Carl Hiaasen. Scat. New York: Knopf, 2009. Print.

Scat is one of Carl Hiaasen’s Florida eco-adventures for young adults. It is not as funny as Chomp or Skink—No Surrender, but it is still an engaging tale with some crazy characters.

Nick Waters and Marta Gonzalez are about the only somewhat normal characters in Scat—typical Hiaasen, down-to-earth kids with wacko grown-ups. Their biology teacher Mrs. Starch disappeared on a field trip to Black Vine Swamp. Her substitute, Dr. Waxmo, chooses random pages for the students to memorize instead of attempting to teach a lesson.

Mrs. Starch is a little unusual herself. She has a collection of stuffed animals in her house—that is, real animals mounted by a taxidermist, not Teddy bears—including a stuffed rat named after a former student. She lives alone. Her husband left her years ago. Rumors about her abound.

Then there is Duane Scrod, Jr., another student in the biology class. He likes to be called Smoke. His mother left his father and him one day and flew to Paris where she has lived ever since. He and his father live in a rundown cabin with a pet Macaw that speaks three languages. His father likes guns, hates, the government, and comes across initially as a stereotyped redneck. However, Mr. Scrod listens to classical music.

Twilly Spree is a little like Clinton Tyree from Skink—No Surrender. He lives away from other people, usually in a tent in the wilderness. He has inherited a lot of money, so he is free to do what he wants. He lives simply and devotes his life to wilderness preservation. Let us just say that he is not always careful about discerning the difference between activism and eco-terrorism.

And there are the bad guys. Drake McBride, the owner of a wildcat oil company, pretends to be a Texas cowboy though he has never ridden a horse in his life and mangles the cowboy slang. His business partner Jimmy Lee Bayliss actually knows about oil drilling, but the two men get greedy when they discover oil in a part of the Black Vine Swamp that is owned by the state.

The title Scat has a double meaning here. It is common expression used to shoo away cats. In Scat the cat of concern is the endangered Florida panther. Scat is also digestive matter which animals leave behind, and finding panther scat helps Twilly and Smoke track a panther through the swamps.

There is a lot more, but even these details show how the action will all come together in Hiaasen’s usual wild style.

N.B.: If this reviewer ever moves to Florida, Carl Hiaasen will be partly to blame.

Kevin Kwan. Crazy Rich Asians. New York: Doubleday, 2013. Print.

Crazy Rich Asians reminded me of something by Kingsley Amis like Lucky Jim. It is over the top British humor. The author lives in New York but was raised in Singapore which has strong British roots. People should have a lot of fun with it.

Nick and Rachel are university junior faculty in New York City who have developed a very happy mutual relationship. Nick is beginning to think about popping the question. Rachel Chu’s mother and other relatives live in California, and Nick has visited them a few times. Nick Young is from Singapore and because his best friend Colin is getting married there, Rachel is finally going to meet his family and see how and where he grew up.

Little does she realize that the Youngs are one of the richest families in the world. So a lot of the humor and conflict is of the fish out of water variety. As an undergrad at Stanford, Rachel had a Singaporean roommate, Peik Lin Goh, who was from a millionaire family. But even her family was not in the same league, and she was not aware of the reputation of the Youngs.

At one point Peik Lin brings Rachel in an hour’s notice to a “wardrobe intervention” at a very exclusive couturier. So, yes, Rachel knows how to live like the upper crust. But when she saw the Young estate on Singapore—it is blocked on Google Earth as if it were a military site—even Peik Lin exclaims: “I have no idea who these people are. But I can tell you one thing—these people are richer than God.” (123, italics in original)

When we finally get to the wedding celebration, it makes Princess Di’s look like an elopement. The Vienna Boys’ Choir is flown in to Singapore for the service. One of several performing acts besides Asian pop stars is Cirque du Soleil. For this, even the children would not be caught dead in anything but designer exclusives.

Some of the conflict is predictable. Rachel does not feel like she fits in. A few women are very kind and helpful to her—Nick’s cousin Astrid, whose own husband is having doubts about marrying such wealth, and, of course, Peik Lin. Others are quite cruel, assuming that she is a gold digger, they do their best to make her feel unwelcome. American “mean girls” could learn a few things from them.

There is an amusing cast of minor characters. The gossipy Cassandra keeps family members and the media informed about what the upper crust Asian socialites are up to. The jocular Oliver has a clever rejoinder to and about nearly everyone. The salacious Kitty, a Hong Kong actress, is trying to get her claws (a coincidence in her name?) into the richest guy she can find. And Nick’s mother Eleanor Young—is she evil or does she have her son’s best interests at heart?

There is a lot of name-dropping. Some names are fictional like certain Chinese millionaires or Singaporean real estate tycoons. Some like the Sultan of Brunei are not. Singaporean Kwan writes as if he is familiar with the jet set in his home. The prep schools are important. So is belonging to the right church. The socially conscious Singaporean Chinese may be Buddhist or Taoist, but they send their kids to the Methodist Sunday School. The reader quickly loses track of all the couturier clothes, chartered aircraft, yachts, and private islands in the story.

Apart from the crazy rich Asians (Rachel’s term), Kwan makes Singapore sound like a great place to visit. The unique culture is a mix of Malay, British, Chinese (Min Nan, Cantonese, and Mandarin), with some Indian, Burmese, Thai, Filipino, and Indonesian thrown in. The descriptions of even the ordinary food there makes it sound like every Singaporean is a foodie.

While the reader can be in awe or laughing out loud at some of the excesses, the theme of Crazy Rich Asians is one that runs through British literature. Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Tennyson, and many others raise the question of what is true nobility. Some of the people have Malay honorifics or spouses from the Thai royal family (a rather extensive pool to draw from if you think about it), and like many wealthy Americans they act like royalty even if they are not. The real question, though, is not one of status but who among the crazy rich Asians are truly noble in character.

We do meet a few. There are reasons why Nick and Colin are good friends. We learn of a doctor who during the Japanese occupation was able to save the lives of some Singaporeans singled out for slave labor camps or firing squads. We see the selflessness of Charlie Wu who goes out of his way for an old friend.

Will Nick and Rachel’s relationship last or will wicked mama Eleanor and host of jealous young socialites destroy it? Does Rachel even fit in?

I attended a prestigious college. It is even mentioned favorably in Crazy Rich Asians. Once I had been invited to a socially prominent fancy ball. I was invited to join a couple of the exclusive campus clubs. I admit that the guys at the clubs were quite friendly and on the surface not at all pretentious, but I just knew that they were not for me. A few friends were jealous that I had been invited, but even then I suppose I was listening to a beat of a different drummer.

Do I have any regret of not aspiring to more money and status? Only when sometimes I wish I were rich enough to own or boat or travel more—like to go to Singapore to sample some of those tempting dishes.

There may be two caveats about Crazy Rich Asians. The author himself is Chinese from Singapore, but the novel still might fit in with Western stereotypes of wily oriental gentlemen. As in America, there is both the old wealth and the new wealth. We have the Youngs whose old wealth is preserved in banking and real estate and Charlie Wu whose fortune comes from computers and electronics. Some are modest, some are flamboyant. This could be read as a contemporary version of a Fitzgerald novel. It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote, “The rich are different from you and me.” Of course, Ernest Hemingway’s rejoinder was simply. “Yes, they have money.”

The second caveat is the Crazy Rich Asians does have some salty language. Most of it is used by characters who are not sympathetic, but some readers may find it offensive.

At times whenever we mere peons read about the wealthy, we can get envious. What was that song Lucky Jim? “Oh, Lucky Jim, how I envy him”? Some things in their lives are easier or nicer, but they are no happier. The Bible reminds us that when wealth increases, so do they who try to take it away. (Ecclesiastes 5:11) God has something better. That hope is an anchor (Hebrews 6:19)—perhaps we cannot see it now, but Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us. (John 14:2) Yes, we can be impressed with extravagance, but if someone were really richer than God, would it make any difference?

One slight surprise: I have noted in previous reviews that sometimes self-published works have misspellings. It may be the writer did not know the spelling or it may have been overlooked or missed during editing. This novel is published by a well-known and reputable publisher, and it also contains a couple of misspellings such as confusion over peel and peal. It is a little surprising, but this may also let us know that the book publishing business is not what it used to be.

Charles Slack. Liberty’s First Crisis. New York: Atlantic, 2015. Print.

The subtitle of Liberty’s First Crisis is Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech. It is truly about the first crisis in the brand-new United States of America involving one of the basic liberties suggested in the Declaration of Independence and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This book is about the fortunately brief record of the Sedition Act and especially about its victims.

The Sedition Act was passed by a Federalist Congress and signed into law by President John Adams. One interesting detail, which proved that its intent was to silence political opposition, is that it had a built-in expiration date, namely the day after Adams’ term would end.

Slack has written a few biographies and is a very good story teller. Liberty’s First Crisis is no exception. Fortunately, at least looking at the big picture, there were relatively few people who were arrested or harassed by the enforcement of the law. And they were a mixed bunch.

In some ways, the most outrageous was a sitting United Congressman who criticized the president and was jailed for nearly two years. He was actually re-elected by the people in his Vermont district while he was in jail. Ironically, he had originally emigrated from Ireland to America for the promise of freedom.

Matthew Lyon continued to write and speak while in jail. When he was released, two months into his new congressional term, he took his time going to Philadelphia. He knew he could not be rearrested because the Constitution protected senators and representatives while en route to the national capital.

One man who had had too much to drink at a tavern was fined for sedition when he made a joke about firing a gun at the president’s backside. Another, in Massachusetts, who was arrested and served jail time, had erected a liberty pole, trying to resurrect a patriotic symbol specifically to protest the Act.

Three men arrested or harassed by the law were printers or publishers and had significant connections. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were aroused by the injustice of the Sedition Act. J. T. Callender was a friend of Thomas Jefferson. Later they would have a falling out and Callender would write editorials attacking President Jefferson.

While Jefferson ignored the attacks, one of the accusations Callender made was that Jefferson had had children by one of his slaves. That was the only contemporary account which survived making such an accusation, and it may have been a politically motivated lie, but nearly two hundred years later it did result in a genetic investigation into the descendants of Sally Hemings.

Another person arrested under the Act was a close associate of scientist Joseph Priestly. Both men had come to America, partly because of the influence of Benjamin Franklin, and they, too, found that their freedom would be limited, at least for a while.

One person who perhaps struggled most valiantly against government censorship under the Sedition Act was Benjamin Franklin Bache, Franklin’s grandson who continued to operate Franklin’s Philadelphia newspaper. Bache died prematurely in a yellow fever epidemic, and his wife would continue the cause.

One very striking thing about articles and other publications on both sides of the aisle was their very strong language. A lot of the rhetoric is very crass and crude. Thirty years ago it would have sounded extreme, but nowadays it would fit in seamlessly on many Internet sites.

While the stories of these men makes for great reading, this reviewer makes one recommendation. Even if the reader is not interested in the book as a whole, I believe every American ought to read the last chapter. This makes the case that we still have to be wary and be wise about attempts to stifle free speech and the free press today.

Slack cites, for example, Cass Sunstein, a law professor who was President Obama’s chief regulatory advisor. Sunstein has proposed that “free speech ought to be regulated” and the new government regulations on the Internet appear to be headed in that direction. (266) An article in a recent issue of Harvard Magazine (issued after Liberty’s First Crisis had been accepted for publication) quotes Sunstein saying that the idea that “individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them” is wrong. Instead, individuals need a strong government to tell them how to behave!

I am reminded when I attended college and had a discussion with a fellow student. I expressed concern about political movements that would restrict freedom of religion and freedom of speech. His response — “So what?” — sounded just like Mr. Sunstein.

You’ve got to read Chapter 31 of Liberty’s First Crisis!

What follows is more of a rant than a review, but this is written in reaction to Slack’s book.

Liberty’s First Crisis tells the sad story of Col. Algernon Sidney, who was arrested in England in 1683 and convicted of treason against King Charles II. Although it was not published until 1698, he was found in possession of a manuscript he had written advocating freedom of speech. He would be executed by hanging for the “crime.” Jefferson would cite Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government as the best primer on government and natural rights. (97)

Since the book went back to the time of Charles II, I was a little surprised and perhaps disappointed that it did not mention John Milton’s Areopagitica. This is the seminal work on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Indeed, Sidney quoted quite freely from Areopagitica in his Discourses. Milton would be tried in 1660 when the royalists first took over from the Puritans for being a regicide. He wrote several works defending the trial and execution of King Charles I by the Puritan Parliament.

Though Milton’s crime was punishable by death, some prominent Cavalier poets interceded on his behalf, and his sentence was modified. He lost all his money and extensive real estate holdings except one country cottage to the government. He had already been blind for a dozen years. Though he wrote political tracts up to the time he was arrested, afterwards he became best known for writing the epic Paradise Lost.

Slack’s last chapter expresses a valid concern that freedom of the press and speech could be endangered in the United States, not by laws, but by regulations such as those proposed concerning the Internet or the now-defunct Fairness Doctrine for broadcast media.

Liberty’s First Crisis, though, fails to mention the very strident ongoing censorship initiated not by legislation but by court rulings. Since 1963 all kinds of discussions have been censored or prohibited by court order, especially those in government schools and government facilities.

In Adams’ day, if you did not like what someone said or wrote, you could get a law passed. Now, it is really easier. Just hire an elitist lawyer and the threat of lawsuit silences most people, and those who continue get thrown before a judge who is a friend of the lawyer, and they are also effectively silenced or threatened with prison if they do not comply. We saw this with anti-abortion protestors and especially in the schools.

Let me give some examples.

The half life of Carbon-14 is about 5700 years. If you do the math, after 100,000 years there would only be less than 2¹⁷ or 1/131,000 of the original Carbon-14 atoms left, making them very rare. If we are talking a million years, then this would be 2¹⁷⁵ or about 479 followed by fifty zeroes. In other words if the universe were a million years old, Carbon-14 would be extinct or impossible to find. So if the universe is 12-14 billion years old, why can we even measure Carbon-14? (We could ask the same question about numerous unstable isotopes with measurable half-lives).

The loss of energy in the earth’s magnetic field is measurable over time. If we accept the current rate of loss as being uniform, when we extrapolate back 10,000 years, the magnetic field would have been more powerful than that of a star. The earth itself would have been so hot it would have been molten. How did all this come about in less than 10,000 years if the solid earth is supposed to be 4 billion years old?

Similarly, the salinity of the oceans is measurable and continue to increase as the world’s rivers continue to empty dissolved minerals into the seas. The changes are measurable, and if we measure the increase of sodium over time and extrapolate back, the seas would have had no sodium at all 10,000 years ago. For nearly all other elements, the numbers are smaller than that. If the seas are no older than 10,000 years, how then did life emerge from the seas 400 million years ago?

When human population is extrapolated back, it usually reaches its “zero” point or place of no growth at some time between 2500 and 3000 BC, depending on the model. If humans have been on the earth 40,000 to 200,000 years, where were they before 3000 BC?

Soft tissues have been found in fossil worms, sea scorpions, and dinosaurs (even a T-rex) some of which are said to be older than half a billion years. How is this possible?

The moon is said to be approximately 4 billion years old. It has no atmosphere and is subject to a “bombardment” of particles and meteors, especially during times of meteor showers. When NASA designed its fist lunar vehicle, it was given large, wide wheels like a dune buggy because it was assumed that the moon would be covered with a deep layer of dust from the billions of years of cosmic particles breaking its surface and adding to it. When man landed on the moon in 1969, there was a less than an inch of dust on the surface. How could that be if the moon is so old?

Darwin and other hypothesized that human races appeared at different times from different primates. Recent DNA studies have shown that all mankind had its origin with a single DNA type. Was Darwin wrong?

Scientists estimate that the average mutation rate in human mitochondria is about 0.5 per generation. This “genetic clock” dates the time when humans would have been “new,” i.e. free of mutations at some time between 5,115 and 8,892 years ago. This is a lot closer to what Moses said than was Darwin hypothesized.

Sadly, it is against court rulings to even raise these questions or discuss them publicly in schools and other government institutions. These are just samples. There are many others.

The First Amendment of the Constitution does say “Congress shall make no law…” and Congress has made no law restricting such things. But the courts have. Notice, too, that there is nothing specifically religious in what I wrote above, but such questions and observations are still banned, as are prayers and other types of directly religious references.

A Chinese scientist who was in the United States presenting some information about a fossil feathered dinosaur with soft tissue intact he had found, if I recall correctly, was surprised when after his presentation he received no questions or comments. When he asked his host about this, his host said no one in the audience wanted to appear as if he were questioning Darwinism.

The scientist said, “I see. In China we can criticize Darwin but get in trouble if we criticize our government. In the United States you may criticize your government but you get in trouble if you criticize Darwin.”

As the elites in American become more secularized, those who are even suspect of harboring beliefs in God or the supernatural are becoming more marginalized. It is not Congress, but the courts that have been leading the modern American march towards greater censorship in the last fifty years. Though, in fairness, it was the courts that overturned recent laws restricting speech during elections. Like the original Sedition Act, those had the effect of protecting incumbents even more than they already are protected.

Thank you, Liberty’s First Crisis, for making us more aware, but there is a lot more out there to bring in. As Slack himself wrote:

Still, the Bill of Rights is not the source of our rights but a reflection of them, a mechanism for protecting them. This, of course, is what the Founders meant by unalienable rights being derived from nature or the Creator, as distinct from privileges, which can be granted (or revoked) by men. (171)

Let freedom ring!

Bill Nowlin and Jim Prime. Blood Feud. Cambridge MA: Rounder, 2005. Print.

Blood Feud is one of several books on the 2004 Boston Red Sox. This one focused on the American League Championship Series (ALCS), the first time in major league baseball history that a team won four straight games in a postseason series after losing the first three. Depending on your perspective, it was either a great comeback or a great choke.

What distinguishes Blood Feud is that it goes through the whole history of the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox feud starting in 1903 with the New York Highlanders and Boston Americans. At times it can be dry, but its details emphasize to fans of both teams what it was like, especially for Red Sox fans after 1918.

The authors call it a feud. This was not a rivalry. A rivalry is like Harvard-Yale which most years either team has a chance of winning. Before the 1999 ALCS which featured the two teams, Yogi Berra told Derek Jeter, “Don’t worry about them. They’ve been trying to beat us for 80 years.” (159) According to ESPN, Berra repeated this to Bernie Williams before game seven in 2004.

While most of the book is some what dispassionate details of the challenges faced by Boston against New York, the authors attempt to characterize the Red Sox vs. Yankees as good vs. evil. It is true that fans of most other baseball teams hate the Yankees because of their domination. The authors make a case, though, that the Yankees embody the seven deadly sins. Then, of course, they raise the existential question: Why does evil always seem to triumph? We observe this in life many times. So we observe it in baseball.

There are some interesting details amid the collection of thousands of factoids.

One of the cheapest shots ever made by the Yankees was made by their 1930s owner Col. Jacob Ruppert. The Yankees still had lien on Fenway Park—part of the 1919 sale of Babe Ruth to New York was that the Yankees would lend Red Sox owner Harry Frazee $300,000 as a mortgage on the ball park. After the Sox swept the Yankees in a series, Ruppert was so angry that he called the note in full. This was after Tom Yawkey had taken over the Boston team, so he had no difficulty writing the check.

(Blood Feud does not date this episode, but Yawkey had taken over the Sox in 1933 and Ruppert died before the 1939 season. It sounds a little freaky today that the Yankees were part owners of Fenway Park for nearly twenty years, but the book points out that the Boston Globe was owned by the New York Times at the time it was published. Fortunately, in 2013 John Henry, part owner of the Red Sox, purchased the Globe.)

There are 65 pages of time line items from 1895 (Ruth’s birth) to 2004 and helpful sidebars. While some of these are dry, they do contain some curious items. In ten years from 1940 until 1950 (including time off for World War II) Ted Williams never had two games in a row where he failed to get on base whether by walk or hit. He has the record for Consecutive Games on Base Safely, 84 in 1949, ten more than DiMaggio’s 74 when he had his record 56 straight games with a hit. In fact, in 1949 Williams reached based in all but five games the whole season.

One sidebar summarizes all fourteen of the Red Sox’s extra-inning postseason games as of 2004 (9-4-1, ties were common before night lights). Another has excerpts from the baseball and umpire rule books describing interference by baserunners and its sanctions to help us see that, as the Fox Sports broadcasters said, the umpires “got it right” concerning A-Rod’s glove slap in game six of the ALCS.

The authors’ conclusion is not unlike that of the Book of Job in the Bible. God is aware of the evil, but evil is there to test the faithful, and sooner or later (with emphasis on the later), to paraphrase a DVD from 2004, faith is rewarded.

Two features of Blood Feud are an introduction by former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee and an afterword by former Red Sox infielder Johnny Pesky. They have two very different perspectives on the Yankees.

Lee really sounds like he hates them. Lefthander Lee’s nickname was Spaceman, and he always wore his emotions on his sleeve. Once Yankee Graig Nettles injured Lee’s shoulder in a brawl. That took him out for six weeks. Lee also played in the seventies when both franchises had teams that made it to the World Series (they both were good) and when free agency was relatively new.

Pesky, on the other hand, while acknowledging the frustration, expresses admiration for most of the Yankees. “We never saw the Yankees as enemies. It was just mutual respect, never a feud.” (281) He notes that in later times these was some animosity, especially between catchers Carlton Fisk and Thurman Munson (the seventies). Still, he admits, “You get tired of coming in second.” (282). And that is what Blood Feud is largely about. But it concludes with 2004 and because of the frustration the victory is so much sweeter.
As Emily Dickinson put it:

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed…

P.S. A personal postscript. Pesky here speaks very highly of Yogi Berra, and from all accounts he is a man of character in spite of his New York prejudices. I saw him play twice. He was in the 1961 All Star Game in Boston which I saw. Back then, you could get tickets the day of the game, even for an All Star Game.

I also saw game seven of the 1960 World Series. My father and I had a seat in the left field bleachers. When Mazeroski hit his home run in the bottom of the ninth, I lost the ball in the white afternoon sky so I kept my eye Berra, who was playing in left field that game. When I saw him turn around and raise his head without moving, I knew the ball had gone over the scoreboard for the winning homer!

The evil empire did not always win.

Caleb Coy. An Authentic Derivative. Chistiansburg VA: Caleb Coy Guard, 2015. E-book.

My copy of An Authentic Derivative tells me this was released in August 2015, so this book is hot off the press. Except that my copy is an e-book, so I guess that makes it hot off the hard drive or something.

Imagine The Great Gatsby told by a young and self-conscious David Foster Wallace who was born after 1980. That in a nutshell describes this story. Instead of using money to impress the girl of his dreams, the Gatsby character here uses his music to do the same.

The narrator, one Neil Oberlin (kneel, over the line?), is very much a questionable character like Nick Carraway (carried away?) who nevertheless sympathizes with the hero. Bob Fey (Fay was Daisy’s maiden name) is the sleazy music promoter—the Meyer Wolfsheim—who claims at the end that he “made” Garrett “Wick” Sedgwick.

Yes, An Authentic Derivative is indeed derivative. But it is derivative the way Macbeth derives from King Saul, and The Mayor of Casterbridge derives from Macbeth, and Things Fall Apart from The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Oh, An Authentic Derivative also mentions the medieval Persian tale of Layla and Majnan. Layla and Majnan were childhood friends, but Majnan (literally “madman”) is not socially acceptable to her father. She marries a nobleman and appears content enough. Majnan attempts unsuccessfully to win her back and goes crazy.

An Authentic Derivative might initially appeal to a narrower audience than Gatsby (though Gatsby was not a terribly big seller in Fitzgerald’s lifetime). Those who would really appreciate it are those who have followed indie rock for the last twenty years or so. When I was a teen, it was called underground music. Somewhere along the line it became alternative music, then alternative rock, then alt rock, and then independent rock or indie. I get it. I was “into” the underground stuff. For example, I like Tim Buckley. An Authentic Derivative refers to Buckley, but the context is about Tim’s son Jeff.

One big difference between Nick Carraway and Neil Oberlin is that Oberlin is much more intrusive. At times it sounds like he is preaching or editorializing or at least lecturing the reader. He is also very self-conscious. He frequently says things like I am being pedantic or I am being ironic. Is he being funny?

Our Daisy character is Oberlin’s cousin Tabitha Redding-Davis. Her husband Virgil is no hulking jock like Tom Buchanan, but he is a kind of snob. His snobbery is intellectual. As Tom Buchanan cites pseudo-scientific works he has read or heard of, so Virgil constantly refers to obscure books or articles in Slate or The Huffington Post. Wick was the only guy Tab liked before Virgil, but she apparently thought he was too much of a hick. Tabitha clearly thinks Virgil is smart.

An Authentic Derivative is very good at picking up details of the current zeitgeist the way that Gatsby did for the twenties. Tabitha and Virgil eloped, and some folks in Oberlin’s family think that Tab may not actually be married. Although Neil does not know anyone who witnessed the nuptials, he reasons that they must be married because, after all, they hyphenated their names together.

A slight echo of Wallace’s Infinite Jest appears in the music of Sedgwick. It is not as hypnotic as the Infinite Jest film is, but his last two albums are critically acclaimed, and he appears on his way up. Even Virgil likes his stuff. Unlike Tom Buchanan, Virgil does not appear aware of Tab’s past relationship with Wick or his intentions towards her.

Like Jay Gatsby, Sedgwick has identity issues. The novel is set in Nashville, Music City USA and Neil’s home town, but Wick settles there from Iowa not because of the music scene but because he has learned that Tabitha lives there. He was a traditional country music fan and has been disgusted that so many country stars have “sold out” for commercial success.

Once he saw a performance by Hoyt Murdock, a country singer then in his seventies whom Wick saw as a genius. But Murdock was not singing the kind of songs that were genuinely his. Sedgwick would recall:

[T]here he was, dead, and reanimated as something else, something hijacked, something phony. The song he played was not his own, the sound was not his own, the spirit was not his own. And worse still, the crowd was swallowing it with enormous glee. (175)

No, Wick was not going to sell out. Without going into detail, Wick confronts Murdock who then becomes the Dan Cody character for Wick.

Tabitha has a friend, Kenna, whom she tries to fix up with Neil. She is the Jordan Baker character. Neil dates her a few times because it is convenient, but he does not really care for her. Indeed, there are a lot of minor characters, more than in Gatsby, and Oberlin does not appear to care for any of them, really. At one point he says, “I am being condescending”—and he is, not just at that moment, but throughout nearly the entire novel.

Neil admires Wick because Wick will not sell out. Neil admits that he has had to. He is an artist. Wick asks him to design his latest album cover—though the real reason is so that Neil can connect him with cousin Tab. Neil has to make a living so he “does work” for pretty much anyone willing to pay. Wick, on the other hand, has stayed true to his vision and perhaps true to Tabitha in his own way.

Although the self-conscious title may suggest otherwise, An Authentic Derivative is its own story just as Macbeth is its own story. Still, there are clever echoes of Gatsby in the story. In The Great Gatsby, Nick spills quite a bit of ink naming some of the tycoons, politicians, and actors and actresses who attend Gatsby’s parties. At one point in An Authentic Derivative, Neil spends three to four pages listing the names of indie bands he has seen. I recognized some of the names, but if would not be surprised if, as in Gatsby, many of them are made up. (123-126)

In Gatsby, Nick mentions a few songs by name, and the songs contribute to the meaning of the story. For example, Daisy and Gatsby sing “Ain’t We Got Fun.” The lines “Not much money/Oh but honey/Ain’t we got fun” certainly suggest that love makes people happy more than money does. Similarly, I am glad I looked up the words to the lyrics of “Rococo” by Arcade Fire when it was first mentioned. Even actually listening to the song would help. Hint, hint.

At one point, perhaps the height of pretension or self-consciousness on Neil or the author’s part, Neil wears a “Te occidere possunt…” T-shirt. That is the Latin motto of the tennis academy in Infinite Jest. Yeah, we get it.

Just as Nick Carraway one time shares his true feelings with Gatsby, so one time Neil says something “real to him [Wick] about his music.” (226) It is just about the only time in the whole novel when Neil’s voice changes. It is nearly the only time he is not being pretentious, pedantic, or too clever. Perhaps it is the only time, to use the other meaning of voice changing, that Neil sounds mature.

Still, Neil can see the “real deal” in others occasionally. He notes that as Sedgwick tells the Hoyt Murdock story, Wick loses his affected Nashville accent and takes on his native Midwestern accent. Should I mention that like Jay Gatsby, Garrett Sedgwick is not his real name?

Just as Jordan gets miffed at Nick for “throwing her over” on the telephone, so Neil and Kenna break up while texting. He later would say cynically, perhaps speaking for his generation:

No guy would ever be good enough for her because no guy could treat her as well as her iPhone. (291)

There are a lot of stark observations about the under-35 adults of today. Those perhaps do echo Gatsby, even if most of the characters in An Authentic Derivative are not motivated by wealth.

Neil and his friend Joey, for example, are looking for something to give meaning to their lives. Neil especially is looking to the arts. The only ones who seem to be happy about their choices are the Redding-Davises and Neil’s roommate Greg. Virgil is studying theology in seminary, and Greg is going to be a missionary in Asia.

Oberlin avoids this. He was brought up in church but cannot bring himself to believe in God or Jesus. He confesses to Greg that he is a solipsist. That might be a good description of his generation’s religion—”I don’t believe in God or go to church or anything, but I am spiritual.” It is not the Other, the I-Thou, but the self. The only spirit is my own spirit.

Still, perhaps there is some hope. These are not the anchorless characters in The Art of Fielding who do not even know what the questions are. (I used a line from a Tim Buckley song to describe them—am I pretentious?) People in An Authentic Derivative are still looking. God’s promise is, “If you seek me, you will find me, if you search for me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) It is on His terms, not ours, but keep seeking.

P.S. This is a self-published work, and one that should be picked up by some publisher somewhere. However, the author states in his blog that he wanted an independent release of it so he could maintain artistic control. Like indie rock, I guess. I just posted a rant about self-publishing recently, but it was before I read this book. This appears to be very well edited except for some problems with homophones (aid/aide, chord/cord to name two). Because of the nature of the narrator’s pretensions, it is always possible that these misspellings are deliberate.

J. E. Solinski. A Matter of Control. Bloomington IN: Westbow, 2015. Print.

Do not be put off by the cover art or awkward title, A Matter of Control is a decent young adult novel.

Very simply, the author tells the story of five different people who all have a connection to Montgomery High School on Detroit’s West Side. Nowadays, Detroit is probably the bleakest city in America. Still there are thousands of people trying to make a decent go of it. We meet some of those people and their families.

Reba is a freshman from a poor but hard-working black family. When she was in elementary school, she taught her parents to read. Now she is eager to take her place in high school, especially its acting classes and drama program.

Travis is two years ahead of Reba and accompanies her and her younger siblings to school every day. He is not sweet on Reba or anything like that. He just likes the family and does not want anything to happen to them. He is one of the leaders in a gang and wants to keep Reba’s family out of trouble. Travis’s mother is a drug-addicted prostitute. He knows his life has not offered him much, but also is smart enough to realize that gang life is a dead end.

Alex is a star football player for the high school. He is a white boy in a school that is eighty percent black. He is accepted by everyone, though, because of his athletic skills until he starts missing practice for tutoring sessions. He is sixteen but never learned to read. The coach and his English teacher know his secret, but his shame makes him unwilling to let anyone know the real reason why he is skipping practice.

Mrs. Richards is the English teacher of all three of these students and is trying to help them all. Reba is a natural actress. Travis writes well, and Mrs. Richards arranges an internship for him at a city newspaper. She also makes arrangements for Alex’s tutoring.

Mrs. Richards’ only child Danny is a freshman at nearby Wayne State University. We soon realize that Danny has started using drugs, and Travis is his dealer.

In this scenario everyone has secrets. As long as they keep the secrets, they feel like they are in control—except that things are going wrong for all of them precisely because they are hiding something.

Most young adult readers would likely relate to one of more of the characters in the book. It is definitely worth reading. It might appeal to reluctant readers because of its subject matter. (I think of the appeal of S. E. Hinton, for example.)

I lived for a while many years ago in the Detroit ghetto on the East Side. The book is authentic to its setting, though it is not culturally specific to Detroit, so it could apply to many other school situations as well. In that sense, it is a bit different from Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon, which is so specific that it could only take place in Detroit. Still A Matter of Control is the real deal.

David Garrison. A Wind in the House of Islam. Monument CO: Wigtake, 2014. Print.

I have a friend who has devoted his life to Latin American economics. He worked for an international financial NGO in Central America, then for an investment firm specializing in Latin American customers, then for a large bank in its Latin American investments department, and now for his own investment firm that specializes in Latin American securities. Back in the eighties he told me that the most significant change he is seeing in Latin America is the growth of evangelical churches. He noted that the news would never report it, but that region of the world is no longer the Roman Catholic stronghold it once was.

A Wind in the House of Islam gives the same impression about nations that for over a millennium were considered strongholds of Islam and impossible for Christian missionaries (of any type, Protestant or Catholic) to reach. At this point the numbers or percentages are not very high in the Muslim world, but it is not unlike what was happening in Latin America in the 1920s. It is a beginning.

A Wind in the House of Islam defines a movement of God as one resulting in at least 1,000 baptisms or the establishment of at least 100 churches. The total number of converts in Islamic countries may be somewhere between two and seven million. While that is a small percentage of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, it is having an effect. Muslims are turning to Christ.

Garrison notes that until the late nineteenth century there had never been such a movement. In the nineteenth century there were two. In the twentieth century after 1965 there were eleven more. Between 2000 and 2014 there have been an additional 69 such movements. This is where the title comes from: There is some kind of wind blowing through the Muslim world the likes of which it has never seen.

Probably the biggest concern for the author and the researchers working with him was security. In many places in the Islamic world, even talking to a foreigner is suspicious activity.

Interestingly, A Wind in the House of Islam shares the four ways Muslims say that they convert Christians and others to Islam: (1) Money and material enticements, (2) Encourage Muslim girls to marry Christians, (3) Promise them a job in Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, and (4) Buy their home and property and move them out. I have a friend whose widowed father converted through item number two. He was not a Christian but practiced an oriental religion.

While some of these movements have been initiated by outsiders, most began with people within the Muslim culture. Indeed, in many cases it was imams or other respected leaders in the Muslim community who began to follow Jesus. In most cases, they have not adopted Western trappings of religion but have kept as many forms of teaching and prayer that they can without going against direct Biblical instruction.

Why is this happening?

Garrison gives a number of reasons. One is simply that more Christians are praying. God answers prayer. Another is that until the 1940s through the 1960s much of the Muslim world was ruled by Western nations. Muslims in whatever land they were saw their rulers as interlopers and even illegitimate. Now they have had one or two generations of self-rule. They can no longer blame any problems or predicaments on outsiders. In a few places such as the Central Asian republics that used to be part of the Soviet Union, people remember the kindness of Christians who lived among them.

One of the great ironies is that people are coming to Christ because there is a movement among Islam to translate the Koran into indigenous languages. The Muslim tradition is to memorize the Koran in Arabic, but that has little meaning for most people. Even for those who are native Arabic speakers the language has changed to much since the seventh century. It would be like an English speaker reciting Anglo-Saxon or an Italian reciting Latin.

When they find out what the Koran really says two things can happen. One is that they begin to question some of the ideas the book presents. One that repeatedly has made skeptics of Muslims is what it says about multiple wives because they know that Muhammad did not follow his own instructions. Another is what the Koran says about Jesus. Indeed, much of what the Koran says about Jesus is what Christians believe about Him.

The Koran says Jesus is in heaven with God (Allah). Muslims recognize that no one can say for sure that Muhammad is there. Indeed one ritual prayer for many Muslims is that Allah would save Muhammad’s soul. The Koran says that Jesus will return in the last days to judge the earth. Jesus is called by twenty-three honorable titles including savior and Rahallah, the Spirit of Allah. The Koran mentions Jesus nearly a hundred times and Muhammad only four.

Muslims themselves have begun to wonder more about Jesus. If the Koran says all these things about Jesus, perhaps Jesus is a greater prophet than Muhammad. Often they begin to pray about this, and the Lord answers. When they can, they may try to get a hold of a Christian New Testament or Bible to learn more about Jesus.

Some have been turned off by radicalization that has taken place in Islam. Many places Islam was part of the culture but the land was either secularized or Islam was connected with folk religion. (That is the way President Obama explained his experience with Islam growing up in Indonesia.) In many places they cannot protest openly, but the intolerance, the treatment of women, the killing of other Muslims all have caused some Muslims to question their beliefs.

One documented change among Muslims who become Christian is the change in the way they treat women. In most places the women still wear head coverings and dress so they fit in culturally, but the men learn that they are supposed to love their wives. One Bible study leader told of when a dozen men who were recent converts got together for the first time to study the Bible. The first question they asked was what the Bible said about beating your wife. That alone resulted in a big change. (The Koran sanctions it; compare with Ephesians 5:28-29.)

It is also remarkable the number of Muslims who have had dreams about Jesus or other images or characters from the Bible. This often seems to be a sovereign work of God, perhaps in answer to prayers of Christians. I heard a testimony of one person who worked in a country that bordered on a closed Muslim land. Once they were told very clearly from the Holy Spirit that they were to bring a truckload of Bibles to that neighboring country. They made it past the border but were not sure where to go. They came across a tribal group whose leader told them that he was told in a dream that a truck would come bearing a book that would tell them about God.

A Wind in the House of Islam breaks up the Muslim world into nine “rooms” in the “House” of Islam. (The term House of Islam comes from an early Muslim jurist who said the world was divided into the House of Islam and the House of War.) This is wise, as each culture is different with different styles of Islam and different histories. A Wind in the House of Islam notes that there are changes taking place in each of the rooms.

One chapter is devoted to each of the nine rooms. The rooms are North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, the Arab World, Turkestan (Turkey and Central Asia), the Persian World, Western South Asia, Eastern South Asia, and Indo-Malaysia. Each chapter is exciting and encourages the reader to see what God is doing in these lands.

There can be serious consequences. Some of the people who were interviewed in the course of this study have been killed. The author and researchers he worked with were careful not to use their real names and not even name the country in some cases, but they were identified at some point as being Christians. One woman interviewed is still alive but was married off by her father to a strict Muslim family, so she is not even allowed to leave her house.

These people have counted the cost. Most have known what it was like to be submitted to a god. Now they are submitted to a God who loves them.

In the seventies there was a song that went “I’m not religious, I just love the Lord.” Many followers of Jesus in the Muslim world have a similar perspective. Often they do not consider themselves Christians because that word has cultural connotations. The name Boko Haram, for example, means something like Western education is forbidden or the West is sin. So one follower of Jesus in a Muslim land speaks for many by saying, “I do not want to be a Christian. I just want to follow Jesus.” (118)

You can’t say it much better than that.

Gordon Korman. The Dragonfly Effect. New York: Scholastic, 2015. Print.

Gordon Korman keeps cranking the books out. The Dragonfly Effect is the third book in the Hypnotists series about Jackson “Jax” Opus, a fourteen year old who has inherited hypnotic abilities. Once again, Jax has to face off Elias Mako, who has developed a hypnotic scheme for world domination.

Jax’s ability is like that of Obi-wan Kenobi in the famous line from Star Wars: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” Jax is one of handful of people (including Mako, alas) who can hypnotize people indirectly—through television, video camera, mirrors, the Internet.

The Dragonfly Effect opens with the Opus family in protective custody of the U. S. Army. One reason is indeed protection. At a secret wing of a remote fort, they are protected from the likes of Dr. Mako. But the Army also wants to experiment with hypnotism to see if it can be a useful weapon, perhaps getting a whole population to willingly submit without firing a shot. This top secret project was known as HoWaRD, Hypnotic Warfare Research Department.

In addition to Jax and six adults in this program, there is also Wilson DeVries, the bully who tormented Jax back when they were in school together in New York City. There is also eight year old Stanley X, an orphan who has powers that none of the others can match.

The title, of course, is a play on the term “the butterfly effect,” in which a supposedly insignificant event, like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, have completely unpredictable and catastrophic consequences. Without giving too much away, perhaps we can say the dragonfly effect is similar, but its effect is more beneficial or at least sparing the catastrophe.

The Dragonfly Effect is an entertaining science fiction story. It is rooted in reality if we accept the “superpowers” the hypnotists have. Like the first book in the series, The Hypnotists, it does not have the humor which typifies so many of Korman’s stories. There are some funny lines, but they are mostly incidental to the tale. Still, it is a deadline thriller. As I noted in my first blog entry on a Korman book, “[h]is protagonists are fairly typical young teens who find themselves in unusual situations.” If Jax and his New York friends Tommy and Kira can’t stop Mako in time, will it truly be the end of the world?

Josephine Tey. The Daughter of Time. 1951; New York: Scribner, 1995. Print.

Fans of BBC’s Inspector Morse TV show may recall one of the later episodes in which Morse was hospitalized. While abed in the hospital, Morse began reading up about a famous murder than took place in Oxford about a hundred and fifty years earlier. From his sickbed and with the help of a librarian, a police archivist, and his loyal associate Detective Lewis, he was able to solve the mystery.

The Daughter of Time is like that. Inspector Alan Grant, the detective in a number of Tey’s mystery novels, is bored stiff in bed until he begins reading about Richard III, Shakespeare’s notorious villain king.

In all fairness to the Bard, Shakespeare based his play the chronicles by Holinshed, who was not always the most diligent researcher. Without going into great detail, The Daughter of Time gives us the impression that most of the evil deeds attributed to King Richard were made up out of whole cloth.

Like the 2010 popular novel The Harbinger, The Daughter of Time is a research paper presented in novel form. Tey does an effective job of rehabilitating Richard’s reputation from Tudor propaganda. An axiom attributed to many people says that history is written by the victors. This novel illustrates that axiom well. No one apparently would gainsay the accepted history until after the last Tudor monarch.

Here are a few tantalizing pieces of information Tey shares; there are many others. Richard had nothing to do with declaring Edward IV’s children by Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate. John Tyrrel was promoted by Henry VII and was not tried for the death of the princes in the tower until 1502, seventeen years after the supposed date of the crime. Richard III as king was generous to the leaders of both factions of the War of the Roses and was seen by many as bringing the war to an end.

Most of the surviving stories of Richard—stories which Holinshed and Thomas More relied on—came from John Morton, a strong anti-Yorkist who would become the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Daughter of Time calls him “Richard’s bitterest enemy.” (95) Indeed, the single contemporary account of Richard’s death calls it a murder, not a death in battle.

The term Morton’s Fork, the British equivalent of “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” apparently originated with this Rev. Morton. He said that a man who appears poor is really just hoarding money and can be taxed while a man who lives extravagantly is clearly rich, so he can pay taxes, too.

Tey notes that Inspector Grant is not the first person to take a critical look at the received Richard III tradition. The first legally published was after the death of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch. The most famous was author (and son of the Prime Minister) Horace Walpole.

I note that today there is a Richard III Society, and that those who are trying to rehabilitate his reputation are known as Ricardians. This year was significant for Ricardians because the bones from the king’s unmarked grave were reburied with honor in Leicester Cathedral. One note on the bones: Tey maintained that Richard was no hunchback, but he is portrayed as having one shoulder lower than the other. His bones indicated that he suffered from scoliosis—this can be transformed into a hunchback just as Henry IV’s psoriasis was transformed into leprosy with just a little exaggeration.

The Daughter of Time is a fascinating read. It is a lesson in history, even if it means going against Gandalf and John-Boy Walton as well as Shakespeare. And even if Shakespeare’s Richard III is pure fiction like Cymbeline or Titus Andronicus, it is a jolly good show.