The Hitcher

I'm just watching "The Hitcher," starring Rutger Hauer. I think that is such a creepy movie. My kids have only seen the remake, which I don't think is quite as scary, and I made my daughter watch this one. She thought it was confusing and boring. I still think it's totally a heart pounder. I've got a number of books to put on my blog, but right now am busy typing a daily copy transcript and can't get to them.

I also bought a book called "Blog 2.0" and am going to try to spend time tomorrow adding links and whatnot to my space. I used to know how to do this, but haven't done it in quite some time and I am sure my knowledge is outdated.

How About Those Primary Results?

Well, for those of us who were confident that Obama would find his way to the White House, the latest primaries give some pause to that vision. Clinton won three of the four primaries last night, and most importantly, won the important states Texas and Ohio. What a surprise. However, when I looked at the polls this morning, she was a declared winner, at 51% to Obama's 48%, with only 60% of the polls reporting. That's kind of premature, but what do I know. Well, I do know that in VA, the final numbers were very different than the numbers at 60%.

How do I feel? Well, I voted for Obama in the VA primary, but I have been a long time Clinton supporter. The thing that turned me around was watching him handle a TV interviewer the night before the election. The news guy was trying to get a rise out of Obama by asking him to respond to the fact that he'd been labeled as the most liberal member of the Senate. Now, I had just watched Clinton responding to these types of questions with understandable hostility and defensiveness.

What I saw with Obama was different, refreshing, and masterful. His response to the charge that he was liberal was to turn the conversation back on the interviewer. He said something like, "Liberal is an old term associated with old hate politics. I am about a new time in America and won't be identified by these old-fashioned terms." I have his quote wrong, but I do recall sitting there thinking, "Yeah, finally, someone is defining himself, rather than allowing the media to do it to them." He handled the whole event masterfully, not defensively at all, and I was won over at that moment. My biggest fear for him was that he would be another Jimmy Carter, full of idealism and hope, but incapable of handling the so-called liberal media machine, which is nothing more than a tool of the hate mongering right. But after watching that, my fears abated.

I would still be happy as can be if Clinton wins the nomination. I like both of them. I guess the best candidate will emerge at the end.

The Snow Fox by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

I picked this book up from the bargain table at B&N. I can't say enough how good those bargain tables are to me! Another historical novel, The Snow Fox, takes readers to a Japan of 1000 years ago, and imagines the love story between Lady Utsu, a woman renowned for her beauty and her poetry, and a Samurai named Matsuhito, who is sworn to Lady Utsu's protector, the driven Lord Norimasa. There is a mystery behind Utsu and Matushito, as well. Who are their parents? Could they even be brother and sister? Four children are mixed up as a means of confusing an enemy lord, and then the puzzle is forgotten, sort of.

Based in legend, and with images abounding on the net, the story of Utsu and Matsuhito is quite compelling, and also gives a taste of life as Fromberg Schaeffer imagines it in Japan in the time of the samurai. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in a good historical romance.

The River Wife by Jonis Agee

Agee writes of a generation of families living on the banks of the Missouri River in Missouri, beginning in the 1850s and spanning to the 1930s. The constant thread running through this story is the patriarch, Jacques Ducharme, a French fur trapper, who rescues the first Mrs. Ducharme from a terrible earthquake, where her family has abandoned her, crushed by a mighty house beam. The choices that Ducharme makes, the way he chooses to live his life, causes repurcussions through all the following generations.

I really enjoyed this book. Maybe because I spent five years living in Missouri, I don't know. The history of this region, especially regarding the Civil War, is sadly lacking in the Virginia public schools. Of course, we have so much history here to get through, that that may explain it. At any rate, I have read several books lately on Missouri and the Civil War, and those, together with the Devarry books (below) have really gotten me thinking a lot about war, notions of war, peoples attitudes when the country is at war, the feelings of innocents when they are caught up in war, and so on, all relevant, of course, to our own situation today, but also, of course, vastly different from the apparent indifference most of my countrymen seem to fee. I know that it's not that we don't care. I think really we just can't possibly fathom what's going on. Maybe that's why I love literature so much -- it creates experiences that we can not possibly have otherwise, and creates empathy or certainly more fully develops it, when it might not otherwise have been fully flowing.

I thoroughly enjoyed Agee's book, The River Wife. If you are interested in reading about Missouri and the period of time spanning the 1850s to the 1920s, and if you like horses and human drama, this is a great book.

Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

This novel was given to me by my mom, who loved loved loved his novel A Fine Balance, which I insisted she read. So taken was she that she bought three copies of Such A Long Journey in support of this great author. It took me longer to get into this book, Mistry's first novel, but it was very good. Mistry takes us to a middle class household in India during the days of Indira Ghandi's rule, and the climax of the book coincides with the war between India and Pakistan. I have to confess, I know very little about the history of these regions. I am learning more and more because I'm seeming to find myself lost within the pages of novels of India of late. Even the late Bhutto makes an appearance, through the news media, in this book.

Primarily, Such A Long Journey is the story of a family, and the community of friends that makes up the larger family of society. Through the eyes of the narrator, Gustad, we see an India of hope and prosperity -- the India in which he grew up -- and the India of the novel's time, when hope begins to waver and acceptance takes root. I think, having now read two of Mistry's novels, his gift is showing us the joy that can be found in the small things, such as friendships, and understanding. I look forward to reading other of his books, as well.

The Ha-Ha by Dave King

I stumbled upon this book and put it in the pile I accumulated last week shopping at B&N. The Ha-Ha is a fascinating look into the mind of a man who suffered a head injury during the Vietnam War and cannot speak, read, or write. Inside of his mind, however, his thoughts are relatively unimpaired. Through this veil of silence, he must live in the world, where everyone communicates, and if you cannot, you must be a "retard." Howie, the novel's narrator, manages to build a life, sort of, until one day he is pressed into service to care for Ryan, the 10 year old son of his high school sweetheart. Now, because of Ryan's need for him to exert himself out of himself, he discovers that he has a life, he has people who care about him, and even though life sort of sucks, it's not really all that bad. I really liked this book. I cried a little toward the end. Course, this means nothing, because I am a big weeper at the best of times. Interstingly, the Ha-Ha, as the preface explains, is a hidden wall within a ditch, and like the best of literary works, Dave King's Ha-Ha is both literal and metaphorical. Thanks for the great read, Mr. King.

Slam by Nick Hornby

This is a book I picked up, luckily, on the bargain table at Barnes & Noble, my favorite big bookstore. I'd heard Hornby on NPR, I think Fresh Air, talking about this book, and it caught my attention as he was discussing Tony Hawk and skateboarding. Having a 10 year old son, this caught my ear, and this is not the kind of book I'd normally grab, but I'm glad I did. Hornby does, I think, a very authentic job of creating the voice of a 16 year old Londoner who has two passions in his life, Tony Hawk and his love of skating, and his first real girlfriend, Alicia. Sam, the narrator, repeats his mom's mistake and becomes a teenage parent, all the while turning to his poster of TH for advice, which TH blithely dispenses from varying lines of said idol's autobiography. I found Slam to be really quite good. It was funny, and heartbreaking, and I think so honest.

Katharine Kerr's Deverry Series

I spent much of the month of January reading all of the 10 book series by Katharine Kerr. I happened upon her in my guilty pleasure section (Fantasy/Science Fiction) of Barnes & Noble and couldn't put the books down. I started with the first four books in the series, Daggerspell, Darkspell, The Bristling Wood, and The Dragon Revenant, and then moved into The Westlands, which included A Time of Exile, A Time of Omens, Days of Blood and Fire, and Days of Air and Darkness.

Usually at this point, I would have been weary of the fantasy world, but Kerr's writing is really great and the stories roll one into the next. She weaves back and forth of a multi century timeline, and does it seamlessly. Honestly, I think if I'd started with this series back in the 80's when it first was written, I wouldn't have been able to follow it. But luckily for me, I'd missed her and so plunged right along with the final set (boo hoo), The Dragon Mage, which included The Red Wyvern, The Black Raven, and The Fire Dragon. Now, I think I am caught up and am awaiting the final installment, The Gold Falcon.

I am pretty voracious reader, and these novels really got under my skin. I highly recommend them to anyone who likes a good fantasy read. The characters are compelling. The politics are not overwhelming. I think she does a terrific job of conveying what it might be like to live for hundreds of years, and watch the warring and such that goes on with that long view. I came to that same reckoning years ago when I read the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, and considered what it might be like to live from the time of the Romans, as did Marius (?) to the present.

I also read, in between times, a couple of Civil War novels and was struck by the similarity in the notions of chivalry and honor that seems completely absent in our modern day wars. Anyways, that was one big set of reading that got me going at the start of the New Year.