Michigan Books

This is an interesting contrast in life styles and priorities. The portrayal of life on a Michigan island was a fun adventure in itself. Snow and cold are so romantic when I'm reading about them and not suffering from frozen toes,ears, and fingers. A twist to this romance is the age difference of the two parties. This is not a May-December romance, but rather more like an August-December, with the man being the August in this case. Lovable characters are necessary for a good romance. This book supplies them, including Grandma Ella, who is the catalyst for the entire wholesome affair. This one would make a good Hallmark Channel movie at Christmas. If you're in the mood for a light and entertaining love story, start up your snowmobile and visit Mackinac Island via this book. Better wait for the ice bridge to form though!
Donald James Parker
Author of All the Voices of the Wind

With Christmas in His Heart is a sweet Christian romance story about finding love later in life and in the most unexpected places. Christine Powers, a fast-talking, business savvy, advertising executive of a big-city firm decides to take the last of her vacation time to help her grandmother who lives in a small, cozy, tourist town just a few hours away--Mackinac Island. Her life is turned upside down when her grandmother's recovery takes a sharp turn, requiring Christine to make some difficult decisions that may force her to give up her career and lush city lifestyle.

Author Gail Gaymer Martin's writing style is enjoyable to read and it is obvious that she loves this island in real life because of her careful attention to detail. Without giving away too many details about the story, I'll just say that I've already started reading another book that Martin contributed to: Mackinac Island Four Generations Of Romance Enrich A Unique Community. I would love to visit the island some day to explore all of the real-life sites mentioned in these wonderful books! Be looking for more books from this gifted author! ~Shaye of Chadron MOPS

"With Christmas in His Heart" is a charming story that brought back many happy memories of summer vacations spent on Mackinac Island, where the book is set. Since the time of year, as the title suggests, is wintertime on the island, I especially enjoyed the glimpse of what life on the island is like for its full-time residents.

While the storyline is not a new one--big city girl comes to a small town and finds herself drawn to the quieter life there--Gail Gaymer Martin makes it her own with characters I quickly grew to love and wonderfully descriptive settings. Christine's struggle to trust that God's plan for her life is far better than any she could dream of on her own is one that I understand.

This is the first of Gail's books that I have had the pleasure of reading, and I look forward to more of them, especially those set in the Mackinac Island and northern Michigan areas.

Christine Powers has worked hard to climb the corporate ladder until her Grandmother Summers had a stroke, her parents left on a cruise, and Christine was elected to be a reluctant caregiver. There are others who want her job and she's stranded on Mackinac Island for who knows how long and she's not happy. She's not thrilled about her grandmother's border either. He's far too much at home in Grandmother's house to suit Christine. She doesn't want to be there, and she doesn't want Will Lambert underfoot all the time, either.

Will has been bording with Grandma Summers. He loves the elderly woman and has been trying to take care of her. He doesn't understand why Christine is so hostile to him, but he's not about to move out.

Set on a remote island with a simple way of living and good neighbors, where there's time to walk slow, visit, and spend time for God, this is another heartwarming love story from this talented writer.

"Truth is the daughter of time", a saying used by Alice Stewart, cannot come soon enough in this era.
Gayle Greene should be held in the highest esteem for the eloquent presentation of Alice Stewart's quest for truth. Her writing is crisp and unencumbered, and it hold the reader's interest into the life of this feisty, humorous, brilliant woman. Dr. Stewart, just by being of the female gender, found it hard to be taken seriously, and it was not until late in her life that she was honored for a life of accomplishment and dedication. A simple woman born to parents who were both doctors; doctors who put their patients ahead of money and power.
It was a tenet to be carried on by their daughter, Alice Stewart, who never gave up trying to educate the public about radiation proliferation. Thanks to her, thousands of babies were saved from the horrors of exposure to radiation when the medical profession listened to what she had to say about xraying during the first trimester.
Later Alice was funded to examine the effects of radiation on works who handled nuclear materials and weaponry. When her message was not what the AEC and others wanted to hear or receive, they tried to confiscate her work and cut her funding. Indeed, the funding was cut off, but she managed to secure her work and continue its research. Gayle Greene's writing abilities are able to give you the sense of Dr. Stewart's anguish and frustration.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much is a classic example of the control of information which the public direly needs, but which is buried and censored. This book, though written several years ago, is as pertinent as if it were published yesterday, and it should be read by all who are interested in the welfare of humanity. The inclusion in a science or social studies curriculum of the developing minds of students would be a well-deserved legacy for this wonderful woman who died in 2002 at the age of 96.

As Research Director of the Hanford Veterans Cancer Mortality Study I have worked closely with Dr. Alice Stewart. I have learned from her, laughed with her and admired her as the most extraordinary human being I have ever known. But, I never knew her well enough. You must read this book! It will give you a new understanding of the meaning of courage and integrity. More importantly - have your children, especially your daughters, read this book. Thank goodness Gayle Greene has written this eminently readable biography of Alice. It allows us to understand where her drive comes from and how Dr. Stewart can suffer the slings and arrows of the federal scientific pygmies who attack her work. The heart of the story, and a key to Dr. Stewart's personality, can be found in the juxtaposition of the the ending words of Chapter 13 where Professor Greene says "Alice is called in by...radiation victims, her investigations turn up cancer in excess ... the studies are handed over to official bodies...the official studies invoke the A-bomb data to discredit her finds....Time passes." `It's a long, slow business,' she (Dr. Stewart) says." Compare this with one of Dr. Stewart's favorite quotations, "truth is the daughter of time." She has waited, we will wait; but Dr. Helen Caldicott is right "her work may (I say `will') receive the recognition and thanks of the future." When one finishes reading this marvelous book one cannot help but think of George Sand saying "humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation; which is one of the most passionate forms of love." Thank the Good Lord for this stunning creature called Alice Stewart. And thank Gayle Greene for helping us to know her just a bit better.

Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious Rarety

The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene. Dr. Stewart is a British physician and epidemiologist (born in 1906 into a large family of physicians) who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk. In the 1950s, while surveying childhood mortalities in the British Isles, she finds that then quite common X-ray examinations during pregnancy doubled the risk for childhood cancer. Fueled by the wrath of radiologists, her work has been viciously derided among the medical establishment for more than two decades. In the 1970s, she finds that some workers at nuclear weapons production sites, such as Hanford, WA or Oakridge, TN are dying of radiation induced cancers, showing that presumed "safe" levels of occupational exposures put these workers at a twenty times higher risk than officially admitted. With that finding she places herself on the "enemy list" of an immensely powerful nuclear weapons establishment, including its scientific elite, and at the center of an international controversy over radiation risks. Stewart's fascinating story, a collaborative memoir told by herself and Greene with verve and humor, is one of a woman scientist's ingenuity, independence, perseverance, compassion, and integrity, a fascinating tale in the checkered history of a mostly male-dominated science. Rudi H. Nussbaum, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Environmental Science.

The book spans the lifetimes of Dr. Stewart and her parents. It offers a fascinating description of medicine in Britain in the late 19th century, the entry of women into the medical field, and the institutional resistance in the second half of the 20th century to the fact that low levels of radiation are dangerous. Given the recent announcements by the US Government concerning health risks in the nuclear arms industry, this is a timely and fascinating book. Well written and researched.

The photography in this book is so moving that you will find yourself stopping at a page for 5 minutes immersed deep in thought. Women AND men will find this book equally enlightening. Truly deeply moving.

This is an absolutely stunning collection of photographs that explore the effects of war upon the women of the world. Snapped in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, Matthew's cameos evoke fear, rage, determination, sensuality, absurdity, horror, humor, despair, hope.

The cover offers a photo of a young Ethiopian freedom fighter hoisting a rifle over her shoulder, hips askew and drapped with an ammunition belt. There's somethng uncannily sensual about the image--graceful, seductive--that speaks, perhaps, to our fascination in the West with violence and sex. But open the book to the first full page photograph inside the covers, and Matthew quickly disabuses one of any urge to romanticize or sensualize war. The photo is an in-your-face portrait of Phuong, an eight-year-old Vietnamese girl who was born without eyes because her mother had been poisoned years earlier by Agent Orange.

The rest of the photos follow this template of stark contrasts between beauty and horror. One of the most memorable contrasts is midway through the book. One pages shows stacks and stacks of weapons. The facing page shows stacks and stacks of human bones, remains of genocide victims.

The text is minimal, as it should be in a book like this. The photographs should speak for themselves. Trust me: they do.

This is an absolutely stunning collection of photographs that explore the effects of war upon the women of the world. Snapped in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, Matthew's cameos evoke fear, rage, determination, sensuality, absurdity, horror, humor, despair, hope.

The cover offers a photo of a young Ethiopian freedom fighter hosting a rifle over her shoulder, hips askew, with an ammunition belt drapped around them. There's something uncannily sensual about the image--graceful, seductive--that speaks, perhaps, to our fascination in the West with violence and sex. But open the book to the first full page photograph inside the covers, and Matthew quickly disabuses one of any urge to romanticize of sensualize war. The photo is an in-your-face portrait of Phuong, an eight-year-old Vietnamese girl who was born without eyes because her mother was poisoned by Agent Orange years earlier.

The rest of the photos follow this initial template of starkly contrasts between beauty and horror. One of the most memorable contrasts is midway through the book. One page shows stacks and stacks of weapons. The other shows stacks and stacks of human bones, remains of genocide victims.

The text is minimal, as it should be in a book such as this. The photographs should speak for themselves. Trust me: they do.

This is an absolutely stunning collection of photographs that explore the effects of war upon the women of the world. Snapped in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, Matthew's cameos evoke fear, rage, determination, eros, absurdity, horror, humor, despair, hope.

The cover offers a photo of a young Ethiopian freedom fighter hoisting a rifle over her shoulders. Her hips are askew, an ammunition belt draped around them. There's something uncannily innocent about the image; one could easily imagine that the young woman is dressed in the latest punk fashion and on her way to a club. But open the book to the first full-page photograph inside the covers, and Matthews quickly disabuses us of any urge to romanticize war. The photo is an in-your-face portrait of Phuong, an eight-year-old Vietnamese girl who was born without eyes because her mother was poisoned years earlier by Agent Orange.

The rest of the photos follow this initial template of drawing stark contrasts between images of beauty and images of horror. One of the most memorable contrasts is midway through the book. One page shows stacks and stacks of weapons. The opposing page shows stacks and stacks of human bones, remains of genocide victims.

The text is minimal. In a book such as this, the photographs should speak for themselves. Trust me: they do.

I found this book by chance at work and started leafing through it, eventually finishing the whole thing by reading a few pages every day. Each of the stories is a microcosm, at the center of which is a vulnerable, well meaning but very deeply emotionally flawed person. The problems encountered by the characters are problems that everyone faces, like the realization that one's deepest desires might be hopelessly at odds with one another, or that behaving in a way consistent with one's values and morals might be really, really difficult. That said, the people in these stories are probably unusually beset with neuroses and more psychological issues than normal -- there's a Harvard law drop out whose frightening, ugly nervous breakdown annihilates his sense of worth and identity in one story and a young, kind, but self conscious priest who finds comfort and reprieve in a woman in another.

To read these stories is to get fascinating, first hand insight into what it feels like to struggle with uncertainty and hopefully come out with some semblance of dignity and self worth. Highly recommended.

Andy Mozina's writing is especially good at finding real feeling amongst eccentric, unstable, or even unhinged characters and situations. People in these stories often engage in behavior so bizarre that it could be off-putting to anyone but a lover of same, but the sympathy with which Mozina writes the characters does not allow us to turn away so easily. And often times these people know they need to change, but can't. Mozina dramatizes these bad choices very well.

Everyone knows, for example, that an abusive relationship is hard to leave. But why? Mozina dramatizes the decisions, good and bad, that could plausibly lead to a failure to change your approach to bad relationships. We see it happen and understand it, without necessarily being able to explain it.

Or why do our desires and fetishes rule us so, when all we want to do is end their hold on us? Again, we see people in these stories making decisions we know are wrong, that doom them, but recognize our own bad decisions in them.

And of course, the collection opens with "Cowboy Piles," the gold standard for dramatization of the male need to show physical courage and moral strength, even when it's ridiculous. If you are ever lucky enough to attend a reading by Andy Mozina, you should call out for "Cowboy Piles" like it's your last chance to hear your favorite song from your favorite band at their last encore in their farewell performance. Read aloud, the story is that good.

Most of these stories are zany as hell. We're talking a cross between Douglas Adams zany, Robin Williams zany, Monty Python zany, with a very slight hint of Woody Allen. (The Woody Allen ingredient is more a flavor than a brand of zany.)

In many of these stories, the main character is on a continuum, with "I'm OK" on one end, and "I've totally lost 'it'" on the other end. The stories relate how these characters keep 'it' together, work thru 'it', endeavor to get beyond 'it'; the characters work to 'stay onboard' rather than 'go overboard'. The characters in general deal with normal life situations and feelings in very funny, wacky ways.

These stories are very accessible, and I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. :-)

"Out on the ranges, out West, you get cowboy piles. Mounds of human cowboys. A cowboy lies on the ground (for no reason, it seems), and then somebody lies across him, and then a third guy piles on. Then one after another. Sometimes you'll see a pile from the Interstate." (from "Cowboy Pile," pg. 1)

How is it that nonsense can bring tears to our eyes? Because we are all more nonsense than sense? Could be. And if that is so, Andy Mozina, associate professor of English at Kalamazoo College, has taken a good look into our quirky side and piled the quirks up so high that we can't miss them, or shouldn't, and will hear the echoes resonate in our crumpled dysfunctional souls as we page through his collection of stories, The Women Were Leaving the Men. Mozina holds up a mirror, and even if we don't want to look, we must, we can't help it, we wince and we stare. Yup. There we are, all in a cowboy pile.

With this grand opening piled up as a guidepost, Mozina leads us from one intriguing dysfunction to another, from obsession to oddity to deformity to vanity to fetish.

In "Privacy, Love, Loneliness," we read of teen angst and spiraling hormones, circling around a "dead sock" that young Brian has rescued from the bag the coveted Gracie has left behind in his room. Similarly, he circles Gracie, closing in on the big moment: rites of passage in adolescence, clumsy and overheated, and lonely even when together.

In "The Enormous Hand," we meet the hand that measures 24 inches from tip of pinky to tip of thumb, attached to a man, but coming to symbolize all the twitchy places in humanity come alive and ugly when we encounter difference in our fellow humans.

"My Way of Crying" brings us to other places we wish we didn't have to go, yet too many do. Travel has a way of exposing in us what the every day often keeps hidden, bringing it to the surface. Husband and wife head out on a road trip, their differences bristling when enclosed in the small space of a Honda, and when the husband can't sleep at night in a strange motel, he wanders up to the front desk to be, well, "serviced" by the pretty young thing as his wife sleeps down the hall. When the wife's depression leaks out the following day on the road, he tells her he loves her, leaving the reader to wonder: how often do we mean loathe when we say love? Even as we speak to and of ourselves.

More gems: "Beach" puts function back into dysfunction, a sand grain of brilliance in this collection; "The Arch" the St. Louis Arch to the arch of a foot as two sex addicts make an odd couple built on mutual fetish, imitating with a craving to be normal in a sadly deranged manner; "Moon Man" is a retired astronaut caring for his stroke-ridden mother, even though he left Mom's and another woman's photos on the moon, the women he wanted to leave behind; "The Love Letter" bonds teen boy to white-haired woman working a convenience store counter in an unlikely tryst that appears to be a crudely casual exchange of needs and wants but boils down to what even the most casual encounters still turn out to be, no matter young or old: written into her rambling letter to the boy, relating her own wretched youth--everyone is looking for an emotional connection, a true intimacy, however disguised.

And more pile up, one atop the other, a leaning tower of weirdness we recognize as human upon human. The title story, "The Women Were Leaving the Men," is the crowning glory. Mozina appears to have the ability to crawl inside the female skull, tamper with the female heart, and cross the gender divide as only the rare writer can--to pin down exactly the inconsistencies, the paradoxes, the manipulations, the discomforting webs of lies we tell ourselves and each other as we pair off and head for the moonlit horizon. This may not be the wisdom that the self-help books for saving relationships advise, but wisdom it is, at least, keenest observation.

Mozina sums it up himself as he concludes this collection: "You don't even know if your own self is capable of cooperating with your deepest desires."

This book is absolutely outstanding. The book involves in depth RESEARCH on the G-W House. It is written in University research style, which is lacking in today's typical architectural items. I have read the book 5 times. Every time I find something new an interesting. The book covers the first planning stages of the house, the construction/material phases, etc. Probably the most interesting fact was the story of the original owners (G + W) which makes the house so intriguing. Furthermore, it includes the G-W III house designed by E. Fay Jones (a onetime Wright apprentice). The only drawback is there are no photos of the bedrooms and gallery area of the house. Overall, I rate this book among the best of Wright Usonian house books!!!

This book is absolutely outstanding. The book involves in depth RESEARCH on the G-W House. It is written in University research style, which is lacking in today's typical architectural items. I have read the book 5 times. Every time I find something new an interesting. The book covers the first planning stages of the house, the construction/material phases, etc. Probably the most interesting fact was the story of the original owners (G + W) which makes the house so intriguing. Furthermore, it includes the G-W III house designed by E. Fay Jones (a onetime Wright apprentice). The only drawback is there are no photos of the bedrooms and gallery area of the house. Overall, I rate this book among the best of Wright Usonian house books!!!

Thank you so much for offering this book. The info on how it came to be and background correspondence between Wright and the clients is very extinsive. I only regret the book dosen't give more photo's. The footnotes add a balance to the over all effect of the book. Anyone out there have more info on this house in Okemos Mich, please E-mail me at cdrhodes56@hotmail.com

Wendy Rawlings novel is a beautifully rendered tale of love and loss--of a family's deep connection to one another and the events that fractured their bond. The family in Rawlings story must cope with the mother's need to move in a disparate direction. While some members acclimate to the change better than others--each character illuminates a different response. The reader may recognize the feelings that the characters grapple with in the story. It's fascinating to watch the tale unfold; we are given a chance to see what happens when we choose (or not) to accept our loved ones.

Rawlings' empathy for all her characters is masterfully done at the level of both craft and insight. The prose is melodic throughout: Every incomplete, simple, and compound sentence falls faultlessly on the ear. But what stays with the reader is the author's ability to probe the thoughts and actions of a family's uniquely modern challenges and arrive at universal principles.

This is literary fiction at its best. Vividly drawn characters, brilliant description and detail, a gripping, moving story told with a discerning eye and an open heart. The worn fabric of a family's life is ripped to shreds, then pieced together in a crazy quilt that promises to be more durable and, oddly, more comfortable. Rawlings' writing is exquisite; she truly deserves the Michigan Literary Fiction Award she won for this shattering, humorous, hopeful and memorable novel.

This book really made me understand about the depression now. A lot of detail. BUY THE BOOK TODAY! YOU WON'T REGRET IT! Great work, Mrs.Ellis and I can't wait for the next one.

Fabulous! An incredible book for everyone, young and old! I really loved it. I hope it goes far.

Good for all ages. A superior moral story here. An accurate description of life during the Great Depression. Teaches children and teens how to appreciate the life we have now but also makes one yearn for life in the "olden days" when family-life seemed to be much more valued than it is in these fast-paced days. Adults would enjoy this just as much as it allows them to reminisce about times past when they "didn't even know we were poor." Five stars all the way! I cannot wait until Mrs. Ellis writes another book!

This is an interesting, compact, eminently readable book, loaded with (unfortunately) ugly information about immigration laws, social attitudes about race, and our even uglier obsession with black and white. Although the book is full of depressing facts and figures, Fernandez finds energy and enthusiasm in our diversity, and makes this almost a "how-to" book, by challenging the reader to stop defining our country and its inhabitants in black and white terms. Once we understand how we got into such dichotomous thinking about race, we can stop doing it. Sure it's hard to avoid categorizing people by skin color but each of us can contribute our part by paying attention to what we say and how we think. This book has shown me how to make a positive difference in the world every single day. It probably helps that I am acquainted with the author--I work at the university where he teaches. Fernandez is as open minded, curious, tolerant and sharp as they come. No matter though since I'd give five stars to whoever wrote it.

This fascinating book, moving beyond classic sociology's approaches to immigrant acculturation and on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork; propose a great reflection upon us to bridge -or erase- the gaps between newcomers and the U.S. society. Fernández examines the extraordinary contributions of the immigrants to this country. Moreover, he invites us to think and redefine our culture and reduce the obsession over who we are as a human being, about how we fit into a nation that continues to treat us as outsiders after all this time. Remarkably timely book when the politicians are campaigning for the presidency of the U.S. The book also includes data from the US presidential libraries but real facts based on experiences with diverse people who don't necessarily see themselves as political activists at all. With unique style and punctual ideas, Fernández demystifies ethnic markers and skepticisms of our presence. After reading this book, I feel that I am belonging to this society.

In reading Dr. Fernandez' work, I marvel as his ability to capture the significance and relevance of immigrants in the fabric of American society. Amazing research, brilliant analisis and real contribution to the much polarized discourse on America's immigration. Dr. Fernandez has aptly captured how the current migratory trends have challenged racial definitions to the point that they will hopefully unite the racial divide that has plagued the United States since Reconstruction and have been responsible for the fracturing of American society. I am gay, I am Puerto Rican, I am American. Fernandez has helped me to realize that I am none and all of the above.

A friend mentioned the book to me. He thought I would like it. And he was right.
In substance and soul,there is a meaning and depth to, 'The
Americanist', beyond its 199 pages.
I knew nothing about the author and professor, Daniel Aaron, and his remarkable and fascinating personal and professional background. A life and carrer that covered teaching the combined fields of American literary history, politics, and cultural development in the 20th century and before-at Smith College in western, Massachusetts, and Harvard University, as well as teaching and lecturing in Europe and Latin America. No matter where, it was a challenge explaining America's ever evolving roaring diversity and confusing intensity, its huff and puff, its weeds with the wheat, its 'Big Shoulders' and proud posturing for the world to see what we as a nation have done and are capable of doing.
American, the promise land, as it came to be mystically called; open to the tired, the poor, and the outcasts of the world-to be reborn with a new idenity. The American personality. A definition we are still trying to figure out just what it is, and what it is meant to mean. There is a lingering beauty to this ongoing search.
In Daniel Aaron's, 'Americanist', with its mosaic literay structure of his personal and professional life-a life experience that is still going on for this vibrant man in his 90's who loves America with its scuffling bellicose history, its, "Heroes and Clowns", its vitrues and vices; its mystifying meaning, and that always potential greatness yet to be reached. With a mind and heart, in a some stranage and confusing way, that is open to the world.
Professor Daniel Aaron's life reflects the history of America. He lived and lives what he taught and teahces. And with a faith, believes.

Daniel Aaron - The Americanist

"He lives!" That was my happy reaction when, at my 50th Smith College reunion, a classmate showed me Michael Dirda's review of Daniel Aaron's The Americanist. He is alive at 95 and has produced another book. That in itself is a wonder. I am now 72 and was one of his students, one of those who majored in American Studies, then a newish, interdisciplinary major. Aaron pioneered the major which tried to deepen our understanding of our own culture through the optics of literature, history and art. His enthusiasm for his subject was contagious. Physically he was one of the most attractive figures on the Smith faculty.

The Americanist is a memoir centered on lively recollections of the greats of mid-century Academia, a remarkable number of whom taught or lectured at Smith College. These included Alfred Kazin, Newton Arvin, W. H. Auden, Mary Ellen Chase and Katherine Anne Porter. The memoir is also studded with choice morsels about long gone and almost forgotten progressive and left-wing writers that he interviewed and hung out with in the course of researching Men of Good Hope and Writers of the Left.

Aaron was also sent abroad by USIS as a visiting professor to bring the cultural and political history of the United States to students in both Western European and Soviet bloc countries. He says that he "paused at academic way stations to speak on contemporary American writers, but not long enough to get at the root causes" of whatever disorders (Hamburg in 1969) or apathy (China in 1980) were then characterizing those places. He is too modest. His observations of foreign cultures are telling ones. Because he so avidly pursed a deeper understanding of our own culture, he was also a keen observer of what was going on in foreign places.

He concludes by saying that he now feels he is a citizen of two Americas, one reckless and predatory and the other a cheerful and welcoming collective and that it is to the second that he is more culturally attuned. I don't see America in quite such a polarizing light. I think we may be more of a spectrum. But wherever my personal America may be I'm fortunate that Daniel Aaron is a part of it.

A concise, highly literate look back on the long and interesting career of a left-liberal univeristy professor. Sharp, insightful sketches of U.S. presidents--from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton-- are placed throughout Daniel Aaron's main text. These are not a distraction to this memoir: instead they provide a common thread underscoring the author's main academic interest over a lifetime of study--the idea of the United States.


I have never heard, much less read anything by Dr. Aaron, but now appreciate his life as being a positive part of our country's generous intellectual hisory.

And Then, a novel by Natsume Soseki, opens with an image of extreme isolation: Daisuke, the protagonist, has woken up, and stares blankly at the ceiling with his hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat. He belongs to a wealthy family, has a cultivated aesthetic taste, is well-read, knows multiple languages, and has graduated from a prestigious university, at a time in Japan's history when universities were so new that the government had to hire Western expatriates to teach in them. It seems that Daisuke could get anything he wanted from life. Surely he was ambitious in his university days; it's difficult to imagine how a talented, educated, proud young man couldn't see himself as headed for greatness. But, by the time the book begins, Daisuke lives in seclusion, without an occupation, continuing to depend upon his rich father. He is about thirty years old.

The novel poses the following question: How could a man who showed all the promise in the world ultimately come to naught?

In his university days, Daisuke had two friends, who also had great plans for the future. But, when the thirty-year-old Daisuke meets them again, he learns that their hopes fell short of their mark. One of them, Hiraoka, sought to forge a brilliant career in Japan's civil service system, but fell into conflict with his superiors, mismanaged the money entrusted to him, and was fired. Daisuke's other friend, Terao, intended to become a world-renowned novelist, but failed to find a sponsor, and found himself having to scrounge, day by day, for one-time deals writing articles for cheap rags, or translating documents from English, in order to survive. Both men are now consumed with the fear of dying in poverty.

Daisuke has a strong sense of dignity, emerging from his refined aesthetic sensibilities. To him, such fear is degrading; his idleness becomes the only way to preserve his clarity of thought. Consequently, his reluctance to enter the "world of men" is confirmed in his mind, widening the gulf between him and his former friends, who view him as lazy and sheltered. When Daisuke writes to an acquaintance about a certain book he had sent, the acquaintance politely thanks him for the gift, but says, with regret, that he no longer has time to read. Soseki writes, "As he put the letter back in the envelope, Daisuke felt keenly the fact that this old friend, with whom he once shared the same inclinations, was now playing a different tune, governed by thoughts and actions that were nearly the precise opposite of those of the past."

Daisuke is adrift without ties to history. Unlike his father, he has no attachment whatsoever to traditional Japanese society; his education has given him the knowledge that the world is too vast to be confined to the boundaries delineated by tradition. Furthermore, Daisuke cannot help but notice that his father is motivated by selfish, ulterior motives as much as by any sense of obligation to tradition. Unlike his friends, however, Daisuke also cannot form a connection to modern society, which views education as a means to advancement in a bureaucratic order. He has no roots anywhere; one might say that he remains standing still at a crossroads after all other passersby have left. When Daisuke considers the occupations that he might be qualified for, were he to look for a job, he concludes that he would be incapable of doing anything other than begging on the street.

Daisuke's peace of mind is dependent on such artificial circumstances that it essentially rests on the head of a pin, where the slightest vibration will send it tumbling down. The more intent he becomes on continuing to be a detached observer, the more difficult it is for him to do so. His family has long given up hope that he will do anything with himself, and is willing to support him for the rest of his life, but demands in return that he get married, and threatens to disown him if he doesn't comply. Daisuke prefers to deliberately take a self-destructive path by categorically rejecting his family's demands and falling in love with Hiraoka's wife Michiyo.

Of all Japanese writers, Soseki, the father of contemporary Japanese literature, is the most inscrutable. His works cannot be called "beautiful" in the same way Kawabata's works can; "precise" is a more appropriate adjective. Kawabata's books overflow with beautiful, painfully fragile imagery of nature, glass, fabric, arranging these things in a way that creates a mood of deep melancholy. Soseki, however, is concerned above all with his characters' thoughts, which he faithfully records with painstaking levels of detail. They are not told in interior monologue, or any other such device, but rather conveyed straightforwardly in the third person. The book is absorbed in Daisuke's situation, yet simultaneously detached from it. One may find this style of writing to be pedantic, even artificial, but it enables Soseki to describe emotional truths that are complicated to the point of abstraction.

Soseki's writing is not without flourishes. Until the very end, Daisuke regards his circumstances with a charmingly carefree air, and is witty in conversations with his family, which makes him quite likable. Soseki also uses colours to symbolize his themes. There is a recurring image of white lilies, perhaps representing an ideal of frail beauty that, as it turns out, is impossible to attain, and the novel's ending is painted in bright, fiery red, carrying an air of beautiful, tragic finality, conveyed in sharp, concise language.

And Then is the greatest work by Japan's greatest novelist. Like all of Soseki's works, it moves very slowly. There is no real action in it, and yet, when it ends, one feels that a great upheaval has occurred. This is not a book to read when one is living a peaceful, wholesome life; however, in times of personal crisis, when one is driven to sleepless self-analysis, there is no book more relevant than this one.

Let me start off by saying that I cannot do this novel sufficient justice. The words I have put down are those of a fan. Soseki is regarded most highly by literary critics, in as many ciruits as they run, and to this I can only toss in my own small verbal confetti. For more adroid renderings, please see Donald Keane, Edward Seidenstiker, and Norma Moore Field.

Of all modern Japanese writers, Soseki is one of my three most favorites. Of his books, I have read Kokoro, The Three Cornered World, Grass by the Wayside, Light and Darkness, and, And Then. Of these, And Then, is by far my most favorite. I probably love it for different reasons than most.

Whenever I begin re-reading it (I have read it four times now), it is initially for the feeling of being transported into Daisuke's beautiful, if fragile world, where he set against a cast of lovable if predictable characters. His lazy houseboy, Kodono ("is that right, Sensei?"), his niece, Niu ("I'm warning you, you'd better watch out") who changes her hair ribbon several times daily, his sister in law with her love of Western music and concern for Deisuke's future and keeping the peace with Father, and so on. But as the novel evolves, the imagery takes on stronger substance, while retaining the light touch of a master. Of the lighter: the time when Daisuke and Kadono strip down to their waists and toss water around in the garden; when Daisuke fills a bowl with water and floats white lillies to offset a pounding headache, how he sets off to take a trip (in an attempt to avoid facing the pressure from his family to choose a bride) and never quite goes anywhere, and his foolish mishandling of his personal affairs.

Daisuke sees no point in trying to overcome his enui and take a stand of any kind, nor to try and resolve a series of issues that offer no simple resolution. Daisuke is a man with his feet planted in neither the past nor the future, and as the story comes to crisis, he loses his already delicate equilibrium, and plunges into a near mad state, where, since he cannot conceive of hurting anyone else, he runs headlong into trouble.

It is unfortunate that my copy gives no credit to the translator, for the prose is of exceedingly high calibre.

I highly recommend this book.

"And Then" ("Sore Kara") is a perfectly beautiful novel. Soseki always writes with an elegant clarity, tackling complex emotions and situations that creep up just like life. Nothing seems forced or unreal.

The plot reminds me of a quote I heard once. "I was a soldier so that my children could be merchants, and their children could be artists." The main character, Daisuke, is a dilettante, an appreciator of life's fineries who has never turned his hand towards anything seriously in his life. His father was a famous soldier during the Russo-Sino war, and his older brother is successful in business, and neither of them can understand this luxury object of a younger sibling that they both maintain financially. Seeking to find some value in him, his family attempts to pressure him into an advantageous marriage, which Daisuke's refinements does not permit. Love, however, will destroy everything.

The story floats along at Daisuke's pace, with nothing hurried or in crisis. Inside of this veneer are heavy issues of family obligation, the distaste of working for food as opposed to working for pure artistry, and most of all the undeniability of love, something that none of us can choose for ourselves.

Like all of Soseki's novels, "And Then" lingers long after the last page is turned, forcing us to evaluate our own lives and wonder what we would do in similar circumstances. How much of our own dreams have been sacrificed for necessities, and what does it mean to be human besides eating, sleeping and making more humans?