Without Feathers

by Woody Allen
1975

A collection of Allen’s comedic writings. This is for the most part solid, laugh-out-loud Allen parodies and absurdity. Allen is at his best when parodying, say, the great Russian writers (“Should I marry W.? Not if she won’t tell me the other letters in her last name.”) or Ibsen, as in “Lovborg’s Women Considered,” or just being plain absurd, as in the superbly useless “Slang Origins.”

Throughout, the neurotic Allen themes resonate – fear of death and intimacy, etc. There are a couple of low points, like “God (A Play),” which is somewhat flat compared to the true absurdity of the meta-textual pioneers whom it parodies, like Pirandello and Ionesco. But in all, this is prime, vintage Allen, and at his best, he’s note-perfect.

four stars

Round Ireland With a Fridge

by Tony Hawks

The author, a comedian, hitch-hiked around the coast of Ireland with, as the title suggests, a small fridge in tow on a trolley. It was done for a bet, or on a whim, or just to write the book — it’s not too important. The main thing is that Hawks did the feat, and writes about it with self-effacing wit and pointed observation of the eccentric characters along the way.

In fact the book at times is utterly hilarious; Hawks is a shrewd observer and has comic pacing to spare. There’s very little “travel book” material here, in part because Hawks doesn’t delve into cultural or social differences much, and in part because most of his time is spent in pubs and inns. He’s a people watcher, not a nation watcher. His description of an impromptu sing-along, for example, is full of admiration. Hawks clearly loves the Irish people, who embraced his mad quest with true affection, and he shows the sympathetic, fun side to the Irish well. 

four stars

Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses

by Bruce Feiler

As the subtitle suggests, the author retraces the Pentateuch as best he can, Bible in hand and affable expert in tow.  Mostly a disappointing book, I’m afraid.  First, Feiler is a rather laborious writer – the 424 pages are packed with rather stilted purple prose at times (his imagery is wild and uninformative: mountains resemble pies, “a drip castle,” “sweet potatoes,” “rancid hamburger meat,” or bizarrely, “melting dinosaurs” [!]).  Second, Feiler is one of those travel writers who feels the need to make every single thing an epiphany: this is okay for places like Mount Ararat, or the possible site of the burning bush; but I counted at least ten places where Feiler recorded a soul-shaking discovery (Egypt isn’t the bad guy in the Bible!, The actual spot where things happened doesn’t matter! “The desert was part of my own geography”! The desert gives you confidence by showing you how small you are! Etc etc).  By the way, he feels fear of that inner geography ebbing away not once, but twice.  Third, Feiler is a rather naive scholar.  He tries to get at the “truth” of the Bible by asking stupid questions about the context of the stories: yes, they really had birthrights that could be sold, for example.  Well of course: the stories don’t take place in a fictional universe, they’re products of their time!  It’s like approaching the “truth” of Dickens by triumphantly showing that people really did talk like his characters in 19th century London.

His naivete is deeper than that: “I basically believed there was a unified notion of God,” he writes.  What?!  He never considered that God differs in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, even within the Bible itself?!  Is he really the best person to write this book?  Obviously not.  There’s a lot that’s very informative and interesting in this tome – ruminations on and possible explanations for manna, Moses’ name, the location of the Sea of Reeds, even the abundance of quail during the exodus.  But there’s too few gems to justify slogging through this mountain of banality, really. 

two stars

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat And Other Clinical Tales

by Oliver Sacks

Twenty-four case studies, grouped under four rubrics: Losses (amnesia, total loss of proprioception, etc); Excesses (Tourette’s, a Korsakov’s patient in a state of constant, frantic confabulation as a defense against amnesia, etc); Transports (cases of involuntary reminiscence and heightened senses); and The World of the Simple (autistic and retarded patients, mostly with eidetic powers).

Though it’s much more clinical in style than An Anthropologist on Mars, this is still an interesting collection.  Sacks makes a good case that a mind-set which is entirely abstract (the most fascinating titular patient) is even more alien than one which grasps only concretes, like the autistic.  He also critiques the “working vs. deficient” model of neurology, depicting phenomena and mental breakthroughs that can only come into being outside of the laboratory and traditional testing.  Aside from his arguments, as a collection of anecdotes, this book is enthralling and terrifying, an amazing look into just a few of the wondrous, bizarre ways mind can malfunction. 

four stars

The Good War: An Oral History of World War II

edited by Studs Terkel

A collection of reminisces and insights on the war.  It's mostly American, but there are German, Japanese and Russian voices as well.  Even so, the years 1939-41 are almost totally ignored, which is a surprising weakness is what is otherwise an immensely important book.  The tales told here present hundreds of horrifying, bizarre and amazing images that linger on later.  Perhaps the most memorable is the legless ex-GI, deformed from radiation and now become head of the National Association of Atomic Veterans, recounting his warm welcome in Japan and his treatments there, while the US government blocked all treatment at the VA hospital for fear of admitting negligence.  And still he spouts patriotic sentiment.

From the varied accounts – the bombers and the bombed, the journalists and grunts and top brass – four main themes emerge.  The first is how utterly naive, with the exceptions of a few so-called Premature Anti-Fascists, Americans were in 1941.  A war was going on and almost all of them ignored its progress, ignored the likelihood of attack.  The second is the attitudes Americans had after the war: prosperity became a right, and confidence was very high, among women and blacks as well as veterans.  The third is the pervasive and deep racism of the Army and the U.S.  Apparently white GIs told the English that blacks had tails.  Blacks were shot and hanged by white soldiers.  And they were fighting fascism!  The fourth theme is the distrust that Americans came to feel for their government.  Vietnam is mentioned again and again; the Russians as allies-to-enemies is cited.  And, since the book was compiled the '80s, there is a palpable sense of fatalism in many of the stories: a feeling the bomb can drop any moment.  Another WWII legacy. 

four stars

X20: A Novel Of (Not) Smoking

by Richard Beard
1997

Gregory, the narrator, is a smoker trying to quit, writing to distract his mind and occupy his hands. It is told in 20 parts, like a packet of cigs. As the nuances and twists in his tale - of betrayal, lost love, becoming a smoker, asserting one's the right to take chances - become clearer, his paragraphs grow longer, his purpose stronger... perhaps.

This is an astonishing debut, written when Beard was 29. It's masterfully constructed, each new facet of the story coming to light at precisely the right time, to shock, delight and annoy. It is very often hilarious, sometimes sad. And it's also a philosophical study on free will and responsibility. Love, hubris, and the search for truth: vintage stuff.

four stars

The Rebel Angels

by Robertson Davies
1981

The first part of the Cornish Trilogy.  Alternating between two narrators – Maria, a half gypsy graduate student in love with her mentor and a Simon, a priest who teaches at the University and falls for her – the book tells a complex story of love, lust, art, pride, scholarship, academic rivalry and criminal actions.  John Parlabane, a defrocked gay monk and sort of evil genius, stirs up the brew with his sharp eyes and tongue, yet somehow it tuns out right for the characters whom the reader sympathizes with.  At times I felt there may have been a bit too much academic talk, but the book is after all set at a University, and Davies is very, very good at it.  As he is with dialogue, depth of characterization and humor.  A fascinating tale, told in expert fashion, in short.

four stars