One Year's Reading (3 cents)

One advantage of this blog, is that I can look back and see what I have read over the past year. Another, is that I have read quite a bit, because I did not want to embarrass myself in the blog.

Here goes:

Adamson, J.H. and H. F. Holland: The Shepherd of the Ocean (Sir Walter Raleigh)
Berg, A. Scott: Lindberg
Bergin, Michael: The Other Man (John Kennedy Jr.'s rival)
Brookhiser, Richard: The Adamses
Brown, Dan: The da Vinci Code (fiction)
Brown, Gordon: Toussaint's Clause (Haiti)
Cellini, Benvenuto: Memoirs
Demetz, Peter: Prague in Black and Gold
Didion, Joan: The Year of Magical Thinking (After the death of her husband)
Dukakis, Kitty: Now You Know (addiction and politics)
Feldman, Noah: Divided by God (religion in the U.S.)
Feliciano, Hector: The Lost Museum (Nazis and art)
Fleming, Peter: One's Company (China before the Communists)
Foer, Jonathan Safran: Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close (fiction)
Goldemberg, Isaac: The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner (fiction)
Gould, Stephen Jay: Full House (evolution and clear thinking)
Gray, Spalding: Impossible Vacation (fictionalized memoir)
Grimes, Martha: Jerusalem Inn (stopped) (mystery)
Hakakian, Roya: Journey from the Land of No (Iran)
Haliburton, Richard: The Glorious Adventure (Trail of Odysseus)
Holland, Tom: Rubicon (Rome)
Jackson, Hampden: Clemenceau and the Third Republic
Josephy, Alvin: A Walk Toward Oregon (memoirs)
Kaufman, Jonathan: The Hole in the Heart of the World (post-WWII Eastern Europe)
Kempe, Frederick: Father/Land (Germany today)
Kertesz, Imre: Fatelessness (fictionalized memoir)
Kincaid, Jamaica: Autobiography of My Mother (fiction)
Klass, Rosanne: Land of the High Flags (Afghanistan)
Krause, Nicole: A Man Walked in the Door (fiction)
Krause, Nicole: History of Love (fiction)
Kurzman, Dan: No Greater Glory (the four chaplains)
Law-Yone, Wendy: The Coffin Tree (fiction)
Levy, Adrian and Catherine Scott-Clark: The Amber Room (art and Nazis)
Lipstadt, Deborah: History on Trial (holocaust deniers)
Massey, Sujata: The Floating Girl (mystery)
McMillan, Terry: How Stella Got Her Groove Back (fiction)
McMillan, Terry: Waiting to Exhale (stopped) (fiction)
Miller, Kristie: Isabella Greenway (Arizona politician and activist)
Miller, : Lee Miller (photographer)
Mingus, Sue: Tonight at Noon (memoirs of musician's widow)
Moore, Robert: A Time to Die (the sinking of the Soviet ship 'Kurtsk')
Mordaunt, Elinor: The Venture Book (traveling the south Pacific)
Morrison, John: Boris Yeltsin
Neiman, Susan: Slow Fire (Germany today)
O'Foalain, Nuala: My Dream of You (fiction)
Pinsky, Robert: David (stopped) (the biblical king)
Poniatowska, Eleana: Tinisima (fiction based on Communist/photographer)
Pucci, Idanna: The Trials of Maria Barbella (first woman facing capital punishment)
Puhan, Alfred: THe Cardinal in the Chancery (Mindzentsy in Budapest)
Rubin, Nancy: [biogaphy of Marjorie Merriwether Post]
Russert, Tim: Big Russ and Me (memoirs)
Rux, Carl: Asphalt (fiction)
Ryan, Cornelius and Katherine: Private Battles (writer struggling with cancer)
Seth, Vikram: Two Lives (Indian uncle/Jewish aunt)
Seymour, Miranda: The Bugatti Queen (French racer)
Sholem, Gershon: From Berlin to Jerusalem (memoirs of Jewish scholar)
Shreve, Susan Richards: The Train Home (fiction)
Sutton, Nina: [biography of Bruno Bettelheim]
Talarigo, Jeff: The Pearl Diver (fiction)
Thomas, Lowell: Back to Mandalay (flying the Burma hump)
Thubron, Colin: Siberia (travels)
Vrettos, Theodore: A Shadow of Magnitude (the Elgin marbles)
Walker, Rebecca: Black, White and Jewish (memoirs/Alice Walker's daughter)
Wex, Michael: Born to Kvetch (about the Yiddish language)
Wiesel, Elie: The Time of the Uprooted (fiction)
Williams, Kayla: Love My Rifle More Than You (female soldier in Iraq)
Williams, Wythe: Riddle of the Reich (Nazi Germany)
Wills, Gary: Under God (America and religion: quirks)
Wise, James Waterman: Liberalizing Liberal Judaism (Rabbi Stephen Wise's son)

Whew!

The Friday Morning Music Club Orchestra

played today at the noon concert at the Church of the Epiphany. I probably should have skipped it.

The orchestra consists of about 50 members, described as both professionals and amateurs. The description sounded correct. Much of the playing was quite professional, but the amateur mistakes (wrong notes and missed cues) came through loud and clear, particulary in the brass section.

The audience was large and very appreciative (I assume it was composed in large part of relatives of the musicians). The selection of pieces was adequate (a short Mozart piece, Haydn symphony number 26 (a three movement symphony, lacking a final presto or allegretto), and Copland's Appalachian Spring), and the star of the show was the church's accoustics.

Overall, the playing was uneven. And uneven playing does not an enjoyable concert make.

Big Russ's Bigger Son (14 cents)

"Big Russ and Me", Tim Russert's best selling book, was a bit of a disappointment. It is not really about his father, as much as it is a chronicle of his own life. But it is not the memoir of a journalist, but rather of an ordinary, Catholic guy growing up in South Buffalo. Why do I say "Catholic guy"? Because that is clearly how Russert thinks of himself, 24-7.

You learn some things about his father, obviously. He was poor, he was in the Army AirCorps during World War II, he worked two jobs, he went to church a lot, he was a baseball fan, and he hung out at the American Legion. He set a good example for the Russert kids, who thought he was an archtypical good guy. He was not educated, perhaps never read a book and, when his son offered to buy him a Cadillac, said that he preferred a Ford Crown Victoria, not because it was a better car, but because he did not wants his friends to think him uppity. That's an emotion I understand, but is it a virtue?

Big Russ certainly takes precedence over Russert's mother, who separated from his father when Russert was an adult and after thirty years of marriage. Is a second book coming out, or did she simply play second fiddle?

The bulk of the book is about Buffalo. The final 20% or so deals with Russert's career working for Moynihan and Cuomo and then going into broadcast journalism and getting the Pope (another Catholic) to agree to be interviewed by NBC News.

The nostalgic Buffalo stories could be written of any major older American city, 40 to 50 years ago. I have thought about what Russert says about Buffalo. And I decided that, while it is moderately interesting, it is really only interesting to people from Buffalo. Who else cares about the names of the brands of sausage, or what drug store he went to, or about the Catholic high schools of the city.

I think this is a great book for Russert's kids. For the rest of us, it just shows Russert as an ordinary (very ordinary) guy. But.....that is the way he comes across on TV, so I guess that what you see, is what you get.

Weekend Notes in Brief

1. This was a big book sale weekend, and I went to sales at Bethesda Chevy Chase and Wilson High School, and the Georgetown and Cleveland Park libraries. I also went to some book stores over the past week. Best buys: a signed copy of Sir Thomas Beecham's autobiography, published in 1943 (none available, but his autograph is a fairly expensive item generally), a copy of Helen Gehagen Douglas' book about Eleanor Roosevelt, with an inscription from Douglas (former Congresswoman, scourge of Richard Nixon and wife of actor Melvyn Douglas) to Chester Bowles, former U.S. diplomat par excellance; and an autographed copy of Norman Mailer's book about Pablo Picasso. Those three books together are worth several hundred dollars. I paid $3 each.

2. We had two meals out. A terrific halibut at Sea Catch in Georgetown (and you can park free in the garage for 3 hours, even though we sat and talked with our friends for 3 1/2 and had to pay $7); and a paltry lamb stew at Clyde's in Friendship Heights (I think their quality has gone down).

3. Pure enjoyment and excitement in watching the George Mason Patriots beat UConn to go into the final four of the NCAA tournament.

Full House

"Full House" is the name of a book by Stephen Jay Gould that I recently read. Parts of it were easy to understand, other parts beyond me (like the relevance of the phrase 'full house' which he uses to depict something or other a number of times). The book was written in the 1990s. Let me try to tell you what I got from it.

1. Darwin was correct, but Darwinism does not necessarily denote progress, and Darwin was careful not to use the term progress. The identification of Darwin with progress, and the relationship of biological Darwinism to social Darwinism, are both the results of what today would be called spin doctors, who take unbiased information and bias it to support their own predelictions. The word 'evolution' should not be value driven, and the same word should not be used to define very different biological and sociological changes.

2. Trends are difficult to spot, and are generallly defined, as above, to support one's slant on things. Same is true with saying that things always evolve towards the more complex; in fact, often they trend towards the simplest.

3. Varieties do not necessarily increase. Look at horses, who evolved from a large variety of now extinct types. (I think the same could be said about apples.)

4. The fact that there are no more .400 hitters does not mean (a) that there won't be in the future, or (b) that it means that the older .400 hitters were better than those today. It may mean that the other players are better and there is a lesser chance of a .400 hitter. Also, you can't gauge the baseball statistics in a clear way because every time there was a trend to higher or lower batting averages, the game would do something to the rules, to bring things back to a happy median average of about .260. Also, if you graph baseball capacities, there would be a wall which would denote the maximum of human capability. As you near the wall, gains get smaller.

5. To say that the world changed from the age of bacteria, to fish, to animals, to humans (for example) is not quite accurate. Even today, bacteria remain the largest, and the simplest group of living creatures, and will probably at one point be the eventual survivors.

6. To say that humanity is the end result of an omnipresent God makes no sense other than as a product of human conceit.

7. The reason there are no more Mozarts today is only because humanity identifies with change so much, that someone writing in the manor of Mozart would be disregarded.

8. If you get sick, and the odds are, say, 50% chance of a 5 year survival, those odds mean nothing with regard to you, although you get closer if you limit the comparison group to people who share more and more characteristics (age, general health, attitude, location of residence, economic status, etc.)

I know that this is a simple explanation of a book that has much more to offer. But I am just a simple reader.

Gould, who was a paleontologist, died a year or so ago, about 20 years after being diagnosed with a disease which was to have taken its toll much, much sooner.

More Thoughts About Conversion from Islam

What if each Islamic country had an amnesty day?

It would work like this:

On the first Tuesday after Ramadan, any Moslem who wishes to convert from Islam is to come to the main square in front of the main mosque at 10 a.m. They should bring a toothbrush and one (only) small tube of toothpaste.

Another confused couple ( 1 cent )

Remember my earlier posts about people that I confuse? Or rather, two people that I assume are the same people until I see them together, or seem them referenced together? Like the Andres Maurois and Malraux?

Add two more.

Did you know what Wright Morris is not Willie Morris? But which is who?

Malarial Stats

An article in the most recent Yale alumni magazine states that 10% of the world's population gets malaria each year, and that an African child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

What does this say about anything?

Spring in Paris

On a cold Tuesday, with the temperature in the mid-30s, and a drizzling dry sleet beginning to fall, the noon time concert at Epiphany Church by violinist Julie Savignon and pianist Cecilia Dunoyer, was titled "Spring in Paris" and featured 19th and early 20th century French compositions.

So we would not feel bad, though, at the start it was announced that the weather in Paris was 37 degrees, with dense fog, and a wind chill that made it feel like 31.

It was an outstanding program, with beautiful violin playing by Savignon, a young violinist who should have a real career ahead of her.

Familiar (by melody if not by name) works by Massenet (Meditation from Thais) and Faure (Sicilienne) set the stage for a beautifully melancholy program, more dedicated to lingering winter temperatures than to spring flowers. The highlight (highlight of highlights) was a performance of Poulenc's Sonata for Violin and Piano, written in memory of Frederico Garcia Lorca, who was executed by the Francists in Spain. A very powerful and beautiful piece. Debussy's Sonata for Violin and Piano was also nicely performed.

The final short piece was a habanera by Ravel, with Spanish rhythms, which I thought would end the concert on a lively note. Wrong. It was a melancholy habanera, a fitting conclusion.

Capital Crime: Conversion from Islam

So, this poor guy may be murdered by the state for converting from Islam to Christianity. This is apparently normal for countries governed by Islamic law.

The three things that have preserved the U.S. best, perhaps, are: (a) the constitutional provisions that allow for transition of government, (b) the portions of the bill of rights dealing with free speech and freedom of religion, and (c) an independent judiciary with right to declare laws or administrative actions unconstitutional.

Don't you think, as a matter of spreading democracy, we could insist on a commitment to each from countries that we are helping?

Move Over, Rabbi O.J. (You know who I mean)

You have been joined by Israeli Rabbi David Basri, who says that avian bird flu spotted in Israel is God's answer to election ads suggesting support for gay marriage.

Another loon.

Where is the Amber Room (1 cent)

I ran through Hector Feliciano's "The Lost Museum", a book written about ten years ago about art stolen by the Nazis. Feliciano concentrates on five large French Jewish collections, some of which were confiscated by the Nazis, some hidden throughout the war, and some hidden until found. He talks about the Nazi collectors, such as Hitler and Goering, the storage of art work in varous places including the Jeu de Paume, about the art work brokered in Switzerland and in Paris during the Nazi years. He talks about the recovery of works after the war, about the works that have never been recovered, and about works that have been located and not returned. He talks a little about art work that was removed by the Russians into the USSR.

The book is interesting because it tells this story in a very straightforward way.

But, if you recall, I had recently read a book about the Amber Room, stolen from Pushkin (Tsarkoe Selo) by the Germans.

In that book, the Amber Room was clearly the most important piece stolen by the Germans during the war. In The Lost Museum (admittedly about private collections, not Soviet property), it does not even get a mention.

But what is consistent is the extraordinary attention that went to both the collection and the preservation of works of art by the Nazis, and how this effort was directed at the highest level, and involved large numbers of people, and great expenses, even as the war was raging. When you think about it, it is hard to comprehend, isn't it? All of this preservation in the midst of destruction?

Sometimes I am Little Slow

Grant Wood and Rosanne Klass were both from Cedar Rapids.

That's a coincidence, isn't it?

Grant Wood (1 cent)

Grant Wood painted a picture of his sister (whom he aged by decades for the painting) and his dentist, asking them to stare straight ahead, his dentist holding a pitchfork. It became 'American Gothic'.

You wouldn't think of this painting as humorous,just looking at it, but if I had painted this painting some years ago with my sister and Dr. Lambrechts, I would have thought it quite amusing.

In fact, Wood put a rare sense of humor into much of his art. Take, for example, the country cupboard he built, with a drab green stain, onto the front of which (and under the stain) he plastered an actual pair of bib overalls. Or the wooden bench he made at the Cedar Rapids junior high school at which he taught for many years. The bench was to sit outside the principal's office, to serve as a way-station for misbehaving adolescents. On the back of the bench were carved the words: 'The way of all transgressors is hard'. The bench looked hard, too, and the three crying teenagers carved into it look none too happy.

And, for a final example, there is the door to his Cedar Rapids studio (preserved now for all time), with an opaque glass top, through which a hand, like the hand of a clock can be seen. Manipulated from inside, the hand can rest at one of four positions, all under the words "Grant Wood is......" The positions are 'in', 'out', 'having a party' or 'taking a bath'.

Wood was extraordinarily versatile. Working not only in oils and pastels, he was a master a copper work, wrought iron work, and wood. He was a disciple of the 'arts and crafts' school, it is said, and he was a 'regionalist' (which is why some of his works look like Thomas Hart Benton). But he also did landscapes (colorful, almost late Impressionist), and painted industrial themes, and sometimes his work looked like Grandma Moses. And he did commercial work, decorating an entire funeral parlor which belonged to perhaps his best friend, and a restaurant in a Cedar Rapids Hotel, where the mural covering each wall was a ochre-toned cornfield, which must have given quite an effect to Iowa diners.

There is much to see at this very enjoyable and informative show at the Renwick.

Moses Mendelson and Stephen S. Wise (1 cent)

It is well known that none of the children of Moses Mendelson, who in the 18th century decided that Judaism could be compatible with modern western society, remained Jewish.

I wonder about the children of Stephen S. Wise, the reform leader from Cincinnati, who lived in the last part of the 19th and earlier part of the 20th centuries. His son James wrote a short book I recently came across called "Liberalizing Liberal Judaism", published in 1924, when he was a very young man. It suggested that reform Judaism had atrophied, and needed to be made more attractive to the younger generation by, among other things, encouraging intermarriage, and recognizing Jesus as a non-divine teacher. He was convinced that ritual would completely vanish, and that the key to religion in the future would be as a guide for ethical conduct, and that this would be the case for Christianity as well.

Things of course have not worked out this was for Judaism, or for western society in general, for any number of reasons. I wonder what happened to James, and his Jewish identity, and to other Wise children.

"Land of the High Flags" - Afghanistan

I picked up this 1964 book by Rosanne Klass, talking about her time in Afghanistan in the early 1950s, when she and her new husband took teaching jobs. Afghanistan was different then from today in at least two ways: you couldn't just fly into Kabul on a whim; you had to go to Pakistan and drive (if you could get a ride) through the Hindu Kush on narrow, unpaved roads. And, although there were bandits on the open road, a foreigner did not fear for his life and, in fact, it appeared that Afghanistan was on the beginning of a trek towards progress, with hope in the air.

The book itself stays away from politics (and hardly mentions Klass' husband), but talks of her experiences with her friends, her household staff and her students and fellow teachers at the boarding school on the outskirts of Kabul. It is meant to be a personal book, and it is. But the picture it gives of the country and the Afghans she meets is very interesting, and she writes well. Kabul was a city of cultured Afghans, members of the foreign communities, household servants of various types, teachers, market merchants, the undifferentiated masses and women in purdahs, hidden away behind high walls. The country side consisted of barren rock, extraordinary mountain ranges, and occasional garden spots (where water could be found, and the world's largest variety of grapes could be grown). Virtually nothing about Afghan government or foreign policy; virtually nothing about religion, except for the acknowledgement that it permeates everything. There are several chapters on trips taken through the country, including one to see the giant Buddhas (now destroyed) at Bamian, and one to see a buzkashi match.

After a couple of years, the couple return to the U.S., and Klass becomes a New York City public school teacher. But Afghanistan calls, and she goes back in the mid-1960s, this time as a representative of the New York Times, and then she becomes an activist, working at Freedom House in New York, and studying and writing on the Afghan situation until, with the advent of the Soviet invasion, she is recognized as an expert. She has recently donated her collection of written material on the country to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Quite a journey for a young girl from Cedar Rapids.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, at the Studio Theater, seems to be getting (almost) universally poor reviews, based upon the casting of Sarah Marshall (generally recipient of rave reviews) as the central character. Jean Brodie teaches at a girls school in Scotland in the 1930s. She is unmarried, because school teachers have to be, but she is "in her prime" and her girls are all the "creme de la creme". She has had her flings, which she unsuccessfully tries to hide as more innocent relationships - the soldier lying in Flanders fields, the married artist for whom she poses, and the unmarried fellow teacher with whom she (and her girls) share Sunday afternoons. Jean Brodie is a repressed woman, whose repression results in an exaggerated version of a teacher, to whose students she imparts in her teaching the excitement she wishes for her life, and over whom she has enormous power and influence. All fine and dandy, perhaps, until she turns political, extolling power in general, especiallly as exercised by Mussolini and Franco.

The reviews say that Sarah Marshall is too old, and more the commedienne than the actress, and does not pull off the role. I disagree. You do have to accept her as she is (not glamorous or sexually alluring), but women of all physical types get involved in such doings, don't they?

And, do you recall the story of my high school teachers posted a month or so ago? When I spoke about the English teacher who ran off with the married assistant principal? She was certainly no beauty, and not particularly young or alluring. And her name was Sarah, and his name was Marshall, and after they married, she became - yes, indeed - Sarah Marshall.

So who says Sarah Marshall cannot play this role?

Carl Rux and the 16 Year Old Trumpeter (11 cents)

I had bought a copy of "Asphalt" by musician/poet/novelist Carl Rux (about whom I knew nothing) and started to read it, got lost trying to figure out what was going on, and put it aside.

But it called me back, and I went through the same exercise two more times, never finishing the book (or even getting far into it), but always keeping it on the top of a pile, in full view.

Switch to our week at Klezkamp in December:

You may recall that we took a 9 a.m. beginning Yiddish class (guaranteed that we would know as much at the end of the week as we did when we started). One of our fellow students was a 16 year old high school student from California, who came with her elderly grandparents. She had taken the same class the year before. While the rest of us were somewhat serious about what we were doing, she was, or appeared, not to have a serious bone in her (somewhat exposed) body, as she talked out throughout the class about whatever came into her (equally exposed) mind. She was annoying in the extreme (and - truth be known - our bet was that her grandmother was the same way 60 or 65 years ago).

One day, coming to class in pajama bottoms and a shirt that only came down part way, she sat in front of me and, lo and behold, she was carrying a paperback version of "Asphalt". The book is impossible to understand. It is filled with allusions which can be appreciated only by Mensa members. Its drug and sex scenes are way too much for a 16 year old (even from California). What can she be doing with that book, I asked myself? Probably, nothing.

Then, she turns to me and says: "Have you read this? It is terrific!"

I still don't know what to make of it. I don't know if she really read it. Or if she understood it, rather than simply being bowled over by Rux's intense, idiosyncratic, reality/fantasy style. To me, she was a 16 year old adolescent who needed years to get her behavior in order; I imagined her acting in Beginning Yiddish the same way she acted in high school in Oakland.

Later in the week, there was a concert at which the Klezkamp campers/musicians played in their various ensembles. I was surprised to see her on stage in a small group, holding a trumpet (or perhaps a coronet; I was pretty far back). I was more surprised when she played as part of the jazz/klezmer group. She is extraordinarily talented.

So, I said, well, maybe her musical talent is an indication of all sorts of talents, including talent to understand "Asphalt".

At any rate, I came back and read the book, cover to cover. If there is a plot, I don't know what it is. It takes place in Brooklyn after the next war, when it has been cut off from Manhattan, and appears to have been severely damaged so that only squatters remain in what had been respectable apartments. There are a lot of drugs, some strange sex, but mainly memories, tales, conversations, weaving in and out, back and forth.

I looked in up on Amazon, and read the professional editorial reviews, which were, I would say, very respectful of the author, but mixed on the book. Then I read the 14 reader reviews, each of which (without exception) gave it 5 stars, and spoke of its mesmerizing qualities. I am not sure anyone picked up a story line, but that did not seem important. It was the context and the language that bowled each of the reviewers over.

A paragraph picked at random, to give you a feel. Page 189: "By day it was a road, a long line gashed up the shaven earth where daily travelers have stopped wearily alongside the trimmings of grass and slept unbothered, others have dashed the scorching trail without stopping - waving lazy palms at passing trucks and field hands picking through the groves. By night, it was an anomalous staircase steeped toward an uncertain destiny. A path your feet had to know better than your eyes. He ran it. Photographs of shortcuts and landmarks flashed vivid colors in his head, but the world around him was one shade of darkness. Land requiring visceral exploration. The first mile, up the gravelly course, was aimless. The feet ran with the speed and clumsiness of a boy outrunning ghosts and ghouls and God. The second mile, through the serrated colony of cornstalks, was pursuant. He was heading toward the hill, the tree, the rock, the water; the place he knew."

It's Marvelous

Marvelous Market, a local bakery/gourmet food chain, was sold several months ago and its new owner closed its bakery and started buying breads from Uptown Bakers. It was like selling the Bentley and buying a Daihatsu. The victims were the Friday challah purchasers, whose Shabbat tables were made the poorer by Uptown's bland bread.

But today, there is joy in Mudville. The old baker, Mr. Dachman, is back supplying the chain's Bethesda and Chevy Chase store from his new Falls Church bakery. The Jews rejoice.

Don Jacobo Lerner and Everything Else

I finished reading Isaac Goldemberg's "The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner" this morning. It was published in 1976. I am not sure who Goldemberg is, or what he has done since. He wrote the book in Spanish; he is a native of Peru, where the book is set in the 1930s.

Lerner's life was fragmented, but so was the life of everyone who is both a character in the book and in the Jewish community of Peru. Lerner himself was born in Staraya Ushitza, somewhere under the control of the tsar. He emigrates to Peru, wanders quite a bit, ekes out a living in Lima and then in a village where he marries the daughter of a formerly rich father, has a son, and abandons his family. More wandering, and then after becoming a partner in a brothel in Lima (much to everyone's shame), he dies at 42, from what appears to be some form of cancer.

That does not tell you much about the book, about Lerner's only son (slightly demented), his brother and his wife, his best friend from home, his lover, his ex-fiancee, or anyone else. You have to read the book.

In a way, Lerner is Leopold Bloom, a stranger in a strange society, of it yet apart. But, while Bloom is the only Bloom in "Ulysses", everyone in this book is somewhat of a Bloom.

The style is unique - first person, third person, excerpts from books and newspapers, yearly news highlights.

Now to tie things together.

First, there is a dybbuk and an exorcism, reminding me of course of the current Hannah/Theater J production. The dybbuk is Lerner's old boyhood friend and then fellow Peruvian, Leon Mitrani. "The rabbi, who lived about four blocks away from the synagogue, received Jacobo with great warmth and offered Jacobo lodging in his house until the exorcism began to take effect. It would be a difficult task. While the maid prepared a room, he told Jacobo with excitement that it had been a long time since he had had a chance to deal with a dybbuk. The last time had been in Poland, in 1915, when he practiced an exorcism on a young girl who thought herself possessed by the spirit of a whore..........On the third night, Jacobo began to feel a change. Mitrani's spirit suddenly became imperious. Jacobo's condition worsened; for seven days and seven nights his body was racked by tremors; he saw strange images in front of his eyes......But although he was regaining his sanity, he was sunk into a deeper depression than ever, because all these images were of a reality that he did not want to confront."

Then, there is the Amazon River town of Leticia, now in Columbia, where I had traveled in the mid-1970s. I did not know that at one time Leticia was in Peru: "On the morning of September 1st, Alferez Diaz, carrying two pieces of light artillery, takes up a position on an island approximately 1500 yards from the town of Leticia, on the Amazon River....After firing a few rounds, the machine gun jams, and he gives orders for the fusiliers to advance...Afterward, the flag of Peru is flown from city hall......On June 19, the Commission from the League of Nations hands over the Amazon Territory to Columbian authorities." (I need to write about my trip)

And, finally, my cousin Al Jolson. "When it was announced that the film "The Singing Fool", with Al Jolson in the title role, would be shown in the city [Lima], many members mistook this movie for another, already exhibited in several South American countries, in which Al Jolson sings several Jewish songs....Though disappointed when they realized that Jolson would not sing any Jewish songs, they all enjoyed what turned out to be an intensely dramatic movie."

It all comes together.