Money (L’Argent) by Emile Zola

White-collar crime in 19th century France
This novel follows the exploits of Aristide Saccard, a financial wheeler-dealer in Second Empire Paris. His former wealth wiped away by investment schemes gone bad, Saccard looks for his next big windfall. Luckily, he meets a neighbor, Hamelin, an engineer with grand designs to develop railroads, mines, dams, and shipping companies in the Middle East. The engineer and the financial wizard join forces to make both their dreams come true. Saccard founds the Universal Bank to fund Hamelin’s projects, and it becomes all the rage in the Paris Bourse (stock market). While Hamelin’s intentions are noble, Saccard’s primary interest in the venture is personal financial gain and self-aggrandizement. In order to push up his company’s value, he manipulates figures illegally and lies to his investors.

Saccard is a personification of the greed and opportunism rampant in France at the time, and his unwise investors personify that period’s growing mania for financial speculation. It’s amazing how relevant the book is to this day. The Universal Bank could just as well be named Enron or Worldcom, and foreign investment in the Middle East is certainly a current concern. Another issue that Zola tackles in this book is anti-Semitism. Though Zola himself was not an anti-Semite, he makes Saccard a hater of Jews in order to depict the mind-set of many Parisians at that time. One of the functions of Saccard’s Universal Bank is to create a repository of Catholic money to rival the Jewish-owned banks, an actual goal of some Parisian businessmen of the time. Regardless of the historical social commentary, one can enjoy this novel purely for its intricately-drawn characters and its insights into human nature. I would caution that some of the financial strategy can be a little difficult for people (like me) who are not fully versed in the world of stocks and bonds.

This book is the 18th book in Zola’s twenty-novel Rougon-Macquart series. Zola first introduced us to the character Aristide Saccard back in the second volume of the series, La Curée. L’Argent (a.k.a. Money) is a much better book than La Curée (a.k.a. The Kill), and it is not necessary to read that prior volume in order to understand or enjoy this book. By Zola standards I would not call this novel a masterpiece, but it’s an excellent novel and deserves to be read.
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Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

The epic that launched a genre
If you enjoy tales of knights, castles, and kings, then you owe a huge debt to Sir Walter Scott. A literary superstar and pop culture phenom in his day, this master of the historical novel was instrumental in reviving the public’s interest in medieval times. With the publication of Ivanhoe in 1820, Scott created the sword-and-chivalry genre that is now represented by countless books, movies, TV shows, and Renaissance fairs.

The story of Ivanhoe takes place at the end of the 12th century. While his knights return from a failed crusade to the holy land, King Richard the Lionheart is held captive in Austria. In his absence, his brother Prince John rules England with an oppressive and avaricious hand. The Normans, having conquered England in 1066, continue to treat the native Saxons as second class citizens in their own lands. One powerful Saxon noble, Cedric of Rotherwood, maintains a defiant attitude toward the Norman oppressors. He has even disinherited his son, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, for serving the Norman King Richard. Cedric acts as guardian to Lady Rowena, a beautiful Saxon maiden, whom he hopes to marry off to a Saxon prince. Her heart, however, belongs to Wilfred of Ivanhoe. After an exciting tournament of jousting and melee, a group of Prince John’s Norman minions led by Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a fierce Templar Knight, captures Cedric and his retinue for nefarious reasons and holds them captive in the Castle of Torquilstone. To free them from the clutches of the Normans, a ragtag band of fellow Saxons lead a desperate attack on the castle.

This is a rich, deep story with dozens of characters and a complex plot. Even Robin Hood and Friar Tuck make supporting appearances. Also included in Cedric’s party are two Jews, Isaac of York and his daughter Rebecca, a mysterious beauty who practices the healing arts. The undeserved persecution of the Jews is one of the main themes of the novel, and Scott shows a great deal of sympathy for their plight. Rebecca forms one corner of a love quadrangle with Ivanhoe, Rowena, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, yet her devotion to the faith of her ancestors places an impenetrable wall between the Jewish maiden and the gentile man she loves.

The main problem with Ivanhoe is that it peaks in the middle. The siege of Torquilstone is really the highlight of the book, but when it’s over there’s still half a novel left. The plot of act two has the potential for an equally high level of drama, but gets sidetracked with several chapters of long conversations that just seem to lead circuitously to foregone conclusions. The back half of the book is satisfying, but lacks the drama and excitement of the front. It all leads to an ending which is a bit anticlimactic. Nevertheless, even in its dullest moments, Scott’s prose is a joy to read. Each sentence is an elegantly crafted exemplar of the English language, and perfectly captures the romantic atmosphere of the middle ages. With so much epic grandeur, a story like this runs the risk of getting bogged down by its own pompous gravity, but Scott never fails to inject a refreshing dose of humor into the proceedings.

Though it dabbles in folklore and myth, this is no fantasy novel. The story of Ivanhoe is firmly grounded in English history. There are plenty of thick woods, clammy dungeons, and fog-shrowded bogs, but you won’t find any dragons, sorcerers, or supernatural apparitions. Ivanhoe is a great read for anyone who enjoys historical novels or adventure fiction. Its epic story and remarkable characters are truly unforgettable.
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The Mysterious Death of Tom Thomson by George A. Walker

Ambitious in scope, inconsistent in execution
Tom Thomson was a Canadian landscape painter, active from around 1907 until his untimely death in 1917. He was associated with the painters known as the Group of Seven, and is considered by many of his countrymen to be one of the most important visual artists in the history of Canada. In this book, artist George A. Walker has created a wordless narrative of Thomson’s life and death comprised of 109 wood engravings. The mysterious circumstances surrounding Thomson’s drowning in Algonquin Park have led to the formation of various theories as to the ultimate cause of his death, including murder. In the book’s three-page introduction, Tom Smart very briefly summarizes these theories. He then goes on to compare the life of Thomson to the Epic of Gilgamesh, which seems a bit of a stretch. More satisfying is the equally brief afterword by Walker in which he discusses the influence of Thomson’s art upon his own work.

Pre-equipped with an interest in the subject matter, a love of Thomson’s paintings, an enthusiasm for woodcut illustration and pictorial narrative, and a limited familiarity with Walker’s prints, I expected to like this book a lot more than I did. The illustrations included here exhibit a consistency in style but an unfortunate inconsistency in quality. Not all are as compelling and attractive as the cover image. The couple dozen really excellent prints in the book make one wonder why so many of the others look rushed, poorly thought out, or crudely executed. The sinewy stroke of Walker’s engraving tool is most effective when emulating Thomson’s landscape paintings, but when applied to figures and faces it often yields misshapen heads and limbs. There are moments of brilliance throughout, like a wooden chair emerging sublimely from a shadow, or a conglomeration of rough, structural strokes that coalesce into a locomotive. Overall, however, the book left me with the feeling that I would have preferred to see a collection of 109 landscape prints.

Walker succeeds in capturing and infectiously transmitting Thomson’s love for the natural world. As for the storytelling, however, without prior knowledge of Thomson, the images alone would not suffice to convey the story of his artistic career and demise. Due to the nonverbal nature of wordless narrative, ambiguity is an inherent quality of the woodcut novel. At times, however, Walker crosses the line from ambiguity to a lack of visual clarity, and the reader finds himself asking questions like “What's that he's holding in his hand?” or “Who’s that second figure supposed to be?” These are questions one never needs to ask from the wordless novels of Lynd Ward, Frans Masereel, or Laurence Hyde.

Despite my reservations, Walker should be commended for keeping the art form of the woodcut novel alive. This book is beautifully designed. The typography, layout, and paper choices, coupled with Walker’s at times beautiful artwork, make for a stunning package. Unfortunately, he seems to have bit off more than he could chew with this entry into pictorial literature. On the one hand, Thomson’s story is perhaps too big to be told in 109 illustrations; on the other hand, the overall quality of the art would have benefited from fewer images. Walker admirably navigates the waters between this rock and hard place, but does not emerge unscathed.

See the publisher’s web site for more images from the book:
http://www.george-walker.com/Tom_Thomson/Thomson.html

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Revolution and Other Essays by Jack London

A mulligan stew with a few choice chunks
The problem with Revolution and Other Essays is that there’s too little “Revolution” and far too much “Other”. This collection is a hodgepodge of Jack London’s early nonfiction writings, in which he waxes poetic on subjects various and diverse, among them architecture (“The House Beautiful”), globalization (“The Shrinkage of the Planet”), literature (Maxim Gorky in “Fomá Gordyéeff” and Rudyard Kipling in “These Bones Shall Rise Again”), zoopsychology (“The Other Animals”), and the rise of Asia as a world power (“The Yellow Peril”). Uncharacteristic of London, the majority of these pieces are written in rather decorative prose, adorned with flowery language and gratuitous literary references. Even diehard fans of London will find most of these essays too esoteric in subject matter and too antiquated in style to be considered a necessary read.

Fortunately, a few worthy pieces redeem this volume and elevate it to the realm of readability. The title piece, “Revolution”, is a state-of-the-union address for socialism in the year 1905. It serves as a stirring call to arms to the world’s 7,000,000 comrades, and a warning to the uninitiated that the revolt of the working class is imminent. “What Life Means to Me” is a mini-manifesto of London’s political thought. In it he provides an abbreviated autobiography charting his gradual transformation from a naive child with grand illusions to an educated socialist confronting the hypocrisy of a capitalist society. The only piece of fiction in this volume is a masterful short story entitled “Goliah”. It’s a sci-fi thriller about a seemingly omnipotent mystery man who appears on the world stage, cripples the military forces of the superpowers, and demands that society reorganize itself into a rational utopia. It is an audacious and exciting tale which bears some similarities to London’s brilliant novel The Iron Heel.

With the exception of the pieces I’ve singled out above, Revolution and Other Essays is a volume casual readers of London would do best to skip. “The Somnambulists” and “The Dignity of Dollars” will also be of value to those with a fervent interest in London’s politics, but if you’re looking for a really good collection of London’s political writings, I would suggest War of the Classes. For those who are only interested in London’s fiction, just read “Goliah”.

Essays and stories in this collection

Revolution 

The Somnambulists 

The Dignity of Dollars 

Goliah 

The Golden Poppy 

The Shrinkage of the Planet 

The House Beautiful 

The Gold Hunters of the North 

Fomá Gordyéeff 

These Bones Shall Rise Again 

The Other Animals 

The Yellow Peril 

What Life Means to Me 

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Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter

A triumphant trifecta
This book by Katherine Anne Porter, originally published in 1939, consists of three short novels, each about fifty pages long. Though the three pieces vary in style and subject matter, they are all of exceptional quality and admirably showcase Porter’s estimable talent for crafting short fiction.

In the first piece, “Old Mortality,” two young sisters grow up listening to the family stories told by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, which over time develop into a sort of mythology. The most romanticized character in the family saga is the tragic figure of Aunt Amy, who, praised for her beauty and perfection yet criticized for her free spirit, suffered from tuberculosis and died at a young age. Though written in the third person, the novel is related through the eyes of Miranda, the younger of the two young girls. As she grows into womanhood, Miranda begins to understand that the reality of the past does not live up to the romanticized mythology she grew up with, and that family, beyond its sheltering comforts, has a dark side as well.

The second novel, “Noon Wine,” takes place on a farm in southern Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, despite having two young children, are growing aged and infirm. They cannot keep up with the farm work as they used to. Salvation comes in the form of Mr. Helton, a stranger who shows up at their gate one day asking for work. Mr. Helton is a Swede from South Dakota, and a relentlessly hard worker. As a farmhand he is truly the answer to the Thompsons’ prayers. Yet, as most good things are too good to be true, the Thompsons soon begin to suspect that this laconic stranger may have some dark secrets in his mysterious past.

The final piece, “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” also stars a young woman named Miranda, whom we can assume is the same girl from the first piece, though it’s never explicitly stated. Now 24, alone and independent, she works as a theatre critic for a newspaper in a western “hick town,” which sounds a lot like Denver. Miranda falls in love with a soldier who will soon depart for the European battlefields of World War I. She despises the war and the jingoism that accompanies it, and dreads the day when her new love will depart for his inevitable doom. War is not the only manifestation of death that looms ominously on Miranda’s horizon, however, as an influenza epidemic also rages through the city.

My personal taste in literature usually leans toward more antiquated works of romantic, realist, and naturalist stylings, but as far as the literature between the World Wars is concerned, Porter is clearly the best of the American modernists. She utilizes the linguistic experimentation and psychological probity characteristic of modernism to her advantage, without indulging in the gratuitous verbal games to which so many of her contemporaries succumbed. Her writing straddles the line between the naturalism of Theodore Dreiser and the modernism of William Faulkner, combining the best characteristics of both while dispensing with their faults. “Noon Wine,” which is primarily a naturalistic piece, is the strongest work in the book, while the more abstract “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” is the weakest. At times it seems the main purpose of the latter piece is for Porter to demonstrate her prowess at depicting surrealistic, influenza-induced hallucinations. Nevertheless, all three novels are very strong works of literature and will appeal to readers of all stripes who appreciate writing that’s both proficient and profound.

Stories in this collection

Old Mortality 

Noon Wine 

Pale Horse, Pale Rider 

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Farewell by Honoré de Balzac

Like an epic war novel in a pint-sized package

Honoré de Balzac

Two friends, Colonel Philippe de Sucy and the Marquis d’Albon, get lost in the woods while out hunting. They stumble upon a dilapidated old convent where they find a remarkable woman, bewitchingly beautiful but wild like an animal, who seems to possess the mind of a child. An investigation into this mystery woman’s past reveals a flashback to the retreat of Napoleon’s army from Russia in November of 1812. The defeated French forces, starved and freezing, amassed upon the shore of the Beresina River in Belarus, with the pursuing Russian horde close upon their heals. This scene of human wreckage provides the setting for a pivotal moment in the lives of both Philippe and this mysterious, savage woman-child, Stéphanie, who was once his childhood love. Reunited at last, can they overcome the lasting effects of that horrifying ordeal?

Farewell (French title: Adieu) is a novella by Honoré de Balzac, first published in 1830. It is a brief work penned in deceptively brisk prose which flows by quickly and effortlessly. Balzac is a master at quickly establishing scene and characters, thereby ensnaring the reader immediately in the world of his story. Once involved in the lives of these characters, the reader is swept along by a stream of revelations and surprises. Like many works written during this time period, the expressions of love may seem a little over the top for today’s audience, but the occasional sickly sweetness is tempered by the stark and gruesome descriptions of the Beresina battlefield. The relationship between Philippe and Stéphanie is really quite moving, and the war sequences offer plenty of exciting action. In addition, Balzac treats the subject of mental illness with thoughtfulness and dignity, and raises interesting philosophical questions about the limits of love, the fragility of the mind, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Farewell is part of Balzac’s magnum opus, the Comédie Humaine, but like all works under that heading it can be read as a stand-alone novel. I would recommend it to diehard fans of Balzac or to general enthusiasts of classic literature who are newcomers to this great author’s work. Though not one of his better known pieces, it is a pleasant surprise and deserves a higher degree of notoriety. The slight investment you’ll make in reading time is more than rewarded by a satisfying emotional richness that far surpasses the brevity of its page count.

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Introducing Kant by Christopher Kul-Want

Introduces Bewilderment
This is the second book I’ve read in the Introducing series, having first read the volume on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which I found to be well-written, interesting, and helpful. The Introducing series promises succinct, in-a-nutshell overviews of a variety of scholarly topics, combining concise text with graphic art. Upon picking up this volume on Kant, I could tell right away the art was horrible and would offer little help in elucidating the subject matter. However, I purchased the book anyway, solely for its text, based on my experience with the Rousseau volume. Unfortunately, Introducing Kant proved to be a major disappointment.

The reason philosophy is not commonly read by the general public is because it utilizes heavy amounts of field-specific jargon that hinders the understanding of the average uninitiated reader. The reason one buys a volume from the Introducing series is to avoid that very jargon. If difficult terminology is necessary, then it should be clearly defined before being implemented. Apparently Christopher Kul-Want did not get the memo. Though Kant’s philosophical writings are notoriously difficult to understand, Kul-Want seems determined to give the master a run for his money. I pity the students of undergraduate philosophy courses who may be assigned this book as a text. The only portions of the book that are clearly understandable are the brief passages offering historical and biographical details. The examination of Kant’s thought, primarily focused on his three Critiques, is rendered in prose that is largely unintelligible. Kul-Want presupposes a knowledge of theory and a familiarity with philosophical jargon on the part of the reader that is inappropriate for this venue.

I’m not qualified to argue with Kul-Want’s conclusions concerning Kant. Perhaps among his peers this book is considered a revelation. The fault here really lies with the publisher. Shame on Icon Books for including this as part of their Introducing series. The purpose of these books should be to summarize and to simplify. Introducing Kant fails its intended audience. The only readers who will understand this book are those who already have a thorough understanding of its topic. The rest of us, hoping for an education on Kant, are left to scratch our heads.
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