All the Gallant Men
The One Book One Nebraska selection
for 2020 is All the Gallant Men by Donald Stratton with Ken Gire. Stratton
originally hailed from Red Cloud, Nebraska, and he was one of the survivors of
the Pearl Harbor bombing of the U.S.S. Arizona. Until very recently, he
was one of a handful of survivors still with us, but, sadly, Stratton passed
away on February 15, 2020. I’m so grateful he took the time a few years ago to collaborate
with Gire to share his story before it was too late.
What a read! I couldn’t put it down.
Nonfiction isn’t my go-to reading
choice, and when I do happen to read a nonfiction book, it can be a bit of slog
for me to get through it. So, when I say that I couldn’t put this book down,
that means it was truly great – in fact, it was so great that it had me riveted
to my seat the two days I spent reading it.
During that time, I often got up to
share a segment with my boyfriend because he has been to the memorial in Pearl
Harbor. Finally, I simply told him that he’d have to read it when I was done
with it because it was such a great read. He did, and, just as I had done while
reading it, he shed some tears. When you read it, and I certainly hope you do
read it, have a few tissues handy.
Stratton shares his personal
opinions about things that happened prior to the bombing and during the United
States’ involvement in the war afterwards. I enjoyed the perspective of someone
who was so intimately touched by so many aspects of World War II. He was
severely burned in the bombing and had to convalesce for a long time; afterwards,
he returned to Red Cloud as a civilian but soon re-enlisted and saw a lot of
action at sea, including the Japan’s surrender.
His life after the war was eventful
and interesting, too, and he spent time working as a deep-sea diver in
different capacities and in various locales. He also married and had a family,
and he spent his retirement years living in Colorado. He wrote that his final
resting spot will be back in Red Cloud and not in the U.S.S. Arizona where
other survivors have opted to be interred after their deaths.
The photos and the map of Pearl
Harbor that are included in the book really helped me to visualize and better
understand the strategic mistakes that led up to bombing. After years of
hearing about what happened in Hawaii on that fateful day in 1941, I finally
have a much better grasp of what transpired there and why. This book would make
for an excellent teaching tool in history classes because it puts the reader
right in the action, but it also humanizes everything and paints a very
poignant portrait of loss and the impact that loss has on those left to mourn
it.
Read this book, and savor every
little bit of it – the Prologue, the quotes that begin each chapter, the Writer’s
Postscript, the photographs, the heart-wrenching journal entries of a sister
who lost a brother on the ship, the transcripts of some military
communications, the story itself, and so much more. This particular One Book
One Nebraska selection is a book not just for this state but for the entire
country.
The Edge of Sadness
With thirty-five of the Pulitzer Prize winners of
fiction remaining for me to read, I’m getting closer to completing my goal of
reading them all. I just finished reading the 1962 winner, The Edge of
Sadness, by Edwin O’Connor. It was a pleasant read but also a bit of an
undertaking for a few reasons.
First, this novel is 640 pages long, so it can’t be
read easily in a short amount of time. Additionally, there are only twelve long
chapters (chapter six is 109 pages!) within those 640 pages, and there is
seldom a clear or logical stopping place, so putting the book down and coming
back to it later makes for a disjointed reading experience. I have no beef with
long books – in fact, I’m quite fond of them – however, I do have a problem
with excessively long chapters that can’t be easily read in one sitting.
Secondly, O’Connor was very fond of ellipses at the
end of paragraphs (there are three instances of them on pages 148-9 alone). The
novel is narrated by Hugh Kennedy, a Catholic priest, who, in turn, is fond of
using expressions of uncertainty like “I suppose,” “It wasn’t that I didn’t
want to,” “I assumed,” and many others; so the overuse of ellipses throughout
the story along with Kennedy’s equivocal approach to telling his story makes
for a lackluster read at times. At other times, the story clips along a bit and
. . . – hopefully you get the point (and the slight joke I just made).
Thirdly, there’s not much of a plot, per se. It’s simply
about Kennedy reconnecting with the Carmody family for a few months. The
Carmodys and he have a history. He was good friends with Helen, a woman he
might have married if he hadn’t had the calling to become a priest, and with
John, Helen’s brother who also became a priest. Their controlling father,
Charlie, brings Kennedy back among his family for a very selfish reason. That
and something unfortunate that happens to John are the only two dramatic plot
points of the novel.
Loyola Classics took this from its out-of-print
obscurity and republished it in 2005. Loyola Press only prints books that
relate to the Catholic faith. I’m not Catholic; however, I’ve long been
intrigued by the monastic or even semi-monastic lifestyle, so I found it
extremely interesting to get inside the head of a priest. Even though Kennedy
hemmed and hawed a lot as he told his story, his voice was incredibly unique,
authentic, and befitting of a priest. However, he’s also a human being with
foibles and one pretty serious problem, so I really enjoyed seeing someone who
is so often placed on a pedestal written in a relatable fashion. In fact, Kennedy
himself says, “I don’t think many people know very much about priests . . . how
priests live from day to day, how they fill in their idle hours.” I agree.
Despite the things I’ve mentioned that might keep some
readers from attempting this novel, The Edge of Sadness won the Pulitzer
because it’s well-written and contains some truly beautiful sentences with
insights into human nature. It’s a great book for someone who likes to savor
what she’s reading and who is patient. Ultimately, because I am both of those
things, I enjoyed this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to
many others.
Preference of Person
When it comes to reading books,
serious readers have several preferences they employ --consciously or not --
when it comes to enjoying what they read. One of these involves the narrator of
the book and whether that narration is told in first or third person.
I recently discussed this topic with
some young writers and then spent some time thinking about it myself. When
reading a book, I don’t have a strong preference; I simply want the narration
to be understandable. However, as a writer, I firmly sit on the third-person
narration side.
I perused all the Pulitzer winners
of fiction to see where the award-winning authors tend to lie, and I found that
just under one-third of the books have first-person narrators while a smidge
over two-thirds contain third-person narration. I doubt the narration style had
any strong bearing on whether each book won the prize, but it made for an
interesting study on my part.
There’s a popular trend for writers
to use what’s called unreliable first-person narrators, and some of those books
have done very well. A few of the recent bestsellers have been Gone Girl by
Gillian Flynn, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark
Haddon, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Many would argue
that every first-person narrator is unreliable simply because that person can
only tell the story from his or her perspective, so there is no way for the
narrator to fully understand all that happens in the story – thus, he or she
isn’t to be completely trusted. While this is true to a certain extent, some
authors choose to make their first-person narrators particularly unreliable.
I’m not a huge fan of this type of narrator because I
want to immerse myself in a story and believe what I’m being told. I think this
is why I prefer to write using third-person narration; however, I don’t like to
write from an omniscient perspective. I use what is called third-person
limited, which means that the story is told only from one person’s perspective,
but the author can essentially read that person’s thoughts and share them with
the reader.
Third-person omniscient narration is enjoyable to read
because it lets us in on everyone’s perspective, but if you want a little bit
of mystery without the unreliability that often comes with first-person
narration, then third-person limited is for you. Sometimes, writers will use
third-person limited, but they will shift from character to character via
chapters; this technique is often used with first-person narrators, too, where
one chapter is told from one main character’s point of view while the next is
from another’s.
I’d guess that many readers don’t really give a lot of
conscious thought to whether they prefer first or third person when it comes to
who’s narrating their favorite books as long as the stories are good and
well-told. However, I believe that, if you occasionally take the time to notice
the techniques the author used to create such a spell-binding tale, you can
also appreciate the story for the piece of art it is.
Reading Resolution 2020
Here we are at the very beginning of the year 2020
with 366 reading days (it’s a leap year) stretched out before us. The only new
year’s resolution I make centers around books, both the quantity and the
quality of those I plan to read over the span of a year.
In 2019, for the very first time
since starting the yearly trend of aiming to read at least 50 books, I
surpassed my goal and almost finished 60 books before the year ended yesterday.
In fact, I had reached the magic number of 50 in October. Usually, I’m
scrambling over Christmas break to read as much as possible in the hopes of
meeting my goal.
In the online book clubs I follow, I
often see the merits of setting reading goals debated, and fellow readers seem
firmly committed either to being reading goal setters (like me) or to being
readers who don’t keep track at all of what they read. In fact, I’ve read a few
rather rude comments directed toward people who set reading goals by those who
don’t in which we goal setters have been ridiculed for apparently sucking the
joy out of reading in our single-minded pursuit of reaching an arbitrary number
of books.
While I can understand (to a point)
these comments, I’d like to argue the benefits of setting reading goals and,
hopefully, reaching them. First, there is a simple joy that comes from making a
goal and striving to attain it, no matter what that goal is. For readers, that
goal could entail reading a certain number of books, reading all the books by a
certain author or in a series, reading books across genres or centered solely
on one type such as the classics, or it could even be to read more books than
they managed to read the previous year.
Second, if you set a reading goal,
then you probably will track your reading. Ever since I began recording my
books, I’ve paid better attention to the quality of reading I do. Additionally,
I’ve caught myself more than once about to read a book I’d already read. I have
nothing against rereading a book when it’s an intentional reread, but I don’t
want to waste time rereading a book that wasn’t meaningful the first time
through. Recently, I started a book and realized it seemed familiar, so I
looked back through my reading log, and, sure enough, there were my
less-than-stellar comments about the book five years ago. Naturally, I didn’t
spend any more time on that book.
A third benefit to setting reading
goals is that it forces you to pay better attention to how you use (or waste)
your time. I aim to read 50 books each year, so that’s only a book a week with
two weeks of cushion time for longer novels or for those times of the year that
just seem to get busier than others. Back when I didn’t set a reading goal, I
often let those busy times consume me to the point that I neglected the one
activity I most enjoy. Now, that goal is a daily reminder to set aside time
every single day for reading, and since I began making a yearly reading goal, I
haven’t missed a day, no matter how busy my life becomes.
May 2020 be a great reading year for
all of us!
Walden
Like many people, I’ve long known of
Henry David Thoreau and his famous stay at Walden Pond, but until recently, I
only knew the most famous quotes from Walden – the ones that have made
appearances in movies or been used in other pieces of writing. (“The mass of
men lead lives of quiet desperation” is probably one of the best known and
oft-used quotes.) Now, though, I’ve read the entire book, and the list of
mind-changing quotes a person could take from it is overwhelming.
Thoreau’s two major themes
throughout the book revolve around simplifying one’s life and living a life of
nonconformity. That second theme is one I’ve always been passionate about
because its main focus is on thinking for yourself. I read this book with my
junior English students, and they can tell you that I often harp at them to
think for themselves, so this was the perfect thing for them to read to get
them to try to think deeper than they normally do.
I filled an entire notebook with
direct quotes, thoughts I had while reading, information I looked up to better
understand his allusions, words I didn’t know or remember well, and many other
things. Walden hit upon many of the philosophical things I spend my own
thinking time on, so I was in literary heaven while reading this book. Being
that they are teenagers, my junior students were not as enthralled as I was;
however, even many of them showed a definite interest in some of the passages.
Naturally, my favorite chapter was
the one entitled “Reading,” and I’d like to share some of my favorite quotes
from this section as they are the most relevant to this column. Like me,
Thoreau appreciated the classics and claimed that “ . . . the adventurous
student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written
and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest
recorded thoughts of man?” I like that phrasing – “the noblest recorded
thoughts.”
He praised books as being worthy of
one’s attention, but he cautioned that to be able to truly read well, a person
must put forth the work to do so. “To read well, that is, to read true books in
a true spirit, is a noble exercise . . .” “Books must be read as deliberately
and reservedly as they were written.” This would entail learning and
understanding the languages, the history, the cultures in which some of the
great works of literature were written; so, most people, in actuality, do not truly
read well even though they read a lot. Thoreau wrote: “The best books are not
even read by those who are called good readers.”
He realized the importance of words.
“A written word is the choicest of relics.” “It is the work of art nearest to
life itself.” Words come from our lips and our breath, so words are “carved out
of the breath of life itself.”
While I agreed with virtually
everything he wrote in the chapter about reading, the quote I most loved was
this: “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of
generations and nations.” I’d like to tell Thoreau, who died in Massachusetts
in 1862, that a writer in Nebraska in 2019 read his book deliberately and
appreciated it as one of the classics of American literature it has become.
A Gentleman in Moscow
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor
Towles is a book that a person should read and savor, preferably more than
once. After hearing and reading very conflicting reviews about it – quite
polarized opinions of either very strong love of the book or very strong
dislike for it – I decided to check it out for myself.
So many of the reasons for disliking it seemed to be
that the book was boring because it was just about some Russian guy who was
stuck living in a hotel in Moscow for half his life. On top of that,
apparently, the guy was really into literature, and the author used a lot of
big words to write about this guy who didn’t go anywhere or really do anything.
Frankly, it sounded like my kind of book.
I absolutely love this novel! I
haven’t had time to reread it yet, but I plan to.
The Russian guy is Count Alexander
Rostov, an aristocrat who is sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his
life in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. While the hotel is a real place, the
Count and his story are not; however, Towles makes the Count and the characters
who inhabit the hotel seem so very real. The novel spans the years 1922-1954,
and it interweaves a lot of Russian history throughout the story.
As I read the book, I noticed that
every chapter title contains only words that begin with the letter A. I thought
that was interesting and probably meaningful, so when I was finished reading
it, I visited the author’s website of amortowles.com to see if he had an
explanation for doing this. Surprisingly, he did not. He simply mentioned that
it somehow felt right to do that. While that wasn’t really the answer I’d hoped
to find, I did find many interesting and useful things on his website.
Towles has links to various
interviews, including a 52-minute talk he gave about this novel in December
2017. In that presentation, he shares an exterior image, taken in 1905, of the
actual Metropol hotel, which he says is about the “size of a city block with
hundreds of rooms.” He claims that it not only was the best hotel in Moscow,
but it was the best hotel in all of Russia. A person under house arrest could
do much worse than to be condemned to such a place for the rest of his life.
However, the Count, who had been
accustomed to staying in the best rooms, found himself condemned to live out
his days in a small room in the attic. He doesn’t let this keep him from
continuing to live and act like a gentleman, and his impact upon the people who
worked and stayed in the hotel became his legacy. A few people, including a
young girl who he essentially adopts, benefit more from his distinguished
influence.
This novel is beautifully written,
the Count is that delightful and intelligent uncle we all wish we had, and the
hotel is the backdrop for a microcosm of the historical events that impacted
all of Russia. It’s clear that Towles did his research for this novel, and he
provides much additional information on his website.
Even though many readers didn’t like
this novel, it spent a long time on the bestseller list. After reading it
myself, I am firmly planted on the side of those who loved the book.
by: Tammy Marshall
