Archive by Author | Sherry

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, chapter 6: Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire

Jun15

Bilbo had escaped the goblins, but he did not know where he was. He had lost hood, cloak, food, pony, his buttons and his friends.

Into the fire, indeed. Bilbo and the dwarves bounce from one fix to the next, each a little more perilous than the one before. In this chapter, they have escaped the goblins only to be treed by Wargs. My annotated version of The Hobbit has a few notes on the origins of various names of creatures that Tolkien introduces in the course of his tale:

Hobbit— Tolkien said, “I don’t know where the word came from. You can’t catch your mind out. It might have been associated with SInclair Lewis’s Babbitt. Certainly not rabbit, as some people think.
But he also wrote elsewhere, “I must admit that its faint suggestion of rabbit appealed to me. Not that hobbits at all resemble rabbits, unless it be in burrowing.”

Goblins— Tolkien’s goblins resemble the goblins of author George Macdonald in The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie, except that Macdonald’s goblins had soft and easily injured feet, which Tolkien said he “never believed in.”

Warg—Tolkien in a letter to author Gene Wolfe, 11/7/66, “It is an old word for wolf, which also had the sense of an outlaw or hunted criminal. This is its usual sense in surviving texts. I adopted the word, which had a good sound for the meaning, as a name for this particular brand of demonic wolf in the story.”

Orcs— are barely mentioned in The Hobbit, but rather the term “goblin” is used for all the creatures that live in the mountains and serve evil. By the time Tolkien wrote LOTR, he had switched to calling all of Sauron’s creatures orcs. In Tolkien’s Middle Earth, goblins and orcs are approximately the same or related creatures.

As the chapter closes, the eagles rescue Bilbo and Gandalf and the dwarves from their predicament in the trees. And Bilbo gets the dubious pleasure of spending the night in an eagle’s eyrie.

“So ended the adventures of the Misty Mountains. Soon Bilbo’s stomach was feeling full and comfortable again, and he felt he could sleep contentedly, though really he would have liked a loaf and butter rather than bits of meat toasted on sticks. He slept curled up on the hard rock more soundly than ever he had done on his featherbed in his own little hole at home. But all night he dreamed of his own house and wandered in his sleep into all his different rooms looking for something that he could not find nor remember what it looked like.”

Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party
Chapter 2, Roast Mutton.
Chapter 3, A Short Rest.
Chapter 4, Over Hill and Under Hill.
Chapter 5, Riddles in the Dark.

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton

Jun15

Cybils nominee: Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction. Nominated by Amy at Hope Is the Word, because she beat me to it.

Read the first chapter of The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic.

The rest of it is just as good as the first chapter. End of review.

O.K. I do have more to say about this book. But I think mostly what I want to say is:

1. Read this book.

2. If G.K. Chesterton were living now and writing fantasy for middle grade readers, he would be accused of being Jennifer Trafton. Or she would be him. Or something.

3. Since my lovely Z-baby likes maps, here’s a link to a map of The Island at the Center of Everything.

4. How did she or her publisher manage to get Brett Helquist to illustrate? Mr. Helquist is the guy who did the illustrations for Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events and for Blue Balliet’s Chasing Vermeer and its sequels. Perfectly wonderful pictures.

5. Persimmony Smudge wants to be a heroine. How is this ambition different from what I wrote about yesterday, wanting to be famous? Is it different? I think so, but I’m not sure how to articulate the difference.

“The truth was that King Lucas the Loftier had never gone down from the mountain in his entire life It meant no longer being On Top of Majestic, no longer being Lofty. It meant descending into the world of Everybody Else. He would have no idea what to do, where to go, how to behave. He wouldn’t know who he was anymore.”

6. Persimmony Smudge is a wonderful name for a character. So are the following names in the book: Guafnoggle the Rumblebump, Worvil the Worrier, Jim-Jo Pumpernickel, King Lucas the Loftier, Rheuben Rhinkle, Barnbas Quill, and Dustin Dexterhoof. (I’ve always liked the word “pumpernickel”, but I never thought of using it as a name.)

7. Insanitorious. Ludiculous. Ridiposterous. Flibbertigibbeted. Discumbersomebubblated. The presence of these words and others like them in this book compels the logophile to read and enjoy. Word play galoric.

8. You can buy a copy of the book at the Rabbit Room Store online, if you want. Or Amazon.

“You said might!” Worvil covered his face with his hands. “Of all the words that have ever been invented, that is the worst. All of the terror in the world hangs on the word might. The Leafeaters might kidnap me and keep me locked up underground forever. They might tie me to a tree and leave me to be eaten by poison-tongued jumping tortoises. A hurricane might flood the Willow Woods and both of us drown . . .”
Persimmony stared at Worvil and discovered that she liked him. He was a coward, certainly, but he had Imagination. She liked people with Imagination.

9. Have you read the first chapter yet?

10. Oh, just buy the book already. (No, you cynical people, I don’t know Ms. Trafton personally, and I don’t get a commission from recommending her book. I do get a few cents if you go straight from here to Amazon and buy the book there.)

“For the last time, I am not the one who puts gifts in the pots!”
“Well, if you don’t, who does?”
“I have no idea,” said the potter. “Who puts words of truth into the strings of a Lyre? Perhaps there some things that we are not meant to understand. Without a few mysteries and a few giants, life would be a very small thing, after all.”

Famous and Not-so Famous: Two YA Takes on Fame

Jun14

Famous by Todd Strasser.

My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies by Allen Zadoff.

In the author blurb, Todd Strasser says he “decided to write Famous after realizing that teens and kids are obsessed with fame.” The book is about sixteen year old paparazzo, Jamie Gordon, and her best friend, Avy Tennent, who wants to be a famous actor. The story is told in chapters from several points of view, and there’s constant switching between Jamie’s first person story and Avy’s first person story and the letters of some weird guy named Richard who’s stalking teen star Willow Twine, and several second person intervals in which the author pretends that the reader is Jamie while she’s unravelling the secret of what happened to Avy when he ran away to LA. It’s confusing. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like stories or any part thereof told in second person. I’ll enter the story on my own terms; don’t try to pop me in there where I don’t belong.

However, that aside, the novel did make me think about the obsessive desire to become famous, to be known, that I’ve seen in many people I’ve known. I don’t think I have this hunger for fame that afflicts some people. I do enjoy people reading my blog, but riches and celebrity and people focusing on me, watching me, adoring me—no, that’s not appealing at all.

And even though the magazines say They’re Just Like Us! they’re not really. They’re prettier, smarter, richer and, to be brutally honest, just better.
Oops! I said it, didn’t I! That they’re better than you. And better than me.
Sucks, doesn’t it? That deep down you believe they must be better, different, special. They have to be better.
Because they’re famous.
And you’re not.
But maybe that’s not the whole truth either.
Maybe the truth is, they’re no better than you or me or anyone else.
Then why do we think they are?
Perhaps because we want to. We need to.

Well, I don’t believe that celebrities are enviable or better than me. In fact, I could much more readily identify with the protagonist in the second book in this double review post, My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies. Sophomore Adam Ziegler is a techie, NOT an actor. And in his school, Montclair High, the division between the two groups, techs and actors, is deep and unbridgeable. Techies don’t associate with or respect actors, and vice versa. Actors are the ones who always want to be seen and admired, but techies are the ones who make it happen behind the scenes. Adam is particularly fascinated by lights. He’s the guy “on a catwalk, high above the theater floor, surrounded by lighting instruments and cable, watching the actors get a tour of the set down below.” And Adam likes being invisible, behind the lights rather than in front.

I like the idea that there are two kinds of people, call them introverts and extroverts, behind the camera and out in front, famous or wannabe famous and the rest of us. Of course, I identify with the techies, not because I’m particularly handy with electricity or a hammer, but because I’m an something of an introvert myself. But these two books demonstrate that there are strengths and dangers in both personality types and both ways of coping with the world. Extroverts can turn into narcissists, constantly seeking fame and affirmation, and if they don’t get it easily they can go to extreme lengths to feed the beast. Introverts, however, can be just as self-centered and can shut themselves off from the world, preferring their own company to the joy of engaging in relationship.

I’d say these are both cautionary tales, but not in a preachy, didactic way. Famous demonstrates what happens to those who put themselves and their own fame above every other consideration: they end up destroying themselves. And My Life . . . shows how one introvert, hiding in the shadows, is able to come out into the light and assert himself. Balance is the key.

Both books contain some bad language, and some teen age immature (crude) behavior. Famous also deals with drug use, abusive cosmetic surgery, and generally nasty and obsessive behavior.

The Ambition by Lee Strobel

Jun13

Nominated for the INSPY awards in the category Mystery and Thriller.

Written by the best-selling author of The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator and many other nonfiction books of Christian apologetics.

A legal/journalistic thriller in the tradition of John Grisham, with more emphasis on the journalism and on Christians in politics than Grisham’s books.

The Ambition is not a subtly nuanced novel about ambition and its insidious effect on the Christian believer. That’s there to some extent, but this is a thriller: lots of action, plot twists, intrigue, and corruption in high places. Strobel is not Grisham–yet–but on the other hand, Mr. Strobel’s first novel does deliver a readable story with interesting and unpredictable characters. Since my main complaint about Christian fiction is its predictability, the depth of characterization in what could have been a action-packed story full of cardboard characters was welcome. The mega-church pastor/protagonist is neither a saint without fault nor a hypocritical money-grubber, although he’s suspected of being one or the other throughout the novel. The cynical reporter is cynical, but not unlikeable, and he doesn’t have the come-to-Jesus moment that we tend to expect for this kind of character in a “Christian” novel. By the end of the novel, reporter Garry Strider may be a bit more open to considering the claims of Christ and the church, but that’s all. And it’s OK. Strobel has left room for these characters to grow and change and perhaps surprise us some more in another book. Or maybe we get to finish the story in our own minds, not a bad way to end a book either.

I have a couple of complaints. Pastor-turned-politician Eric Snow seems a a little too eager to jettison his association with the church he helped to build without adequate motivation. If he still sees himself as committed to Christ and to Christianity, no matter how rusty and secondary that commitment has become, would he really agree to not even set foot inside church after his resignation from the pastorate? And Garry’s girlfriend who has become a Christian is a little too didactic and too unquestioning in her immediate commitment to chastity. “Not to be unequally yoked” sounds perfectly reasonable to me since I’ve grown up in the faith, but I’m not sure it would be so immediately understandable to a new convert who has been immersed in our culture or to her boyfriend.

Those are minor points, however. For a beach read this summer, The Ambition would be a good pick. It’s well-paced, intricate, and unpredictable. Thanks, Mr. Strobel.

Sunday Salon: It Takes Darkness and Light to Make a Good Book

Jun11

First, Meg Fox Gurdon wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about a mom who was having trouble finding an appropriately bright or upbeat book as a gift for her thirteen year old daughter. The piece was called Darkness Too Visible.

Others responded.

So how does all this discussion about the “darkness”, or lack thereof, the language, the explicit sexual perversion, or lack of it, and above all the critical questioning going on in both young adult literature and in so-called “Christian” fiction come together in my mind? Glad you asked.

I don’t think it’s as simple as the anti-book-banning crowd or the hyper-cleanliness squad or anyone else has tried to make it.

The lady in the WSJ article just wanted a book for her thirteen year old daughter. And she wanted a book that wouldn’t feature vampirism or rape or incest or (probably) profanity or other nasty stuff that she judged either her daughter wouldn’t want to read about or that the mom wouldn’t want her to be spending her reading time on. This request is not unreasonable, and a book, YA or adult, does not have to feature dark and corrupt themes and characters in order to be a good piece of literature or to be worth reading. If some people want to write about those things and if other people want to read their books, that’s their choice. But if someone, particularly a mom, comes along and says he or she wants something different, lighter, more hopeful, they are not censoring, banning or infringing upon anyone else’s freedom. They are simply saying that they prefer to have choices, too, and it seems to some of us that the darkness is overwhelming the light in Young Adult literature.

Yes, resolutions in novels can be “too neat” and unearned. But just because a novel resolves at the end, ends with a wedding rather than a death scene, doesn’t mean that the novel is unworthy or superficial. Comedies are just as literary as tragedies. And the unearned resolution happens in both stories written by Christians and stories by non-Christians. In the non-Christian variety, characters make all sorts of sinful and destructive choices, often described in gruesome detail, but they are rewarded with life, health, and happiness because underneath they’re really good people who mean well.

One-dimensional characters and sentimentality are both examples of poor storytelling techniques that are again found in all sorts of books from all sorts of publishers for every age group.

As for cleanliness, I believe that it is possible, and even advisable, to tell stories without an over-abundance of profanity and sensuality, but never without critical questioning. If YA authors or authors in the Christian publishing realm are putting gratuitous violence, sex, and language into their novels simply to titillate and thrill readers and sell books, then those writers are bad writers, no matter how many books they sell or how many accolades they receive. And if YA authors or Christian fiction writers take the sin and questioning and controversy out of their novels in favor of a sanitized version of reality, they are also poor writers who may have an audience but who have lost their message and their integrity.

Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Tolkien–all of these men wrote novels without the kinds of gratuitous depiction of intimate sexuality and sin that is thought to be necessary for good literature these days. (Although Hugo did descend into the sewers for a good while in Les Miserables.:)) Yes, the books of all three of those authors contain all sorts of darkness: prostitution, violence, adultery, lies, and deception. But there is also goodness and joy and, dare I say it, a grace-filled resolution. Part of the problem is that when a book does not come with a “Christian” label or doesn’t have an explicitly evangelical Christian conversion scene, we cease to describe it as a Christian novel (or movie). So then the really good “Christian” movies or books never get factored into the discussions about bad Christian art. There are good movies and books out there, made by Christians and others with grace-filled themes and characters and ideas, but they may not fit the template of a Christian movie or book marketed to Christians. And there are good Young Adult fiction books, tastefully and honestly dealing with the messiness of life in the twenty-first century, either from a Christian or a non-religious point of view. But there aren’t enough of either, and sometimes you have to look really hard to find the good books, the ones that satisfy our need for a candid portrayal of truth without pandering to our sinful and fallen nature.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Jun11

The current Faith ‘n Fiction Roundtable book is A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr. I read the book a few years ago and honestly didn’t feel like a re-read. So this post is what I wrote back then, edited to include some discussion points that came up as the other people in the group read the book.

I thought the book was . . . interesting. In some ways, the ideas were fascinating. The plot was somewhat outdated; published in 1959, the book posits a world decimated by nuclear war in which culture and literacy are preserved only by a small group of Catholic monks. And even the monks don’t understand half of what they’re preserving. The barbarians have taken over the world, and only a few isolated outposts of civilization remain. Near the end of the book, euthanasia is a major issue, and that section was startlingly relevant to contemporary culture.

Some questions brought up in this novel:

Is it possible for an entire culture to be destroyed or lost and then revived or regained?

Long ago, during the last age of reason, certain proud thinkers had claimed that valid knowledge was indestructible–that ideas were deathless and truth immortal. But that was true in only the subtlest sense, the abbot thought, and not superficially true at all. There was objective meaning in the world, to be sure: the nonmoral logos or design of the Creator; but such meanings were God’s and not Man’s, until they found an imperfect incarnation, a dark reflection, within the mind and speech and culture of a given human society, which might ascribe values to the meanings so that they became valid in a human sense within the culture. For Man was a culture-bearer as well as a soul bearer, but his cultures were not immortal and they could die with a race or an age, and then human reflections of meaning and human portrayals of truth receded, and truth and meaning resided, unseen, only in the objective logos of Nature and the ineffable Logos of God. Truth could be crucified; but soon, perhaps, a resurrection.

Is there meaning in suffering? Particularly, why do children suffer?

“I cannot understand a God who is pleased by my baby’s hurting!”
The priest winced. “No, no! It is not the pain that is pleasing to God, child. It is the soul’s endurance in faith and hope and love in spite of bodily afflictions that pleases Heaven. Pain is like negative temptation. God is not pleased by temptations that afflict the flesh; He is pleased when the soul rises above the temptation and says, ‘Go Satan.’ It’s the same with pain, which is often a temptation to despair, anger, loss of faith –”
“Save your breath, Father. I’m not complaining. The baby is. But the baby doesn’t understand your sermon. She can hurt, though. She can hurt, but she can’t understand.”

Maybe this book isn’t outdated at all. Maybe the barbarians are at the gates. Maybe we are danger of destroying ourselves and our culture either with our nuclear weapons or with our gene-tampering technologies or in some other way that I can’t foresee. Perhaps we are becoming so illiterate and TV-obsessed that the treasures of Western culture and of Christianity may only be preserved in isolated communities and homes. Or maybe the sky isn’t falling. It’s worth thinking about.

Several of the characters in A Canticle for Leibowitz seem to carry deep symbolic meaning but I’m not really sure what that meaning is. There’s a Mad Poet, who is either a prophet or a fool. And Benjamin the Old Jew of the Mountain who lives out in the desert alone, waiting for the Messiah, or waiting for something, is intriguing, but I can’t exactly tell you what his character is supposed to signify either. Some of my fellow readers thought he was Lazarus, and others thought he was drawn from the legend of the Wandering Jew. Then at the end of the novel there’s an old “tumater woman” with two heads. Is she significant or just odd? (The other FnF roundtable readers struggled with the meaning of the two-headed tumater woman, too.) My guess is that all these ambiguous characters are thrown in to hint at meaning, maybe to tease the reader. After all, the question that runs through the entire novel is that of whether life has any meaning at all. I think the novelist intends us to keep asking.

I did a little research and read that not only did Mr. Miller renounce his Catholicism later in life after the publication of A Canticle for Leibowitz, he also suffered from depression and finally committed suicide. It’s a sad ending, and it contradicts the hope inherent in A Canticle for Leibowitz. But the book also indicates that men are inconsistent at best.

More discussion at the following blogs participating in this round of Faith ‘n Fiction Roundtable:

  • Book Addiction
  • Book Hooked Blog
  • Books and Movies
  • Crazy-for-Books.com
  • Ignorant Historian
  • Linus’s Blanket
  • My Friend Amy
  • Roving Reads
  • The 3 Rs Blog // Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness
  • Tina’s Book Reviews
  • Victorious Café
  • Word Lily

    • Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

    Jun10

    World War II, in addition to being The Good War fought by the Greatest Generation, continues to provide a wealth of lessons, images, illustrations, and just good stories for authors to mine and for readers to appreciate. Lost in Shangri-La, subtitled “A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II,” is one of those many stories that can inspire and educate us today, some sixty odd years later.

    The episode took place in Dutch New Guinea (later called Irian Jaya and West Papua, a part of Indonesia) in the waning years of the war, 1945-1946. Twenty-four AMerican servicemen and WAC’s boraded a transport plane for a sight-seeing trip over the Baliem Valley, also called by the service personnel that discovered, Shangri-La Valley because it reminded them from the air of James Hilton’s novel, Lost Horizon. The plane crashed, and three of the twenty-four miraculously survived the crash. However, the three were trapped inside a valley that was inaccessible to airplanes, and between them and the coast where Allied base were, was miles and miles of jungle, home to possibly hostile tribesmen and also possibly filled with Japanese soldiers who had yet to surrender. And to compound the problem of getting back to their comrades, the three survivors were covered with serious burns from the crash that were in danger of turning gangrenous.

    The mountains were too high for helicopters. The valley was too narrow for planes to land, and there was no suitable runway anyway. The jungle was too thick fro planes to even spot the survivors from the air. How were the three to be rescued? The story of how and who did it and what the crash survivors encountered in the valley of “Shangri-La” is quite fascinating.

    I was reminded of the missionary story, Peace Child by Don Richardson. Mr. Richardson worked with the Sawi people of Papua somewhere in or near the Baliem Valley where the people in Lost in Shangri-La were marooned. He was also in contact with the Dani and Yali tribes, the same peoples with whom the survivors of the Shangri-la plane crash found refuge. After the war, many of these isolated Papuan tribespeople were introduced to Christianity and prepared by missionaries for their inevitable encounter with Western culture.

    It was fascinating to get a glimpse of these tribes in their pre-Western-influenced and pre-Christian cultures. Obviously, the coming of Western influences to these tribes has been a mixed blessing. Before World War II the Baliem Valley was largely unexplored and isolated from the rest of the world. Now, although the valley is still somewhat isolated because of its inaccessibility, most of the native people claim to be Christians, and the wars between villages that took place with regularity before are no more the men’s favorite pastime.

    At any rate, if you’re interested in these sorts of things—isolated people groups and cultures, World War II stories of adventure and bravery, historic encounters between modern and prehistoric groups of people— Lost in Shangri-La should be just the ticket.

    Similar and related books:
    The Airmen and the Headhunters: A True Story of Lost Soldiers, Heroic Tribesmen and the Unlikeliest Rescue of World War II by Judith Heimann.
    Peace Child by Don RIchardson.
    Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

    What is your favorite (true) World War II story?

    1900: Music and Art

    Jun9

    In Helsinki, Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia premiered and in Rome, Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca premiered.

    Published in 1900:
    “The Flight Of The Bumble Bee” by N. Rimsky-Korsakov.

    “Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing” lyrics by James Weldon Johnson, music by John Rosamond Johnson (1905). James Weldon Johnson’s poem was set to music by his brother, John. The song became known as The Negro National Anthem.

    In art, the impressionists–Manet, Degas, Cezanne, Monet, Renoir, Mary Cassatt, and others–were the dominant influence in the art world of the late nineteenth century. As the new century began, new voices were soon to be heard. Some of the new avante-garde artists were called post-impressionists because they were still influenced by impressionism, but other schools of art developed as many artists tried different techniques to become “modernists.”

    Two Dancers on Stage by impressionist artist Edgar Degas

    Two Dancers on Stage

    The Mascot by Mark Kurzem

    Jun8

    The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father’s Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzem.

    I read two books in a row about boys and their relationships with a father who had mysterious past. (See my review of Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me by Ian Cron) Short version: it’s complicated.

    In The Mascot, Mark Kuzem is surprised by a visit from his father to Mark’s apartment at Oxford in England. Alex Kurzem has come all the way from Australia, with no warning, and without telling Mark’s mother the truth about where he’s gone. Mark expects some earth-shattering communication from his father, but the visit continues for days with only surface pleasantries. Finally, just before Alex leaves to go back to Australia, he tells Mark that he remembers two words from his childhood in or near Latvia, before World War II. The words are “Panok” and “Koidanov”. Alex wants Mark to find out what the words mean.

    These two words and Alex Kurzem’s recurring and expanding memories of his childhood during World War II begin a journey into the past for Mark Kurzem and his father. Are Alex Kurzem’s memories trustworthy, or has he chosen to remember too late for the memories to be confirmed as truth? Will his story damage the lives and reputations of the people in Latvia and elsewhere who were his rescuers and protectors? And most importantly, what does the story of Alex Kurzem, or Uldis Kurzemnieks, or whatever his real birth name was, mean? Mark wonders and later tries to find out exactly who this man, his father, really is, and what his experiences before, during, and after the war really mean to both his identity and Mark’s identity as the son of a Holocaust survivor.

    Alex:
    “I don’t have any choice about what I can remember and when. My memories are here inside me like vipers inside my bones gnawing their way out.”

    “To be truthful, I don’t want to remember anything of what happened to me. Who is his right mind would? But the bigger truth is that I am more terrified to forget. I am trapped.”

    Mark:
    “I was disturbed, perhaps even slightly annoyed, that my father had kept so many things from me. . . . I was baffled by the fact that my father had remained silent for more than fifty years. What almost superhuman strength had this required? What toll had silence taken on his inner life? My father seemed to inhabit two separate worlds. . . . One world was inexorably unraveling while a new, unpredictable one emerged.”

    Some doubts have been raised about the veracity of Mr. Kurzem’s memories. Author Mark Kurzem died in November 2009 of “complications following diabetes.” Alex Kurzem says, “My story is true. I have nothing to hide.”

    The Mascot is an exciting, disturbing Holocaust memoir about a boy who was both protected and exploited by his Latvian and German captors. It’s also a story about a delicate, but loving relationship between a father and son and about the fragility and the importance of memories. I recommend the book to anyone interested in Holocaust memoir, not just for the story itself, but also for what it has to say about memoirs and the complications and even perils of unearthing the past.

    1900: Events and Inventions

    Jun8

    All year. 1900: The British fight the Boers (Dutch farmers and settlers) and their allies in South Africa. The war finally ended in 1902 with all of South Africa becoming a part of the British Empire.

    May-August, 1900: The Boxer Rebellion in China. A patriotic society of Chinese, discontented with the Chinese emperor, the Dowager Empress, and with government policies, wish to drive all foreigners out of China. British, French, German, Japanese, Austrian, Russian, Italian and some American troops fight to put down the rebellion. Many missionaries and Chinese Christians are killed. The Europeans and others win the war and retain influence, particularly over China’s ports.

    June, 1900: The Americans are also fighting rebels in the Philippines. The Filipinos originally rebelled against Spanish rule, and then after the Spanish American war ended in 1898, the Philippines became a territory of the United States. Filipino rebels have been offered amnesty if they will swear allegiance to the United States.

    July 2, 1900: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin’s hydrogen-filled airship powered by two engines made its first flight over Lake Constance in Switzerland. The flight lasted approximately one hour.

    Zeppelin above Lake Constance

    July 30, 1900: King Humbert I of Italy is assassinated by an anarchist, Angelo Bresci. His son, Victor Emmanuel, succeeds him to the throne.

    September 8, 1900: A deadly hurricane destroys much of the property on Galveston Island, Texas and kills between 6000 and 12000 people. The Galveston hurricane of 1900 is the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

    November 6, 1900: William McKinley is elected president of the United States, and Theodore Roosevelt becomes vice-president. McKinley defeats William Jennngs Bryan, a populist Democrat.

    Kodak introduces $1 Brownie cameras. The Brownie camera was the first hand-held camera that was cheap enough and simple enough for everyone to use.

    March, 1900: UK archeologist Arthur Evans begins to excavate the ancient city of Knossos, Crete.

    A cookbook from 1900, The Enterprising Housekeeper by Helen Louise Johnson.