Perry Mason: The Case of the Vagabond Virgin

Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, 1957 - 1966. Yes,
he's in black-and-white; color not yet invented.

          All of your old friends are here (if you are over 50 or so): Perry Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake, Hamilton Burger, and Lieutenant Tragg. We know them well from the television show Perry Mason that ran from 1957 to 1966. It was a favorite of my mom's and if she watched it, I probably did, too. (Yes, I first watched Star Trek with my mom, who was attracted to Captain Kirk.) Mason, the defense attorney, used every nuance of law, every scrap of a right or privilege, every possible interpretation of statute. The 1948 book The Case of the Vagabond Virgin, by Erle Stanley Gardner, has it all--familiar characters and savvy law--along with a juicy murder to solve.

Hamilton Burger, prosecutor; Lt. Tragg police
detective; Della Street, legal secretary; Perry
Mason, defense attorney; and Paul Drake, private
investigator (left to right)

          Vagabond Virgin at last satisfies my desire for a literate mystery that follows the classic rules thereof. Nothing is wasted in this book. Almost every detail--from appearance, clothing, casual utterances, make and model of car, everything--has a direct bearing upon the plot, upon the resolution of the murder mystery. It all becomes a big Bucky ball of causality and inference.

           The Perry Mason books are pot-boilers--somewhat gritty, delving into the seamier neighborhoods, and quite frank about sexuality. This one was urban with forays into the countryside. There is wry wit that often leads to a realization. And the characters are sharply drawn. I knew what each character looked like (not just the ones I knew from TV) and appreciated their personalities. The pace was fast, snappy. I had to keep my brain on or I missed things. It was clear that Gardner was an attorney and that he scoured statutes and case law to build his intricate plots. Mason is a bit on the shifty side...some of his projects border on illegal/unethical practice. But Mason's facility with the law keeps him in the clear every time.

Warren William as Perry Mason in a 1935 film

          In Vagabond Virgin, a businessman is accused of killing his partner. A hitch-hiking young woman is the alibi--or is she? The titular heroine engages in self-exploitation for money, playing the innocent virgin with drivers that pick her up. Her virginal story is so woebegone that the drivers press money (rather than their attentions) upon her.The partner's ex-wife and a mysterious reporter also figure into things. The final resolution of the plot occurs when Mason actually engages in meta-cognition (thinking about how you think) and realizes that he has accepted a batch of assumptions without checking their validity. He rethinks the case from its origins and comes up with a solution that leads to an amazing bit of courtroom drama. The criminals definitely get their comeuppance (also a standard of classic mystery).

         It's fun to be the reader sitting on Mason's shoulder throughout this book, seeing the inside of his maneuverings, getting the inside dope that the police and suspects do not have. The Mason team (Della, Paul, and even Gertie at the switchboard) work smoothly and efficiently, questioning Mason, but generally doing exactly as he directs. He doesn't always disclose all to them, not like he does to his reader.

Erle Stanley Gardner, 1889 - 1970. He worked with a
a group in California that sought to overturn convictions
that came about through inept legal representation.

          Erle Stanley Gardner is a masterful storyteller with a confident and unapologetic world view. Mason does not anguish when he bends the rules. The sexual escapades of the characters (not Mason!) are accepted as is--more faulted for their execution than for their morality. This is refreshing--I'm a bit tired of characters agonizing and self-excoriating, and regretting and seeing both sides of question. (I'm tired of doing it myself!) Mason's certainty and willingness to just move forward with the ends justifying the means keep the books about him cerebral and satisfying--just like a mystery novel (which is NOT real life) should be! Mason is not damaged or changed. He operates as a sort of matrix through which the plot operates and resolves, but is not used up--he's the catalyst, not a reactant.

1940s cover--the book is a
bit risque

          Some of the Perry Mason movies are pretty good. I saw one recently that starred Warren William as Mason and was made in 1935. It had a 1920s New York-type setting (lots of action in high-rises and lots of cabs). William's Mason was quite droll and a bit decadent, which is a bit truer to the books than perhaps the TV series is. Although I am still filtering the TV series through my child-self memories--"adult" content may have gone right over my head. I do remember one episode where someone said "cherche la femme" to Mason. I didn't know what it meant, but I remember Mason's face being tired and melancholy when the line was said.

          If I had more Mason mysteries, I would certainly read them. The Case of the Vagabond Virgin was a delightful diversion from reality and took me into another world. I think that's the true goal of a murder mystery. It's a genre about right and wrong, innocent and guilty, wit versus stupidity. The good and the smart triumph. It's not reality--but it's OK to take a break now and then. I recommend Perry Mason in all of its forms--book, radio, and TV.

Monster and Self-Defense by Jonathan Kellerman

Why Did I Read These?
These two Kellerman mystery novels came to my house with a batch of books from friends who were moving. These beloved friends had so many wonderful books from throughout their long lives--on poetry, religion, civil rights, inspiration, literature (got a wonderful shelf of Dickens), art, music. Somehow, two modern paperbacks by Kellerman ended up in the mix of musty-yellowed pages, crumbling bindings, and venerated authors. I haven't discovered yet why the anomalous novels were part of the collection, but because they stood out as such oddities, I of course decided to read them first. I am going to contend in this blog post that Jonathan Kellerman is not venerated.

Airport Books
Neither Monster (1999) nor Self-Defense (1995) is about an airport. Both are, however, New York Times best sellers according to red stripes across the covers. It is further noted on the covers that each book is "An Alex Delaware Novel." Each book is about 500 pages long. Airport books. People getting on airplanes want neither slender volumes nor future doorstops...the book must last just long enough, but not too long. That's about 500 pages.

Padded Books
Now, I have been on many airplanes where I needed more padding, but not in my reading material. Both of these books seemed artificially long to me, like the text had been cut apart and irrelevant detail added in for length--maybe not even by the original author. The padding was distracting and slowed these books way down, killed the tension. Every single character, no matter how minor, was described in detail--face, makeup, hair, clothing, skin, hands, mannerisms, size, smell. And so were locations--trees, street names, directions to places, type of building, color of building, condition of lawn, parking of the car. The long driving sequences were burdened with detail that was just detail. Perhaps the driving directions were supposed to give a sense of reality or authenticity, but I think if you don't live in Los Angeles (the setting for both books) you don't really care and if you do live in Los Angeles, you just need a few hints, not a map. I could trace on an L.A. street map every single location. It was too much.

Meanwhile, back in the mystery...what, we are in the middle of a mystery? I thought we were in a travel book. And that's the real criticism, that the wordiness and padding removed me from the plot for such long periods of time that I had to flip backward in the book to find out what was going on! And, you know my rules for classic mystery--no detail should be extraneous. If something is mentioned, it should have direct relevance to either theme or plot and preferably both. (Thank you, Dorothy L. Sayers.)

Series Cystitis
Yes, here comes another one of my modern-mystery pet peeves. Because this book is part of an ongoing series, we endured strange digressions that would only be relevant to someone who had read the previous book or books. I guess that ensures continuity for regular readers. But regular readers would get subtle hints. Surely these whacks over the head are as annoying to regulars as they are to first time readers. These backflashes (not flashbacks) were yet another impediment to getting this book going, getting it to work, getting it to do its job as a mystery and a "good read." Itch-itch. Cystitis.

Dr. Sherlock Freud
Alex Delaware is a psychologist who consults for the police. He pairs up with a detective who is GAY, it is noted several times (I think only as yet another backflash and so we women readers don't get too attached.) Milo's gayness is really irrelevant to his character as a friend and police detective, as it should be. Alex is aggressively heterosexual as we know from his fade-to-black encounters with his cute wife. (So we women can fantasize about him.) Really, the wife is totally irrelevant to this book--I bet she's part of the series cystitis, from a previous book or two back, needing to be updated.

Alex (female) Kingston as Dr. Who's River Song--
"Love a tomb!"

For the whole book Monster, I thought first-person narrator Alex Delaware was a woman. This impression comes from the murderous level of detail about furnishings and fashion, which are much more typical of a romance than a mystery; and from the ambiguity of the name itself. It's so trendy to have masculine-named heroines these days. Delaware's thought process are not earth-shattering, neither is his therapy. He flunks the Sherlock and Freud tests!

In Self-Defense, there is a long sequence of hypnosis and age-regression that was pretty miraculous. Delaware age-regressed the client to particular days and times of day. It was presented as a mundane therapeutic process. Maybe it is in California. It helped move the plot along.

Multi-Murders
These books would have been well-plotted if the extraneous material had been removed. Individual scenes were quite tense and spooky and the settings were creepy. Much of Monster was set in a mental hospital for the criminally insane. I still feel claustrophobic thinking about it. Self-Defense was less atmospheric until the action moved to an old estate that had formerly been a nudist and then an artist colony. You could almost smell the dead bodies under the turf.

You are getting very sleepy...

Monster involved some ritualistic deaths that ended up tying together many loose ends about a brutal murder from decades before. The killer was locked up in the asylum. The trail was a mass of red herrings leading, as in both books, all over southern California. The outcome was a bit pedestrian (no, it wasn't the butler, but  it was pretty predictable), but satisfying.

Self-Defense introduced a young woman who was having bad dreams. Milo brought her to Delaware for treatment. She and Milo had connected during a trial of a brutal mass murderer. The mass murdered was only in the book to justify the heroine's bad dreams (and maybe to bring in some gruesome shock-scenes). From clues in her dreams, a whole series of murders is disclosed. The ending is obscure. I never did get the title's significance.

Victimized and victim women were prominent in each book. Many men were killed also, but never with as much detail and fear. Milo and Delaware were the ones who kept their heads and restored women to wellness. Both books featured multiple deaths--at least five main deaths each and many others mentioned. This seems totally unrealistic to me and, pardon the phrase, overkill (!). 

No one ever really smiled when using the
microfiche machine--it was a pain in the hiney.

Pace of Change
These books are from 15-20 years ago and boy do they show it. They come across as modern, except for the hilarity of their technology. Pay phones. Answering machines. Microfiche. Researching at the library. So quaint. I leave it to you to ponder whether these mysteries would even be possible in today's age of instantly transmitted photography, rapid information retrieval, and inter-connectedness.



Conclusion
I struggled through these books, but I don't recommend them, even for airports. Stick with John Gresham or Pat Cornwell. Maybe I'm just not easily amused, said Queen Victoria. Like my first experiences with Chinese food, my first experiences with mysteries were of the best and everything else is a bit of a comedown. We soldier on.

Reflections on...Yard-saling

Blogger is reporting from Middletown, Ohio, home of pater familias Bob Dickerson, at the conclusion of Day 2 of yard-salin’.
          I am hot, sticky, sale-shocked, eating nothing but sugar and carbs, and stupefied with water weight gain. My ankles are not looking dainty right now in the brand new shoes I bought at the yard sale next door for $3.00—Naturalizers with a nice low heel and ankle straps that are hiding under rolls of bloated tissue. "Next door" is the Middletown Senior Center, which is also having a yard sale today—some venders out on the lawn; and in the cafeteria/multi-purpose room, donated items sorted into categories—very tidy. 

          Yes, my dad (who is pretty sharp--selectively) is never slack about piggy-backing on the marketing of others—the balloons and colorful signs for the senior center also guided buyers (buyers-beware) into his ample front yard. Under the beautiful old oak by the street we spread our merchandise on large tables, loosely grouped by category (books, housewares, toys, clothing, etc.) and by source (my sister Kathy, my dad’s friend Melanie, and his neighbor Charlotte).

We had this very Vera Bradley
bag for sale--and it was
priced too high to sell

        I threw my stuff in with Dad’s stuff and didn’t worry about making money. I live to serve (ha-ha-ha) and helped out wherever necessary. The other stuff-providers, though, had certain prices they wanted for certain items and we had lots of counter-pricing going on—Dad and I were pretty much always ready to deal (Will you take $5 for this? Yes). We definitely had too many captains and not enough sailors, and even though I was there to be a sailor, well, nobody thinks I’m shy, so my opinion was often added to the pricing puree.
          The crowd at Dad’s sale differed greatly from sales in my hometown of McArthur, Ohio. In McArthur, the people are poorer, are sometimes desperate, and are often looking for low-priced necessities, not novelties or kitsch. The Middletown crowd was made up of a lot of seniors (because of the neighboring sale) and the people were pretty well off.

Typical house in Dad's neighborhood; he,
however, lives in a Cape Cod.

          Dad lives in a moderate house in a blue collar, aging area, but his street is ringed by higher-cost housing—and they came out to support the seniors (and thus Dad). It was odd to be around so many well-off people, I’m so used to the low-income people of my town. We are different in both dress and conversation. The most significant commonality was love for children and grandchildren. In both towns, people are happy to talk about children and want to buy nice things for them. They look over children’s items with critical eyes.

         Because so many different people brought stuff, we had an interesting sale—not overloaded with children’s clothing or sports equipment or any other category. Well, OK, we had too many purses, probably. And they were overpriced and the women selling them would not bargain or cut the price. I assume these purses will be leftover unsold.

          I spent lots of time getting into and out of a lawn chair (moved gradually across the yard throughout the day—to follow the shade) and a fair amount of time just chatting up the customers. Each one has a story to tell.   
          One thirty-something woman pulled up on the other side of the fence next to the driveway in a van. She got out and asked us if we wanted a walker. Dad jumped right on it and started to talk price. (Resale of lightly used medical equipment usually leads to a tidy profit.) But the woman insisted that she was giving us the walker, she wanted to give it away. Her mother had died two years ago this weekend and she was just now able to face the medical aids left over from her mom’s illness. She would be glad for Dad to make some money off of it and for it to go to people who needed it.
          We all quieted while she told us the story of her grief, and handled with respect the walker that she pulled out of the back of the van and handed over the fence. Over the fence came a portable toilet. Over the fence came two different bath benches. Over the fence came an elevated toiled seat. Over the fence came a long-handled shoe horn and sock-helper stick. Over the fence came an anti-bedsore mattress (with air pump).

         The woman’s van was crammed with stuff. She cried. Each of us had at least a quivering lip if not a tear. Turns out we were helping her with a significant event in her grieving. She and we were all sacred for a moment, right across the fence, under the oak, next door to the senior center, on Central, in Middletown, on a summer afternoon, in August.
          Sacred.

          At our most human.
         That’s yard-salin’.

Sidebar: Bob Dickerson’s Rules of the Yard Sale  My dad worked in the shoe business for several years and even though he didn’t like it very well (you had to have more loyalty to and spend more time with the store than your family), he has a natural bent toward retail. He has many sensible rules for his sales (he says, however, that no rule can't be broken). Here are some of his guidelines.
        Make some money even if you cannot make the money you want. You won’t get rich with a yard sale, but you might get some mad money to play with.
        Keep stuff off the ground as much as possible. People are not in the habit of looking down. Borrow some tables if you need to, or stretch a board across some chairs. Whatever. Dad has many tables that have detachable legs so he can store them flat.

         Fit your tables to your tarps (for sales longer than one day). Dad lays down the tall items on a table, sticks other stuff under the tables, and then throws on a tarp that fits right over that set of tables—clamp, clamp, clamp, and you’re closed.

        Open early--at least be ready at the designated start time. And, decide how you want to handle “early birds”—those people who come the night before a sale or show up at 7:00 a.m. for your sale that you advertised to start at 9:00. Dad doesn’t worry about fairness or justice—he’ll sell to any early bird who wants to shop.

        Have shade or canopies—anything that encourages people to linger a bit is good. Dad doesn’t usually sell food, but on a cool day I think an urn of coffee would not go amiss. It takes a long time to drink a cup of coffee.

        Mark prices on every item or keep all the items in a group at the same price.

        Keep prices divisible by $0.25 or $1.00; this way, you save tons of time making change—and you only need to get quarters from the bank.

        Be ready to make change. Have at least $10 in quarters, fifty one-dollar bills and 10 five-dollar bills. (Remember, you’ll get this money back out at the end.)

        Greet each customer with a smile. Have bags available for their stuff. Circulate. Tell the customer something about the item he or she is handling.

        Keep it tidy. Kathy and I spent a lot of time straightening tables, filling in gaps.

        Only put out clean merchandise. No one will buy filthy items and they bring down the whole sale. If you want to sell them, put a low price on them. Salt-stained boots? They will sell at $1.00 but not at $5.00.

         Fix broken things, if it is not too expensive. Dad recently painted the handlebars of two tricycles he bought for $5, turning $5 items into $15 items.

        Have various sizes of batteries and an electrical outlet (or plugged-in extension cord) so customers can see if things work.

        Don’t keep everything you don’t sell. Drop it off at a Salvation Army, Goodwill, AmVets, the Red Door Thrift Store, or any number of other charitable organizations.

        Don’t hold things for people unless they pay in advance. You should always stay free to sell what you have.

        Make your sale visible—put some large, sexy items out by the street. Don’t hide your light (or merchandise) under a bushel, folks. Balloons are a great attention-getter on your signs and at your site.

        Coffee mugs, golf clubs, crutches, dolls, winter clothes at summer sales—hard to sell.

        Clean stuffed animals, tools, medical equipment (except crutches), furniture, jewelry—easy to sell. However, just about anything will sell if you price it right (low).

        Have the courage to be generous. Dad often gives away toys to kids, or throws in a free item here and there. As my dad testifies, generosity almost always returns to the giver.

Space Cadet, by Robert A. Heinlein

Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher could never
escape his goody-two-shoes reputation on
Star Trek: NexGen

No, there is no irony in the title of this book--Heinlein wrote his book Space Cadet long before "space cadet" became synonymous with "airhead." And, really, I wonder if this book wasn't the inspiration for the most noteworthy of space cadets--acting Ensign Wesley--Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation. The main character Matt Dodson shares only a certain earnestness and respect for authority with Wesley. Unlike Wesley, he is not that great at science and math (but is a natural as a pilot), hangs out with people mainly his own age, and he travels without his mother.

Space Cadet, written in the late 1940s, is the tale of teenager Matt's training for the Space Patrol--a peace-keeping force created to prevent the use of nuclear weapons on Earth and its neighboring planetary bodies. The story follows him from newbie to independent young officer. With his friend Tex, Matt goes through many agonizing tests in a boot-camp setting, during which many applicants are winnowed out. These tests include a ride through the too-many-G-forces/too-little-G-forces gizmo (Matt withstands 7 Gs and passes the test); personality challenges (there's a faked tragedy for the applicants to respond to); academic tests; and even ethical tests.

The 1948 cover--see below
for other covers with
other goals

Matt and Tex pass the tests and move on to a training ship and further study. Eventually, they move out into space as junior officers attached to a working ship. Eventually, they move into increasingly dramatic settings and adventures--especially when they crash land on Venus. On Venus, you see the impact that the training has had on these young men--the resources they have to draw on, the principles they follow. (And, of course, there is a counter-example, a cadet who washed out of the program early and scorns its values.)

But, the charm of this book is not particularly in its plotting. It's in the details. It's in the pace. Once again (see my blog entry on Rocketship Galileo), Heinlein pulls me right into the world of the book. Although nothing dramatic happened for pages on end, Heinlein created enough hooks on Matt for the reader to feel attached, to slide into Matt's spacesuit with him (that sounds kinky), to face the challenges, wonder at the new systems and knowledge, hope for success, fear failure. 

Slide rule--yet another wet dream
of science in the 1950s and 1960s--looks
like a tool for WASPs only

Heinlein is adept at drawing enough details into the picture to make it real without overdrawing or over-explaining. He gives enough for your imagination to complete the environment but does not worry if what I picture is not exactly what he meant. I was amazed, because I was hooked into this obsolete boy's adventure  novel right away. I struggled with moving through weightlessness and with magnetic boots and with trying hard not to need to use the airsick bags. I fretted over "astrogation" and the mathematics it required (and the slide rule!). I worried over my fitness for such an elite corps. (see the video at <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MiRlJSttQuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> for a tutorial on weightlessness, which makes it look embarrassingly easy.)

Young Matt is a great character--fun, but not dangerous; flawed, but not a loser. I was most interested in what happened to him during his Earth-leave, when he visited his home in Des Moines for the first time after entering the Patrol. What he found was a total disconnect. He found that his family could not understand anything he talked about and that it was all too complicated to explain. It was not discussed in the book, but I saw it as a critical moment for Matt--when his life in the Patrol became more real to him than his life on Earth.

This beautiful photo of Venus uses
color to indicate the concentration of
various chemicals in the atmosphere

The Venus part of the book was charming in its antiquated vision of Venus. For now, scientists do not believe that any life can exist on Venus--not only is the atmosphere thick with poisons, but the air pressure is so great that it exerts a dramatic crushing force. The surface is barren. If life might be there, we would have a hard time detecting it--our apparatus would need to be so thick to avoid being crushed that any delicate maneuvering would be difficult.




For more information, go to  http://library.thinkquest.org/18652/venus.html.

Matt and Tex, however, find a tropical dangerland with swamps and creepy critters and alien intelligence. This is their lab for putting into practice all of their training--their training in values and self-control as much as in any particular subject. They find that as a group they have more intelligence that any of them individually.

So, another thumbs-up for Heinlein. I don't think I've been to Venus with Matt, but I do feel like I went to some other world that was mistakenly called that. I have a feeling of movement, of time, of growing up. That's cool. And, that's good, because I have three or four more Heinlein books to read from my Easy Reader children's literature list.

Me and Space: Evolved Lemur

This is the tech-guy cover
from the 1980s or so, I'd
guess

I was a child in the 1960s (I turned 10 the year the moon landing took place in 1969), so maybe it's not a surprise that I have so much interest in space and space travel and the interaction of humans with unearthly conditions (such as weightlessness) and with others unlike themselves (such as Republicans). How do we solve the problems? Are there human characteristics that truly define us as a species? One of the most defining characteristics of humans is the sense of wonder, the tendency to gawk and to explore that which puzzles and amazes us. What lies beyond the horizon? What lies beyond the end point of the solar wind? But does this define just some of us? Is hide-boundedness another trait of humans--the desire for stasis and certainty?

See, these are issues that my submergence in the genre of science fiction have awoken in me. Because I did (and still do) submerge. My inner self resonates with the themes and imagery of sci-fi. It is abiding, and I know that because it has abided. There are episodes of Star Trek I have seen dozens of times, but I am still somehow intrigued. One of these is an episode of NexGen in which the crew started to devolve because the inactive content of their DNA was triggered by a virus. Troi was turning into a fish. Riker became a Neanderthal. Even scarier, Worf turned into a Neanderthal Klingon. But most touching was Captain Picard devolving into a lemur, acutely aware of sounds and sights, ever fearful. Could his humanness reach through the genetic programming to rescue the ship?

This is the soft-focus warm and fuzzy cover, probably
from the 1990s. Makes science fiction safe for kids--
although this is a distinctly adolescent book--not
for children.

I have seen Godzilla in the original. I have seen Hitler's hand creeping across the gangway of a submarine. I have made first contact with species so radically different that communication was nearly impossible (Republicans again!). I've been on so many different planets and spaceships that I cannot count them. What has this done to me? First, I know that it leads me to see humans as a species like any other on Earth, subject to the same survival pressures as any other. We are not divine. We are not the chosen ones. We are not on top. Second, it has increased my likelihood to see events from many points of view, to see that there are as many priorities as there are people. It has led me to attempt to lead with peace, not hostility.

There. That's my space manifesto. I am most touched by the Voyager space probes, which have now reached the endpoint of the solar wind, the outer edge of our solar system. And yet they travel on. They continue to gather information and will even after they can no longer communicate it to us. The Voyager probes mirror the journey we are all on--we are curious and communicating beings and we will keep looking...for what? For whatever comes.

So, weird, dweeb, nerd, geek? I'll accept the title of "evolved lemur," thank you very much.

And the Dead Shall Rise, by Steve Oney

Leo M. Frank at his trial; behind is his wife Lucille

Earlier this year I saw a production of the musical Parade at a theater in San Diego. The play tells the twisted and tormented story of Leo M. Frank and the murder he became involved with. The production was beautifully sung, danced, and acted, but the story had too many balls in the air and I'm not sure they all got caught. Now I am having the same feeling about Steve Oney's exhaustive examination of this same case, the book And the Dead Shall Rise. There are so many lenses presented through which to view this story that in the end confusion is enhanced rather than resolved. I have the ability to see the images of this compound eye, but I cannot make them make sense.

Leo M. Frank was a factory supervisor in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early years of the 20th century. In 1910, he was accused of the murder of a young woman who worked in the factory, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. Police were under pressure to find the perpetrator; prosecutors were under pressure to make charges stick. Newspapers were under pressure to fan the flames of circulation. Politicians made hay while the Georgia sun boiled it all to a breaking point. It was almost a time of wilding, when good old common sense was somehow swamped in a deluge of emotionalism, sectionalism, and craven self-interest.

My point in this post is not to re-try the Frank case, but to discuss this book And the Dead Shall Rise. I've been reading this book for months...it is about 800 pages long and slow going--at times almost a catalog of available documentation, at other times a sociological analysis. Not a page-turner. But my time with this book is well-spent. I was shocked after I saw Parade to have been ignorant of this case. Reading And the Dead was my way to keep the Frank story alive, at least in my head, if nowhere else. In light of the somewhat fevered tenor of this year's (2012) presidential campaigns, I am doubly glad I read it. I can't be reminded too often of the dangers of bigotry, and class, race, and religious hatred.

An unmentioned element of this book is that the death sentence is too severe. Oney makes clear how a totally unassailable case was made against Frank out of virtually no truth. And Frank was sentenced to death for a murder to which he was barely tangentially connected. His sentence was commuted by the governor at the last minute--but Frank's innocence remains officially unproven.

Religious hatred was inflamed by journalist/preacher/politician (oh that combo) Tom Watson, who used it as a whip to gain money and power. Frank's Jewishness became a factor in the case. Many Jews, including wealthy and influential ones, supported Frank and funded his defense, up to an including a full-out publicity campaign. Watson turned this strategy on its heels, descrying the Jews who were trying to run (and ruin) Georgia and buy its institutions.

Leo and Lucille Frank in Parade,
as the trial swirled around them

Hatred is like a cockroach--if you see one, you might as well prepare for an onslaught. Racism was an embedded feature of Georgia society in those years. The savvy witness for the defense was coached and rehearsed to sound as ignorant as possible and he never cracked. He knew he was in the catbird seat instead of in the electric chair (evidence pointed strongly to him as the killer). The jury bought the proposition that a Negro would be too ignorant to commit the crime himself.

Police and judicial corruption joined forces against Frank. Testimony was openly bought, then a recantation was purchased by the other side, and often a third round of money changed hands for an un-recanting. Key evidence was ignored or withheld. The prosecution played on the mysterious ritual (!) of circumcision to tie Frank's religious beliefs to a likelihood of sexual perversion--something that had little to do with anything at the trial but which ensured a guilty verdict.

I could go on and on. In the end, the author takes no real position. After his exhaustive re-examination of the evidence, he does not draw a conclusion. He hints that evidence is still out there somewhere and with his underlying theme that we carry the past around with us and are shaped by it minute by minute, maybe he's correct.

I don't regret the hours spent on this book. The story is a microcosm of so much that is ugly in America (not just the south). And Frank's story deserves to be told over and over. And also the story of power--when the end is power, any means will do, to the point of a noose slipped over an innocent man's head while "official" Georgia looked the other way. In the end, a group of well-known men secretly arranged the kidnapping (from a state prison) and lynching of Leo Frank. If you are squeamish, do not look at the photos still in existence of this event. They haunt me and sicken me. Not our finest hour.

An account of a film version of the Leo Frank story can be found at: http://monstermania-batcat31.blogspot.com/2011/07/story-youll-never-forget.html

Background on the musical of this story, Parade, can be found at: http://www.broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/parade.htm

Rocketship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein

The 1947 cover--telegraphs the fact that
the science might be a bit out of date

          I'm going to discuss a lot of negative features of this book, so I want to be clear at the outset: Rocketship Galileo, by Robert A. Heinlein, was a great read. It was a fast, funny, exciting adventure story that had my hair standing on end more than a few times.
          Rocketship Galileo is the story of three teenagers who make up the Galileo science club. Through a combination of happenstance and connections, the trio gets hooked up with a pioneering ex-professor who has a plan for a rocketship that will go to the moon. (Funny that rocketship is not accepted by spell-check--fifty years ago it would have been, except for the non-existence of spell-check at that time--two ships that never did pass in the night.)
          The tone of the book is very much "Hardy Boys Go to the Moon" but with a didactic science backdrop. The teachable moments, when the professor would teach and/or quiz the boys on technology, mathematics, astronomy, computer science (!), physics, electronics, welding, and materials science, were a bit dry. The basic science was solid, but the implications for technology, computers, and space travel were hilariously out of date. At least within the context of the book, however, there is scientific consistency. The biggest boner was that no mention was made of the tendency of objects to burn to a cinder when they pass into or out of Earth's atmosphere. The team's ship had no heat shields and took off as a nuclear jet plane and just flew off into space from the New Mexico desert.

Robert and Virginia Heinlein on the set of
Destination Moon in 1949; the film was based
 on his novel Rocketship Galileo. 

          These inconsistencies did not bother me. I knew when I saw the cover of this book that it was from the immediate post-World War II era (1947), a time when nuclear science and its implications for the future were in their infancy. It was more the slow start than the quaint science that bogged me down. 
          Rocketship started slow--the early scene-setting was tedious and did not have enough tiny hints to indicate that something exciting was about to happen. The boys end up traveling with the professor to a camp at, yes, ground zero at Alamagordo, where the first large-scale nuclear test occurred in 1945. Our team of unlikelies were in New Mexico to build a nuclear rocketship. Nuclear power is like a cloud of question marks to the book's characters. The characters express horror and sadness over the way nuclear power was introduced to the world--Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are determined to find productive uses for this schizo-wunderkind of science. The aftereffects of radiation, genetic damage, long-term poisoning of  test sites, these are not yet or bad-dreamed of--although nuclear terrorism is seriously discussed among the professor and the boys.

Alamagordo, New Mexico: Now am I become death.

          All caveats aside, after the first two chapters, I was completely hooked and didn't let go of this book. The story-telling process was wonderful; the pace was perfect. And, if you've read my blog much you'll know how important this is to me: the ending was great; I don't mean the outcome of the plot, but the design of the last chapter itself. When the adventure was over, the book was over. That's the way to do it. No need for some corny wrap-up chapter. Throughout the book, the characters imagine what will happen to them if they meet their goal, if they make it to the moon and, more importantly, make it back to Earth. If readers need to imagine more, they have plenty of material to work with. If only J.K. Rowlings and Suzanne Collins had done this. Just stop. Stop when the book is over. A book is not a sitcom that has to have a 3-minute follow-up after the last round of commercials to let us know that everything is OK or a drama that has to hook us for the next episode. When the action concludes, please just stop. And, I may need to send this message to editors also, because I think it might be the editors or publishers who want that extra chapter of pap. Enough ranting...

A comic book knocking the stuffing
out of a Nazi--and this is from 1980!

          One of the funniest things in this book (funny to someone in her fifties), is the sudden appearance of excaped Nazis in a very surprising place. I laughed out loud, because I had forgotten the number of comic books, TV show episodes (I think of "Hogan's Heroes" and many episodes of "Mission Impossible"), and movies featuring escaped Nazis I had encountered in my media consumption as a child. The Nazis were convenient villains for almost any situation and at any time. They would never give up on bringing Hitler's vision to fruition. I thought, "oh, we used to HATE them," and giggled.
          Now we've gotten so apologist about everything. I've forgotten how fun it was to have an evil enemy to fool, outsmart, trip, spit on, shoot, toss into precipices, and be righteously superior to. Please note that I have grown out of this black/white vision of the world, but it sure made things easier. And, it puts this book in the context of many of the books on my list that develop a dehumanized enemy to allow the "good" characters to justify their "courage." I'm thinking particularly of the Redwall books now. Even Narnia somewhat dehumanizes the enemies to make them hurtable.

Culture of science wet dream of the 1950s

          The only female presence in this book is three marginalized moms, mothers of the three teenagers. After Chapter 2 or so, no females annoy the proceedings. And, although the movie version apparently had a darker-skinned person (probably playing the Italian boy), there is no color but white in this book. The team is cooperative and constructive and their genius is peculiarly suited to the task at hand--building a nuclear rocketship by hand. But, the characterization is fresh--no one is perfect and they all pitch in to cover the consequences of fallibility of each other--and almost idyllic. So, idyllic is white, male, and scientific. Well, that's nothing new! Again, I took this book in its 1947 context, but that doesn't mean I didn't note the details.
          Was Rocketship Galileo a hero journey? The boys evidenced some degree of maturation, but this book was not much of a hero journey--more of a thrill ride. The boys were pretty much fully formed from the start. Still, there is a 1950-esque version of the hero journey--the mastering of technology to find wealth and fame. But the tone of this book (if not the action) doesn't support this myth well either. I'll stick with the "thrill-ride with scientific pretentions" idea. 
          The actual moon landing 22 years after this book was written pales in comparison--it was so over-planned and over-imagined that nothing bad could hardly happen on the moon (although it could in the capsule itself and on take-off and landing). Compared to Rocketship Galileo, the real moon landing lacked drama. Sorry NASA. No brag, just fact.
          One last observation: My enthusiasm about this book points out to me that I am not just a nerd; I am also a geek.

Sidebar: Destination Moon

Here is a link to the trailer for the movie "Destination Moon," released in 1950 as an adaptation of Rocketship Galileo: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3181445401/

The professor and "the boys" in the 1950 film adaptation
of thebook, released as "Destination Moon" 

          The book is darned progressive and liberal compared to the movie, which added more representatives of the military-industrial complex, which were pretty much absent from the book. In the book, the professor was the only authority figure and he was pretty fallible. And, from the IMDb website, I could not determine if Nazis are a part of it. The costumes were terrible, but the sets were pretty good. Makes "Lost in Space" seem a marvel of special effects. However, author Robert Heinlein was actively involved in the production and the script. I wonder if he was really happy with the results.


Here is some dialogue from the IMDb site that takes place nowhere in the book and is way more rah-rah industry than the book is. Propagandists had clearly gotten involved.


[Why the government isn't involved if it's so important] 
Jim Barnes: Here's the reason. The vast amount of brains, talents, special skills, and research facilities necessary for this project are not in the government, nor can they be mobilized by the government in peacetime without fatal delay. Only American industry can do this job. And American industry must get to work, now, just as we did in the last war! 
Industrialist: Yes, but the government footed the bill! 
Jim Barnes: And they'll foot this bill, too, if we're successful; you know that. If we fail, we'll take a colossal beating. So we can't fail! Not only is this the greatest adventure awaiting mankind, but it's the greatest challenge ever hurled at American industry. And General Thayer is going to tell you why. 
General Thayer: The reason is quite simple. We are not the only ones who know that the Moon can be reached. We're not the only ones who are planning to go there. The race is on - and we'd better win it, because there is absolutely no way to stop an attack from outer space. The first country that can use the Moon for the launching of missiles... will control the Earth. That, gentlemen, is the most important military fact of this century. 

Chronicles of Narnia--Four (Final)

I was shocked by how many illustrations of the seven deadly sins involve seven scantily clad women.

Lewis and the Seven Deadly Sins

          If you didn't see it, I added a comment to "Chronicles of Narnia--Three," about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Here's what it said: I have now done my research on whether Lewis uses the seven deadly sins in Dawn Treader. The website coming up discusses how Lewis uses the seven deadly sins as an organizing principle for the Chronicles as a whole. Very interesting. Go to http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/7sins.html. As to whether the seven rescued knights in Dawn Treader also relate to the seven deadly sins, I found no commentary. Please comment on the blog comment screen if you have any thoughts on this, Friend Readers.

And now, sit with me on...

Lewis, C. S., The Silver Chair

          The Silver Chair is by far the best book of this series. Eustace and his schoolmate Jill are called into Narnia via Aslan’s castle to set out on a quest. They are to follow Aslan’s four instructions to find the missing prince of Narnia, Rilian. Rilian is the son of the Caspian from Dawn Treader, who is now an old man. Rilian was enchanted by the North Witch, Queen of the Underworld (she has many names).

          Their journey introduces Jill and Eustace to talking owls and to a marsh-wiggle, which is a froglike humanoid. His name is Puddleglum and he is hilariously pessimistic. Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum travel through marshes, plains, and over a huge bridge built by giants long ago. The staggeringly epic bridge is so wonderfully described that you can almost touch it, taste it. (Think of Jackson's Agornath.) Jill and Eustace are misdirected, enchanted, and nearly eaten (in a horrifying sequence), but they eventually solve the mystery of the prince and bring him home.

Here is Puddleglum the Marsh-Wiggle,
chronically (and comically) pessimistic

          This story is especially imaginative and suspenseful. I read it while traveling and yearned for a three-hour sit. The landscapes, the dangers, the creatures. And, unlike Prince Caspian, the heroes (and me) feel that Aslan may have abandoned them because of horrible mistakes they make. The risks are riskier. The children have, in a sense, sinned against Aslan's explicit commandments. Why would he still care? You can see the development of Christian principles here, although there are probably parallels in many religions.

The bridge of the giants in Silver Chair is to
the same scale as the Agornath in LOTR

          In this book, the idea of an afterlife is fully explored, and a version of heaven is presented. Aslan’s realm is beautiful and joyous, peaceful. Aslan’s magic is not that he can return the dead to life, but that he can bring the dead to eternal happiness. The children see how one character dies and is translated into Aslan’s realm. This is a direct set-up for the next book.

          The book is a bit snarky about modernity. The liberal, modern school Jill and Eustace attend, and even their diets, are made fun of in a somewhat unpleasant, preachy way. Lewis obviously feels that modernity lacks magic, and maybe he is right. And, one thing he likes about the past is its hierarchy—noblesse oblige is definitely the best way, he thinks. Benevolent overlords and happy peasants? That's how the society of Narnia is organized.

          Highly recommend this one. If your interest in the series flags before you get to this one, soldier on. The Silver Chair is worth the trip. (And it’s a vacation all in itself.)

Lewis, C. S., The Last Battle

          The series concludes. This book was both magical and tragical—a bit more tragic than I think was warranted. Narnia is destroyed because its inhabitants come to believe in a false god, which provides an opening for marauding neighbor lands to invade. But it’s an old-testament god-like destruction. The stars actually fall from the sky. Many of the friends of Jill and Eustace are brutally killed in battle. In the end, the faithful are saved. The unfaithful, who don’t believe that Aslan loves them, are sent to certain destruction at the hands of the evil god Tash.

          Polly, Digory, Lucy, Edmund, and Peter join Jill and Eustace at the end. As Narnia is destroyed, they enter a new, fresh-washed Narnia. Then we’re in for a bit of preaching. The new Narnia-for-believers is presented as reality—the world of the books was just a depiction of it.

The false king--the
Monkey King

          Heaven turns out to be infinite, while our earthly lives are just some sort of testing ground, insignificant compared to the greater glories ahead. It turns out that, in their "depiction of life" world, Polly, Digory, Lucy, Edmund, Peter, Jill, and Eustace have all been killed. Aslan brings them to “real” life at that time, in a land, basically, of fantasy. The fruits taste fruitier. Happiness is happier. All of their old Narnian friends show up, etc.

          Susan, it turns out, did not keep the faith. She will go to the evil lands. Sorry, Susan. Many children’s books end when the kids reach adulthood. But they are usually not slaughtered!

Concluding Thoughts

The blogger's future?

          Overall, this series was terrific. My imagination is fired with new imagery, and I have learned about loyalty and friendship. For me, if not for Lewis, the landscapes were real and the journeys were meaningful. And, Lewis does present a coherent Christian-based vision of the afterlife. It is beautiful and reassuring, a bridge for children to a life of faith. Someday, I need to write my book of the team of atoms and molecules of the body needing to be free again to create new life-forms, as Star Trek would say. This is the story of how the atoms in my body (after death) will re-emerge as a tomato or queen anne's lace or gnat or mushroom (I hope it’s psychedelic, like me). It’s not the soul that lasts, it’s the atoms.

          This post concludes my reviews of The Chronicles of Narnia. Posting these entries from my reader's journal, editing them, and illustrating them travel me back through the adventures and landscapes of these books--delightful! I am struck repeatedly by how imaginative the imagery is, how rich the details, how complete the alternative world. However, it would not hurt my feelings if the last book was simply lopped off. Let children themselves imagine the next book--they have plenty of material to work with.