Miyoku Chu. Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds. Walker and Co., 2006.

Songbird Journeys presents much of the latest research on songbird migration in an accessible format. The focus is on the Americas and on songbirds, so there is a lot about Bobolinks and little about hawks or terns. Readers may see this as an update on earlier works by James Baird and others. And we were due for an update.

With continued improvements in radio technology, batteries, radar, and satellite communication, scientists have been able to track even small songbirds on their migrations. Still, much of what we know comes from the dogged observers who track birds across state and international boundaries in all kinds of habitat. The book narrates the adventures of such heroes as Bill Cochran, Richard Graber, and Sidney Gathreaux.

Mostly Songbird Journeys is a fascinating account of numerous Nearctic passerines and their movements. Although the book begins by describing observers on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, much of the book opens up possibilities for bird observers all over North America—where to go, how to report sightings, and how to predict a “fallout.” The book also brings us up to date on the latest studies on how migrating birds navigate, a far more sophisticated combination of methods than previously believed.

It demonstrates that the smallest migratory warbler in its own way is as tough as any raptor as it runs it biannual migratory gauntlet. It also details recent studies of how territories in wintering grounds (somewhat akin to nesting territories) affect survival rates and how such habitats in the Caribbean and Latin America need to be protected. While there is more about birds that winter in the tropics or South America, it also details the movements of winter finches.

For bird observers, the best feature of this book may be its lists of books and online resources. While we know that some web sites are ephemeral, the book gives good places to start, especially Internet addresses with weather radar postings for reading flocks of “angels.” The color plates by Evan Barbour closely resemble the work of Roger Tory Peterson.

Songbird Journeys tells of the feeding, predation, and impressive survival of songbirds on their annual long distance journeys. Thorough and readable, this little volume is impressive in its storytelling and its scope of information, but the birds it describes are the most impressive of all. (Note to fall hawk watchers—read this and you will see that “dickey birds” can be pretty cool, too!)

Jeff Kinley. As It Was in the Days of Noah. Harvest Prophecy, 2022.

The title of As It Was in the Days of Noah comes from one of Jesus’ prophecies about the end times:

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. (Luke 17:26-27)

This book is worth taking a look at though I would preface my review with a couple of caveats. The author is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and represents the typical end-times prophecy interpretation of what Christianity Today once called the Dallas-Moody Axis. It teaches cessation and pre-tribulation rapture. In other words, God no longer (or very rarely) does miracles any more, and Christians are going to be removed from the earth before the antichrist begins his reign. Your reviewer is skeptical about both of these things.

Another time Jesus compared the last days to Noah was in Matthew 24:36-39:

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man…”

Now the book says that this is distinct from the rapture (138), yet this passage goes on to describe what is generally seen as being the rapture:

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:40-42)

Notice that this is addressed to believers, the “day your Lord is coming,” and back in verse 29 this is described as happening “after the tribulation of those days.” After means “after,” not before. The Greek is no different. And verse 40 begins with then, which also suggests something happening no earlier.

In the long run this is a minor quibble, but the problem could be that some Christians in those days fall away because they see the antichrist and experience the tribulation but are not prepared for it. I suppose it would be nice if I were wrong, but the pre-tribulation rapture seems to be wishful thinking.

Having said all that, the main thesis of the book does make sense. The worldwide flood was a disaster, the greatest disaster the world has experienced in its history. Human behavior was so bad that God saw fit to only save eight people from the deluge. Now the Bible does not say too much about what was so evil about the times, but a few hints are dropped.

Indeed, I give Kinley credit for discussing the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6 less dogmatically than he deals with future prophecy:

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:1-4)

There are several different interpretations as to who or what the Nephilim were. The term is also used to describe the Canaanite and Philistine giants like Goliath. At any rate, they were evil. Genesis goes on to say:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:5-8)

There is, then, some hint of the wickedness to include sexual immorality along with general defiance of God. Kinley notes at least two Talmudic interpretations say that the sins of that time included the sin of Sodom.

In Luke 17 after Jesus compares the time of His return to the days of Noah, He then compares it to Sodom:

Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:28-30)

So Jesus saw some kind of connection between Noah and Sodom here.

So does Kinley, and this is the strength of his thesis. He details different behaviors that the Bible calls sin that we see in our world today: Yes, it includes adultery, sodomy, rape, and other sexual sins but also violence, lawlessness, atheism, idolatry, false religion, terrorism, and greed to name a few. In other words, our world is looking more and more as though it might have the potential of being continually evil as it was in Noah’s time. It is a warning worth heeding, regardless of when Jesus will return.

There is a tension in end times prophecies. In the same teaching in Matthew 24, Jesus tells us two things that seem to contradict:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. (Matthew 24:21-25)

The church in the latter days will be strong and vigorous, able to finally reach the entire world with the true story of salvation through Jesus Christ. At the same time, it appears, that even the elect, the chosen believers, will be greatly oppressed.

Prophecy tends to focus on one or the other, on the evil in the last days or the gospel finally reaching everyone “and then the end will come.” Pre-tribulation dispensationalists tend to see the pessimism of the end times. No doubt it will be bad. There is sometimes a sense of giving up. “Let’s get raptured out of here and let the end-times Jews figure things out. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

No, let us pray as Jesus instructed us. Let us be alert. Let us finally “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation…” (Mark 16:15). Jesus is our ultimate Ark. Let us “be strong and of good courage,” looking forward to His coming—not as a mere escape, but to declare and experience His glory.

And the Lord said…But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. (Numbers 14:20-21 KJV)

Kristin Hannah. The Nightingale. St. Martin’s, 2015.

Very few books bring tears to my eyes. The Nightingale did. I mentioned in a 2012 blog that it happened once when I read an O’Neill play. Except for works by Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, or Dickens, it has not happened since.

The title is a word play. The family around which the novel runs is named Rossignol, which is French for nightingale. But Nightingale also becomes the code name for an operative in the French Resistance during World War II.

It takes a while for the story to unfold. While there are a handful of chapters set in 1995, most of the story takes place over the course of the war in France, beginning in 1940 with the fall of Paris and ending in 1945 with the fall of Germany. We learn of the lives of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle Rossignol, with some action from their widowed father.

Isabelle is single and living for much of the tale in Paris or hiding in the French countryside as part of the Resistance. Vianne is married with a young daughter Sophie. Her husband Antoine joined the French army and we soon discover that he has been captured and placed in a Prisoner of War Camp.

Soon after the fall of Paris, Vianne’s rural village of Carriveau is taken over the by the Germans. Her house becomes a place where German officers are quartered. The first officer is an army captain who is a gentleman. He is apologetic, even, but acknowledges the vagaries of war that lead to such things. He occasionally helps Vianne’s family with getting food as rationing has made things hard throughout France. This reminds us that many German soldiers were ordinary family men like most soldiers in most wars.

However, when that captain disappears, probably in an act of war, he is replaced by an SS officer. He is a true believing Nazi, a cruel Nietzschean.

Without going into too much detail, the two sisters both help others survive what might otherwise be certain death. Isabelle is truly an activist, but Vianne also does what she can in the context of her village. Even their alcoholic father dries out enough to work in the Resistance.

The Nightingale can be hard for some to read because it tells of a very difficult time. However, without trying to spoil things, there are some acts of real bravery, not only from the “official” Resistance, but from ordinary people doing ordinarily decent things that could—and in some cases do—get them into trouble with the authorities and with the possibility of execution or being sent to a concentration camp. This sense of dread hangs over the whole book and all the French characters.

Without going into too much detail, first there is just the attempt to survive rationing and German rule. Then they come after foreign-born Jews. Vianne’s best friend and neighbor is Jewish, but it turns out she was born in Romania, though she grew up in France and is a French citizen. Her husband is also fighting in the army and presumed captured. Some time later they come after other Jews including Jewish children. What can Vianne do to help?

While most of the action takes place in Paris or Carriveau, the tale has scope. The chapters set in 1995 take place mostly in Oregon in the United States. Apparently one of the sisters has come to live in America. Although there are hints, we do not know for sure which sister it is until near the end. Some chapters take place in other rural areas in France, in the Pyrenees, and in Spain. A couple of chapters take place in German concentration camps.

And it all comes together so that readers may weep at the outcome as I did. I reread the last chapter, it was so moving. The last time I did something like that was ten years ago with The Known World.

Life is hard. Some lives are harder than others, but character counts. The Nightingale reminds those of us who have led relatively easy lives to do what we can with what situations God has given us to ennoble even the obscure or mundane.

P.S. As a side note, I have been waiting for a long time for someone to write the pro-life equivalent of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It has not happened yet, and The Nightingale is not that book though the philosophy of the SS officer is not unlike that expressed in Roe vs. Wade. Nevertheless The Nightingale is very much a pro-life book, especially considering the challenges that many people in the story face simply to stay alive.

Lora R. Strong. Granite and Gloss. LR Strong, 2024.

For a shorter review click on the following:
Granite & Gloss by L.R. Strong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recall when Twilight was released. I was teaching high school English, and girls who were readers—and even a few who were not—loved the book. I recall reading an article analyzing why the novel and its sequels were so popular, especially with teenaged girls.

Its conclusion was that the heroine Bella was a smart, strong girl, but Edward was physically stronger and, hence, a protector, but he was also tender and considerate of her. He truly cared for her. In spite of certain behaviors because he was a vampire, he was an ideal lover and the Bella-Edward relationship was nearly perfect. And isn’t that what we all are looking for?

Granite and Gloss has no vampires. If one were to categorize it, one would call it a survival story/romance. But its effect is not unlike that of the Twilight stories: an intelligent, strong female protagonist meets a physical “hunk” who protects and cares for her.

Tarina Gloss is an up-and-coming young artist. She is petite but wiry. Besides creating paintings and sculptures, she loves animals and regularly jogs. Her father is a Silicon Valley CEO. She admits that some of her success is due to who her father is. Still, she is to meet with one of the richest men in Silicon Valley, Douglas McCavent, to discuss a statue for the courtyard of his California office (his company has offices all over the world).

Meanwhile, Jake Granite is an ex-cop private contractor. He spends a lot of time at the gym and also is a big fan of parkour. His law enforcement background concerned organized crime. The company he is working for has been hired to help infiltrate and break up an international crime ring whose leader is called Pharaoh. They think they have enough evidence to arrest Pharaoh if they can locate him. Word is that he is also going to be at McCavent’s offices at the same time Tarina is there.

Tarina arrives at her appointment with McCavent while Jake is surveilling the office. However, McCavent’s bodyguards abduct Tarina. Jake witnesses this and tries to intervene. The two of them are outnumbered, bound, and taken by car to an airplane. Immediately, then, there is lots of action and mystery. What is going on? Is this businessman Pharaoh? Why has Tarina been kidnapped? It’s not as if McCavent needs any ransom money…

Things get even more complicated as the plane crashes somewhere in a snowy mountain forest and Jake and Tarina are the only surivivors. Here is where the story gets interesting and different.

Jake is street-smart. He admits he could survive on the streets if he has to, but survive in a wilderness? Still, he can build fires and otherwise knows how to keep warm.

Tarina has two very distinctive traits. One is that she has a strong gift of discernment of spirits (see I Corinthians 12:10 KJV). She can sense things about people and has learned to rely on the Holy Spirit’s direction. The second could be considered a blessing or a white elephant. She has synesthesia.

As an English teacher, I knew the term synesthesia as a figure of speech when one uses one sense to describe something perceived by a different sense. For example, in Sara Teasdale’s poem “There Shall Come Soft Rains,” a line describes “swallows circling with their shimmering sound.”

Now shimmering is something perceived by sight but here the word is used to describe a sound. If you know what swallows sound like as they twitter, and often are seen flying over water, the adjective makes sense. The twittering sound is quickly uttered as swallows constantly change direction, not unlike the way sunlight shimmers on the water’s surface. It is an unusual combination, but it gets us to see things in a different and clever way.

However, there is also a psychological condition known as synesthesia, in which a person perceives things using a different sense. Most commonly, the person perceives sounds or the sense of touch in terms of color. That describes Tarina. For example, when a wintery wind begins to blow, she calls it a scarlet wind.

This is where things go in an unexpected direction. Yes, this is a survival story. The two protagonists do manage to not only survive the crash but finally escape the snowy forest. But it turns into a real psychological tale as well.

Jake is tough and cynical. I recall reading years ago that it is hard to bear witness to policemen and journalists because both occupations are used to people lying. Still, because Jake has dealt with drug addicts and criminals and their children, he recognizes that synesthesia usually results from some kind of trauma.

Tarina has been raised in a very good home with great parents. However, she was adopted at the age of two, and naturally has no memory of what might have happened before then.

Without going into too much detail, Jake is able to help Tarina begin to see her “gift” in a new way and understand a little bit more about why she reacts in unusual ways to things that do not upset most people. At the same time, Tarina begins to help Jake face up to his own hardness, cynicism, and internal pain. Yes, this is a survival story, but the main plot of the story has to do with mental health rather than physical health.

Without going into too much detail it becomes clear that McCavent reminds us of Jeffrey Epstein. Because he is killed in the plane crash, it is not entirely clear why Tarina was abducted. After all, she was not some anonymous prostitute or trafficked child, and people knew whom she was going to see. Since Granite and Gloss is to be the first in a series, perhaps we will learn more about that mystery in a future book. In the meantime enjoy the unusual survival tale and the more unusual psychological and spiritual adventure.

B. R. Aychi and Dave Coles. Living Fire: Advancing God’s Kingdom in Challenging Places. Beyond, 2024.

I have mentioned before about a friend who would share articles he had copied and then highlighted in yellow the parts he thought were especially important. Occasionally he would share one that he said he wanted to dunk the whole piece into a bucket of yellow ink. Living Fire is like that.

Over the years, we have shared a number of books on the spread of the gospel in places that traditionally have resisted followers of Jesus. That includes such books as Bhojpuri Breakthrough, A Wind in the House of Islam, and Cabbages in the Desert. This book, though having some of the same themes, is different. The other books tend to be mostly testimonies, telling the reader what has been happening. This book tells more about how they did it.

As in the last two books mentioned above, the authors have to be somewhat circumspect about the locations where the work has been taking place. It clearly is somewhere in East Africa and involves connections with people practicing any of three religions: Christianity, Islam, and tribal animism. While some specifics may differ depending on which group is being encountered, the method is similar in each instance. And, to no one surprise, it is based on the biblical pattern we see Jesus employ.

Because of the tribalism and ethnic identities with different religions, many times people find themselves going into areas inhabited by traditional enemies. The Christian workers often confess that they have to overcome prejudice and other barriers. One admitted:

I realized I had been wrong in my prejudice toward them—that they all had hard hearts. Instead, I saw softness and welcoming attitudes, and I deeply felt God’s love for them. I realized, “These people don’t belong outside God’s kingdom. God loves them, and they need to come into his kingdom.” (163)

Unlike what had become almost a standard in the Western church,

We never used a monologue strategy with an eloquent preacher delivering sermons. Instead, the authority of God’s word and the working of the Holy Spirit, through the group discovery process, proved very powerful…[we] had a pattern of group discussion in Bible study rather than relying on one person as the teacher or “answer man.” (221)

One key strategy, one which commonly appears in the Book of Acts, is that they try to minister to families rather than individuals. Yes, sometimes there is persecution, but even here the workers keep a positive outlook—“God often uses persecution to weed out nominal believers” (348).

When people embrace Jesus, and especially if they have been baptized, “We help them understand that their identity has changed, so their lifestyle has to change as well” (443). From my observation, the main reason here in the West that people are reluctant to follow Jesus is that they know they would have to change. Of course, that is precisely what repentance means.

They also recognize the importance of Acts 15:1-38, the “Jerusalem Council.” The early Christians, who were all Jewish, were not always sure how to handle Gentile converts. This passage describes how they settled the matter. So it is with converts from non-Christian cultures today. Some behavior like fornication and idolatry is non-negotiable, they must go. But other customs and traditions may not have to be completely discarded but simply modified to align with God’s will. Romans 12 also provides some valuable instructions and guidelines for living the Christian life with others.

Many cultural elements can be redeemed and continue. The essential change takes place in a person’s heart and allegiance. (658)

A disciples’ central motivation is the love of Jesus. This love motivates obedience, not law, obligation or a change in religion.” (747)

One movement leader notes, “When we don’t pray, we’re just working. But when we pray, God works” (576) In the specific network author Aychi works with there are over 700 groups of intercessors.

“When we share the good news with families, we don’t ask them to join a new religion. We invite them to start a new relationship—a relationship with Jesus.” (622)

So it goes.

In other words, this book is not so much a “what” but a “how to.” This is what they have seen that works. Because it is based on biblical instructions and patterns, the basic approach could work for anyone. I suspect that Western believers working in Western countries could adapt this with very minor modifications. Indeed, from what I have read of the Alpha Course in some European countries, a similar approach to spreading the gospel and church life is already working in less exotic places.

We don’t say much about other peoples’ prophets or their beliefs. We speak only about Christ, salvation, and the Bible. Through this strategy, God has given us many new disciples. (650)

A key scripture is Matthew 28:18-20:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Notice what one of the leaders says about that:

If we don’t teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded, their group can function as a club, but not as an ekklesia—a biblical church…Jesus didn’t say “Teach them everything I have taught you,” but “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” The disciple making process must include teaching believers to obey all the Lord’s commands. They don’t know all his commands at first, but they make a faith commitment to follow Jesus wherever he leads, obeying each of his commands as they learn them. Knowledge without obedience is useless. (1021)

Making disciples means an obedience-based approach opposed to a knowledge-based approach.

For some groups they have what they call a “Saul to Paul” strategy. They intentionlly focus on devout religious leaders. They are respected, and many times when they learn about Jesus, they follow. They already understand a supernatural commitment.

They say they see miracles and deliverance ministry about sixty percent of the time when they begin to minister in a new location. Signs can get people’s attention, but studying the Bible shows more about the nature and truth of God.

Disciple making is not an individualistic goal; we do this together. When we cultivate relationships, we see much better outcomes. (1653)

People need to feel, “This is our Jesus, who has come to save us,” not, “this is their Jesus whom they’re trying to coerce me to accept.” (1276)

Living Fire repeatedly notes that Jesus’ method was not so much formal training for a ministerial position, but observation and study in order to make disciples who themselves become disciple makers. God sets apart leaders not based so much on education but how they live the Christian life, share the word, and are willing to do so. “The word of God is our central authority, and obedience to Scripture shapes everything we do” (1384).

There is a lot more to learn here. This review barely touched on leadership, but finding and making leaders is important for any church to grow. They also emphasize “a plurality of leaders,” not just a single pastor serving alone.

The steps enumerated in this book are relatively simple. Anyone can work from such an outline. Indeed, in the context of an oral culture which is typical of many of the places here, listening and sharing can be as effective as reading.

I would encourage anyone interested in church growth to check out this book. It is practical, biblical, and experience shows that it works.

N.B. We have received a pre-publication review copy of this book. Its release date is January 15, 2025. Parenthetical references are Kindle locations, not page numbers.

David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas. Random, 2004.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past. (Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” 1.1-3)

In my beginning is my end…
In my end is my beginning. (Eliot, “East Coker,” 1.1, 5.38)

Cloud Atlas is another one of those books I have wanted to read. I can honestly say that I have never read anything quite like it. It is genre-bending, clever, and entertaining. Parts may not be especially easy to read, but it is worth sticking it out.

The title comes from the name of a musical composition by one of the characters in the novel, the Cloud Atlas Sextet. Unlike, say Infinite Jest, however, the composition does not play a very big part in the overall tale. Still the title does suggest the transience of things. Clouds are always changing their shapes and locations; it would be futile indeed to try to map them out in a book the way Rand McNally maps out countries and continents in an atlas.

The story’s organization is interesting and significant. The book is made up of six separate and vaguely related stories. Each story or novella is from a different time period and presents a different style. They are presented in chronological order and then conclude in reverse order.

The first story which begins and ends the book is “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing.” This reads like Robinson Crusoe in style and like Melville’s nonfiction in content. It mentions Typee. It begins on Chatham Island, a small island off the coast of New Zealand where Ewing’s ship has landed. He observed the conquest and basic eradication of the indigenous people on the island by the Maori, the first settlers of New Zealand proper: in other words, colonizing by those who would themselves be colonized. Plus ça change…

Ewing sets sail and spends some time on one of the smaller Society Islands (Tahiti is the largest in that archipelago). The episode which ends the book has him observe things there and then move on to their final destination, Hawaii. The story is set around 1859-1860. It is very typical of the kind of writing and travelogue from that time period.

The second and penultimate story is entitled “Letters from Zedelghem.” This is set in the 1920s and is epistolary in nature. It is a series of letters written by a young Englishman Frobisher from Belgium to his friend in England, Sixsmith. Frobisher is a musician and composer who has been hired by the elderly composer Vyvyan Ayrs as an amanuensis and helper. Ayrs is English but now lives in Belgium.

The plot of this section has echoes of novels from the time period. When I began reading it, I thought of a comment by a literary critic in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia: “Brideshead Regurgitated.” Think of English writers from this period like Maugham or Woolf. Frobisher gets taken advantage of, but he also exploits others as he makes his way through the highbrow music world and the Ayrs family’s drama. While in Belgium, he works on his Cloud Atlas Sextet.

Ayrs owns an extensive library which includes the manuscript of Adam Ewing’s journal. Frobisher reads it with fascination, but is frustrated because it only contains the first half of the voyage, ending where the first part of Cloud Atlas ends. It is no spoiler to say that later he locates the second half and is able to finish reading the travelogue—which is, of course, the last part or “chapter” of Cloud Atlas.

The next section carries the ironic title “Half-Lives.” It is a mystery-thriller set in the California of 1975-1976. Ford is president and Carter is campaigning. Our main character is a young investigative reporter Luisa Rey. She is looking into the corruption and potential safety issues involving the building of nuclear power plant on the California coast.

The elderly and respected nuclear scientist Sixsmith (yes, Frobisher’s buddy fifty years later) fears the planned construction will not be safe enough. He suddenly “commits suicide,” but Rey and others suspect murder. Rey herself gets on somebody’s hit list. Thugs seem to be everywhere. We also learn that Rey likes chamber music and is a fan of Frobisher’s Cloud Atlas Sextet.

The dangers Rey experiences and the attempt to expose the corruption and murders connected with the power plant make up the plot. The title could be considered ironic because, of course, the term half-lives refers to radioactive elements but like the other stories, it is told in halves, after the first part of the Zedelghem letters and before the second part.

“The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish” follows. This is contemporary, that is, early twenty-first century. Cavendish makes a living as a London vanity publisher who suddenly has a bestseller, something unexpected in his line of work. Without going into too much detail, he finds himself swamped with book proposals and manuscripts of writers who are not looking for a self-published approach. Before he can sort things out, he is committed to a home for the elderly near Hull.

One manuscript he has received is the story of Luisa Rey. Again, he has just read the first half when he is committed. The second half of his story is how he manages to escape. This story has lots of irony and does typify the style and plot of a number of contemporary stories.

The last two stories are set in the future. The first of the two, “An Orison of Somni-451” describes a post-apocalyptic world which is a cross between 1984 and Brave New World. Much of the world is uninhabitable because of a nuclear holocaust. The Juche government of North Korea rules much of the Orient. The government is called the Unanimity—in other words, everyone is to believe and think the same way.

Many or most of the people are clones, bred in flasks for different types of work, not unlike the alphas through epsilons of Brave New World. One of the clones is Somni-451, in other words, the 451st iteration of a “person” named Somni. A little like Winston Smith, Somni-451 behaves as an independent thinker rather than a “unanimous” type. However, she is able to overcome her clone-servant status. As she learns about the society around her, we get a pessimistic view of a post-apocalyptic Dystopia. This section tells me why the book as a whole is sometimes considered science fiction.

Her story is told with some distinctive words and spellings, perhaps echoing A Clockwork Orange. All movies are called disneys, for example. One disney she has enjoyed is about Timothy Cavendish. Again, there is not much to explicitly connect the disparate tales, but there is a small connection.

The last story is the one in the middle. “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Everythin’ After” is the only one written in one part since it is the last chronologically. It is set some time after the story of Somni-451 because Somni is referred to a number of times as some kind of goddess or wise “Abbess.” Instead of a diary, novel, or film, it seems Somni’s story had been told by word of mouth, or as scholars would say, via oral tradition. One of the Somnis (whether it was #451 is unclear) apparently came—or escaped—to live on the Big Island of Hawaii where the story is set.

The story may be most challenging to read because it is told in a modified Hawaiian Pidgin. Hawaii is not part of the Asian dystopia, but people from Asia do some trading with Hawaii. Much of the story focuses on Meronym, an Asian and probable clone descendant who comes to live for a year on the Big Island to learn the customs and to promote trade.

Hawaii has become like a pre-civilized tribal island. Our narrator belongs to a tribe in the north of the island. They get attacked and some are killed by the tribe or gang from Kona on the west of the island. While there are traditions and some trade, the overall effect is one of lawlessness, perhaps reminiscent of something by Cormac McCarthy. Still, our narrator and his friends and family try to survive and make a living. If too much conformity brings order and repression with it as in the Juche Unanimty of the future Asia, anarchy and tribalism can be just as oppressive though in a different way.

After the story of Sloosha’s Crossing, Cloud Atlas unwinds in the opposite direction from which it came together. We read then about what happens to Somni-451 and the discoveries she makes about the Asian Brave New World. We learn what happens Cavendish, then what Luisa Rey does. Finally, we get a resolution of sorts to Frobisher and his music. Among other things, Frobisher discovers the second part of Ewing’s diary which completes Mitchell’s novel.

Many novels these days will have different narrators for different chapters. While that technique goes back at least to Castle Rackrent and Wuthering Heights, the approach has become popular in recent years. Mitchell takes that and turns it into something else: Part travelogue, part family drama, part technothriller, part man against the world, then a science-fiction dystopia, and finally an anarchic tale told in a patois.

After reading about a third of the book, I was not sure what was going on in the work as a whole. At the end, I found it satisfying. Cloud Atlas is clever and fascinating, yet somehow it manages to hang together. There are slight threads connecting the stories, but overall it is an examination of human nature from a variety of perspectives and conflicts. Sonmi-451 learns that even no conflict is a conflict. The first and last “chapters” deliberately mention Melville. When I finished Cloud Atlas, I could not help but think of the final words of Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener:

Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!

Or as Shakespeare wrote and Huxley echoed:

O brave new world,
That has such people in it! (Tmp. 5.1.69-70)

David Rosenfelt. Dog Day Afternoon. Minotaur, 2024.

Dog Day Afternoon by David Rosenfelt (not Patrick Mann) is the most recent of the Andy Carpenter legal mysteries. Fans of these books understand they will be getting an original, clever, and exciting tale. As is typical, the title and cover are a bit misleading, though a dog is very peripherally involved.

Carpenter is a semi-retired lawyer who supports and helps out at a dog shelter. So does his friend and sometime co-worker Marcus. Marcus has a friend who is in big trouble. Someone has entered a very well-known personal injury law firm and shot six people to death. Although the shooter was masked, one of the survivors recognizes him as Nick, a young “gopher” at the firm who had not come to work that day.

Nick has a very unusual story. He says that on that day he was mysteriously rendered unconscious outside his apartment, and when he came to, he was chained inside some kind of warehouse. He was there for a few days and then released on a highway median. He had a bag over his head in the car so he could not see where he had come from or where he was going. Whenever his two captors appeared to him, they were wearing masks.

Meanwhile, his face was all over the news. By the time they release him, a major manhunt has begun. Marcus and Andy convince him that he has to turn himself in. He insists he is innocent, but he was identified. Not only that, but a pistol was found near his apartment that matched the ballistics of the fatal bullets, and the pistol has his fingerprints.

To the district attorney, it looks like an open and shut case. Andy only takes the case because of Marcus’s insistence. Once again, Andy has to put together a team to defend Nick and see if (1) Nick is telling the truth and (2), if so, what really happened.

Included in the team are his wife who is a policewoman, a friend who is a computer expert, and Marcus. Marcus is a veteran who, shall we say, is very good at hand-to-hand combat.

The story really grabbed me this time, and I found it hard to put down. The crime was very cleverly planned, so the team that solves the mystery had to be even more clever.

In it we discover some people whom the law firm helped out, but who seemed to have been paid less than what they were told they would get—yet they did not complain about being short-changed. Though the story is set in New Jersey, the land of The Sopranos, there appears to be a connection with a criminal organization out of Chicago.

It seems as though there may have been two people at the firm who were specifically targeted by the killer, one of the partners who specialized in malpractice cases, and an insurance executive who happened to be meeting with that partner. No one seems to know what they were planning to discuss, but the partner had sent out an email that he did not want anyone to leave work early that day because he would have an important announcement.

Slowly, maybe too slowly, what actually happened that day becomes clearer. In the meantime there are a couple of more murders of people who may have had connections to the crime. Andy and his friends may be in danger themselves. The mystery becomes a thriller, and an exciting one at that. Very clever, a bit complicated, but also something we can imagine. Since most of the tale is told in the first person, we know that Andy is still alive as he is telling the story, but there are some close calls…

William Faulkner. The Portable Faulkner. 1946; Edited by Malcolm Cowley, Viking, 1963.

The Portable Faulkner belongs to the well-known series of “Portable” anthologies by Viking Press. Readers may recognize the editor Malcolm Cowley as a well-known critic in his own right. Anyone who is studying Faulkner seriously should read his introduction and various commentaries in this book.

There are a total of eighteen selections in this book. All relate in some way to Yoknapatawpha County or the Mississippi Delta which is the setting of most of Faulkner’s tales. They are arranged historically—not by when the stories were written but by when the stories take place.

The first story, “A Justice,” then, is set in 1820 and describes in some detail the early settlement of Faulkner’s county by the Compson family. In it we meet the Native Americans who lived there before the European settlers and African slaves came. One of the important recurring characters is Sam Fathers.

The last story, “Delta Autumn” is set around 1940. The main character is Isaac “Ike” McCaslin, who in 1940 is about eighty years old. We first read about him when he is around ten in The Bear, a short novel that also appears in this collection.

The Bear has been published in three different versions. The one in this collection is the longest and the one Faulkner preferred. It does have an effective stream of consciousness narrative, but its density may make the reader miss some of the main ideas. The shorter version is more focused and ends with Ike’s father talking to him about the Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” That powerful ending gets a buried in the longer version—though Faulkner uses italics to try to set it off—but the longer version is still worth reading.

The other novel-length story (some might say novella) is Old Man. It is a somewhat wild story set in the 1927 Mississippi River flood. Historically, much of the Mississippi Delta (about a quarter of the state) was flooded. In our story we have a convict from the notorious Parchman Farm penal colony who, when the prison farm is flooded, escapes in a skiff. One of the wardens instructs him to rescue a woman and a man in another place. Much of the story is about the adventures the convict and the woman, who turns out to be pregnant. The ending may be making a statement about life in an institution, whether a prison or some other place.

Although there are many interesting characters in these stories, the main character is really the American South. We have strong-willed characters, rugged farmers making something out of nothing, people conscious of manners and propriety, those prejudiced against Indians and blacks, swindlers, carpetbaggers, former Confederate soldiers, slaves and ex-slaves, Native Americans, those who fit in, and those who do not. But they all reflect the character of those from the South.

F. Scott Fitzgerald called irony the Holy Ghost of the twentieth century. If that is the case, then Faulkner is one of the most inspired writers. Occasionally, the irony is funny. There is a certain amount of humor in stories like “Spotted Horses” and “Death Drag.” With “Spotted Horses” we are reminded that before there were used car salesmen, there were horse traders. “Death Drag” is an almost silly story set in the 1920s when a small airplane lands in the county.

Even some of the more serious stories contain strangely humorous images. In “A Justice” we are to imagine a grounded steamboat towed on land over a dozen miles so an early settler could have a bigger house on his “plantation.”

One especially striking tale is the fairly well-known “A Rose for Emily.” It is the most gothic story in the collection and could be compared to other tales by Southerners Poe or O’Connor.

My favorite story in the collection is probably my favorite Faulkner story of the ones I have read. It ends his collection Go Down Moses and it ends this collection as being the most recent chronologically as noted above. “Delta Autumn” ties the Faulkner mythos and major themes together. The boy in The Bear, Ike McCaslin is now an old man. He has to travel much farther to find wilderness for his traditional November hunt. Others come with him including younger men representing the current generation of Edmonds and Legates. There are observations about the wilderness, speculations about the purposes of God, and powerful reflections on race relations. It is a gem. It helps to know the background of the McCaslin and Edmonds families, and the black descendants of the Beauchamps and Tomie’s Terrell, but if this were the only story Faulkner wrote, he would be remembered for it.

The introduction and chapter headings by Malcolm Cowley are well worth reading. Cowley knew most of the Lost Generation writers and personally worked with Faulkner putting this collection together. He shows a lot of understanding and some very acute observations. He notes, for example, that the title Light in August has nothing to do with illumination. A pregnant woman was said to be “light” after she delivered her baby. In other words, it refers to Lena Grove and her due date.

I would like to end the review with what Cowley wrote about “Delta Autumn” in this book:

Old Ike McCaslin…is the most admirable of Faulkner’s characters in his life as a whole and in his relations to the Negroes. Through Sam Fathers, his master in woodlore, he had also become the spiritual heir of the Chickasaws; and therefore it is right that he should give the final judgment on the Yoknapatawpha story from the beginning. “No wonder,” he thinks on his last trip into the wilderness, “the ruined woods I used to know don’t cry for retribution! The people who have destroyed it will accomplish its revenge.” (652)

As another famous Southerner, Pogo, so profoundly put it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Helen MacDonald. Vesper Flights. Grove Press, 2020.

I had read good things about the writing of Helen MacDonald. I was happy to receive a copy of Vesper Flights as a serendipitous gift. I can see why her writing has received such positive accolades.

Vesper Flights is a collection of essays. Most of them are about nature in some way. One somewhat humorous essay describes how the author as an idealistic recent college graduate got a job with a falcon captive breeding program. It was hard work and everyone who worked there drove one another crazy, but she lasted four years and learned a lot about hawks—and ostriches and cattle. The experience also reintroduced her to the real world after her time in the ivory tower.

A theme in many of the essays is how people relate to nature, especially to animals. She clearly has a love for birds, but she also emphasizes that if we attempt to anthropomorphize them or try to explain their behavior in human terms, we miss things. For example, traditionally, displays of male birds were seen as a means to attract females. Yet in many cases we have realized that they have more to do with setting up territories than mating.

A few different essays remind us that animals sense things differently. Migrating birds, for example, can sense the earth’s magnetic field to help guide them. They also seem to have an almost instinctive memory of constellations and certain landmarks. We understand how bats use echolocation, but it would be impossible for humans to blindfold themselves and then squeak or holler and expect to learn what objects surround us. These essays often get us to reconsider our perceptions.

MacDonald’s control of language and use of metaphor and simile is exquisite. She is a true prose stylist. For example, as she observes a fledgling swift hesitantly taking a flight for the first time, she writes that it reminds her of an insect emerging from a pupa. There is a struggle, there is flight, and in both cases they have been transformed.

The title essay “Vesper Flights” may be the best in the collection. Here she also describes the flights of swifts at night. It seems that near dusk and dawn they fly low but as the night advances, they go higher and higher into the atmosphere to chase the insects at the higher levels. And then they come down around midnight and rise up again until daybreak approaches. Even here discussing birds, she makes connections with her own childhood fascination with the different levels or “spheres” in the earth’s atmosphere.

One of the most moving essays has nothing to do with nature. It is the story of a young man in Iran who converted to Christianity. He literally was escaping from the back door of his home while the security forces were at the front door. “Through many dangers, toils, and snares” he eventually made it to England. Even the relative safety of that land he has to be alert for gangs connected to Shi’ite Islamists.

I confess that there might be a few duds. One essay, for example, is a kind of speculation on extraterrestrial life in the universe, but there are only two or three of those. Overall, this is a feast for anyone interested in nature or who wants to read good writing. I can easily imagine a few of these ending up in anthologies of rhetoric or literary nonfiction. I cannot help but think of the lines from Joni Mitchell’s “Clouds”:

Something’s lost and something’s gained by living every day.

Sometimes even loss brings growth and understanding.