You Can't Hide

...your Lion Eyes.  Such is the title of Claire Berlinki's not-quite-sequel to Loose Lips.  The character around which the plot of Lion Eyes is centered is not Selena Keller, the protagonist of Loose Lips, but rather Claire Berlinski herself, or more accurately, a fictional version of her.

Set in 2004, a year after Loose Lips has been published, Berlinski is living in Paris and continuing her career as a writer and novelist when she receives an e-mail from a mysterious Iranian professor of archaeology named Arsalan Safavi.  Arsalan (whose name means "Lion" in Farsi) asks for a copy of her novel, as none are available in his home country.  Berlinski responds by e-mailing him a PDF file of her novel and then later follows that up by inadvertently sending Arsalan an e-mail wherein she laments a recent break-up. Thus begins a sequence of events taking her to Istanbul and into the heart of Middle Eastern realpolitik.

For as the fictional Berlinski soon discovers, Arsalan is not just any archeologist, he is one whom may have access to knowledge of Iran's emergent nuclear program.  The CIA soon gets involved, but the agency's mishandling of the situation, in addition to Belinski's deepening affection for Arsalan, adds a layer of complication.  Also complicating matters is Arsalan's neurotic cat, Wollef, whom he has inherited from his recently deceased mother.

As with Loose Lips, Berlinski weaves together a compelling tale populated by fascinating characters, human and, in Wollef's case, nonhuman.  I especially liked Imran Begum, an obsessively punctual clinical psychotherapist living in London with whom the fictional Berlinski e-mails with frequency.  The ability to devise a multitude of rich, contextual characters is a rare talent, and it is just one aspect of what makes Berlinski's novel so fascinating and enjoyable.

Another aspect of Berlinski's novel I liked was its showcasing of a lifestyle, a world with which I had a passing personal familiarity when I resided in Tokyo what seems like eons ago: that of the American expatriate.  Perhaps someday I will return to that lost world, but for now reading delightful stories like Berlinski's will have to suffice.

***

Of course, today being the Fourth of July, I wish a Happy Independence Day to all.  I leave you with this video clip of a Marine Corps veteran singing the second verse to The Star-Spangled Banner":

A Headache Tomorrow (or a Heartache Tonight)

"Loose lips sink ships."  Such was an old World War II-era slogan imploring soldiers to not divulge compromising information when writing home, and it is from that slogan that the title of Claire Berlinski's novel, Loose Lips, is derived.

The main character of the story is a young woman named Selena Keller.  Shortly after earning a doctorate in Oriental Studies from Columbia University and not wishing to become mired in the fever swamps of academia (a sentiment I understand well), Keller answers a CIA employment ad and soon finds herself being interviewed for possible admission into the agency's Clandestine Service Trainee program.  Thus begins an adventure that takes Keller through the rigorous interview process, subsequent paramilitary training, and a challenging series of courses wherein she learns how to spot, vet, and recruit foreign agents.  Along the way she also falls in love with a fellow trainee named Stan.  Once her training is complete, though, Keller finds herself the target of CIA Special Investigations Branch inquiry that may derail her fledgling career as an intelligence officer.

Readers expecting a Tom Clancy-style techno-thriller will be disappointed, but those fond of witty stories of romance, interpersonal drama, and humor will be delighted. But whatever one's literary preferences, one thing seems certain: either Berlinski herself or someone close to her must have gone through some or all of the CST program, so believable is the tale.

For my own part, I loved the novel.  As was the case with the main character, my own emotions varied throughout, ranging from wistfulness, to apprehension, to sadness, and then to relief.  Not to beat an oft-used phrase to death, but Berlinski's novel truly is a tour de force.  And speaking of cliches, I enjoyed reading the conversation between the author and her brother, related in the book's appendix, about whether or not another well-worn phrase should have been included in the story's dialogue.  I was instantly reminded of some lines from a favorite song of mine: "A Headache Tomorrow (or a Heartache Tonight)" by Mickey Gilley, off of his 1981 album You Don't Know Me:

The sun goes down,
the blues come around,
and the choice is black and white.

Low down and lonesome,
high as a kite.

When you can't win for losing,
you know it's just not right.

It's a headache tomorrow,
or a heartache tonight.

For those unfamiliar with the song, here is a video:



It is a hauntingly beautiful tune, much like the story that reminded me of it.  It is also a song of regret, of opportunities lost, of futures uncertain.  It is a song Selena Keller would understand well, were she a Texan and a fan of Urban Cowboy Era country music.  As for me, my only regret is that I did not read this novel, and enjoy its sentimental comfort, when it was first published seven years ago.

Are We Doomed?

John Derbyshire certainly thinks so.  In We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, Derbyshire laments that all is lost, American conservatism is in its death throes, and Western civilization faces a long, dark night from which it may never emerge.  Assuming that Derbyshire was writing this book in 2008-2009, as Americans voted into office the least qualified, least experienced presidential candidate in this nation's history, who subsequently proceeded to dig this nation further into trillions of dollars of debt, Derbyshire's pessimism is not without foundation.

But Derbyshire's gloominess is not limited to politics.  Across the board he sees a nation in full decline, from growing racial and ethnic balkanization that threatens national cohesion, to the devolution of politics into a grotesque sideshow that has transformed "public service" into obscene, mandarin-like money and power grabbing, to the cheapening of sex and the stagnation of a culture (high and popular) that presently produces little of value, to the growing behemoth of educational bureaucracy philosophically rooted in the nonsensical notion that more education is the cure to all of our society's woes.

The last category mentioned, education, strikes a particular chord with me because for better or worse (mostly worse), academia has been my profession for a decade.  Derbyshire quotes New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon's claim in an interview with eminent sociologist Charles Murray that if "given the opportunity, most people could do most anything."  That notion is complete horse baloney.  Billions of dollars have been wasted on primary and secondary public education for children and tens of thousands of dollars of loan debt have been incurred by millions of young adults based upon the foolish notion that education for education's sake is the key to prosperity in life.

It is not.  Referencing former National Review contributing editor Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire identifies this type of thinking as the "Yale or jail" syndrome, the underlying assumption being, Derbyshire writes, that "if you don't have a college degree, you are not good for much of anything other than selling crack."  Thus, millions of kids who would be better off pursuing more productive (and lucrative) career options are instead shoehorned into a one-size-fits-all educational system that for many of them is a complete waste of time.  As fellow blogger Carol Minjares of Missoulapolis wrote in a recent post: "Modest proposal:  Any student who says 'How will I ever use this [math, science, English, etc] in real life?' should be sent for CNA training."

Another topic of interest which Derbyshire hits upon is religion.  Derbyshire is an atheist, and I have written of his atheism before on this blog.  I have little doubt that Derbyshire's atheism underlies much of his pessimism, for if we are little more than overly intelligent apes who came about as the result of billions of years of chaotic random chance, what true meaning or higher purpose do our lives have?  If the answer is none, Derbyshire's comprehensive pessimism is not only understandable, it is incontrovertibly logical.  However, despite how much its adherents may argue otherwise, atheism is, at its root, a belief in nothing.  And people won't fight for nothing.  Hence, the sad spectacle of post-Christian Europe being overrun by unassimilable Muslim barbarians while the continent's elites fiddle away carefree.  As a writer whom I often quote on this blog has written, "never go to a gunfight without a gun and, if you intend to win, never go to a religious war without religion. You'll lose."

John Derbyshire believes the battle to already be lost.  With respect, I disagree.  Perhaps it's a cultural difference between the English-born Derbyshire and I, because Texans don't give up the fight so easily.  We've lost?  I say, "come and take it, you dirty bastards."

Carrera Returns

In his latest novel, The Lotus Eaters, Tom Kratman revisits the saga of Patricio Carrera, the protagonist of his novels A Desert Called Peace and Carnifex.  Some eight years after the events in Carnifex, Carrera has settled into a somewhat settled, but troubled life.  He is still haunted by the death of his first wife Linda and their children, as well as by the brutal, but effective way in which he ended the war against the Salafists in Pashtia.  There is, however, much trouble in the present as well.  The Tauran Union maintains its occupation of Balboa's Transitway, propping up the corrupt rump government of President Manuel Rocaberti while the rest of the country is governed by Carrera's allies, led by President Raul Parilla.  With the power of Carrera's Legion del Cid - and by extension the government of free Balboa - growing by the day, the Tauran Union faces a dilemma: risk starting a costly war with Carrera and his legion now that might bring in the Federated States of Columbia in on Carrera's side, or simply stand by while Carrera and his allies prosper and grow stronger.

There are, in the novel, three viewpoint characters: Patricio Carrera, Marguerite Wallenstein (the new leader of the United Earth Peace Fleet), and General Janier (the head of the Tauran Union's forces occupying the Balboa Transitway).  Wallenstein is seeking to reform the Peace Fleet so that it can become an effective deterrent to the increasingly expansive Terra Novans, all of whom are still unaware of how far Old Earth has fallen under the rule of the Consensus.  Janier, understanding the aforementioned crisis facing the Taurans in Balboa, is pushing his superiors to act against Carrera and the Legion del Cid sooner rather than later.

In addition, Carrera's young son Hamilcar (born to his second wife, Lourdes) is beginning to come into his own.  Revered by a tribe of Pashtians who consider him to be the avatar of their god Iskandr, Hamilcar is guarded day and night at his home in Balboa by tribal warriors, pledged to defend him to the death.  The Pashtian tribesmen prophesy that Hamilcar will some day become a great military leader in his own right, with a legacy that will surpass that of his father.

Interspersed within this story are excerpts of a book titled Historia y Filosofia Moral, written by two prominent characters from the previous novels - Jorge and Marqueli Mendoza.  Within these excerpts, the philosophical nature of Balboa's timocratic republican government is discussed.  What is a timocracy, you ask?  The term derives from the Greek words timē - meaning "honor" - and kratia - meaning "rule".  Written of by various ancient Greeks like Solon, Plato, and Aristotle, a timocracy is essentially a government where political power derives from the degree of honor that rulers hold relative to other members of society.  In the timocratic republic of Balboa, this honor is acquired via miltary service.  The characters Jorge and Marqueli Mendoza argue the case for timocracy thus:

The military mind is rapacious, but that rapacity has limits.  It may force life to subordinate itself to the practical needs of war; it will rarely, or never, on its own, force life to subordinate itself to mere fantasy or high sounding theory...

The need for civilian control over the military is not, in any case, based on any presumption that the civilian mind is, on average, wiser or more creative or more moral than the military mind.  Indeed, human history provides no unambiguous evidence to support any such proposition.  Rather, the moral imperative of civilian control is based on two related factors.  One is that, will they, nil they, civilians will be affected, will suffer, from the decision to go to war.  This, if nothing else, entitles them to a say in some form, though that say may be no more than the option to have a say, with conditions.  The second is that, without adequate civilian support, every serious war effort is ultimately doomed to failure.  Failure in war is, of course, the height of immorality.

In any case, civilian control of the military does not mean that those who never served are best suited to exercise control.  Rather, those who have never served are not clearly morally fit to control the military.  Neither are those who have enjoyed it and made a life.  Conversely, those who have served and, duty done, left service, have shown a willingness to do that which they do not like, for the common good...

It is a thought-provoking notion that Kratman puts forth, and one which I enjoyed reading amidst the novel's action and drama.  Kratman is clearly well-read in classical history and philosophy, something I've known since our discussions of Thucydides and Victor Davis Hanson on this blog two years prior.

I should also point out that The Lotus Eaters is Kratman's first novel since A State of Disobedience to lack an afterword.  However, the aforementioned discussion of timocracy within the novel's pages more than makes up for its absence.  While awaiting Kratman's next addition to the series, be sure to check out the excerpts of The Amazon Legion posted on this blog - a story set in the Carrera universe, to which there are a few oblique references in The Lotus Eaters.

Reading is Really Super Swell

Well, it is unless you're a dishonest liberal Democrat activist trying to keep people in the dark so as to see your agenda either enacted or remain unchallenged. Via Mike Wendy at the Polisonic Blog, here is the first example: Texas state representative Mike Villareal (D-San Antonio) on the changes being implemented by the Texas State Board of Education to the social studies (ugh) and economics curricula of public schools:

"They have ignored historians and teachers, allowing ideological activists to push the culture war further into our classrooms," said Rep. Mike Villareal, a San Antonio Democrat. "They fail to understand that we don't want liberal textbooks or conservative textbooks. We want excellent textbooks, written by historians instead of activists."

Villareal's statement is fundamentally deceptive, for he is relying upon people not being aware that many, if not most academic historians are activists themselves, in belief if not always in action. Put the state's history curriculum in the hands of the kind of "historians" of which Villareal speaks and you will get a curriculum with a leftist slant, guaranteed. But Villareal and his ideological ilk are counting on the majority of the general public being unaware of this - and are using this lack of awareness to construct a dichotomy whereby the conservative board members, who are correcting decades of ideological imbalance in the curriculum, are portrayed as extremists ignoring the studious work of apolitical scholars.

So go over to Mike Wendy's blog and read the information at the links he has posted.  Villareal's dishonesty is made manifest.  Such rank fakery is the norm with liberals and Democrats these days, who love to portray themselves as intellectually superior to conservatives and Republicans while relying upon the naivete of youth and the ignorance of the slums to maintain political power.

As for the second example, consider the avalanche of dishonesty that has been spread about Arizona's recently enacted immigration law, which can be read here.   If you take the time to skim through it, you'll be well ahead of many ill-informed Obama administration officials who would prefer that American citizens die along the border due to the violence of illegal immigrants and drug cartels and have the President of Mexico - a joke of a country that is just half-a-step above Somalia on the banana meter - insult the United States of America on the floor of the House of Representatives.

To that end, here's some advice from Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona:



Don't expect such advice to be followed, though.  For the present administration, ignorance is bliss...and the path toward retaining their illegitimate authority.

Natural High

Natural High (Merle Haggard)
- Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.

I was reminded of that song - recorded by Merle Haggard back in 1985 - when reading Dan Simmons's Black Hills.  That was probably due to the constant reference to the Sioux as the "Natural Free Human Beings" in the novel, that supposedly being the literal English translation of what the Sioux people call themselves. But I digress.

The novel, Simmons's latest, revolves around a character named Paha Sapa - a name meaning "Black Hills" in the Sioux language - who at the age of seventy is carrying within him an incredible burden: the soul of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.  The novel follows two timelines, alternating chapter by chapter.  The first one begins in 1876 with an almost eleven-year-old Paha Sapa navigating his way through the chaos at the Battle of Little Bighorn, whereupon he comes across the body of a dying Custer, laying hands upon him and receiving his soul at the moment of death.  From there we are taken through Paha Sapa's young adulthood, marriage, birth of his son, up until a meeting with Custer's widow in New York City in the 1930s.  The second time line is set in 1936, when Paha Sapa is seventy years old and working as a chief powederman at Mount Rushmore, where Gutzon Borglum is putting the final touches on his sculptural masterpiece, and where Paha Sapa intends to commit a devastating act of enormous destruction to avenge his people.

As is often the case with Dan Simmons's novels - and I have reviewed several of them on this blog - the historical research he puts into the story to surround his fictional characters with an aura of realism is nothing short of  remarkable.  Along with Custer, other historical figures making a appearance are Custer's wife Libbie (Elizabeth Bacon Custer), Crazy Horse, Doane Robinson, and Henry Adams, among others.  He also, towards the end of the novel, seemingly ties the story in with his Hyperion universe - not an entirely surprising development considering that Simmons has used his characters in different stories in the past.

I hesitate to say more as I don't wish to spoil the story for those of you who might wish to read it.  I recommend it highly, just as I have done with other books of his reviewed here.

***

Well, today marks the beginning of a few weeks of much needed vacation.  I hope to blog more often during my time off.  There will be at least one more book review coming: The Lotus Eaters by Tom Kratman.  Sorry for being late to respond to comments and e-mails during the past couple of weeks.  My readers, though few, are never far from my mind.

A Late Night Symposium

On Thursday night I was reading this post by Robert Stacy McCain, in which he gave a stirring defense of his Southern heritage against a despicable group of leftist jackals who, per usual, love to run down the ancestry of those who don't inhabit their insular, rarefied echelons.

Therein, quoting a blog post of his from back in 2009, McCain wrote:

I have frequently described the widespread prejudice against the South as boreal supremacy, the belief that everything about the North is superior to everything about the South. Such prejudice against the South is so common that some people don’t even notice it, but I do, and I resent the hell out of it.

Confronted with the assumption of Northern superiority, some Southerners will react by attempting to ape Northern ways and adopt characteristically Northern attitudes, and start “putting on airs,” as Alabama folks would say. . . .

When I think of my own ancestors — hard-working people who toiled from dawn to sundown on the red clay hills of Alabama — I am quite naturally filled with pride. The suggestion that I should be ashamed of my ancestors is an insult I deeply resent.

In the comments, I responded thusly:

No man should be required to spit on the graves of his ancestors. And I cordially invite anyone who suggests that I do so to get well and truly stuffed.

Blunt, to be sure, but an apt summary of what I think of those who demand that I renounce my heritage and birthright in favor of an ephemeral transnational progressivism. Indeed, that is what many of the Northerners to whom McCain refers truly are: transnational progressives, or "Tranzis" as popularized by the weblog Samizdata and the writer Tom Kratman. Tranzis hate the very notion of tradition, the practice of venerating one's ancestors, of showing pride in one's nation. Their only loyalty is to a homogenized vision of the global community, a vision of a world where the parochial nationalisms of old have been swept away in favor of a limitless, enlightened global progressive state. It is, in short, the vision of such men as Karl Marx, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Mao Zedong.

It is an ideal which I despise with every fiber of my being.

In response to my comment above, McCain wrote this accurate observation:

Indeed. I’ve long observed that nothing so bespeaks low character as the habit of routinely speaking ill of one’s parents.

You see this atrocious habit — a mixture of impudence and self-pity — quite commonly among spoiled, selfish youth. And the kind of person who derogates his own family is unwittingly indicting himself. Either (a) they’re as bad as he says they are, in which case, the apple doesn’t usually fall far from the tree, or else (b) he’s cruelly slandering them.

Either way, he’s a bad person whose companionship ought to be avoided as much as possible.

Yes, those who run down their parents and families are implicitly untrustworthy, and crashing bores to boot. Characteristics often shared by many a progressive.

Another commenter, Joe, added:

Now that is well said. We should honor our ancestors.

Frankly I am rather beyond regionalism, however, because so many of us move so often it does not mean that much anymore. I love traveling because I keep finding amazing places every time I do so. If we are really lucky, we find a community where everything clicks and we can raise our families.

Joe makes a good point, for increasingly the divide these days seems to be less along regional lines and more along ideological ones, as evidenced by leftist disdain for the Tea Party movement.

Roxeanne De Luca, though, questioned whether some Northerners be asked to do some grave-spitting of their own in the future:

The way that people in the North look down on their Southern counterparts is nauseating, as is the way that they are utterly apathetic to the suffering that happens someplace outside of a major metropolitan area. The same people who want to throw billions of dollars at every inner-city crack whore would rather disembowel themselves before giving any of their precious government funds to a coal miner’s kids in rural Appalachia. They sneer at Southerners for being racist, but miss the irony that they are doing so from communities that are 99% white.

On a side note, one only wonders if, generations from now, Northerners will be expected to spit on their ancestor’s graves for their fervent support of child-murder – support that went not just to legalisation in their own states, but outright prohibitions on allowing the South to protect human life.

Another good point to consider, I believe.

Finally, McCain himself concluded by sharing this fascinating comparison of Winston Churchill and Robert E. Lee:

Winston Churchill was an ardent admirer of Robert E. Lee, and I think it was because both were men who sought to redeem a family name tarnished by misfortune.

Lee’s father, Light-Horse Harry, had ruined his fortune through reckless business endeavors and involvement in political controversy, which seems to have inspired Lee at an early age to strive for an honorable reputation. Churchill’s father Randolph had also suffered disastrous embarrassment in politics and, as a result, Winston was keenly desirous of recovering for the Churchills the ancient glory of their famed ancestor, Marlborough. I think Churchill took inspiration from Lee in that regard and, of course, succeeded magnificently.

Indeed, the fate of Richard Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee is a sad one. I recently came across a vivid account of it in the conclusion to Long, Obstinate, and Bloody: The Battle of Guilford Courthouse by Lawrence E. Babits and Joshua B. Howard.  Lighthorse Harry Lee was a veteran of the bitter defeat at Guilford Courthouse.  Afterward, following the American Revolution's ultimate success, Lee carved out a successful political career for himself, but after leaving the House of Representatives in 1801, his fortunes declined.  Lee went bankrupt and was sentenced to debtors prison in 1807 and was released in 1810.  Two years later, on a business trip in Baltimore, Lee was attacked by an enraged mob of Democratic-Republican party supporters after having tried to save a friend of his from their wrath.  According to Babits and Howard:

The ruffians beat Lee senseless, inflicting serious injuries to his internal organs and head.  The wounds to his face severely limited his speech, and Lee, disfigured, discredited, and despondent, fled to the West Indies.  While returning to the United States in 1818, he was shipwrecked off the Georgia coast.  He appeared, physically demolished and thoroughly drunk, on the doorstep of [Nathanael] Greene's summer home, Dungeness.  He died there, age sixty-two, in the care of his former commander's daughter on 25 March, ten days after the thirty-seventh anniversary of Guilford Courthouse.

I have little doubt that Lighthorse Harry's miserable fate made an indelible impression upon his then 11-year-old son Robert.  But Robert E. Lee worked diligently to restore his family name, and did so successfully.  We should all be moved to honor our forebears so.

This coming Sunday, however, I will be honoring a milestone of my own - my 35th birthday.  It's been an interesting but fruitful year since my last one.  I hope my good fortune continues, and I hope to be blogging more often soon.  But in the meantime, the demands of my "real world" life must be met.

Until next time...