This is an interesting book on several counts. First, it’s a Psmith
novel, and of all Wodehouse’s young men, Psmith stands alone by being
both eccentric and competent. Second, it’s also a Blandings novel. And
third, although it’s a Blandings novel it predates Lord Emsworth’s
interest in pigs. I have nothing against the Empress of Blandings, but
a pigless Blandings makes for a nice change.

Psmith ends the book as Emsworth’s secretary; it’s a real pity Wodehouse
didn’t follow up on that, because Psmith really makes Blandings come
alive. Ah, well.

Anyway, I enjoyed it thoroughly. But it’s Wodehouse–so surely you
expected that by now?

Orson Scott Card is mostly known for his sci-fi books but he has written a
trilogy about the wives of the Old Testament Patriarchs. These are the first
two in the series. I haven’t been able to find the third and probably will
end up ordering it from the bookstore just to find out how he handles the
Rachel story.

These are fiction and it’s important to remember that going into them. Card
takes the very bare bones of a story and extrapolates on it. He leaves
things out that are repetitious from one story to the next, so that while
Abraham claims Sarah as his sister in Egypt, Isaac later does not. And Card
adds in elements to the stories that are not based on what is in the Bible
but which are plausible based on our knowledge of the cultures of the times and
of human psychology. Hagar the Egyptian is a maid that is given to Sarah by
Pharaoh in Egypt when he has her in his house of women.

One of the most interesting things Card does is define the blessing given to
Abraham by God as the written works of the Old Testament. The blessing then
becomes a real thing, a knowledge of language and of God that is written
down and kept alive by each generation. So when Jacob fools Isaac into
giving him his blessing rather than his brother Esau, it is the possession
of the Book that he is really getting and the privilege of continuing on
with the creation of the Scripture. That’s a very interesting thought.

The other interesting thing he does is create a very complex relationship
between Abraham and Isaac stemming from the willingness of Abraham to kill
Isaac at the command of God. I’ve often wondered how Isaac felt about the
whole thing; apparently Card did also. The father/son relationship is
strained to say the least and Abraham as an old man comes across as a bit of
a tyrant over his son and his son’s household. The unequal love that Isaac
feels for his twin sons Jacob and Esau are a reflection of the scars he
carries from his relationship with his father. As I said, not biblical but
certainly humanly plausible.

That was the interesting thing about these books. They took bare bones
stories and made them rounded and developed. How accurate his retelling is
is questionable but for sheer storytelling, they’re really good. I enjoyed
them.

Ian Hamet‘s just posted a new entry in his “Great Filmmakers” series; this one’s on Buster Keaton. It’s well worth your time.

This is yet another collection of Mr. Mulliner stories. Mr. Mulliner,
for those who have not met him, is a regular in the bar-parlor of the
Angler’s Rest, where he frequently holds forth about his vast array of
remarkable relations. These stories are less well-known than the Jeeves
and Wooster stories, but I like them just as much.

I first saw this movie on Z Channel (one of the first pay-TV channels) back in the late ’70’s. I recorded it on to videotape, and watched it over and over; I’ve no idea how many times. And when I saw it on DVD at Tower Records yesterday, I grabbed it. IMDB only gives it
6.1 stars out of 10, but I’m telling you, I watched it with my two boys this afternoon, and it’s everything I remembered.

And what it is, is very odd indeed. It’s a gangster movie. It’s a musical (with words and music by Paul Williams, of all people). All the actors are kids (including a 15-year-old Scott Baio and a 14-year-old Jodie Foster). It’s the story of two rival gangs in the 1920’s. Fat Sam (John Cassisi) is the town’s Big Boss, and owner of the best joint in town, Fat Sam’s Speakeasy. But Dandy Dan (Martin Lev) is moving in on him–and he’s got an amazing new weapon. Where Fat Sam’s men are armed only with cream pies, Dandy Dan’s men have splurge guns–semi-automatic whip-cream cannon. It would be no contest except that Fat Sam has an ace-in-the-hole: Bugsy Malone (Scott Baio).

I’ll grant you, the acting is spotty. Jodie Foster is flawless as showgirl (and Fat Sam’s moll) Tallulah, not surprisingly, and Martin Lev is remarkably good as Dandy Dan. Baio is OK as Bugsy; his love interest, Blousey Brown (Florrie Dugger) has the required girl-next-door prettiness, but her delivery is lacking. She’s got the right idea, but her timing’s off. John Cassisi has a similar problem.

And of course, it’s somewhat preposterous that all the male singers sound like Paul Williams.

And the ending’s a little hokey–maybe a lot hokey.

But the songs are fun (I especially like “We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted To Be”, sung by Fat Sam’s gang, and “So You Want To Be A Boxer”), and the sets and costumes are phenomenal.

I think what I like best about it is that it’s played absolutely straight. The actors are all kids, but this isn’t a kidflick. It’s not goofy; it’s funny precisely because it’s played seriously. As an example, I’ll share my favorite line. Dandy Dan has just sent men to destroy Fat Sam’s illegal distillery. Sam gets a call on the phone:

“Boss, it’s no good! They got the distill, the whole lot’s gone!”

Sam’s response: “Oh, no! Not the sarsaparilla racket as well!”

Anyway, I was afraid that the movie wouldn’t hold up after all this time; frankly, I’m more impressed with it than I was way back then. It’s a keeper. A note: according to IMDB it hasn’t official been released on DVD in this country. The DVD I got is some kind of strange Asian import. There’s Japanese writing all over it (unless it’s Chinese), and the English writing says that it’s from the “International Film Series Collection”, whatever that is. How it came to be at our local Tower Records I’ve no idea. But despite the Japanese writing it started right up in English when I put it in the DVD player, and there don’t appear to be any differences between it and the version I recorded all those years ago.

Now if only somebody will release American Dreamer and Rustler’s Rhapsody on DVD, my joy will be complete.

I have been generating a reading list for each of my kids for the summer. My
daughter especially needs books that will stretch her abilities a little.
She tends to read things that are too easy for her and that require no
thought at all. Of course, if you are going to do this to kids, you have to
find Good Books that they will enjoy reading. This book is on a lot of lists
for young adults and comes highly praised by Those Who Know. I’ve read some
real clinkers recommended by TWK however, so I bought a copy and read it
myself. I can see why the library has 7 copies on their shelf. It’s
absolutely wonderful.

The story is told in a series of vignettes ranging from a paragraph on a
page to two or three pages. They are all told by Esperanza Cordero, a young
Chicano living in Chicago. Mango Street is the neighborhood she lives in.
Esperanza doesn’t want to live on Mango Street. She doesn’t want to have a
strange name and she doesn’t want to be Mexican. She wants more out of life
than growing up to marry early and to hope that the husband comes home in a
good mood. She doesn’t want to belong to the culture of Mango Street. Mostly
she wants to write and tell stories. In the vignettes, she tells stories
about her family and her neighbors and her life, describing them all with
her fresh voice and her critical eye.

The book is so well written I sat down and reread it as soon as I finished
it. It’s not long but in a few short vignettes, Cisneros gave me a complete
picture of the world of Esperanza and what she wants from life. The writing
was breathtaking. It’s one of those books you want to give people with the
admonition to “Read this, you’ll be amazed!”

This is yet another Jeeves and Wooster novel, like unto the rest for the
most part, though it has its distinguishing features, and almost entirely
enjoyable.

It is thanks to one of these features that I say “almost entirely”, but
more of that anon.

The basic plot is familiar. One of Bertie’s chums and one of his
ex-fiancees wish to marry, but are prevented by Members of the Older
Generation with their Hands on the Purse Strings. Bertie wishes to do
all he can to help. However, Bertie and Jeeves have fallen out due to
some innovation of Bertie’s. Jeeves will naturally save the day, and
Bertie will abandon his innovation in gratitude.

The first unique feature of this particular volume is that the innovation
has nothing to do with Bertie’s dress or appearance. He is not wearing
clocked socks; he does not have a brightly-colored cummerbund; he has not
grown a mustache. Instead, he has taken to playing the banjolele, an
instrument so vile that he is evicted from his London flat when
he refuses to give it up. More–when Bertie proposes to retire to a
small cottage in the country where he will devote himself heart and soul
to the pursuit of excellence with the banjolele, Jeeves refuses to go
with him! The horror! In fact, Jeeves leaves Bertie’s service
altogether. It seems that Jeeves has developed a horror of the
banjolele, and the thought of being incarcerated with one in the confines
of a small cottage is simply too much.

The banjolele, incidentally, is a real instrument; it’s a banjo body with
a ukelele neck. It has four strings like a ukelele, and is tuned like a
ukelele, and is intended to allow ukelele players to sound something sort
of like banjo players. Apparently back in the 1920’s or so there was a
fad for this sort of thing, and every combination of mandolin, banjo, and
ukelele bodies and necks were available. I found this out by Googling
on “banjolele”; the number page not only answered the question, but
quoted this particular book.

The distinguishing feature that mars the book is a distressing bit of
racial foolishness. In the vicinity of Bertie’s cottage is a troupe of
what are described as “nigger minstrels”. We never meet them, and it’s
never entirely clear whether they really are black, or whether they
simply perform in black-face, though (since sometimes the phrase
“negro minstrels” is used) I suspect the former.
Either way, the “N-word” appears multiple times. And a good bit of the
plot depends on Bertie being in black-face, and therefore being both
unrecognizeable and indistinguishable from one of the minstrels.

Now, Wodehouse had no intention of being racist. When this book was
written there really were minstrel troupes, and they really were named as
I’ve described, and were undoubtedly so-called even by the minstrels
themselves. And you can’t accuse him of presenting blacks in a bad way,
as they do not in fact actually appear. And the whole thing with
black-face wasn’t intended to be anything but entirely silly.

In short, this is not a racist book. And yet one of the effects of forty
years of advances in civil rights in this country is that I can’t read a
period book that uses the “N-word” with no intent to offend without
feeling dirty. There’s something wrong with that. On the one hand, I’d
never call anyone a “nigger”; it’s impossible to use the word today
without offending. But why should that offense be allowed to work its way
backward to taint a book with no harm in it, that doesn’t perpetuate
racial stereotypes, that simply uses the word as it was once commonly
used?

In short, I’m less annoyed that the book uses a term that some find offensive,
and more annoyed that I can’t read the book without thinking about how
some other people might be offended by it.

Sigh.

This is the next installment of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries
that King writes. Holmes and Russell are called in by Mycroft, Holmes’
brother, to investigate the whereabouts of a missing English spy in the
highlands of India. The spy just happens to be Kim O’Hara from Kipling’s
novel Kim. Apparently, Holmes made his acquaintance 30 years before, just
after the novel about him ends. Off they go to India, Russell learning Hindi
and the local dialects along the way in preparation to go undercover in an
unstable India.

The book is good but problematic. First, much of the richness of the plot
depends on having a working knowledge of Kim. I hadn’t read it beforehand
and missed many of the references that would have made it more amusing.
Second, King splits up Holmes and Russell about halfway thru the book and I
realized that without the interplay between their personalities, the books
lose something. It went flat at that point.

I’m glad I read the book but would really recommend going back and reading
Kim first. I realized this after I read Kim and
discovered what some of the jokes and story puns were about. This isn’t
the strongest in the series but still amusing and worth reading.

This is the third book in the series that began with
March Upcountry. To recap, Prince Roger MacClintock is the
Heir Tertius to the throne of the Empire of Man, which is your typical
garden-variety interstellar empire. Thanks to a botched attempt on his
life, he and the company of Imperial Marines who form his bodyguard are
stranded on a low-tech backwater planet. The local food doesn’t supply
sufficient nutrition, the jungles are rife with really nasty creatures,
and though the locals have four arms and are covered with a coating of
slime, they are a lot like humans–dangerous as all get out. Some how,
Roger and his troops are going to have to fight their way half-way around
the planet to the single starport. And when they get there, they are
going to have to capture the starport, because the Imperial Governor is
collaborating with the Empire’s enemies. And then they are going to have
to capture a ship.

The marines are going to have their hands full, because Roger is pretty
much a useless fop.

At least, he starts out that way…

What follows is a saga of personal growth chock-full of military-SF
goodness, and it’s really pretty good if that’s your cup of tea. As the
name implies, this is the book in which Roger and company finally get to
the starport, but if you think that’s the end of the story you’re gravely
mistaken.

I don’t know what the name of the next book is, but I’ll surely buy it
when it comes out in paperback.

Aside from her amusing series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, I
had not previously read any other books by Laurie King. She has this
series about Kate Martinelli, two linked novels and a complete stand-alone
as well. I like the Mary Russell series very much and decided to give Kate
Martinelli a shot to see if King’s story telling is as good in a modern
series as it is in early 20 century England.

The main character is Kate Martinelli, a young detective newly transferred
to San Francisco from San Jose with a good reputation and little experience.
On her first assignment she is assigned to work on a child kidnapping/murder
case with Inspector Al Hawkin, a seasoned veteran who slightly resents being
saddled with a primadonna just to keep the media happy. Women look good on
cases with kids, more compassionate and all.

A Grave Talent is the story of that case. All the little girls are about
the same age, look very similar and, unmolested, are dumped after death on a
specific road in hills, coincidentally in the middle of a closed community
of old hippies and hermit types. The access in and out of the community is
locked. Cars are only allowed on specific days, phone lines are limited and
everyone knows everyone. Plus the terrain makes transporting a dead child
cross country from elsewhere next to impossible. And then they discover
that one of the community’s residents has spent time in jail for killing a
child she was babysitting. A child who looks very much like the murder
victims. And she is also a world famous artist whose paintings are faintly
disturbing in light of recent events.

The first book is as much about discovering who Kate is and the development
of her partnership with Hawkin as it is about the murder. There is much to
learn about Kate. She’s had some hard knocks up til this point and has
learned to keep her private life separate from her work life, to the point
of using the nickname Casey at work and Kate with her friends. Watching her
relationship with Hawkin grow is interesting also. He has a disturbing
tendency to call at all hours and not sleep til a case is solved. He also
doesn’t pry.

The next three books continue with Martinelli and Hawkin working together.
To Play the Fool has them investigating the lives of the homeless after a
man has been murdered and then partially cremated in a park. This book’s
prime suspect is Brother Erasmus, a man who speaks only in quotations and
ministers to the homeless and the poor. Conversations with him are
interesting, to say the least, especially if you aren’t extremely well
versed in the Bible and Shakespeare. King is exploring the role of the Fool
and how human interactions depend on language in this story. It was
interesting.

With Child is about a bad patch in Martinelli’s home life. She has taken a
leave of absence for medical reasons. Hawkin is getting married so
Martinelli offers to care for his new stepdaughter during his honeymoon. The
child is way too bright for her own good and when she disappears from their
motel room in the same vicinity as a serial murderer, things get even worse.

Night Work was the least straightforward and most problematic of the four.
Kate continues to have domestic issues and at the same time is investigating
murders of men who have abused or beaten their wives in some way. They all
have the same markers, especially the candy left in their pockets. Plus a
good friend of Kate’s is a suspect or at least complicit in the crime
somehow. This one wasn’t as
tightly plotted as the previous three, however,
and I kept wondering how she was going to tie all the loose ends together at
the end. She manages it, but just barely. And there were some plot points
that were just a little too over the top to be believable.

These books aren’t the amusing mysteries that Kings other series is but the
character of Kate is compelling. And King uses the books to explore themes
that are fascinating. Her background in Old Testament theology and religion
keeps showing up deepening the novels and toning down much of the feminist
angst that other women authors play up. I liked that about them. Good
stories, well told.