Category Archives: history
Book Review – Wayward Son by Tom Pollack
I received a copy of Wayward Son through Librarything’s Early Reviewer giveaway and I’m glad the initial blurb caught my attention enough to make me enter to win a copy. It was a complex, inventive novel and will certainly fall into the narrow category of books that I remember well after I finished reading it.
Wayward Son is, at it’s core, and epic journey through time and ancient history, seen through the eyes of one of the Bible’s most notorious characters- Cain. Interestingly, the Bible never tells of Cain’s fate after being exiled, but this author did a brilliant job of building on the fable and turning it into something highly improbable, yet wholly believable at the same time. At the end of reading the novel, I felt as if I too had live through some of the most important events in human history.
At present day, the story begins with an archeological discovery and an ambitious employee of the Getty Museum’s, Amanda James. Through her the reader is taken on an unforgettable journey into the long, tumultuous life of Cain. Mostly, the present-day story line is used as a device for the historical backstory, and I did fine the modern line a little thin and not nearly as compelling as the rest of the book.
But make no mistake, this tale is a must read, and not just for people who gravitate towards epic, historical fiction. Wayward Son can’t be pigeon-holed that easy. It has mystery, murder, mayhem, religion, mysticism, love found and lost, interesting characters and and is superbly written. Check it out, you won’t be sorry!
Pandora’s Baby – Book Review
Imagine battling infertility for years – hoping, praying – anything to have the baby you so desperately desire. Then, imagine your doctor says that he can help you have that long-hoped-for child. There is a new procedure that can circumvent all those pesky reproductive problems that have been plaguing you.
You are ecstatic. You begin the procedure and all goes well – until, that is, another doctor passes judgment on the procedure, calling it unethical, and essentially kills your developing embryo. You would sue, right?
That is just what happened to Doris and John Del-Zio in 1973. All they wanted was a child, but what they got was a place in debate over in vitro fertilization.
Woven throughout Pandora’s Baby is the story of the Del-Zio’s heartbreaking, moving and precedent-making ordeal. At no other time could their struggle with infertility have made such headlines, becoming fodder for both sides of the scientific argument.
While this real-life story is both poignant and evocative, it is only a portion of Pandora’s Baby. The author, Robin Marantz Henig, has chronicled every step of the scientific advancements, research experiments and controversies. She fairly shows both sides of the moral coin, and allows readers to draw their own conclusions.
For the history, this book is worth the read, but there is another lesson lurking between the pages – one more relevant than you might first think. I’m talking about cloning. Yes, cloning and in vitro are relatively similar procedures, with only a few major differences. In fact, many of the same arguments made against cloning today are the carbon-copy diatribes of the in vitro debate, verbatim. And those same detractors were proven to be mere speculation by the further research of reproductive endocrinologist, scientists and the like.
Imagine if they had not been allowed to continue studying the intricacies of human egg fertilization and embryonic development. For the couples that have gone on to have children courtesy of in vitro, that research has made all the difference in their lives.
It has been said, that people are most afraid of what they cannot understand. The Civil Rights movement, the Woman’s Suffrage movement, and the Artificial Reproduction debate can be held as testaments to that fact.
Pandora’s Baby offers up truth, facts and the pros and cons of in vitro and, by default, cloning. This book is ripe for readers who want to understand the scientific, moral and ethical arguments of genetic, reproductive, and biological developments. Although laden with medical and scientific techniques, this book is written for the average reader, in a clear, concise manner.
I would recommend Pandora’s Baby to anyone interested in artificial reproduction, cloning, or the furthering of science. It is insightful, thought-provoking and very well written.
The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art
“The famous query by feminine artist and art historians goes, ‘Why haven’t there been more great women artists throughout western history?’ The Guerilla Girls want to restate the question: “Why haven’t more women been considered great artists throughout western history?’”
The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art is chock full of witty insights, stories behind the stories, and relevant facts about women artists of days gone by. Broken down into chapters according artistic eras (Classical, Middle Ages, the Renaissance, etc.), this book chronicles the continuing plight for recognition of women through the history of art all the way to the twentieth century.
While this book is broadly based on feministic theory, it is interesting enough to appeal to all art history buffs – men and women alike.
And the Guerrilla Girls are not just blowing smoke, either. Sprinkled throughout the text are supporting quotes, insights and actual records from observers and artists alike, plus a heaping-helping of “altered” art works from history that have mysteriously had gorilla masks added to them – a trademark of the Guerrilla Girls.
The Guerrilla Girls, who several years ago anonymously published Confessions of the Guerrilla Girls, which exposed bigotry in the art world, are back at it. Smattering the pages are numerous pithy, pop-art style posters and graphics with their own minute captions, like: “Why did so few art historians mention me in their survey books?” (Artemisia Gentileschi) or “Why is the museum of Modern Art more interested in African Art than in art by African-Americans?” (Alma Thomas).
Quotes abound in this slim yet comprehensive tutorial. The Guerrilla Girls chose wisely among their references, highlighting bigotry, sexism and beliefs as they pertained to the discussed era. The supporting information is woven seamlessly into context, and the book on the whole is a compelling read.
There is a several-pages-long section on the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi and the subsequent trial of her attacker (who was also her father’s apprentice), with quotes from actual trial documents in 1612, which is quite interesting. As is the Guerrilla Girls take on why Tintoretto suddenly stopped producing works of art after the sudden death of his daughter, Maria Robusti, in 1590. The Ladies don Gorilla masks and proclaim that, “Since the works of Tintoretto and Robusti are indistinguishable, and he signed them all, we don’t think he lost his will (to paint), we think he lost his secret weapon! (Robusti, an exceptional painter herself).”
Personally, I was moved while reading this book – sometimes even outraged at how an artist was treated (or ignored) merely on the basis of her sex. What is worse, though, is that many men from history would publically proclaim women artists inferior, then go home and steal their daughters’ paintings, sign their own manly names, and take all the praise for being such a great “master” artist. Truly disgusting.
I started this book thinking, “Oh, I hope I can get past all this feminist chanting and enjoy the history within the pages.” (Yes, I am a woman!) But I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book – feminism and all. In fact, radical viewpoints often don’t feel as “preachy” when it is so obvious that they have very firm ground to stand on.
One particular poster reproduction that graces the back cover is of a nude, reclining woman who is wearing the trademark gorilla mask. Beside her in bold print is the question, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” and smaller print below that states, “Less than 5% of artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.” Enough said.
I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read the “other side” of history – the events little-known and talked about – as well as for anyone remotely interested in uncovering the great women artists from Western history. Enjoy!
Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin – Book Review
In the time of stock market woes, prohibition and changing social climates, writers ran amuck, traipsing through the eastern United States and Europe. Living beyond their means was commonplace, and back then, going to your editor for an advance (which would now be considered a hand-out) was normal, even expected.
The majority of Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin focuses on prominent and up-and-coming women writers in the Twenties. Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Zelda Fitzgerald occupy much space in the text. It is interesting to see how they lived, went about crafting their works (or more to the point, procrastinated) and suffered the same tortures that many modern day writers fall victim too. But, like the roaring Twenties, these notable writers carried much of their angst to extremes.
Surprisingly, author Marion Meade has given us a glimpse of what most people would call modern morals, put into practice by the women over eighty years ago. Promiscuity, drunkenness, extramarital affairs, mental illness, and even suicide, are displayed by the choices the women made throughout this enlightening book. One of the above-mentioned women tried, and failed to commit suicide several times. Another was institutionalized, and yet a third woman suffered for years from unexplained abdominal complications and fierce headaches.
Fitzgerald, had no choice but to become part of this eclectic ensemble. What was interesting about his role in Zelda’s life is that he belittled her every chance he got, plagiarized excerpts from her journal verbatim (and placed them in his own novels), and routinely added his byline to anything Zelda had published. (Whether this was a marketing ploy for himself, or to further reinforce the fact that Zelda would never be a “real writer” I’m not sure).
Ernest Hemingway makes several appearances in Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin as well, and it would seem that he didn’t make much of an impression on the ladies at the time. Other men grace the pages of this book, as collaborators, producers, editors, lovers and members of the Algonquin Round Table.
It would seem that writers, authors, and poets of the Twenties did, in fact, suffer from common dilemmas – writer’s block, low income (or, as was the case with the Fitzgeralds’, gross mismanagement of their funds), and very slow productivity. Writers in the 1920s often took years to complete one body of work, whereas present day authors are expected to churn out several best sellers per year in order to remain “serious novelists.”
Historically speaking, this book contains a wealth of interesting information told in a gossip-like way – the not-so-impressive beginnings of The New Yorker, who was sleeping with whom, business deals gone bad, books that flopped only to become “classics” decades later.
Anyone interested in seeing the low-down, sometimes dirty lives of now-famous writers, anyone who would like to read the inside story of the making of legendary writers and revel in their struggles, misfortunes and fortunes, should read this book. Even a non-writer will find enough tantilizing details to sustain one’s interest page after page.
Margaret Fuller – A Woman Before Her Time
Born in 1810, Margaret Fuller was one of the most influential personalities in early American literature. As a writer, lecturer, and editor of The Dial, transcendentalism’s premier publication during it’s first two years, Margaret influenced the transcendentalist movement and is noted as being one of the earliest founders of women’s liberation.
Forced through her education by her father, Margaret’s health floundered, but did, in fact, give her a broad knowledge of literature and languages. Margaret held conversation classes in Boston, for society women on social and literary topics. As an ardent feminist, Margaret published her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century in 1845, which dealt with feminism and its relation to economic, intellectual, political, and sexual ideals. As a forerunner of transcendentalism, Margaret edited the Dial, for its first two premier years, during 1840 to 1842.
Other writers, who were her compatriots and contemporaries, used Fuller as characters in their own novels, so thought-provoking was she. Fuller has been identified as Zenobia in the Blithedale Romance, by Hawthorne and she is easily recognizable as Miranda in James Russell Lowell’s the Fable for Critics.
In response to her favored Summer on the Lakes in 1843, Horace Greeley called Margaret to New York City, and she became the first literary critic of the New York Tribune. Her Papers on Literature and Art (1846) were later reprinted from her work there.
In 1847, Fuller went to Rome, fell in love, and married the Marchese Ossoli, who was a devoted follower of Mazzini. Fuller joined her new husband in the Revolution and corresponded to New York, describing the situation for Tribune readers. Sadly, while traveling home from abroad in 1850, the ship that her and her family (for by then she had given birth to a baby boy) was on sank off of Fire Island, N.Y.
The entire family drowned. Her incomplete works were later republished by her brother. How sad it is that the world lost a great progressive thinker so early in her prime!
Some of my favorite quotes of Fuller’s are:
-What woman needs is not as a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to discern, as a soul to live freely, and unimpeded to unfold such powers as were given her when we left our common home.
-Humanity is not made for society, but society is made for humanity. No institution can be good which does not tend to improve the individual.
-Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.
-Nature provides exceptions to every rule.
And while Fuller had such notable published works, such as At Home And Abroad Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe, and Woman in the Nineteenth Century,one of my favorite passages can be found in Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, as Margaret so poetically describes visiting Niagara Falls in the moonlight:
“It was grand, and it was also gorgeous; the yellow rays of the moon made the broken waves appear like auburn tresses twining around the black rocks. But they did not inspire me as before. I felt a foreboding of a mightier emotion to rise up and swallow all others, and I passed on to the terrapin bridge. Everything was changed, the misty apparition had taken off its many-colored crown which it had worn by day, and a bow of silvery White spanned its summit. The moonlight gave a poetical indefiniteness to the distant parts of the waters, and while the rapids were glancing in her beams, the river below the falls was black as night, save where the reflection of the sky gave it the appearance of a shield of blued steel. No gaping tourists loitered, eyeing with their glasses, or sketching on cards the hoary locks of the ancient river god. All tended to harmonize with the natural grandeur of the scene. I gazed long. I saw how here mutability and unchangeableness were united. I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge, till, like toppling ambition, o’erleaping themselves, they fall on t’other side, expanding into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they creep submissively away.”
Fuller had a certain poetical love of nature, and found the most intriguing ways to paint a literary picture. It is this vivid love and observation of nature, that I am sure help to make her one of the influential Transcendentalist of her time.
FOR MORE ON MARGARET FULLER
Woman in the Nineteenth Century
