United Kingdom that was being excavated to build a banking building. During the digging a Viking city was discovered: 

So many incredible finds were unearthed, including several hundreds of thousands of pieces of pottery and Viking houses – enough finds to open a museum. But by far the most intriguing (and stinkiest) was a preserved Viking poop!

In archaeology, a preserved poop is known as a coprolite. This medieval chocolate log was an absolute monster, 8 in (20 cm) long! Obviously this is a funny discovery, and you might think the archaeologists were unhappy to find it. But nothing could be further from the truth. Archaeologists can actually learn a lot from this brown gold. (127) 

Nothing like a little potty humor to galvanize a youngster’s attention, as he then goes on to describe what can be discovered from such a find.

The large-format hardcover has wonderful drawings by Sam Caldwell, as evidenced by those accompanying the text of The Oldest Complaint Letter, below. As in the text, Caldwell includes drawings of the work and tools of archaeologists, as well as of particular artifacts, and humorously depicts aspects of the tales (as here the frustrated customer).

Tales of Ancient Worlds is a beautifully conceived and executed exploration of our history, and how archaeologists go about their work of uncovering it. Though targeted at tweens, readers of all ages can enjoy this book, and are likely to come away with a desire to visit the finds mentioned, and perhaps even consider a career in archaeology to reveal some of what remains to be discovered.

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Book Review: "The Last Gift" by Abdulrazak Gurnah

The Last Gift (2011)
Abdulrazak Gurnah
279 pages

As children grow older, many come to take an active interest in their parents’ childhood, wondering where and how they lived and grew up, and what they experienced. Realizing that they fit into a larger history that extends back through their parents’ lives, children become eager to hear whatever they can about them.

When parents keep silent about their early lives, the lack of response to their children’s questions can become a point of increasing tension. Over time, a child can experience the resulting lack of knowledge as a kind of emptiness, one that can exert an almost vertiginous pull on their path into adulthood. Precisely this situation and its profound consequences form the heart of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s beautifully crafted novel The Last Gift.

The story centers on a family in England: Abbas and his wife Maryam, and their children Jamal and Hannah, who are grown and living on their own. In the opening paragraphs, Abbas has a stroke that leaves him severely weakened and forced to relearn the ability to speak. Initially unable to even get out of bed, much less go back to work, he gradually withdraws into his own thoughts. Soon, these thoughts turn to long suppressed memories of his childhood, events that ultimately led to a traumatic moment as a young adult that suddenly and dramatically changed the course of his life.

Gurnah masterfully shifts the focus between Abbas, his wife, and their children, and we soon learn that not only has Abbas hidden this shameful event from his family, but that his secrecy has had a profound impact on his children. Despite questioning their father many times, they have been able to learn little more than accidentally revealed snippets about their father’s early life, little more than that he apparently grew up somewhere in Africa.

Maryam too has kept an embarrassing secret from the rest of the family, including her husband. Though all are aware that she grew up as an orphan, she has carefully concealed her own traumatic moment, one that turned her life, too, on its head.

Abbas and Maryam, for their part, have spent their many years together bound by a tacit agreement to not pry into each other’s pasts. For Jamal and Hannah, however, especially as they’ve moved beyond childhood, the hidden nature of their parent’s early lives, and particularly that of their father’s, begins to weigh more heavily, leaving them with a vague feeling of floundering, unconnected to any particular legacy.

Eventually Abbas regains some of his strength and ability to speak. But, he also recognizes his mortality staring him in the face, and so confronts the decision of whether to finally open up to his family before it’s too late. With Maryam acting as an increasingly insistent muse at his bedside, he tentatively begins to shed the long, deep silence he has maintained about his early life.

While the mysterious pasts of Abbas and Maryam drive the plot, the story’s heart lies in the consequences of this silence, not only on their own relationship, but especially on the lives of their children. Jamal and Hannah’s inability to learn much of anything about the early lives of their parents has marked them as adults, though in ways that have taken the two of them in different directions psychologically.

Most critically, it has colored their understanding of themselves as children of immigrants. Both were born in England and, given their parents reticence, have no concept of coming from anywhere else ancestrally, and yet they regularly find themselves viewed as outsiders, as non-English. Faced from both friends and strangers in England with the seemingly inevitable question of where do you come from?, they discover it to not only reinforce their otherness despite being English-born citizens, but also to remind them of the abiding mysteries of their parents’ pasts.

In The Last Gift, Gurnah has created a story that masterfully explores the question of identity in increasingly multicultural societies, but also the profound impact that family secrets can have on children as they grow to adulthood unable to understand their heritage.

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Have you read this book, others by this author, or even similar ones by other authors? I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Other of my book reviews: FICTION Bookshelf and NON-FICTION Bookshelf