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Reviewer's Bookwatch

Volume 2, Number 4 April 2002 Home | RBW Index

Table of Contents

Reviewer's Choice Ellen's Bookshelf Brenda's Bookshelf
Peter's Bookshelf Rob's Bookshelf Shannon's Bookshelf
Judy's Bookshelf Ann Skea's Bookshelf Hodgins' Bookshelf
Sullivan's Bookshelf Harwood's Bookshelf Terry's Bookshelf
Fantina's Bookshelf Emily's Bookshelf Shelley's Bookshelf
David Skea's Bookshelf Sandra's Bookshelf Jennifer's Bookshelf
Leonhardt's Bookshelf Gorden's Bookshelf Kinni's Bookshelf
Dana's Bookshelf Mary Bookshelf Harold's Bookshelf
Kaveny's Bookshelf Cindy's Bookshelf Klausner's Bookshelf
Burrough's Bookshelf Sharon's Bookshelf Greenspan's Bookshelf
Carol's Bookshelf Vogel's Bookshelf Buhle's Bookshelf
Bethany's Bookshelf Taylor's Bookshelf Betsy's Bookshelf
Whelan's Bookshelf Margaret's Bookshelf Carson's Bookshelf
Lorraine's Bookshelf Donovan's Bookshelf  



Reviewer's Choice

Virtual Realities
Neelum Saran Gour
Penguin Books, India
11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India.
ISBN 0-14-302806-5, Price - Rs.250, First published 2002, Pages - 241.

Devanshu Gour
Reviewer

Reading this novel makes it amply clear that the author belongs to a class by herself. Anyone familiar with the Indian literary scene knows that Indian writers belong to two camps- those who write in English and those writing in one of the many Indian languages . The much hyped festival of international Indian writers organised by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations witnessed rancorous exchanges between members on both sides of this great Indian literary divide. Indian writers writing in English were critiqued as being mere elitist observers of Indian reality, seldom in close touch with living roots, while those writing in Indian languages were described as bound by choice and situation to confined cultural circuits and though animated by a vital contact with an essential and active Indian tradition, excluded from reaching a large global audience.

Virtual Realities defies categorization because it handles in English the theme of a Hindi writer's adventures with imagination ,thus straddling conventional divisions between 'regional' and English writing. Neelum Saran Gour is best described as a regional English writer, an author whose voice emerges from the authentic heart of a culture in a medium that is global in its range. Living and working outside the elitist boundaries and deeply rooted in Indian reality, Gour writes a flawless, flexible English. Yet her concerns in this, her fourth work of fiction, are universal ones, plainly relevant in any creative context. Virtual Realities is an absorbing novel about two obsessive storytellers, one a professional writer, the other a carefree chatterbox. Sravan and Buddhoo, though very different in temperament and lifestyle, are old friends who have just one thing in common. Each enriches his life by creating a fictional reality.

The novel relates their adventures with their imaginary worlds, shifting constantly between folksy-earthy boisterous humour and searching dead-earnest reflections, never overbalancing, making the reader think even as he smiles. Sravan finds surreal events emerging straight out of his book into his real life world while Buddhoo creates a hilarious hotch-potch of Indian philosophy, mythology, personal buffoonery and outrageous yarn. Supporting these two central characters are others, all of them creating ingenious narratives of their own. Virtual Realities addresses the universal human need to script a favourite narrative about oneself and the ways in which the creative imagination preserves, enhances and destroys us. An unputdownable and stimulating novel, rich, funny, empathetic, thoughtful.

If there is a flaw it lies in the fact that this is not an event-grounded novel. Its forward movement relies heavily on cranky dialogue or intensive thought centred round a basically abstract inquiry. Although it strives to couch its philosophic content in racy banter and multiple culture-specific narratives, there are times when the creative issues addressed may be impenetrable to the average reader looking for a good story. To readers who have watched Gour's progress in her last three books, this novel marks a breaking away in a new direction quite removed from her earlier tradition-leavened tales of a multilayered India. Whether this growth is in tune with current reading tastes remains to be seen.

Creating And Dominating New Markets
Peter Meyer
Amacom Books
1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
ISBN 0-8144-0678-5, $27.95, Hardcover, 241 pages, 1-800-250-5308, www.amazon.com

Roger Herman
Reviewer

So, you're sitting in your office thinking about your business. Or the business you'd like to start. Building a business is a daunting proposition, not for the weak of heart-or weak of wallet. The key is to discover something different that will grab attention. What's the old saw: Find a need and fill it?

Peter Meyer, principal of a California (where else) consulting firm that specializes in the subject of this book, suggests a different approach. Instead of competing with everyone else, create a new market. Makes sense. As Meyer points out, it's exciting, fun, and profitable. New markets are forgiving and, without rivals you don't have to worry about competitive pricing. Can it be this easy? Meyer lays it out in Chapter One: The Mystique and Challenges of New Markets. Prepare to have your mind opened, your thoughts stimulated, your imagination titillated.

The first part of this highly readable book (type size and leading enables this book to be easily read on trains and airplanes) addresses strategies. The second part with application of the strategies. Good model for this highly practical book.

The other chapters of the first section deliver ideas, perspective, and examples of how the strategies have been used. Balancing Your Resources and Opportunities. It's the Problem That Matters. Choosing the Best Risk. What New Markets are Available to You? Are you beginning to get a sense of the depth of content of this book?

The book is written in relatively short sections, so the reader never seems overburdened by the volume of text. I kept slowing down because I was thinking about what Meyer said. Then I found myself taking notes, like I
was starting to write a business plan. See what I mean? I predict that you'll read this book at least twice: once for a quick overview, then at least one more time (with Peter Meyer at your elbow) thinking, talking to yourself (and others), and constructing ideas that may drive your future.

Charts sprinkled throughout the book will guide in your understanding of the message. So will the questions tossed out by the author. There are many paths to take in creating, exploring, exploiting, and dominating new
markets. Each alternative approach has its advantages and disadvantages. Your strength will come from understanding what's involved in your journey, and that power will come from this book.

Section Two concentrates on the application of the strategies. Funding the New Market Effort. What Role Does the Customer Play? Building and Dominating Markets Through Involvement. What is the Role of Information
Technology. Using Credibility in Creating and Dominating Markets. What's Next? And the book closes with a good index to help you find what you want on your second and third readings.

This is the new frontier. You can be on the leading edge. It's a different world, as Meyer warns. If you think you're up for it-and the book will help you determine that readiness, this book will be your guide.

Now my review is done. I'm going back for my second helping!

Never Fade Away
William Hart
Fithian Press
c/o Daniel & Daniel, Publishers
PO Box 1525, Santa Barbara, CA 93102
1564743861 $12.95 www.amazon.com

Helen Heightsman Gordon
http://www.anacade.com

Bill Hart's characters go straight to the heart. Tina Le is a Vietnamese refugee determined to master English as her second language and to pass two required English courses at a California state college. Her teacher and mentor, John Goddard, is a Vietnam War veteran still suffering from nightmares in the mid-1980's. Both of them keep journals. Through their journal entries we read Tina's perceptive observations (in endearingly imperfect English), and see Goddard's blend of worldly cynicism and determination to fight for his students. Survivors, both, of life-and-death situations -- but they are being thwarted in peacetime USA by a coterie of English teachers who seem to take sinister pleasure in controlling the fate of their underlings.

If such teachers seem unlikely candidates for villains, I assure you they exist. I've taught alongside them, heard them complain in department meetings. This situation will seem familiar in many colleges where English teachers, after being trained only to teach the finer points of literature, are frustrated by having to work with ESL and remedial students. The students, in turn, become frustrated and bewildered, feeling doomed to flail and fail. Some become bitter; some contemplate suicide; some give up in despair.

Goddard sees the quality of mind inTina's papers; the other teachers see only flaws in usage and grammar. When assigned an inappropriate topic on an important departmental competency test, two of Goddard's best students fail. Averaging that grade with their classwork, he assigns them passing grades for the course. Having bucked the system, he is judged insubordinate, a threat to the "standards" of the department. Now they are out to get him -- along with any students they think he may have "coached" into navigating through the land mines they have set. The story is sprinkled with humor and satire. Tina's roommate, Rayneece, contrasts amusingly with the shy and studious Tina, providing opportunities for Tina to comment in her journal about American attitudes, male-female relationships, and interracial dating. A delicious irony occurs when Tina's next English teacher tries to teach her about irony using Swift's "Modest Proposal." Tina doesn't like Swift's suggestions about eating babies, and Goddard encourages her to write her honest opinion. She does, but there is a price to pay for honesty.

After some misunderstandings, Goddard and Tina begin to help each other heal their emotional wounds. Having passed through the teacher-student and employer-employee relationships, they have become friends. They might have a future together if they allow each other enough time to learn to love and trust again.

Someone will probably make a movie out of this book, and that would be unfortunate. Bill Hart's prose is snappy and incisive; his deft turns of phrase provide a treat even apart from the story. I would have liked to see more improvement in Tina's journal entries as the story unfolds, making Goddard's influence on her writing apparent. But her writing charms me with her insights, sensitivity, and integrity, so I'll draw on my willing suspension of disbelief and just enjoy her. I would have preferred a livelier title for the book -- one that suggests the dynamics of the relationships and the "wars" that siphon off the lifeblood and the talents of soldiers, teachers, and students. This is Hart's first novel, but his poetic artistry serves him well in fiction.

Already he has me looking forward to the next one.

Jusu And Mother Earth
Sharon Ervin
AmErica House Publishing
PO Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705-0151
1893162877 $19.95 www.amazon.com

Priscilla A. Maine
Reviewer

After five months of grieving the loss of her beloved husband Ruth Pedigo determines to dedicate herself to the service of others. Putting away any expectation for personal happiness, she packs her bags, waves aside the objections of her children, dispels the concerns of her friends, and sets of for Bwana, Uganda. Even as she assures everyone she is quite capable of this undertaking, she hasn't convinced herself. After all, her husband Mickey had sheltered and protected her for the past twenty-nine years this was a new experience for her. She set her course and refused to be swayed from it even when she encountered the first of many obstacles in her path.

A primitive clinic in the African wilderness, where he treats the local natives, is Dr. Jack Standish's private passion and one he indulges annually. Established in his medical practice, respected by his peers, and financially secure, he is bored by the continual parade of females vying for his attention. Yet Jack is intrigued by the lovely lady traveling alone. She is obviously overwhelmed and a bit intimidated by her surroundings. When a fellow traveler make advances toward her Jack intervenes and is even more fascinated when she evades his questions, but not his offer of help.

Fate throws the pair together just long enough to tease and tantalize the "what-ifs" in Ruth's female vanity, even against her better judgment. Then, just as quickly, they are separated and she is left with troubling dreams and the memory of a haunting smile.

The African bush is a world removed from her native Oklahoma but she blooms in her newfound independence though she often falters on the cultural differences, especially the practice of witchcraft. But with the aid of a young orphaned boy, Ruth quickly adapts to life at the mission. The mission priest and the members of his congregation take to Ruth immediately, calling her "Mother Earth" even as they whisper behind her back about Jusu, the magician. Political intrigue, jealousy, and illness throw Ruth and Jack together again with an unpredictable outcome.

Jusu And Mother Earth is written with a masterful voice, an intriguing plot, and vivacious characters. A delightful read.

A Wanton Gyre
Christopher WunderLee
Writer's Club Press
910 East Hamilton, Suite 100, Campbell, California 95006
ISBN: 0595197272, $20.95, September 2001, 405 pp., www.amazon.com

Miriam Sante
mirsane@yahoo.com

Imagine if the Marquis de Sade and Thomas Jefferson collaborated on a novel, imagine a book that balances a hedonistic banquet of images and words with a treatise on endangered civil liberties and contemporary biases. A Wanton Gyre is a breath-taking foray into a fictional future that is all together so real current events seem to be mimicking its contents. The world of A Wanton Gyre is uncertain, an ambitious senator has alleged that subversives have infiltrated key positions in government & industry, causing a witch-hunt to ensue, and a special congressional committee has been instituted to investigate the allegations. What Christopher WunderLee has dubbed 'a blue scare' sweeps across the national and several citizens and organizations are accused of un-American activities.

WunderLee captures this rampant social fear by focusing on one man's plight amidst the scare and with fictional newspaper articles at the end of each chapter that detail the greater social ramifications. The novel opens in a gallop, as the protagonist, Maxwell Taylor, is arrested and dragged away to prison by the special congressional committee's police agency. The reader follows Taylor as he faces arrest and interrogation without knowing what he's accused of; we are guided into his confusion by a masterfully woven plot and a battery of his memories.

In Maxwell Taylor, Christopher WunderLee has constructed a striking anti-hero and set him within a string of events that highlights both his inadequacies and his beauty. Taylor is a former college professor with a jaded past, he lost his job because he blackmailed a student into trading sexual favors for grades. Taylor is a figure imbued with contradictions, he is a hedonist and a libertine, a man well educated enough to quote Descartes or Socrates but so reliant on sensuality his reason is over-powered by his lust. Like many great protagonists, Maxwell Taylor is a brand new archetype so well constructed that his personality and character saturate the reader's imagination. We are disgusted by him while at the same time, we can't help but be intrigued by his individuality.

On the opposing side of the conflict, Mary Lazarus is an assistant to the special prosecutor's office in charge of trying Taylor's case. She personifies the average citizen: scared, responsive to the government's efforts to cleanse society of subversion, offended by Maxwell Taylor's lifestyle and political views, hypocritical, and willing to remain ignorant. However, like the reader of the novel, Mary is also uncomfortably curious about Taylor. She struggles with her own aversion to his lifestyle and an intense interest in learning more.

Mary Lazarus, along with the special prosecutor in charge of the case, stand on the opposing side of Taylor, and this differing ethical position forces the reader to take sides and review their own beliefs. Is speech dangerous? Should we be reigning in individuals and groups who have differing political views? During turmoil, should civil liberties be restricted? WunderLee's characters offer very different answers to these questions.

And that, if anything else, is the beauty of the novel. When Maxwell Taylor's trial begins, the tempo of the novel changes, it becomes a dialogue between the author and the reader concerning the First Amendment. We suddenly realize the devices employed to construct such memorable characters were done for the specific purpose of turning the book itself into the subject of the debate. Maxwell Taylor's sexual exploits are presented not only as plot material, but also to make A Wanton Gyre itself a questionable piece of literature. The trial that so aptly brings a climax to the story, works as the novels own thesis and antithesis, it condemns as well as defends its own content.

There is no confusion on which side WunderLee is concerning the debate and there are parts of the novel that are flawed. At times, the rhythm of the prose is interrupted with too much digression, there appears to have been multiple editors who worked on the novel, as choices differ on the structure of the content, and the spiraling plot of the first section of the book can be a little repetitious. Concerning its erotic content, A Wanton Gyre is more Tropic of Cancer than Lady Chatterley's Lover and some parts may be too much for some readers. But, all in all, A Wanton Gyre is an incredible accomplishment. You won't find a better discussion of civil liberties in any other piece of contemporary literature. The novel belongs beside great works like Fahrenheit 451, Kafka's The Trial (of which it was obviously influenced), and 1984.

With precise words, a rhythmic cadence, and one of the most memorable protagonists ever prepared, Christopher WunderLee has developed an erotic thriller so complete it literally challenges the reader to investigate their own prejudices and rethink their social values. A Wanton Gyre is a book that would make the Marquis de Sade smile and Thomas Jefferson reflective. For that, I say it deserves our respect.

Change Of Heart
Jack Allen
Burping Frog Publishing
6654 Harding, Taylor, Michigan 48180
ISBN: 0-7388-6730-6, price: $16, date: 2001, page count: 318

Jan McDaniel
Reviewer

When the stakes are high and the reading gripping, count on Josh McGowan to balance action with fascinating detail. Author Jack Allen created this character to lead the way through a world studded with international intrigue and heartbreaking emotion, both tinged with the taste of vengeance. Allen's carefully planned and certainly human portrayal of McGowan moves this hero smoothly through whatever situations he must face--from accessing his stakeout partner's true strengths and weaknesses to changing survival tactics at a moment's notice. Josh's strength, in fact, is his resourcefulness.

That strength is put to the test when a young woman named Valeria, who has a complicated agenda of her own, becomes more than an assignment. Stopping the next cold war is now a guessing game. In an around-the-world dash to get the answers to match up correctly, Josh puts everything on the line . . . his career, his life . . . and even those may not be enough.

Not every man will do such work. When Valeria asks Josh why he does it, he is hard-pressed to come up with the answer, even in his most private thoughts: "It wasn't for the money; they didn't pay him enough. Patriotism? He believed in his country as much as anyone else, but he didn't wrap himself in the flag. So what was it? The killing? He shuddered. He hated to think he did this job because it gave him an opportunity to kill. That would make him a blood-thirsty murderer.

"No, he did it because it had to be done."

Fortunately, Burping Frog Publishing plans to release several other titles in this series. A bright new talent on the Suspense Thriller scene, Jack Allen leaves his readers wanting more.



Ellen's Bookshelf

Invisible Chains
Nora Penia
Xlibris Corporation
436 Walnut Street, 11th floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106
ISBN: 1401031420, $18.69, 261 pages, www.amazon.com

"TO ALL VICTIMS OF ABUSE -- for their fear, suffering, and hopelessness; their hope, strength and courage, their escape, recovery and renewal; their challenge to change society."

It is customary to begin a review with a representative quote or two from the book in question. This amiable convention is deemed to provide the prospective reader with a taste of the book unseasoned by the reviewer's peppery opinions and prejudices. Of equal but less-widely understood importance, it also affords the self-aggrandizing reviewer the opportunity to select quotes that support those soon-to-be-unleashed prejudices and opinions. The above passage, from Nora Penia's sturdy first novel, Invisible Chains, duly serves both these functions. What makes it noteworthy as well as quoteworthy is that it comes not from the text, but from the dedication page of this psychological drama cum mystery. You've gotta admire a writer who can stake out her territory, define her terms, and announce her intentions all before page one. It only remains to add that the abuse in question is spousal, both emotional and physical, and you've got your bearings.

Maddy Tyler is the director of Face to Face, a small agency (besides Maddy there is fellow-counselor Darcy, and Anne, the idiosyncratic secretary) set up to provide counseling services to (mostly) women in abusive relationships. The story centers around Maddy, who is being stalked by the aggrieved husband of one of her clients, and two of those clients, Gillian and Laura, both trying to figure out how to deal with their abuse (one physical, one emotional). Penia's understated style is immediately accessible and well fitted to her serious subject matter. The reader enters into the crisis counselor_s world from the first sentence, and from there it is an easy step off the curb into the no-traffic-signs world of the abused women themselves. The building blocks of Penia's narrative are the group session, the crisis call, the anecdotal reminiscence and the sudden, wholly non-gratuitous violence that is all the more shocking because it is so clearly inevitable. You know what the book is about; you know the author's style is rigorously realistic, you know it's coming, but still you can't quite believe it when it does. It seems absurd to talk about "gritty realism" in what is so unabashedly a "women's book", but there it is--no frills, no romance, no punches pulled.

The stresses of working as a counselor are portrayed with equal, if less-gut-wrenching realism. Sentimentality is just not a color in Penia's pencil case. There is no glamour in being the director of Face to Face, with its one-window offices in a Florida strip mall. Both Maddy and Darcy are stressed out before the story begins, and have few illusions about the day-to-day struggle and depressingly low success rate. "I knew I would probably never hear from her again," is Maddy's refrain after another crisis caller shies away from the truth--her way of acknowledging the cold reality while at the same time reminding herself not to get too emotionally involved. At first Maddy refuses to take her stalker seriously--until she gets a dose of her own medicine from the appealing Detective Connor, who provides police support as well as a genial romantic interest. In an ironic twist, Maddy realizes that by denying the seriousness of the threatening letters she is making the same mistake her clients do when they deny the seriousness of their abusive relationships. No one is immune, Penia seems to be saying--nobody wants to believe it is happening to them. Maddy is a low-key heroine, but she is a heroine indeed, and quickly steels herself to face the truth. Together, she and Connor come up with a plan to entice the stalker into a trap--although, in series of hair-raising scenes, things don't go exactly as planned.

The stalker plot provides a nice framework, and will satisfy the mystery lovers' passion for detection, but it never threatens to overrun the author's main battlefield--the misery of abuse and the need to end it. As promised, I point to the dedication to affirm that this book was clearly written for abused women, not only to tell their stories, but to encourage women still in abusive relationships to seek help. For this reason, much of the book is given over to descriptions of what it is like to be in an abusive relationship. We get Gillian's and Laura's stories in full detail, and representative snapshots of the lives of half a dozen others (including one man). Penia's unemotional style nonetheless imbues every word her characters speak with emotional truth.

Curiously, this emotional truth does not always translate into the most life-like of characters. Anecdotal storytelling, though it serves the purpose Penia uses it for (accurate and honest description), leads to a stilted view of the characters. We know what happened to them, but we have little sense of their personality, of whether or not we would actually like them if we were sitting next to them on an airplane. It's a trade off I'm sure Penia made gladly; her choice to focus on the problem rather than the person. It's not like she can't do solid characterization: Maddy and Darcy, whom we see struggling with the day-to-day problems of job, family, and future, are well-drawn and three-dimensional.

If there is any unexpected weakness in Invisible Chains, it is perhaps that the anecdotes becomes repetitive--not in terms of their specifics, but in terms of their tone. After a while, the submissive attitudes of the abused women, and the rationalizations they fall back on, begin to grate on the nerves, especially because they are not explained. Again and again, the abused spouses fail to stand up for themselves; they allow their husbands to dictate whether they will go to work, go to school, make a phone call, or watch TV. Although it is hard to admit, in the face of Penia's earnest attention to detail, this leads to a lack of interest in the characters. One understands that the psychological pressures--the invisible chains--placed by the abuser around the abused over time, along with constant compromise, can wreck havoc on a person's judgement and identity. Maddy herself provides the lone example of what a woman "should" do when confronted by an abusive spouse. Her first husband was abusive--once. When he assaulted her, she left--pregnant and penniless and powerless though she was. While Maddy's actions somewhat offset the inaction of the others, still there is no explanation of what caused her to go one way, and those others to go another. Of course, once again Penia provides her answer early on--this time in the title of her book. But the fact that the characters themselves don't know how it happened does not remove the reader's desire for enlightenment. Those invisible chains needed to be a little more corporeal for the average reader.

That said, there can be little doubt that Penia made a conscious choice to avoid excess discussion of "why" and "how," for such discussion would have led to an analysis of social morays, sexual politics and the like, which would have taken the focus off the women themselves. As it is, her message remains clear--abusive relationships are bad, they are the fault of the abuser, not the abused, and they should be ended. Worthy issues such as what the abused spouse could have or should have done, how abusers play on social conventions that allow men to be jealous, aggressive, and dominant, and how women are raised to believe that any man is better than none, are not even hinted at. Penia is not writing about causes, remember, but about symptoms, writing a book for abused women in the hope that some of them will read it, see themselves or their spouses, and take steps to get out.

Penia, a writer who lives in southern Florida, has many years of working with abused spouses under her belt, and boy does it show. Invisible Chains is a do-it-yourself diagnostic tool for abusive relationships. It_s also a well-paced and frequently riveting story for the more casual reader. Don't let this reviewer's interest in and admiration of the author's mission scare you off. Penia understands the difference between proselytizing and shining a spotlight on a dark area of human experience. Her sense of moral responsibility only makes Invisible Chains all the more satisfying.

Ellen Larson, Reviewer, http://www.enkidu.info/reviews



Brenda's Bookshelf

Halfway To Forever
Karen Kingsbury
Multnomah Publishers
PO Box 1720, Sisters, Oregon 97759
ISBN 157673899X $11.99 www.amazon.com 1-800-929-0910

Two families - four friends - hoping for a miracle.

Matt and Hannah Bronzan knew heartache for Hannah had just laid to rest her husband and oldest child some four years ago. Now after much soul-searching and prayers, they were ready to add to their family. They were ready to move forward. To take the step that would forever change their lives when they adopt a little girl who gets shifted back to her grandma before the adoption is legalized. Heartbroken, Hannah struggles with her anger and her belief in God. While she struggles with her inner turmoil, a miracle is ready to take place.

Jade and Tanner Eastman fell in love years ago. Fate kept them apart for over a decade. Although they each survived, Tanner resented not knowing his son or being there for his early years so when they once again found each other, they believed things were finally working out for them. Now Jade is pregnant. Everything seems to be going right when the terrible news hits - Jade has cancer. Due to the pregnancy, the cancer is spreading at a rapid rate. Only a miracle can save both Jade and the unborn child.

Get the tissues out. Halfway To Forever is a tear-jerker. Each of Kingsbury's characters have their own inner struggles grounded deep with love for the Savior. Yet each has their own doubts. Wondering why bad things happen to good people. Together, the Bronzan's and Eastman's forge a lasting bond showing the true colors of friendship. Remember, in life, and in fiction, anything is possible.

Day Of Reckoning: The Baxter Series, Book Two
Kathy Herman
Multnomah Publishers
PO Box 1720, Sisters, Oregon 97759
ISBN 1576738965, $11.99, www.amazon.com 1-800-929-0910

He wanted attention. -- He definitely got it.

One man's anger grew until it festered. Boiling. Waiting to be released. Nothing would stop his revenge against the man who killed his father. He - Wayne Purdy - would be in the spotlight finally putting the might G.R. Logan in his place. Making him feel as helpless as Wayne did when his father was out of work. When his father died. When Wayne quit school to put food on the table for his mother and sister.

In his revenge, his anger attacks two innocent children, Taylor Logan and Sherri Kennsington. With them missing and perhaps even dead, the entire town of Baxter prays for their safe return while the FBI struggles to bring the girls home unharmed. Throw in the visit of Wayne's sister who finds out the truth behind the headlines but at the same time she's too scared to go to the authorities. Then she makes her move. Will it be too late for all the girls?

From anger to acceptance to forgiveness, Herman has created characters that are human, not perfect, and certainly willing to show their love of Christ even through they too were wronged by one man caught in the middle. Happiness. Sadness. Glowing acceptance. Turning to Christ. Knowing He is the One who made the plan. Numerous themes abound in Day Of Reckoning while the suspense builds and the anger ebbs. It is definite that one of the themes is sure to touch the heart of Herman's readers.

Brenda Ramsbacher
Reviewer



Peter's Bookshelf

Marketing And Promoting Your Own Seminars And Workshops
Fred Gleeck
Fast Forward Press
209 Horizon Peak Drive, Henderson, NV 89012
ISBN 0936965088, $14.95, 1-800-FGLEECK (345-3325), www.seminarexpert.com, www.amazon.com

If you want to learn how to make money by holding seminars, workshops, or bootcamps, you'll want to get a copy of Marketing And Promoting Your Own Seminars And Workshops by Fred Gleeck.

Drawing upon his vast experience in holding over 1,300 one-day seminars (and flying over two million miles to provide them) over the last fifteen years, Gleeck provides a readable introduction to getting started in the seminar business. Even if you have experience hosting seminars or in public speaking, you'll probably find Marketing And Promoting Your Own Seminars And Workshops a good read.

Gleeck says the business of providing seminars has the potential to earn an individual several hundred thousand dollars a year or even upwards of a million dollars a year. He says that the seminar business also provides the opportunity to learn new things, meet interesting people, travel, and be an onstage ham, if you want.

Why ham-it-up a bit during a seminar? After surveying thousands of individuals about the characteristics great public speakers have, Gleeck found three dominant results: Great speakers are sincere, knowledgeable, and humorous.

How do you know if you're humorous? Gleeck writes: "It's only funny if they laugh. The definition of funny must come from the people receiving the message. I don't care if you think a joke is funny. I don't care if your family thinks it is funny. It is not funny if people don't laugh."

That's a truism many people outside the entertainment field don't contemplate. Two individuals could sit around all day debating the quality of a dramatic feature film--one person arguing the film is high quality and the other arguing it's horrible. But, there isn't much to debate with comedy. Go ahead and try to convince people that There's Something About Mary isn't a funny film!

In addition to liking humor because we know whether or not it's working, Gleeck likes measurable business results. Gleeck discusses setting measurable goals for your events.

Gleeck writes: "I have three goals when I give a seminar. First, I want to get great evaluations. Second, I want to sell a lot of product. Third, I want to achieve both of these goals in such a way that people will enthusiastically want to do business with me again. ... All three of these can be measured."

Gleeck goes on to suggest revenue per person (attending the seminar) per minute (of time invested in presenting the seminar) as a yardstick of a financially successful seminar. Gleeck also discusses price testing of your seminars to maximize profitability.

Gleeck is a strong proponent of the back-end profitability of seminars. Rather than just maximizing the seminar registration revenue, Gleeck suggests that the key to seminar success is maximizing the total revenue that the seminar generates for you.

Gleeck expresses this as: TR = SR + PS + CB, which says that the total revenue generated by a seminar is the sum of the seminar registration fees plus the product sales generated during the seminar plus the consulting business generated by the seminar. (In fact, Gleeck point out that seminars are a great way to generate business if you are a consultant)

To be able to maximize seminar profitability, Gleeck suggests calculating the lifetime value of your seminar customers. Then, you know how much you can spend on marketing to acquire new customers.

Gleeck also says that you should record your seminars. In addition to allowing you to critique your performance, Gleeck writes: "... you may capture a 'magic moment' on tape. What is a magic moment? This is where you do or say something to your audience that brings the house down. They either laugh or cry or explode with applause and adulation. You want to have this on tape. Take all of the magic moments and cut them together and you will have a phenomenal demo video or audio that you can use to promote yourself as a speaker and seminar leader."

Gleeck is also a strong supporter of recording your seminars to sell audio tapes to people who want to hear the seminar but were not be able to attend. At $197 a pop, it's easy to see how selling seminar tapes can add to the bottom line. Gleeck says successful seminar promoters often generate 50% or more of their profits from the sales of tapes, videos, books, and other products.

What about people who don't want to sell products at their seminars? Gleeck tells them to get over it. He says selling products is too profitable to pass up. Gleeck suggests creating products at many different price points and upselling to generate more revenue. Gleeck says leave your books at home--they just aren't profitable enough.

Gleeck also says that your seminar products must not only be good, they must be great (and, of course, he has a way to measure this--rates of return and rates of customer repeat business). Gleeck also points out that withholding valuable information in an attempt to upsell customers to higher-priced products is a failing strategy. Rather, Gleeck argues that you want to make your information so useful that customers want more.

Marketing And Promoting Your Own Seminars And Workshops also provides some great advice about marketing seminars (in particular, writing direct mail promotions for your seminars), hotel coffee, psyching yourself up for a speech or seminar, keeping audience attention, hiring other presenters, 1-800 numbers, and many other topics.

Overall, I don't know if any audio tape is worth $197, but at $14.95, if you are thinking of getting into the seminar business, Fred Gleeck's book, Marketing And Promoting Your Own Seminars And Workshops, represents a tremendous value.

Peter Hupalo
Reviewer



Rob's Bookshelf

The Treatment: The Story Of Those Who Died In The Cincinnati Radiation Tests
Martha Stephens
Duke University Press
P.O. Box 90660 Durham, NC 27708
ISBN 0822328119, $28.95, hardback, www.amazon.com

In 1971, Martha Stephens was a junior level English professor at the University of Cincinnati and probably one of the most unlikely people to uncover and later expose a government project designed to test the effects of radiation sickness on human subjects.

It was in that year a chance encounter with a colleague led her to a small article in The Village Voice which had established a link between a program underwritten by the Department of Defense and research carried out in secret at the universitys General Hospital.

A simple request to the hospital for information led to a stunning disclosure of what was taking place inside a specially designed basement chamber. Beginning in 1960, cancer patients, the majority being black or working poor, were being irradiated over their entire bodies in an effort to simulate the exposure a soldier might experience in a nuclear war.

She found that very few of the 86 known patients showed signs of acute illness at the time of testing. None were informed or consented to the tests. Most died shortly thereafter.

The experiments were made public by Stephens and a number of faculty members and, after a brief flurry of media attention, a deal was made between state and federal governments to stop the testing in exchange for an agreed silence on the identities of researchers and victims.

The incident would be quickly forgotten in the ongoing social and political unrest and it was not until 1994 that the author is contacted by a Cincinnati television reporter seeking to re-open the investigation. Once ignored by the local press, the story is made into front page news and prompts a congressional inquiry and federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the victims families.

Like similar stories of medical research run amok, this shameful episode makes for both fascinating and troubling reading. With an English instructors love of language, Stephens recounts her tireless efforts to bring those responsible before the public, as well as restoring the names and personalities to victims known in hospital documents by a clinical code number.

However, readers will quickly discover a text hampered by the authors annoying habit of including people and events that are unrelated and unnecessary.

"Few of us today - perhaps tomorrow will be different - feel we can do much to challenge the forces in control." Thats Stephens philosophizing not about the far-reaching nature of the scandal, but the 1984 elections in Nicaragua which, obviously, have nothing to do with the books subject matter.

We also go on vacations with the author to San Jose and Costa Rica, attend a 1992 peace march in Washington and review capital punishment as it is practiced in Ohio without any explanation as to their relevancy.

Likewise, her tendency to view the experiments in light of the citys social and political conservatism rather than in the context of the human radiation tests that had occurred nation-wide since 1945, under the auspices of the countrys nuclear weapons program, makes for a less than even-handed view and leaves certain sections sounding conspiratorial in tone.

More judicious editing would have trimmed the extraneous features from the book and eliminated some of the confusion. Still, "The Treatment," along with James Howard Jones "Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" and "The Plutonium Files" by Eileen Welsome, belongs on the desk of every legislator, university president and research scientist in the country. It stands as another stark reminder of the harm that can be wrought in the interest of national security or in the name of medical science.

In The Forest: A Novel
Edna O'Brien
Houghton Mifflin
215 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003
ISBN 0618197303, $24.00, hardback, www.amazon.com

Until recently, Ireland was viewed by many as a carefree, bucolic retreat, economically under-developed, but somehow free of contemporary problems.

The notion was never really true, of course, but made more apparent during the spring of 1994 in County Clare when a mentally and socially dispersed drifter named Brendan O'Donnell killed a single mother, Imelda Riney, her son Liam and Father Joseph Walshe shortly after being paroled from a British jail.

It was the type of bewildering brutality that forever changed village life in Ireland and one regularly cited by commentators throughout the United Kingdom when discussing a loss of national innocence.

While not a murder story in any sense, In The Forest is a fictionalized account of an act which O'Brien, herself a native of County Clare, sees as symbolizing the tragedy of her time, and also another sign of a society at the point of imminent breakdown.

Outwardly, what she attempts is nothing new for someone whose previous works have successfully intertwined the violence of ordinary life with a peculiar brand of Irishness that characterizes the rural western part of the country. Likewise, the narrative structure employed here is time-tested, presenting the personal stories of victim and perpetrator side by side before a terrible symmetry of circumstance binds them together.

In this case, the life of Michen O'Kane (O'Donnell), an unmanageable reprobate nicknamed "Kinderschreck," or one who scares children, parallels that of Eily Ryan (Riney), an artist and free soul who, through sheer fate, moves into his former house.

We follow O'Kane from the brutal criminal justice system where he spends most of his youth to the town of Cloosh, a place bitterly called home. Months earlier, Ryan has left the city for the relative safety of the countryside and spends only a short time there with her son until they are last seen together with the Kinderschreck in a car headed for the woods.

Widely regarded as a novelist dedicated more to evoking feeling than one to experiment with form, O'Brien uses a variety of prose to further develop the psychological complexities of each character.

O'Kanes extreme mental state is rendered in a nonsensical chattering short-hand, "Why do I go to this trouble haul this stuff this gear flowers music beef or salmon, madam?" he rattles to a fearful townsperson. Ryans final days are told with a tone of childlike innocence while Father John Fitzgerald (Walshe) tells of his own fate in a brief, naively pious first person account.

The same attention which she gives to the human condition is applied to setting as well. The town, a seemingly mediaeval backwater, is populated by helpless villagers moving at a dilatory pace, its woodland undergoes a transformation from a "drowsy corpus of green" to "a rust-brown carnage of old dead leaves" where rescuers eventually recover the bodies.

In many ways, In The Forest captures the human toll of this horrific crime better than any effort in non-fiction. The literary flourish O'Brien brings to the story is to be appreciated, her larger statement on what constitutes tragedy and grief in modern-day Ireland is not to be overlooked.

Arafats Elephant
Jonathan Tel
Counterpoint Press
P.O. Box 65793 Washington D.C. 20035
ISBN 1582431833, $14.00, paperback, www.amazon.com

Jonathan Tels debut collection resists any easy labeling. Each of the 17 stories are independent pieces with the only noticeable thread connecting them being their Jerusalem setting.

Even more confusing, in a region where people have come to define themselves through rivalry, be it religious, territorial or political, Tels characters seem to be free from many of these traditional burdens. Instead, their ordeals lie in the everyday, a scenario that invites the author to freely interject his own brand of the unexpected and absurd.

Happiness never really flourishes here: a prospective bride shamed by a random sexual encounter in "Beautiful, Strong, and Modest" while in "Alte Zakhen" a UN representative is kidnapped from a bathroom, "Spleen; or, The Goys Tale" follows an orthodox rabbi who discovers he has Gentile blood, and there is no room at the inn for the founder of modern Zionism in "Shaking Hands With Theodor Herzl."

By far, the volumes strongest entry, "A Story About a Bomb," is one in which the intifada is brought to a momentary halt by busy traffic. To tell the tale, an unidentified narrator recounts an almost playful story he read about a hapless suicide bomber who cant seem to cross the road to reach his intended target, a crowded bus stop. "He stepped out one centimeter into the road - and a great Coca-Cola truck went roaring past. He retreated. He strode forth. A Subaru blurted its horn at him."

After making it to the other side, the bomber is again stopped short of martyrdom by two tourists who ask to have their picture taken. Although we are told that the story is over when his finger presses down on the button, readers are left to wonder for several more pages before the author reveals whether that button was wired to a camera or an explosive.

"Bomb" is a perfect example of Tels technique, which is carefully restrained, sometimes inconclusive, but with a prose style that always lends to the story an element of distorted reality.

Another, "I May Be a Ghost but Im Not a Slut," is a barroom conversation between an ambulance driver and a young girl who he does not realize is dead. The daily proximity to death has left the driver immune to the girls ghastly features and incessant talk of suicide. Painfully conspicuous dialogue, however, derails the story before the reader can first appreciate its conceit.

Tels most effective stories capitalize on their brevity. The role reversal "Ibrahim Kuttab is Innocent," another nesting of a story within a story, follows the actions of a young Hebrew-speaking Israeli whose obvious masquerade as an Arab is transparent to everyone but the authorities who beat him to get at the truth.

Less effective are his moments of whimsy. "Did Moshe Dayan Have a Glass Eye?" five pages of arch, disposable fragments, offers nothing beyond its memorable title. Likewise the title piece, a parable about a cumbersome gift that has present-day implications, ends the collection on a less than striking note.

Taken together, Tels stories provide a view of Jerusalem as a city of individuals who, in addition to enduring the daily routine of horrors that is the Middle East, verge on surrendering to the disorder of their personal lives as well. And while he may sometimes appear obsessed with this trauma, it is an obsession that reminds us that suffering in all its forms is easily found in such a tumultuous part of the world.

Rob Stout
Reviewer



Shannon's Bookshelf

Finding Ian
Stella Cameron
Zebra Books/Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022
ISBN: 0821770829, $6.99, 384 pp., www.kensingtonbooks.com, www.amazon.com

Thirteen years ago, Byron, in the throes of grief after the death of his young wife in childbirth, does what he thinks is best and gives his son up for adoption. It was the only way he could imagine his child would have a happy life. But, as Byron continues on with his education and begins his career, and ultimately becomes famous in his field of work, he always keeps track of where young Ian is. As long as Ian is happy, Byron is content to leave things as is. But when Byron discovers that Ian's adoptive parents have both died and the boy has been sent to relatives in England, Byron decides to go see for himself whether Ian is happy and well-cared for.

There will be little, if any, disruption to his own life, he assures himself.

But things aren't that simple. Ian might not be happy with these virtual strangers, in a country so different from America, so before he knows it, Byron is much more involved with Ian's life than he planned. Not only that, but Ian's beautiful cousin, Jade, manages to turn Byron's life completely upside down, and things are no longer simple at all.

Stella Cameron handles the plot line of Finding Ian with sensitivity. Lives are merged and joined in a way no one expected, leaving Byron to make some very difficult decisions about what is most important in his life and that of his son's. You'll enjoy this book and watching the characters grow and come together.

Free Stuff For Kids, 2002 Edition
The Free Stuff Editors
Meadowbrook Press/Simon and Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0881664014, $5.99, 102 pp., www.meadowbrookpress.com

Got bored kids? Free Stuff For Kids (2002 Edition) is the perfect remedy to that.

Packed with hundreds of free and "up-to-a-dollar" stuff to order by mail, there's something for every kid. From sports cards to toys, stickers, tattoos and school supplies, kids may actually a hard time choosing - so it's a good thing the offers are good for the entire year of 2002!

I found the book is also a good learning tool. The beginning of the book gives detailed instructions, written in easy-to-follow language, to help kids send postcards and letters for the offers, send any money necessary for items, and even a checklist to follow, preventing mistakes that might keep kids from getting their stuff.

A parent might like to teach their kids a bit about the money they spend on the items, help them with their penmanship skills and keep track of what they order and when it comes in.

Also included are internet addresses where kids can check out more free stuff. Free Stuff For Kids, 2002 Edition, promises hours of fun and excitement, especially as the treasures start arriving in the mail!

Passing Through Paradise
Susan Wiggs
Warner Books
1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 044661078X, $6.99, paperback, 419 pp., www.amazon.com

Sandra Babcock's life was full of shame and loneliness... until Victor Winslow came along. He was her best friend and then her husband, and Sandra's lonely past fell behind her as the beloved wife of the adored politician.

But now the town of Paradise is anything but paradise, as Sandra faces the accusatory stares and disapproval of Victor's constituents, who call her the Black Widow, believing she caused Victor's violent and untimely death.

Despite exoneration by the courts, Sandra realizes she will always remain suspect in the eyes of Victor's friends and family. Her only choice is to renovate her broken-down family home, find a buyer, and get the heck out of Paradise.

When Mike Malloy comes into Sandra's life, he fixes more than her home. He fixes her life and mends her broken heart. In turn, she fills the void in his life as a devoted single dad, who sees his children not nearly enough for his liking.

But, will the dark secrets Sandra keeps about the night of her husband's death keep Mike from every fully loving and trusting her? Will Sandra give up any chance of happiness to keep from admitting the truth?

Of all Susan Wiggs' books I've read, I found Passing Through Paradise the most poignant - the most graceful story of committed love. Sandra's despair and resignation to do the right thing, balanced with Mike's wanting the best for his family, and for Sandra, is a deeply felt thread throughout the book. Trust and obligation - to others and to themselves - make Sandra and Mike real and likeable.

With a climax sure to surprise, Passing Through Paradise is a definite winner.

Shannon Cave
Reviewer



Judy's Bookshelf

Championship Writing - 50 Ways To Improve Your Writing
Paula La Roque
Success Press
Marion Street Press
http://www.marionstreetpress.com/
ISBN: 0966517636, $18.95 US Softcover 206 pages

Who would think a book on grammar and composition could be interesting and entertaining? This one is. "Championship Writing" is filled with tips for using language properly and it is easy to see that Paula La Roque loves words and language - this is a woman who reads dictionaries for fun.

From Ambrose Briece on words, to Zimmerman's leads, there is something here for all writers interested in perfecting their craft. Non-fiction writers, especially, will benefit from the practical advice in this useful book.

Paula La Roque believes the relationship between writer and reader is based on trust: "We don't trust 'experts' who can't use their tools, and language is the only tool the writer has."

Ms. La Roque certainly qualifies as a writing expert who has earned the trust of professional writers all over the continent. Her experience includes four years as writing consultant for the Associated Press Washington Bureau, she is on the AP Managing Editors executive board and will serve as President of the association in 2004. Her list of credits is impressive and too extensive to mention here. This book is a collection of fifty columns originally written for the Society of Professional Journalists' "Quill Magazine."

I had the urge to dig out everything I have ever written to see if I had fallen prey to the "don't dos" mentioned in each chapter. So often when writing about what "not to do," authors neglect to explain how to do it effectively. This book sets out examples of ineffective writing and then offers good examples of how to turn them into writing that has clarity and power. The chapters on writing "leads" are especially informative. The all- important first lines of a story, whether fiction or news, are of concern to every writer.

Columns 12 & 13, "Rethinking Headlines," contain numerous examples of "deadend" headlines that fail to draw the reader into a piece along with examples of how to rewrite them to provoke the reader's curiosity.

La Roque shows you how to write with clarity and beauty in mind. Word lovers will particularly enjoy the column, "Solving the Ambrose Briece Mystery," which touches on the evolution of the English language. "Notes on Usage" is another good one wherein common words and phrases that are often misused are defined.

Most concepts will be familiar to professional writers, though it is surprising that the book fails to address the new medium of Internet writing. In the forward to the book, Ms. La Roque mentions workplace writing. Increasingly, workplace writing is making the transition from print to HTML (hypertext markup language). There is a vast new audience of readers who do not read newspapers, they may not watch television, but they are online avidly reading and seeking new content everyday. The principles outlined in this book are appropriate for anyone, and writers in new media could greatly improve their web copy by applying them.

Ms. La Roque's "secret" for good writing appears on page 34: "Memorable writing is usually simplified language. It emulates speech at its best and is immediate in its clarity and beauty. If it's also 'informal,' so much the better."

The last chapter is for the writing teacher or editor, there is nothing new here, but some editors I know could benefit from adopting the respectful attitude that Ms. La Roque encourages. I would have liked to have seen some transition between the columns, but the informative index briefly defines each chapter, and provides a concise, handy reference for the working writer or writing teacher. Highly recommended.

How You Can Be Your Own Publisher
Judy Meininger
Success Press
l12A -10616 Mellow Meadows Drive, Austin, Texas 78750
Format: Ebook (PDF version)
ISBN 0-9675958-3-5 (59 p) Price: $14.95, 1-512-401-4905
http://www.unconventionalwisdom.com/

How You Can Be Your Own Publisher will be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about the administrative details of setting up a self-publishing business. This 103-page ebook has a good index for quick reference to the material, a bonus section with a tips on marketing and leads to some commercial resources as well. The extensive 45 page appendix lists full contact details for International ISBN agents throughout the world.

The author touches on what needs to be considered when starting up: naming and registering your business, where to find information on collecting sales tax and what equipment you need to get started. There are some good tips and advice on how to save money while setting up and equipping your office like: shopping the classifieds, bartering and attending auctions.

Meininger has done a good job gathering information to explain the basics of copyright, ISBN numbers, bar codes and wholesalers, all important considerations for the self-publisher. The reader will find more information on each item by following the clickable links to other online resources concerning these concepts.

A freelance writer and self-publisher since 1992, Meininger's articles have appeared in national and international magazines and business publications. A business/paralegal graduate of Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, Meininger has 15-plus years working with both start-up and established businesses. She has helped more than 200 authors develop business, marketing and publicity plans for books and articles.

This ebook answers most of the basic questions those new to the business of self-publishing will need to consider as they take those first steps towards establishing their own business. An updated, revised paperback version of How You Can Be Your Own Publisher, based on feedback from the ebook, will be available September 2002.

Judy Justice, Reviewer
http://www.creativepurrsuits.com/



Ann Skea's Bookshelf

Something Like A House
Sid Smith
Picador, Macmillan
0330480871, A$21.00 (paperback), 227 pages

"He was the only round-eye on board, but nobody noticed".

Nobody noticed, partly because this Westerner had lived long enough amongst Chinese peasants to have become like them in his manners, his movements, even his thoughts. We are told, in the first pages, that his name is Jim Fraser, but almost everything else we learn about him is learned through his actions and the reactions of others. He remains almost faceless - an odd, small figure, in a culture to which he is alien and in which he is just one more insignificant speck in the flow of history.

We see that history - thirty-five years of the vast cultural changes which took place in China after the Korean War - only as it affects the people of the small Miao village where Fraser eventually comes to live after deserting from the UN army at the end of that war. Eighteen-years old, he hid in the fields and surrendered to the Chinese soldiers, became sick, was imprisoned in a clinic near the Miao village and, when he recovered, was surprisingly released to live with two of the villagers.

This remarkable book tells his story in a spare, blunt style which draws you into a history which is human and compelling. One of the great strengths of this book is that Smith allows the reader to experience the village and its people with Fraser, to see odd things happen without understanding them or being able to ask, and to know about the changes happening in the rest of China only in the random, fragmentary way that people in a remote, mostly illiterate, minority group would know of them.

As the events of the Cultural Revolution affect the nearest town, young people wearing red armbands begin to appear in the area. And as Party policies are implemented, the traditional farming life of the villagers becomes more difficult. The book is not focused on history but on the few villagers Fraser becomes close to. Their lives and his change as their world changes; as political unrest grows; and as they become more and more involved with things outside the village. Eventually, Fraser find himself fighting again - this time with a group of Red Guards.

What comes through most strongly in this book, is the strength of the will to survive. The horrors which the Cultural Revolution brings to the ordinary people are simply endured or participated in, according to circumstances. They are part of the need to survive and there is little choice. Culture, custom and superstitious belief are shown to lie behind some of the most horrific acts, but there is no moralizing or comment - just bare descriptions, which are no less horrific for that.

Only towards the end of the book are some things explained and, were it not for Smith's 'Afterword', the underlying theme of germ-warfare and genetic experimentation which then becomes apparent might be dismissed as too fanciful to be frightening. Smith's narrative shows the actions of people from both Western and Eastern cultures. His 'Afterword' outlines the research he undertook and the facts on which some of the things in this book were based and they are what makes Fraser's story terrifyingly relevant to our own lives.

This is a beautifully written, sensitive, powerful and unusual book, for which Smith deservedly won the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2001.

Something To Declare
Julian Barnes
Picador, Macmillan
033048916X, A$27.50 (paperback), 318 pages

Julian Barnes was not always a Francophile. When he first went to France with his parents, at the age of thirteen, he found it a "monstrous experience". And French food, as he tells us in the first essay in this book, seemed formidably eccentric: he disliked the unsalted butter, the bloody meat and the "foul" vinaigrette sauces. Only fruit seemed reliable. And the French? They "liked onions far too much" and "brushed their teeth with garlic paste".

This essay is delightful but it is untypical of the essays and reviews in the rest of the book. Certainly, there are other humorous, light-hearted delights, especially in Barnes's easy, inventive prose, but most of the pieces are more serious, in-depth discussions about French writers, musicians, film-makers and other things French. Most were originally published in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement or The London Review of Books: if you read these publications, you will know the sort of excellence they demand and the sort of long, informed pieces they like to publish.

Barnes is familiar enough with French literature to discuss it with authority and his work has won him recognition and reverence from the French literary establishment. Yet, I take pleasure in the fact that he presents himself more as the Ultimate Peasant (who figures in a couple of pieces in this book) than as the Modern French Literary Critic. His style is closer to that of Samuel Johnson than to that of Derrida or Lacan. And praise be for that!

There are surprises, too, in this book. There is a wonderfully funny picture of Barnes trying out and Elizabeth David recipe and honouring her special flair as the doyenne of food writing. One essay deals with an English historian, Richard Cobb, who first went to France in 1935, adopted it as his country, became the Revolution's historian and was awarded the L‚gion d'Honneur. Another with the Tour de France 2000, and with the world of competitive cycling. Edith Warton figures in several of the essays, most particularly as she motor-tours through France in 1906-7 with her husband Teddy and with Henry James as a passenger. And there is an essay which begins by discussing three singers who were popular when Barnes taught "English conversation and English civilization" at a French Catholic school from 1966-7 and which takes flight into reminiscences about some of the Catholic Fathers with whom he worked.

Readers unfamiliar with France and with things French may not share Barnes's enthusiasms and may often find his subject matter, here, too French for their taste, but his writing always reflects a lively, humorous and worldly mind. Readers who share his Francophilia, and especially those who share his taste in French literature, will revel in the fact that most often in these essays Barnes is discussing the lives and work of French writers like Mallarm‚, Baudelaire, Sartre and, of course, Flaubert.

Barnes is infatuated with Flaubert: his work, his life, his loves, his hates, his friends and his enemies. "I wish he'd SHUT UP about Flaubert", Kingsley Amies is reported to have said. "Fat chance!", is Barnes's reply and in much of this book he indulges himself in the "necessary pleasure" of Not Shutting Up About Flaubert.

Ann Skea, Reviewer
http://ann.skea.com



Hodgins' Bookshelf

The Course Of Honour
Lindsey Davis
Century/Random House
ISBN 0712677240, 296 pages, UK pounds 15.99
Mysterious Press
ISBN 0892966742, 336 pages, $22.00, www.amazon.com

It's ancient Rome again, "Commencing in the autumn of AD 31, when the Caesar was Tiberius." This time author Davis doesn't write about her favourite fictional detective, Didius Falco, but perhaps her research for the Falco series both inspired and facilitated this "extra" work.

The apparently - at first - fictional protagonist is Caenis, a highly intelligent, educated slave girl to the (historical) dowager Empress Antonia, who later grants her freedom before dying.

By standards of the British throne, where George III reigned 60 years, Victoria 64 years, and Elizabeth II now at 50 years, the somewhat rapid turnover rate of Roman emperors through whose reigns Caenis lived wasn't half quick enough for the good of their subjects. Their qualities on average had sadly deteriorated after Augustus; for these men held absolute power and, as the wise Lord Acton (1843-1902) much later stated, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Aside from other corruptions, these rulers in several cases were terrorists enthroned, who thought nothing of murder or ordering suicides.

As the story opens, the now corrupt - certainly in Davis's account - Emperor Tiberius (who had however begun pretty well, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica) was nominally on the throne, but actually hanging out - again, in Davis's account - with disreputable cronies on Capri in the Bay of Naples area.

The encyclopaedia tasks Tiberius chiefly with being unloving and unlovable, and eventually with becoming cynical about bloodshed. Such rule might not greatly affect a minor citizen living in, say, Gaul, but Caenis is a Roman court personality whose lover (introduced below) will himself become Emperor; compared to the general run of a figurative forest, they are high trees who catch more than their share of any wind.

A young man of good but impoverished family, the future (again, historical) emperor Vespasian has taken notice of a pair of slave girls and becomes enamoured, not of the exquisite and hedonistic foil Veronica, but of the plainer but far deeper Caenis - a name from Greek legend, but not mentioned in the Encyclopaedia in connection with Vespasian. A note at the book's end, though, suggests that Caenis was real.

In a middle passage, Davis will also say that the historian Suetonius mentions Antonia Caenis in an essay on the Caesars. If this book were "real fiction" one couldn't even be certain that such an essay ever existed, but my money is on factuality; for one gets a strong feeling that the fictional content of this book goes not much farther than to patch into the historical record a welter of obviously unrecorded but at least plausible dialogue and events, and possibly the entire, rather minor Veronica character.

Writing such a book strikes me as parallel to completing a large, complex, highly demanding paint-by-numbers kit in which an evidently exact skeleton-sketch is provided - by recorded history, for a book - and in which the blank areas are painted in with more or less vivid colours, by the artist. In such an analogy, a dedicated history would consist of as complete and orderly a skeleton sketch as possible; at the opposite extreme, a science fiction story set in a different world having no recognizable frame of human or earthly reference would be an abstract or other free-form painting, with no predetermined skeleton at all; and other novel genres would tend to use minimal skeletal sketching, adorned with plenty of imaginative brushwork.

Vespasian's regard is returned by Caenis, it seems, but there is no question of eventual marriage between their disparate castes. Although Davis allows that Caenis has been pursued by men before, evidently with occasional success, the slave holds Vespasian off for years. (The closest to a rationale for her to do so is that she isn't HIS slave, but someone else's; it is not however an issue that has safeguarded her virginity hitherto, if I understand Davis's subtle hints. Nor is there ever a mention of her pregnancy.)

In ancient Rome, a rather formalized development programme for young men of high expectations existed; the Encyclopaedia states in the case of Tiberius that he "passed through the list of state offices in the usual princely fashion, beginning with the quaestorship ..." It is from that custom that this book's title, "The Course of Honour", clearly is drawn. Accordingly, during the years-long delay to a logical consummation of the loving pair's relationship, Vespasian is sent abroad on that typical round of official positions.

Consider now the risk Caenis runs as she almost thrusts Vespasian away from her own arms and, in effect, into those of other woman in Crete and elsewhere! You may perhaps understand Caenis in this matter, but not I - although there is a familiar, lamentable female behavioural pattern ...

Even Caenis's becoming a freedwoman - accompanied by her receiving her employer's forename, Antonia - will not allow her marriage to Vespasian, as she appears to have been aware all along. Her freedom does however meet some obscure requirement letting her become his mistress for a few years.

Yet it is no secret that eventually she will be cast aside to let him marry someone "more suitable"; she seems to expect that event more than he does, but to fear it less.

That turn of events will in fact occur. Yet it develops that the woman who marries Vespasian is no paragon, either, but a different man's (a cipher named Capella's) ex-mistress. "The other woman" is nonetheless good enough to give Vespasian a favourable and dutiful "family man" image to support his long range political ambitions.

Considering the anguish it involved, that switch of partners must have been very difficult to justify. The real problem however is that whereas a good logic does exist, the book hides it entirely too long; for an explanation only emerges in the volume's Part Three, subtitled "When the Caesars were Caligula and Claudius", Chapter XVII, page 108. Forlorn after the supposed final departure of Vespasian from her life, Caenis "could in fact marry anyone in the Empire she liked, except the six hundred men [such as Vespasian] who were members of the Senate. Augustus had debarred those from marrying freedwomen [such as Caenis] ..."

As we ancient Romans like to say, "Lux venit" - "Comes the dawn!" It's late to learn that, though.

The tone of the book abruptly changes with the marriage of Vespasian, and a 20-year hiatus in his relationship with Caenis begins until his wife ultimately dies. During this long period, the story occupies itself with Roman politics at the hands of omnipotent, often bloodyminded Roman emperors including Caligula, Claudius (hands-down the best of this series, but derided for being lame, in his time), and Nero. Although people and events are portrayed from Caenis's imagined personal perspective, this period is in essence a straight recitation of history.

Again the tone changes when Vespasian becomes a widower. Although initially Caenis rejects his advances, it isn't very long before they're happily reunited in her bed, and making plans for a future together. He assures her he would have married her years earlier, but for Augustus's prohibitionary law. As to that, they still can't marry on the very same grounds, for Vespasian remains a senator. However, in all other respects Caenis becomes a member of Vespasian's family.

Whether by her infertility (Vespasian had had children by his wife) or by some other miracle, Caenis still avoids pregnancy.

Meantime the menace posed by Nero's accession to unlimited power must surely have remained present, but in Davis's telling it fades into the background almost to the point of oblivion - until Rome catches fire and Nero makes a scapegoat of the Christian faction of Roman society.

Then, too, there are Nero's family murders, such as that of his younger relative Britannicus, a very and likeable promising lad whose very existence had threatened the awful (in every sense) Emperor.

After some years, a now somewhat elderly Vespasian, as really the only man left to do a necessary job, draws another foreign assignment, now together with his son Titus. They are posted to the war zone of Judaea, to quell a serious Jewish uprising. That would, as we know, prove a terrible disaster for the Jews, but Davis's book doesn't dwell on it except in exploring the impact of Vespasian's further lengthy absence upon his lonely mistress, who remains in Rome.

Nero was at last himself murdered, and the infamous "year of four emperors" began - Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and then, after the year was up, finally Vespasian himself to make a fifth in 1 1/2 years' time.

At the end of the upheaval, the hero was back in Rome to begin a goodly reign that was to heal many wounds the old city and her empire had suffered. It took some astute and patient manoeuvring on his part, Davis tells us, but the new Emperor even got his Caenis to move in with him ... although nothing, it seemed, could undo the Gordian anti-marriage knot Augustus had tied.

Thus the "girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy back" scenario of the typical romance is played out more than once in this book, for the former couple has become estranged by three long separations, each time followed by an almost-new "girl meets boy" episode. The girl (or rather woman on the second and third go-arounds) manages to be a prickly character on every such occasion, but the guy is her true and perfect lover, and he wins her again and again.

"And they lived happily ever after," to quote a famous line. Yet not only romantics will enjoy this tale. "The Course of Honour" comes too near nonfiction to fail to please fans of ancient history, as well.

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story Of The Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
Mike Dash
Crown Books
c/o The Crown Publishing Group
299 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10171
ISBN 0609607669, 381 pages; U.S.$25, Can.$38, www.amazon.com

The "Batavia" was a capacious wooden sailing cargo ship of the Dutch United East India Company, or "VOC" using the Dutch initials of an organization known also as "Jan Company". The vessel was newly built, although from our perspective she was of very oldfashioned design, with low bows and a far higher stern - a style typical of the 17th century but abandoned in/by the 18th.

Her captain was a tough and much experienced sea officer, but rather overbearing, touchy, and too self-assured or status-proud to divert the ship's course even slightly, when the lookout one fateful moonlit night reported possible rocks lying in wait, dead ahead.

To all appearances, then, the captain was solely responsible for the great vessel's grounding and destruction on a coral reef in the Houtman['s] Abrolhos archipelago, some 40 miles off Australia's only vaguely known west coast and two hundred-odd miles north of what is now Perth. (The Dutch were exploiting the riches of the East before having fully explored the zone's sea lanes, and in this case ran off too much easting. The "Batavia" might a few hours later that night even have beached herself on the mainland, had she not first struck on Morning Reef among a scattering of barren islets.) Thus did the disasters begin unfolding, already in the book's Prologue.

A shortcoming of the "Batavia", usual in all shipping until, at last, the 1912 disaster to the RMS "Titanic" put an end to it, was a lack of adequate lifeboat or even liferaft capacity to take off anything near the ship's full company. At the voyage's outset there were over 330 people aboard the great ship, but she carried only two boats - they luckily survived the crash - between them capable of carrying 60 people at most, per trip. The only hope for those who had not already perished was that sufficient time and energy could be found to move them all, in trip after trip, first to some nearby dry but uninhabitable rocks, then onward to more promising islands which lay several miles father away. Whether or not the mariners realized they were so close to a mainland, their miserable two boats could not have carried everyone there, given that supplies, especially drinking water, were now in critically short supply.

Despite the huge difficulties so occasioned, the book's subtitle makes no bones about informing us that things were to grow worse yet, involving what author Mike Dash labels "History's Bloodiest Mutiny". An error at a book's start tends to create confusion, pause for checking and analysis, and at last a disappointment lowering overall reader expectations. A frontispiece map of much of the world, titled "Route of the Batavia", shows a dashed line tracing a path quite at variance with that verbally described near the bottom of page 2. At no point does the map show the ship approaching the South American coast nearer than, at a half-educated guess, a thousand miles; yet pg. 2 states that the vessel "... swung west on passing Sierra Leone" - the map shows her jinking a bit, then steering south-southeast - "and crossing the equator headed for Brazil;" whereas the map shows the ship then heading more for South Africa! ... although in the South Atlantic the dashed line does at last depict a southwesterly swing, parallel to but far off the Brazilian coast.

"Off the coast of South America ..." is NOT how a sailor would describe a Midatlantic course.

Again it will be revealed in Chapter 3, "The Tavern of the Ocean" (referring to the predecessor of Cape Town) - this chapter reviews the voyage's Atlantic portion, from its outset - that the squadron of ships including the "Batavia" put into port, contrary to company rules, at Sierra Leone. This diversion represents the already mentioned "jink" in the course sailed, but as the line on the map does not touch land, the graphical representation once more fails to match the written account.

Moreover, the sailing instructions' prescribed route between two "wagenspoor" or "cart-tracks", delineating a sailor's fairway, run on the map approximately northwest-to-southeast; whereas at the top of page 78 the text defines the "wagenspoor" as "two parallel lines crossing the ocean from northeast to southwest". Thus these two version run at roughly right angles to one another. Incredible!

Yet the work gets really fascinating and far less trouble-prone, elsewhere. It's unfortunate that a "navigational error" so blatantly gives a poor impression, but the harm may be mended by other good work.

That same map, one of four at various scales, must be credited with our enlightenment about the existence of the Mogul (Mughal) Empire which covered all but the southern part of the Indian subcontinent at the time of the "Batavia"'s voyage, in 1628-29. It seems the Empire lasted until the Third Battle of Panipat, in 1761 - centuries later than you may have supposed, given that "the Mongol Empire" sounds so mediaeval.

The book is also valuable for its introductions to many other topics of historical interest, such as the merger of many competing, city-based East India trading companies into the United East-Indian Company or, in Dutch, de Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie, or VOC; and such as an outline of the history of mutiny in VOC ships. Perhaps the surviving records of the "Batavia"'s disasters are rather thin, but Dash has scraped together a fine collection of essentially background facts and other insights, providing both education and entertainment to the reader, above and beyond the core episode the author sets out to tell.

The climactic wreck of the ship on her maiden voyage having been described in the "Prologue: Morning Reef" section, Chapters 1 & following provide background analyses and a flashback to the voyage prior to the great crash; for in due course at least a second climax will be reached.

Chapter 1 informs us at considerable length about the subtitle's "Mad Heretic", who was to play the pivotal role indicated there. His is a most interesting tale - and don't forget that Dash claims all to be true, although he does go in for important speculations on various issues, such as those connecting the man to his presumed sources of inspiration.

Thus we learn, as background, about Anabaptists, Mennonites, and Rosicrucians, among other formative matters. One might gladly study such groups in any case, but the setting in Dash's book makes the reading quite gripping.

The heretic in question was a VOC commercial (as opposed to nautical) officer whom we may call the Assistant Supercargo. His direct superior, the Cargo Superintendent or "Supercargo" was, surprisingly, ranked highest among the ship's officers; for the Captain was responsible, and entitled, only to sail the ship wherever the Supercargo might decide on Jan Company's (VOC's) behalf.

That relationship is reminiscent, but an inversion, of one among The Captain of a British Royal Navy warship in Napoleonic times - his was the ultimate responsibility in all matters; the Sailing Master, who was delegated chief responsibility for navigational matters; and a Lieutenant (meaning "place holder"), an assistant to the Captain. That is to say, in a VOC ship the Supercargo was, like the RN Captain, the supreme boss over all matters; the VOC Captain and the RN Sailing Master were subordinate navigational specialists; and a VOC Assistant Supercargo, like a RN Lieutenant, came out as a rough equivalent to the Captain in the former case, and to a Sailing Master in the latter. (As, in the RN, a lieutenant held a King's commission whereas a Sailing Master was "merely" a warrant officer, in theory the lieutenant was superior but in practice a master could enjoy great respect, so that the two might stand quite evenly.)

Thus a VOC Captain was a flunkey to another man on board "his" ship, commercial matters being held paramount. It was a situation that no doubt rankled for a proud nautical specialist, and aboard the "Batavia", once the Captain and his much resented commercial superior had quarrelled, it made the Captain a natural ally of the covertly heretical Assistant Supercargo who, moreover, possessed as a personal attribute the glibness and address needed, but lacked, by the Captain.

This heretic had over the years seized upon certain religious teachings which, if taken out of context and juxtaposed in particular ways, could effectively reverse the positions of right and wrong. In fact the original Anabaptist idea had rather done so, setting the ball rolling in this man's mind so to speak. However, until events at the Cape of Good Hope brought the Captain and the heretic together, the latter could do nothing to seize control of the ship because he lacked all nautical skill.

Fundamentally, Anabaptists didn't believe in the efficacy of infant baptism because babies and small children cannot be expected to understand the significance of the rite. They went on, though, to believe they were commissioned by God to carry out the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Revelations, and here they opened a hornet's nest by attempting to seize European cities and enact God's word - by violent means, if need be.

Such actions turned everyone else against them. In consequence the movement was largely destroyed, driven underground, or converted to benign Mennonitism. However, the old ideas could not be entirely erased at the snap of one's fingers, or easily forgotten by this tale's character.

The following specific rationale doesn't seem to have been used by that fellow, but it does provide a simple picture of how such a mind may have operated: "Thy will be done," Christians often pray to God - and, as God is omnipotent, obviously (goes the cant) His will IS done, despite all else. That being so, even if our man had committed the most heinous and dastardly acts, God's will was done, and no crime had been committed. Thus the person holding such notions felt that he could excuse himself any crime or cruelty - and, moreover, God (whose will it supposedly was) would excuse him, too. This is, by inspection, a specious and, yes, heretical argument, but it is one that is difficult to confute, in logic.

Author Mike Dash holds our attention also as he traces much of the history and traditions of VOC - the Dutch East India Company or, more familiarly, Jan Company. What we need chiefly to know, though, is that there existed a huge if figurative gap between the privileged men and (a few) women living abaft the mainmast in VOC as well as other ships, on one hand; and the miserable paupers such as Jan Company's sailors and soldiers, crammed together forward, on the other.

That psychological and status gap was to last until the need for huge crews as well as for mainmasts disappeared with the coming of steam power; for instance, American author and erstwhile Harvard law student Richard Henry Dana named an autobiographical account "Two Years Before the Mast" in describing his experiences as a paid hand in the brig "Pilgrim" of Boston, Mass., in 1834-36, i.e., over two centuries after the "Batavia". "Before the Mast" still indicated, to the knowledgeable, Dana's relatively menial status and living conditions while aboard, although he was later to achieve considerable personal distinction.

In discussing those two major classes within the ship's company, Dash among other things states that only four organized toilets were provided, two for the few people aft, and two also for the multitude forward, many of whom had to relieve themselves onto the stone or gravel ballast beneath the hold. Doing so created a rotting, stinking hell in even such a new ship's bowels, before her maiden voyage had proceeded far; as may be imagined, it was particularly noisome while passing through equatorial heat and heavy storms requiring the blocking of ventilation.

Toilets aboard ships are still called "heads" because, after perhaps the mid-17th century or earlier, and until the age of clipper ships in the 19th, the forward "seats of ease" were on the headrails, in the bows below the bowsprit - and these generally allowed four closely packed men to hang their buttocks outboard along either side, for a total of eight users at a time, not just two. Even prior to that period, old paintings show a long, narrow, gallery-like deck with castellated bulwarks in the same position and probably used in much the same way to give seated latrine space. One suspects the headrails were adopted to keep men from being as easily pitched into the sea, and perhaps also to improve ships' aesthetics by hiding uninvolved parts of the men from outboard view.

In either case - and one can't be sure which school of "head" design the "Batavia" followed, for we are provided with no picture or diagram of the ship - although such facilities were without privacy or comfort, particularly in adverse weather, and were in minimal supply, they almost certainly were not as few as Dash suggests. The undoubted use of the hold is more likely to have resulted from poor discipline and a human preference for being in out of the weather, sunburn too having become a literally sore trial to those aboard.

Something probably still worse than the foregoing was the ship's infestation with lice, bedbugs, cockroaches, rats, biscuit weevils, and other vermin. As to that, nutrition aboard was poor; before the VOC squadron had reached the Cape of Good Hope, many were ill with scurvy (vitamin C deficiency); some had died of it, to be buried at sea.

Still, a greater problem in the end was the heretical Assistant Supercargo, working on the mind of his friend, the Captain, to get him to join in a mutiny chiefly against the ship's top officer, the Supercargo. As already mentioned, the skipper was a touchy cuss; he had got drunk at the Cape, and had put on a disgraceful display leaving the Supercargo, as the skipper's superior, no choice but to reprimand him - resulting in the sailor's level of unforgiving resentment being intolerably raised.

It seems most unlikely that the skipper thereafter ran his ship purposely onto Morning Reef, but his judgement was surely impaired. The ship shouldn't even have been in that part of the ocean and, his navigation having gone wrong, the skipper should never have adopted a half arrogant, half reckless, press-on-regardless attitude after the lookout had meekly reported his (correct) belief that he saw breakers ahead.

With the Captain gone bad, what more could anyone do? Even the Supercargo would have had to defer to him in navigational matters, and in any case the crisis probably arose too quickly on that fateful night for anyone in authority but the Captain, who had been on deck for some time, to arrive by his side, size up the situation, and issue orders that might still have saved the ship and cargo, as well as many lives.

Was the VOC presence aboard this ship, and numerous others, so structured as to have created an event comparable to the loss of the "Batavia", in some ship, at some time, and in some location or other? Perhaps so, to judge by the many times author Dash alludes to the excess of profit motivation - very well, let us call it simply greed - exhibited by the consortium of merchants making up and determining the policies and practices of Jan Company. Dash also tells us about various other revolts or mutinies against the VOC's authority and management; their ways of governing were clearly a source of trouble.

Let's stop now, before spilling the beans left and right - or, if you prefer, before prematurely telling more than ought to be told in a review, as such. Reverting to only general commentary, Mr. Dash spins as fine an historical yarn as the surviving records may allow, although he does so in none too consecutive style, what with the shipwreck already described (no doubt for its reading-hooking "impact") in the Prologue, before the ship and her consorts even leave their Texel anchorage in the Netherlands, as described in Chapter 3.

Before the book's midpoint, unfortunately, the subject matter becomes exceedingly violent and filled with ghastly cruel deeds committed upon men, women, even children. Thus, no matter how well the tale is told, I consider it to be one instance that could well justify censorship; some of its content will appeal only to perverted, sadistic minds, and it may perhaps produce evil influences in better balanced ones, too.

Yet for those who have the decency and sense to stop reading at, say, page 122 of this work, there remains a last point whose omission you might never forgive: a passenger living among the watchful officers in the "Batavia" is a beautiful, appealing, patrician, but forlorn widow. To understand some of the crusty skipper's failings, cherchez la femme!

Pete Hodgins
Reviewer



Sullivan's Bookshelf

Papal Sin: Structures Of Deceit
Garry Wills
Doubleday
1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
0385494106 $25.00 1-800-726-0600, www.amazon.com

Wills, a Roman Catholic, bravely criticizes his church not at the parish but at the papal level. A wide range of today's problems within the church, shortages of priests and nuns, the whole pro-life stance, divorce and annulment, procreation and sexuality, and more, as they have been and are affecting the clergy and laity are discussed in depth.

Several popes are studied. Their deviousness and/or total lack of sensitivity are explored. Pope Pius IX, with a few others, is singled out. It was he who, according to the author, snookered, in so many words, Roman Catholic bishops when called to confer on various church topics. They hadn't been told they'd soon be voting for the pope to be considered 'infallible' when he was speaking or writing ex cathedra on doctrinal matters of faith and morals.

Railed against, too, in the book are the outmoded, Biblically unjustified, and morally nonrelated reasons given by the papacy for its continued refusal to change. So, for example, popes still will not allow married priests, female priests, and contraception, except for the terribly flawed and unpredictable Rhythm method.

Also delved into is Pope Pius XII's not speaking out against the Nazi directed Holocaust. The pontiff's reasoning, according to some sources printed in the book, was that the church was more afraid of Godless Communism than of Nazism, which, after all, didn't condemn all religions.

The author's frequent reflections on the early church fathers, Peter, Paul, Augustine, and Jerome, and famous Roman Catholic writers, such as Lord Action and John Henry Newman, are enlightening.

This book is already controversial amongst Roman Catholic scholars. Even before this reviewer turned a page, negative comments were heard emanating from a prominent Roman Catholic university indicating that the author's words were unfair, unbalanced, and just plain wrong. This reviewer, however, raised in the same faith, found Wills to be quite the opposite, balanced, reasoned, and thoughtful. Each reader will have to decide for him or herself.

Wills writes: "Most people are familiar with [Lord] Acton's famous axiom, 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' Fewer people remember that he was speaking of papal absolutism - more specifically, he was condemning a fellow historian's books on Renaissance Popes for letting them literally get away with murder."

Perhaps the most controversial subjects covered in the book are that of how Mary, mother of Jesus, almost unheard of until the Middle Ages, has, since then, risen in prestige and adoration to the point where she's nearly co-equal with Jesus. And the popes can be thanked or condemned for that. A close second in sensitive issues discussed in the book is the documented high percentage of homosexuals currently filling the priestly ranks of the church.

Wills has taught history at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He has also written numerous books, including "John Wayne's America," "A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government," and "Lincoln at Gettysburg," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize.

Roman Catholics, members of other denominations and religions, and nonbelievers all will gain much from a read of this courageously written, easy to read, informative, and interesting tome. It's highly recommended.

A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among The Baboons
Robert M. Sapolsky
Scribner
1230 Avenue of the Americas, 14th fl., New York, NY 10020
0743202473 $25.00 1-800-223-2336 www.amazon.com

The author tells of his twenty years' experience, a la Jane Goodall and her gorillas, as a young scientist observing and taking fluid and tissue samples from baboons in the wilds of Kenya, Africa. He also tells us his unrelated traveling and visiting on the cheap other parts of Africa.

His stories run the gamut from humorous to bizarre and from frightening to depressing. All his tales, however, are interesting, entertaining, and well written. Many are profound. They mostly concern how baboons live. Their society is so similar to humans that it's easy comparing one's own life to that of these primates.

The author says, "Baboons live in big, complex social groups, and the population I went to study lived like kings. Great ecosystem, the Serengeti. Grass and trees and animals forever, Markin Perkins country. The baboons work maybe four hours a day to feed themselves; hardly anyone is likely to eat them. Basically, baboons have about a half dozen solid hours of sunlight a day to devote to being rotten to each other. Just like our society - few of us are getting hypertensive from physical stressors, none of us are worrying about famines or locust plagues or the ax fight we're going to have with the boss out in the parking lot at five o'clock. We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress. Just like these baboons."

Much of Sapolsky's book covers baboon group leadership. The alpha male and female, but particularly the former, are watched quite closely over the years. And the group's leadership changes are very much like those of mankind.

The author comes to know all the baboon individuals by sight. And he thinks of, and treats, them like his fellow villagers. Though a nonpracticing Jew, he gives them Biblical names.

Many human Africans and their tribes come in for praise. But Sapolsky comes down hard on the Masai, tall and fierce with spears, for being troublemakers. The author backhands Kenya, too.

Today, and for several years, the author works as a full-fledged scientist teaching biology and neurology at Stanford University. And he is still involved with various Kenyan scientific institutions. A great read and highly recommended!

Sapolsky has written "Why Zebras Don't get Ulcers," among his other books. He also contributes articles to "Discover" and "The Sciences" magazines. His home is in San Francisco.

Jim Sullivan
Reviewer



Harwood's Bookshelf

No Man Knows My History: The Life Of Joseph Smith
Fawn Brodie
Vintage House
280 Park Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10017
ISBN 0679730540, $18.00, 520 pp, 1-800-726-0600, www.amazon.com

"The Book of Mormon was a plagiarism of an old manuscript written by one Solomon Spaulding, which Sidney Rigdon, had somehow secured from a printing house in Pittsburgh. After adding much religious matter to the story, Rigdon determined to publish it as a newly discovered history of the American Indian. Hearing of the young necromancer Joseph Smith ... he visited him secretly and persuaded him to enact a fraudulent representation of its discovery." (p. 68)

After reporting that reasonably accurate account of the Book of Mormon's true origin, Brodie then goes on to say, "Through the years the 'Spaulding theory' collected supporting affidavits as a ship does barnacles, until it became so laden with evidence that the casual reader was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the accumulation. The theory requires a careful analysis, because it has been so widely accepted." (p. 68) She then concludes, ""When heaped together without regard for chronology ... and without any consideration of the character of either Joseph Smith or Sidney Rigdon, they seem impressive." (p. 442) In other words, the character of the perpetrator of the "Book of Abraham" hoax, a pretended translation (upside down!) of hieroglyphic funerary scrolls, and of the "Kinderhook plates" hoax, in which Smith promulgated a translation of pseudo-hieroglyphs created to expose him, was incompatible with his being a barefaced liar. Sure. And Santa Claus comes down the chimney on Mithra's birthday.

In fairness to Brodie, who updated her 1945 book in 1971, and died before the publication of two 1985 books that revealed twelve pages of the Book of Mormon to be in Solomon Spaulding's handwriting, her conclusion that Smith was not a plagiarist was less absurd in 1971 than it was in 1995 when her publisher decided to republish her by then totally discredited interpretation in paperback. The very fact that Brodie discussed the B of M's Spaulding genesis and rejected it makes her biography particularly welcome to hardcore Mormons who think that truth is whatever the marks will swallow. And even since the publication of Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon by D. Persuitte (Prometheus, 1985), and Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon by E. H. Taves (Prometheus, 1985), Brodie's gullible account continues to be cited as the definitive biography of the founder of a scam as blatant and consciously fraudulent as Scientology and televangelism.

Again in fairness to Brodie, she did not suppress any of the negative evidence, and her book is indeed a useful account of the Book of Mormon's origins as a fictionalization of such evidence as came to the (true) author's attention in the early nineteenth century. Even someone who accepts Smith as its author cannot read this book and continue to believe that Smith was anything but an imaginative fantasizer-unless of course the reader is a Mormon, in which case rationalizing away the evidence is no more difficult than rationalizing away the reality that the biblical god's official biography portrays him as the most sadistic, evil, megalomaniac serial killer in all fiction. To someone who can read a bible and see "God" as a good guy, reading No Man Knows My History and seeing Joseph Smith as a good guy is not a big step.

Jews Without Judaism: Conversations With An Unconventional Rabbi
Rabbi Daniel Friedman
Prometheus Books
59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, NY 14228
ISBN 1573929247, 108 pp., ppb, $20.00, 1-800-421-0351, www.amazon.com

"Today more Jews are secular than religious. They may 'observe' a few of the rituals of Judaism, celebrating, albeit in the most minimal fashion, a Jewish holiday here and there, perhaps lighting Chanukah candles and participating in a seder at Passover. They may even belong to synagogues and temples, enroll their children in religious schools, celebrate a bar or bat mitzvah, engage rabbis to officiate at their weddings and funerals. But in their daily lives, the beliefs and requirements of Judaism have no bearing upon their decisions." (p. 12)

In other words, by any legitimate definition, Jews are typical Americans.

And yet in an economic and social sense, Jews are not typical Americans. Despite constituting 2.3 percent of the American population, "Jews comprise over a third of the billionaires in this country, over a quarter of the multi-millionaires, and between a third and a half of the elite professionals in law, in journalism, in medicine, and in academia. More than one-third of America's Nobel Prize winners have been Jews. Jews occupy a disproportionate number of seats in Congress (37) and on the Supreme Court (2)." (p.13)

So in case anyone thinks Jews are still an oppressed minority, even a rabbi agrees that they are not. Friedman states (p. 20), "American Jews know (even though they are hesitant to admit it) that their values and ideals are defined not by Judaism but by American liberalism; Judaism provides only an ethnic vocabulary for expressing the values they have already adopted. In the end, that renders Judaism irrelevant."

Friedman gives no indication of being a biblical scholar, and does not openly acknowledge that henotheists who had no belief in an afterlife wrote the Torah. But he is clearly aware of that reality, for, after describing rituals imposed on Jews by the Torah, he writes (p. 16), "The rabbis added bodily resurrection and life in the world to come as God's most precious gift to his loyal and obedient servants." (emphasis added) Jews Without Judaism, and particularly the chapter on intermarriage, does illustrate one significant difference between humanistic Judaism and America's largest single religious sect. In his fictionalized interview with a couple planning a mixed marriage, Friedman nowhere implies that "My god can lick your god," or that one religion is more valid than another. I have yet to encounter a Catholic priest capable of such ecumenism.

In contrast, the religious Judaism that Friedman rejects and the redneck Christian Right follow identical practices in one significant element of observable behavior (p. 42): "This amounts to deciding what is true and then looking for evidence that God agrees. Whereas values that are actually demanded by the Bible are conveniently ignored."

Friedman's delineation of how he can be a Jew and a rabbi without believing in an imaginary playmate willing to grant him eternal life without passing GO and without collecting $200 is summarized in his answer to an addict's question, "Why do you call yourself a rabbi if you don't believe in God?" (p. 56): "As I understand Jewish experience, it is impossible to believe that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God has been in charge of our destiny. Where was He during the Crusades? Where was He during the Inquisition? Where was He during the Holocaust?" (p. 57) Any incurable godworshipper, Jewish, Christian, Muslim or other, who can rationalize a reason for an omnipotent, omnibenevolent Master of the Universe to countenance such atrocities, in order to retain belief in such a creature's existence, is one sick puppy.

Sweet Jesus: Straight-Shooting Scriptural Studies Scrutinizing The Savior
A. J. Mattill, Jr.
The Flatwoods Free Press
750 Lum Fife Road, Gordo, AL 35466-3357
No ISBN, 2002, 117 pages, spiral bound, paper, $6.50

Sweet Jesus is a collection of articles recently published in American Rationalist, Freethought Perspective and Soar, modified where necessary to take into consideration more recent conclusions. Mattill spells out his approach in the words (p. 3), "We shall assume ... that Jesus did exist and that the four Gospels ... do give us an accurate account of his words and deeds." In other words, the subject of Mattill's scrutiny is the Jesus portrayed in his official biographies, not (necessarily) the Jesus of history.

Since it is the Jesus of literature whom brain-dead fundamentalists (tautology) such as Gee Dubya Shrub view as their greatest hero, and whom Mattill hopes to set straight, that is a logical approach.

Mattill's paraphrasing of some gospel myths probably strays no further from a literal translation than some of the recent modern language bibles. But because Mattill is not motivated to put the best possible spin on stories that, when read by anyone with a functioning human brain, reveal Jesus to be less than heroic, his loose translations convey the depravity of king Jesus' alleged teachings as Authorized translations do not.

Mattill shows the biblical Jesus to have been a liar; a thief; a fanatic who hated his family for recognizing him as a madman; a xenophobe who equated non-Jews with "dogs," an idiom comparable in Jesus' time with the modern German invective, schweinhund; a consummate curser; a prototype Sheridan Whiteside whose abuse of his gracious hosts left much to be desired; a wandering parasite (as a rich benefactor said of Gandhi (p. 10): "It takes a lot of money to keep Gandhi poor"); a sadist and a masochist; a hypocrite who, like Jimmy Swaggert and others, failed to practise what he preached; and a raving lunatic. He does so by the simple expedient of quoting gospel passages that portray him as exactly that.

Mattill draws attention to Jesus' teachings on the virtue of communism and the necessity of disposing of all personal property (and turning the proceeds over to the commune's treasury, although A. J. does not go into that aspect), that Christian churches tend to sweep under the rug, since only a capitalist society can keep the church hierarchy in the comfort to which they have become accustomed.

Mattill reaches the conclusion that the reason Jesus urged his followers to free themselves of sexual desire by castrating themselves is that that is what he had done. I disagree. Jesus' official biographers showed him constantly surrounded by hookers. And a Gnostic gospel author (Gospel of Philip) wrote, "The Liberator's hetaira (companion/concubine) is Maria the prostitute. And Messiah loved her more than all of the students, and used to kiss her often on the mouth." The Gnostic gospel can be disconsidered, since it was written at a time when Jesus was already being credited with fathering an heir who later evolved from sang real (royal blood) into san greal (holy grail). But the canonical authors are unlikely to have shown their ultimate hero's constant companion as a lady for rent, unless they were stuck with the reality that that's the way it was. And Jesus is unlikely to have consorted with hookers unless they provided him with regular freebies.

Since "Sweet Jesus" was a castrato, Mattill sees no reason to consider the theory that he was homosexual. He does not quote the passage (Matthew 26:50) where Jesus addresses his apprentice Judas the Daggerman as hetaire, a word with decidedly male-lover connotations. On Jesus' innate heterosexuality, we are in agreement, since I see hetaire as a clumsy Greek translation of an Aramaic word with no such connotations.

Sweet Jesus is an evaluation of the morality and justice of the Jesus of the bible rather than the Jesus of history. On that basis it achieves its objective in spades. For anyone who thinks Jesus was a nice guy, it should be mandatory reading.

William Harwood
Reviewer



Terry's Bookshelf

Open Season On Lawyers
Taffy Cannon
Perseverance Press
c/o Daniel & Daniel, Publishers
PO Box 1525, Santa Barbara, CA 93102
1880284510, 284 pages, $13.95, 1-800-662-8351

What do you call 100,000 attorneys at the bottom of the ocean? A good start! -- or.....so the old joke goes.

The beginning paragraph of Open Season On Lawyers starts like this:

"Somebody was killing the sleazy lawyers in Los Angeles. In the beginning, hardly anybody even noticed."

Taffy Cannon's new series starring tough-gal Detective Joanna Davis, is a great tour-de-force of police work, even if the victims are less than sympathetic.

Cannon has an ear for dialogue and she's a cracker jack storyteller. I read the book in one sitting and was never quite sure of how it was going end. Cannon doesn't telegraph action, she allows it to unfold as it might in real life.

The villain in Open Season On Lawyers is a doozie..crafty, clever and well-financed...and determined to rid the world of ambulance chasing slime balls who prey upon the legal system.

I'll be reading whatever Cannon writes. And, I'm a fan of her heroine Joanna Davis..she's tough and she's had her share of hard knocks, but she's a survivor with enough determination to 'stay on the trail' until the killer is found!

Enjoy!

The English Assassin
Daniel Silva
G. P. Putnam's Sons
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
ISBN: 0399148515, 381 pages, $25.95, 1-800-847-5515, www.amazon.com

This is my first Daniel Silva novel, but it will not be my last. I was a loyal Ludlum fan and mourned his declining craft long before I mourned his death. I liked Follett in the beginning, but he, too has pandered to the masses, leaving his skills on the word processor.

The English Assassin is Daniel Silva's fourth book and a page-turner from start to finish. While his body count rivals that of early Ludlum, Silva is a more polished story teller.

The English Assassin begins with the death of Augustus Rolfe, an elderly Swiss banker who collaborated with the Nazis (no new territory here) to acquire numerous pieces of art during World War II. At the end of his life, Herr Rolfe decides to atone for his sins and return the paintings to the heirs of their original owners, thus exposing the dirty little secret all Swiss fear. Publicity of this kind just won't do, so Herr Rolfe is killed.

Gabriel Allon, Jewish intelligence agent/art restorer who is set to receive the paintings, finds Herr Rolfe's body and thus the chase begins for the real killer and the enormous power behind the Swiss conspiracy of silence.

While I'm a little tired of the Nazi 'rape of the art world' story, I'm glad to have found someone who writes solid spy stories. I look forward to more work from Silva. As they say in show business, he's got the 'legs' to last a long time.

Enjoy!

The Big Book Of Misunderstanding
Jim Gladstone
The Haworth Press, Inc.
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580
ISBN 1560233826 - 239 pages - $27.95, 1-800-429-6784, www.amazon.com

Although bullied by his father into rough and tumble games and some rather cruel scenarios, Joshua Royalton grew up in a caring environment where he was allowed to live in his own interior dream world. Growing up in the Royalton household wasn't easy, nor was it uncomplicated, but his parents must have done something right, for when Josh chooses to 'come out' to them during his sophomore year of college, they accept his homosexuality with grace and understanding.

What struck me about this book was that, unlike his gay fiction-writing contemporaries, this author's ultimate message was one of hope and acceptance of one's family, one's choices and ultimately, one's self.

After reading The Snow Garden and some other recent gay fiction, I found the landscape to be bleak and so terribly devoid of hope.

The Big Book Of Misunderstanding seems to work through all the messy trial and tribulations of growing up gay and its hero comes out on the other side with hope and a peace rarely seen in other stories.

Kudos to Jim Gladstone for giving other gay teens a ray of hope. While it must be incredibly difficult to grow up knowing you're outside society's boundaries of 'normalcy,'Gladstone shows his readers that there is life after out there ....and it's up to you to become part of it.....gay or not!

Enjoy!

Terry Mathews
Reviewer



Fantina's Bookshelf

Commies
Ronald Radosh
University of Chicago Press
5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637-1496
0226044378 $20.00 1-800-621-2736 www.amazon.com

Ronald Radosh was born to proud communist parents. He attended red elementary and high schools (whose curriculum could match any modern day college campus) and even spent his childhood summers at socialist camp. His life story reads like the perfect description to yield a grown-up replication of Hillary Clinton or Bella Abzug. But something went right along the way.

From a very young age, he embodied a devotion to the truth (or at least, like his parents, what he honestly believed was valid), and this veracity eventually lead him astray (or home depending upon one's point of view.) Ironically, the term "fellow travelers" has become cliche in communist circles, and Mr. Radosh uses it generously throughout this work, but he, the ex-communist, is the one who "traveled" away from a dead-end philosophy, while the so-called "travelers" continued to ram into brick walls, getting nowhere at all.

The drive to satisfy his inquisitive nature lead to many disappoints with communist ideals, but three incidents seemed to cement his conversion from the failed mindset. Along with a select ruck of fellow travelers he was invited to spend a month in Cuba--an offer he joyously accepted. However, touring the island prison, he painfully learned that the Cuban reality was a far cry from the communist lure. Despite communism's promise of complete equality, he encountered a nation where the ruling class lived like kings while the working class, lived in hopeless squalor and dissenters and eccentrics were subject to arbitrary institutionalization, torture, and execution. Touring a mental hospital where innocent dissidents routinely underwent lobotomies tore Mr. Radosh's heart. However, his reaction was not shared by Castro's other American toadies; one of whom dismissed the author's concerns with the seriously spoken statement, "We have to understand that there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies."

A second transmogrifying occurrence, that pays loud testimony to Mr. Radosh's integrity, was his undertaking the writing of what would become the definitive biography of the Rosenbergs. As a teenager, he had protested the spy couple's execution, fully convinced that they were innocent scapegoats murdered by a tyrannical government who had framed them for a false crime. He knew the Rosenberg sons, and in his circle Julius and Ethel were icons of unsurpassed stature. Upon the government's release of all documentation regarding the espionage case, Mr. Radosh determined to provide the martyred Rosenbergs posthumous exoneration. He was cataclysmically dismayed when the evidence conclusively proved that they were indeed guilty as charged. Many people with such strongly held convictions would have abandoned the project rather than publish a book that thoroughly refuted them. It speaks volumes about his character that he concluded his work despite having to change the thesis 180 degrees. Yet this honest trait was not seen admirably by much of the left. "The Rosenberg Files" author earned widespread ostracization by his leftist peers, even many of those who agreed with its verisimilitude. Too many felt that the myth of the Rosenberg image should maintain its luster to sustain the cause--regardless of what the facts stated.

The third and final disillusioning upheaval he experienced happened during Nicaragua's Civil War. Like all good leftists, he supported the Sandinista regime, and all like all good truth-seekers, he wanted to comprehensively investigate the issues involved. Embarking on a hegira to the Sandinista camps during the war, he was shocked by abundant human rights abuses in stark contrast to all the agitprop the regime's liberation. Mingling with a veritable who's who of leftism, he humorously relates his meetings with Bianca Jagger. The internationally renowned airhead seemed especially defensive of one particularly brutal Sandinista general. The origin of her support soon became obvious, as he regularly arrived at the motel late at night and disappeared into her suite until the wee hours of the morning. Appalling many of his fellow traveling ideologues, by agreeing to venture someplace they would never go--The Contras' Camps, he was again rattled to see humanitarianism and a thrust for democracy and fairness. Publicly siding with the freedom-fighting contras once again earned him the wrath of his fellow travelers, but this time he moved on leaving them all behind.

Ironically, it was the aimless fellow travelers who have repeatedly sacrificed their ideals to maintain allegiance to a cause whose bankruptcy constantly reveals itself. Ronald Radosh was the one who remained true to his principles--human rights, equality, fairness, and openness. He may have the liked platitudinous rhythms of socialism, but like anyone secure in his beliefs felt that further investigation is always beneficial. Although he bravely confesses that his misguided actions were extremely negative, he is correct in acknowledging that now "the capacity for harm is diminished because so many stood solidly behind America while we tried to bring it down. The country is stronger for having encountered and withstood us." Interestingly, while Mr. Radosh eventually found a rich sense of inner peace and self-respect, his adherence to ideals--rather than ideology--stands as a bold example that all of us, fellow travelers as well as those who never boarded, should emulate.

Making Patriots
Walter Berns
University of Chicago Press
5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637-1496
ISBN 0-226-04437-8 $20.00 1-800-621-2736 www.amazon.com

In his short collection of essays, Walter Berns explores the history of patriotism and identifies why it has achieved such a unique plateau here in the United States. Occasionally, bordering on the esoteric due to its advanced discussion of ancient Sparta and more-than-passing mentions of some other abstruse historical topics, certain sections of the treatise may overwhelm some readers. Still those who must plod through the first few chapters will be handsomely rewarded with the book's later essays. The testimonials to Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas alone make it a beneficial read. In these two sections, Bern's ideas illuminate and his prose soars. Of our 16th president he rhapsodically ponders, "what Lincoln did at Gettysburg was to create new mystic chords, stretching from a new battlefield to new graves, to our hearts and hearthstones, all over this broad land, South as well as North, reminding us of the cause written in our book, the Declaration of Independence."

Analyzing Frederick Douglas' life and the impact he left behind, Mr. Berns offers some notions that defy longstanding, putative preconceptions. Mr. Douglas, himself rattles the established elite thinking when he is quoted as saying, "the federal Government was never in its essence anything but anti-slavery...If in its origin, slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed." Mr. Bern